DataFam Speaks: Brian Smith

The DataFam Speaks series highlights our amazing Tableau community members. Watch Brian Smith share his thoughts about the Tableau Community and the power of nurturing a data community within your organization.

Brian’s first career was in education; he was a high school English teacher for four years. He then moved into the IT world by joining Cardinal Health’s Business Intelligence area, where he has worked almost continuously since 1999. In 2012 he accepted a position under a new director, who asked him to be her point person for a new software package called “Tableau” that was gaining traction within the company. He watched a few videos introducing the product, and he was immediately hooked. While in that position, Brian acted as Cardinal’s Tableau solution owner, offering coaching and guidance to Cardinal’s 400+ Tableau Desktop authors. He also founded Cardinal’s internal Tableau user group, which has continued strong to the present day. More recently, he implemented Cardinal’s “Tableau Quest” internal training program, based on a framework of the same name created by Fiona Gordon. Today, Cardinal’s Tableau Quest implementation has over 150 participants on 13 teams. In May 2020, Brian switched to a data analytics role in Cardinal’s Nuclear and Precision Health Sciences group, allowing him to create dashboards in Tableau full-time. He continues to manage Cardinal’s Tableau communities, with no plans to stop.

DataFam inspiration

Brian shares some inspirations from the Tableau community:

• Four-time Tableau Zen Master Bridget Cogley. Follow her on Twitter and check out her blog. 
• Tableau Zen Master and Public Ambassador Josh Smith. Follow him on Twitter.
• Tableau Zen Master and Public Ambassador Kevin Flerlage. Follow him on Twitter and check out his blog—co-written with his twin brother Ken Flerlage. 

Get connected 

Follow along with Brian’s data journey:

• Follow Brian on Twitter: @BrianLivesInOH

• Tableau Public Profile

Thanks for watching! Get to know more members of the DataFam here.