It’s been two weeks since I attended my first Tableau conference, and what an incredible experience it was! I’ve had some time to reflect on the event, and I wanted to get my thoughts down on the page before I forget too much.
I wasn’t sure if I would ever make it to an in-person one, so I am very grateful to Lloyds Banking Group for sending me over to experience it, as I would say overall it was pretty much everything I hoped and expected it to be!
I was very excited about going from the moment I found out I could, but I also had some nervousness about it.
I (like many) am a very strong introvert, and I knew the conference was going to be a full-on few days, particularly when you throw in some pre-game and community leader events. I’m also deaf in one ear, and when in large environments I often worry that I am missing things or unintentionally ignoring people! These combine into not being a natural networker, and more inclined to speak one-on-one with people I know more – so knowing I was heading into a large community of people was quite daunting.
However, I needn’t have worried too much about this, as from before I even took off on the flight I was meeting people at the airport – thanks to Donna Coles for reaching out so we could meet up in person beforehand (along with Sam Parsons and the Biztory crew!). And this basically continued the whole way through – more people on the plane, and then more again when in San Diego. I found I recognised people, or they recognised me, or they just recognised my Data shirt and said ‘Hi’. Overall it was a very welcoming experience.
I will also thank Diego Parker, my Lloyds travelling companion, as in the lead up to the conference he gave me some good tips on how to get prepared. Probably the best one was to fly on Saturday and not Sunday to get enough time to recover for the conference start on Monday – and I am very glad I did that!
Now to go through what I actually got up to while I was there!
Day 0 – Pregame
The conference didn’t start until Monday, but there was a lot going on within the community on Sunday. I decided to use Sunday morning, and my jet-lagged ability to get up early, to get the lay of the land and see where the convention center was and what else was around. It was a beautiful day in San Diego, and I regretted not having more shorts! But I had a wander round the bay area to take some pictures, and then have a quick chat with my Wife to brag about the weather!
Luckily I had access to various WhatsApp and Twitter chats where I could see what other community members were planning on doing, so my plan was to go with the flow and join up with people when I could.
After my walk, I arranged to meet for coffee with Tableau Visionary Annabelle Rincon, whom I had not met in person before and it was a pleasure to catch up with her.
Following this I went for a very good lunch at the marina with Alex Waleczec, Brian Graves and Will Sutton.
After lunch the community events really kicked off as we headed to the San Diego TUG hosted ‘Data +Tacos’ event at the ‘You and Yours Distilling Co.’ – and it was here I was starting to see a lot of familiar faces I’ve never met in person before. There were so many people to try to catch up with, and I didn’t manage to catch them all. But this was such an amazing event to start the week and get that community feeling going – thanks to Luigi Cicciari and the team for putting this on. You know it is going to be a good week when Ken and Kevin Flerlage rock up in a taxi and then give you a big hug as soon as they see you!!
The ‘Data + Women’ event was later in the evening, and another great networking event at the ‘San Diego Wine & Culinary Center’. Hosted by Interworks, and thanks to Annabelle for getting me in at the last minute! It was amazing to meet so many more familiar faces in person, and meet some new ones as well! As a bonus, ‘Be Data Lit’ (https://www.bedatalit.com/) offered free headshots for all attendees – so I finally have a professional shot for my profile pics (if you ignore the palm tree t-shirt…).
Day 1
And so we make it to day 1!
I was pre-warned that there was a large queue for the event by 7am (when it opened for breakfast) – so I had ‘first’ breakfast before heading in. The queues had died down by the time I got there, so I got a second breakfast and headed to the Data Village where all the community stands and theatres were.
I was told there were up to 9,000 people at the conference, but at no point did it feel too busy as the convention center is a big space. Despite the number of people there, I was still frequently bumping into familiar faces. I went to the community desk first to say hello and pick up my ‘Ambassador’ badge before heading over to the ‘First Timers’ networking event, which was a great place to start for me to speak to people who were also on their first conference.
I attended several sessions throughout the day, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed, and also spent some time looking around the partner stands, having frequent coffee trips and ad-hoc conversations. I also got my pic snapped at the Data+Movies stand, as I was wearing the appropriate t-shirt!
I particularly enjoyed Doc Kevin Lee Elder and Ginny Moench’s session on Gamifying Tableau – something I love doing myself. I even got a new pair of socks from it – thanks Doc!
I also found Yamil Medina’s session on AI Powered Cheat Sheets for Tableau very interesting and can see this being implemented at work.
I had the pleasure of co-hosting the Financial Services meetup with Diego Parker, Dzifa Amexo and Ruy Aguilar. Like the ‘First Timers’ meetup, the idea was to have time and space for anyone in the Financial Services industry to get together and talk.
At one point I spotted Tableau Visionary Kevin Wee and went to introduce myself only to be pulled with him into an ad-hoc presentation on the ‘Data + Movies’ initiative in a small stand in the Data Village. Here we both spoke about our experience of the initiative with a brief overview of our vizzes – plus I got a tableau Baseball Cap out of it!
The conference finished at 5pm, but for the community leaders (including myself as an Ambassador) we got to head to an event hosted by Tableau at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park. Another fantastic time to network and in a really cool setting as we could wander around the museum as well. Although I did feel like I was being chased by the Mariachi Band at some points!
Day 2
Today was Keynote day, so there was a fair amount of time to assign to that, but I also got to see some other really cool talks.
