My 2022 Review – That was pretty good!!

Hello all – long time no blog!

I have had a busy and pretty good year, but haven’t been able to blog as much as I would like, so I’m starting the year off with a quick review of what I have been up to, mostly Data Viz but a bit of personal as well!

At points in the year I felt I haven’t been doing as much on Tableau Public as I would like, particularly compared to last year, so I thought it would be a good idea to put it down in writing and also show how it can be good to step back at times and focus on other priorities – namely family.

So here goes:

January

My Tableau year got off to a pretty good start as I got my second Viz of the Day with my #GamesNightViz Skyrim Census viz:

Which has now hit over 23k views. A somewhat businessy dashboard in feel but with a heavy Skyrim makeover!

It was also a pleasure to be recognized in Adam Mico’s ‘Tableau next’ initiative (Tableau Next 2022) .

On a personal note, we made a couple of big decisions for that year. The first was to try and move house, as after living in our previous house through the pandemic, we realized we were ready for a change.

And after 4 years of trying to conceive our second child, with several miscarriages and a lot of heartache, we decided to push ahead with trying to conceive through IVF.

February

February started even better for me in Tableau land as I was named a Featured Author, something I was hoping would happen at some point! This was a real boost to be recognized along with some amazing Tableau Public Authors.

February was also #IronViz ’22 month, and I entered my viz on Leisure Time Music in the UK:

I had struggled with this viz but was pleased with the way it turned out. I also attended the feedback sessions set up for Iron Viz and would highly recommend using these in the future, as you get some great different perspectives.

I also put a blog out on my thoughts on doing IronViz for the second time (Iron Viz ’22 review).

And in personal news, our house move was progressing very well, our house sold as soon as we put it on the market meaning we were in a great position to offer on another house!

March

A relatively quiet viz month, but I did put a blog out on how I built the interactive map on my Skyrim Viz (Building and interactive Skyrim Map).

I also had to remind people of the special day that is March 10th, i.e. Mar10 day! This viz made its regular appearance:

Sometimes the vizzing has to be a back seat to life, and this was definitely a busy month in that respect. We put in an offer on a property and had it accepted! So was now just the case of going through the motions to get it all through – very exciting.

Perhaps more exciting than that was the news that we had indeed got pregnant through IVF. Very early days at this point but incredibly exciting news!

April

I basically went quiet over April, the house move and pregnancy took priority as we had a lot of things to sort out. We also all had COVID at the beginning of the month – and my wife was hit with a double whammy as she was suffering from Morning sickness at the time too!

I had a little break from vizzing and trying to keep up with putting out content this month which I found really helpful to be able to focus on the family. Sometimes you have to take a step back from one thing to focus on something else or else burnout looms!

May

I got back into it in May with my silly Tableau Souls viz based off the Elden Ring computer game, and also a mechanism to try out a scrolling menu idea I had:

May got better when I was nominated for several #Vizzies awards. Even better, I came out winning the #Vizzie for ‘WTF I never knew Tableau could do that’ award which was presented in Vegas at the Tableau Conference. Sadly I wasn’t there in person, but thanks to Marc Reid who collected it and gave it to me in person!

If I could have chosen a Vizzie to win – this would have been it, and pretty much sums up a lot of the vizzes I try and build!

June

June was another quiet vizzing month – although I did hit the milestone of 500 public followers! I also received my copy of the first Nightingale Magazine issue.

However it was a busy month in Pulley family world as we moved house! On a very hot day in the middle of June, I felt very sorry for our removal team!

July

Perhaps obviously, July was taken up with unpacking and sorting out the new house, plus having to cover some of my Daughters first Summer Holiday from school. However I did manage to sneak in a couple of vizzes, including an update of my last year’s Earth Overshoot Day viz, which then won my 3rd Viz Of The Day! That was a nice summer surprise!

Also during July, I was happy to present a session to JLL on invitation from CJ Mayes. I enjoyed talking about some of the interactive and animation tricks I have used in my tableau public vizzes.

August

I got a bit of viz energy back in the summer months, and managed to put out a few vizzes and also finally write a blog on the Carousel Menu approach I used in my Tableau Souls viz (https://consult-ant.uk/2022/08/10/create-a-carousel-menu-in-tableau/).

I was pretty pleased with my second Twitter review viz (2 years of using Twitter):

Among other things, I somehow managed to turn 40 during August (I know, a big surprise I’m sure!) and was lucky enough to have friends and family over for a BBQ in our new garden

September

This was a big month, and the highlight of my Tableau year (closely followed by the #Vizzie) as I was named a Tableau Public Ambassador!

This was a big honour as there were so many amazing names on the list! I had been nominated last year, but this year I also applied myself and I felt I may have had a chance. I am very thankful to eveyone who nominated me and who have supported me since I have been actively vizzing in public!

To celebrate this achievement, I published my one potato viz, up there as one of my more pointless visualisations!

I hit another achievement in September, not Tableau this time, but I passed my 1st Dan Black Belt grading in Tae Kwon Do, making me an official black belt!

This was helped significantly by all the training I did during Lockdown, as visualised here:

October

October was #IronViz month, and I was very excited when I saw the subject was Games!! However, the deadline date was the 31st Octover, which was also the planned date for my second daughter to arrive, and we had a fair bit to get ready. I had quite a few ideas for what I could do and a little bit of initial working on them – but I quickly realised that I wasn’t going to have the time to create what I wanted to.

In the end I opted for a quick revision of a previous viz I had done for #IronQuest and #SportsVizSunday on Ronnie O’Sullivan:

I was really happy with the original viz, so just a little bit of updating and adding some extra info as in 2022 Ronnie equalled the record for the most World Championship victories, and I had my entry finished.

Making the decision to do a quick update rather than an entirely new viz was a brilliant decision for me, as it removed all the potential stress of doing it at a time when I needed to be focussed elsewhere. I didn’t expect to win with this viz, but really wanted to enter and get involved as #IronViz is a fun experience. The top 15 vizzes were all amazing and worthy winners.

That was the vizzing for the month, then came the highlight of my year – a beautiful baby girl!

Elsie Charlotte was born healthy on Halloween and we couldn’t be happier – definitely the best Christmas present. What made it all the better was how proud her older sister was.

November

Unsurprisingly, most of November was spent not getting much sleep, and running around a lot after little people! I was lucky enough to get 6 weeks of paternity through Lloyds Banking group, so I had the whole month off.

I did receive my Tabelau Ambassador Swag, which was excellent – thank you Tableau!

I also found a small amount of time to update my Christmas Tree viz from last year, to include some flashing light options:

December

No vizzes from me in December, but I did have the pleasure of presenting at the Tableau Fringe festival on the 16th December, shortly after I returned from Paternity leave.

If you haven’t presented anything before at a community event – it is well worth doing as it is great for a number of reasons. Particularly it reinforces your own learning by talking others through what you have done. It is also really good for understanding your own time-keeping and how much content you can present in a short space of time.

Hopefully all the TFF recording will be available to view at your leisure in the new year.

After all this we then enjoyed our fist Christmas as a family of four!

Summary

So when I write this all down, it feels like a LOT! I feel privileged to have been recognised for a number of different things, and to be able to do a bit more community speaking. A very busy year, and one where I realised that I can’t keep doing everything at the same pace as I had been – but that it is ok to sit back from time to time and focus on the important things.

Happy New Year everyone!

Ant.