All Stories

In the great book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath, they have a great story about a local newspaper in a small town that says they would literally print names from the phone book if they could. They know that when people see their name, or the name of someone they know, there is an emotional attachment that gets the reader to care about the content. The same is true in data-viz land.

Last week, I learned that I was selected as a Tableau Zen Master. I am extremely excited and humbled to join such an exceptional group of Tableau talent. As I reflect on my journey, I wanted to share a few tips that helped me and will hopefully inspire others.

I never was very excited about working with data until after graduation. That’s when I learned what a joy it is to visualize my own data. I loved the idea of telling visual stories with data I actually cared about. I could finally see how data applied to my own life! I wish I’d known this back in college. So I thought I’d share six data visualizations I wish I had during my college years.

When I discovered Tableau at work, it was like the day I got my first digital camera. I had finally found a tool with which I could answer my customers’ questions faster than ever before! And I could also apply my passion for photography when designing dashboards.

We are delighted to announce our new 2016-2017 Tableau Zen Masters. This year, we have selected 27 people who represent the three pillars of our program.

Pick a starter kit based on your role and platform, and explore a curated list of free resources. Are you authoring vizzes in Tableau Desktop? Consuming content in Tableau Online? Publishing to Tableau Server? Whatever your role, we have a Starter Kit for you!

Check out the latest round of the best of the Tableau web!

The not-so-fun part of working in tourism in the summer: I had to let many customers know their dream trips were already sold out. I had a feeling the time span between the initial inquiry and the desired departure date was getting smaller every day. Naturally, I needed to validate my feelings with hard facts.