I watched Lisa Trescott (Visionary and previous Iron Viz winner) talking about speeding up your viz creation, with loads of useful tips and tricks to save you time. Definitely something I will be sharing with my colleagues at work.
I also managed to get a photo op with Ken and Kevin Flerlage, which any good community member needs in their photo album!
I caught a session on Supercharging you Tableau with Google Big Query from Meghan Reichert and Supriya Janjanam which had some very interesting use cases. Plus I was able to see Ghafar Shah talk about making your Datviz Portfolio stand out – just like his!!
Will Sutton was recording short videos on various subjects throughout the conference, and I managed to get on one to talk about the Tableau Public User Group that I co-lead. You can check out that video here:
The Keynote happened mid-morning, and as an ambassador, we had the luxury of reserved seating so we didn’t have to worry about queueing!
I enjoyed the Keynote and I like the fact Ryan Aytay kicked off speaking about Tableau Public and some of the cool visualisations from it. There was also (as expected) a lot of talk about AI and how this will change and shape the way things look going forward. I think it is fair to say that the part that got the most excitement was Devs on Stage at the end. This is where four developers from Tableau got to show off all the cool new features that will be coming across the Tableau products – and there were some really big ones. You can find the summary of these at the link below, but my favourites would be Viz Extensions, Tableau Public Local save (wow!), Microsoft Teams integrations and Custom Themes:
https://www.tableau.com/blog/product-innovations-tableau-conference-2024
Iron Viz happened later in the day, and that was quite an experience! Having previously watched this online only, the vibe in the room certainly immerses you in it. It is such a positive feeling as you really want all three finalists to do well. You can watch this back on Salesforce Plus, and marvel at how much can be done in 20 minutes!
Congratulations to Chris Westlake for the win, but also to Jessica Moon and Pata Gogová as it is quite a thing to go through!!
With the IronViz energy bubbling, it was time for Data Night Out – this was an event for everyone at the conference and was hosted at the Rady Shell behind the Convention Center (as per my first picture). I was a little nervous about this, as I had heard previous years had been very loud and a bit hard to find places to speak to people. But actually, I really enjoyed it, it was an outdoor venue with plenty of places to go and get food and drink, and more importantly – great company!
I got to speak to a lot of amazing people, including several previous Iron Viz winners – a special shout out to Sam Batchelor for managing to capture an ever-extending picture of the winners!
Day 3
The final day definitely had a slower pace about it. There were still lots of great sessions going on, but it felt a little bit quieter. The previous days had been pretty full on so for me I was taking it quite slowly on this day!
I did get off to a great start though, as I was able to get into the second showing of the Flerlage twins ‘Doing Cool Stuff in Tableau’ – which are always packed! It didn’t disappoint and I can see how their sessions are always a sell-out. Luckily this is one of the sessions on Salesforce Plus (along with many others) so no-one has to miss out!
And then before heading to the #Vizzies awards, I was able to get a quick selfie with the Iron Viz winner himself – Chris Westlake:
I was really looking forward to the #Vizzies awards session – run by Matt Fancis and Emily Kund, and in its 9th year – these are awards nominated for by the Tableau Community. I have been lucky enough to win one for the last two years, and while I wasn’t expecting to this year, I really wanted to feel the energy in the room for the awards.
As it happened, I did win again! I won the ‘I didn’t know Tableau could do that?’ award for the third time, and was able to experience picking it up in person – which was amazing!
As a double surprise, the Tableau Public User Group I co-lead was also selected as joint winner of the ‘TUG of the Year’ along with the Newbies User Group!
It was so much fun to cheer on all the other Vizzie winners – in particular Shreya Arya who won ‘Best Designer’ as she is also currently working at Lloyds with myself and Diego. She wasn’t there in person, but hopefully already has her trophy!
Check out this blog if you want to learn more about them and see all the other well-deserved winners:
https://www.tableau.com/blog/vizzies-tableau-conference-2024
Most of the talks on the last day finished around 3 pm, so it closed off earlier than the other days. This gave me and Diego some time to catch up and record a bit of a wrap-up video to send back to the UK Lloyds colleagues.
I was in bed pretty early this night after three full-on, but awesome days!
Day 4
My last day in San Diego was pretty planless other than to try and pick up some gifts for my family! I ended up running into quite a few people in the morning, including Sarah Bartlett who recommended going to Seaport Village on the harbour as there was a load of shops down there.
I’m glad I did, as on the way down I bumped into Iron Viz finalist Jessica Moon and her husband Rick who were also heading that way, and ended up having lunch with them before I headed back to the airport – what luck!
And then home – to sleep!!
Final Reflections
What a week! I thoroughly enjoyed it and was absolutely shattered, but would not hesitate to do it again! I was stunned at how many people I connected with who I have known for years online but never met in person – too many people to be able to mention in this blog (I’d like to call out everyone, but then I’d be sure to miss people!).
There were so many interesting sessions to choose from (sometimes too many!) and a really great vibe around the venue. I loved the Data Village and the informalness of that area – it was the go-to place to find someone to chat with as there was always a familiar face there.
San Diego was a lovely place to host it as well, and the convention center is in a fantastic location – so I think a lot of people were pleased it is going to be back there next year!
Well, that was a lot of writing! But I will end it there, and with one of my favourite pics from one of the Tableau photo booths in the Data Village.
Ant.
Ant Pulley | Blog 