“You sir, bring me some data.” Most organizations access their data through people. Real, live, people. Somebody, most likely somebody at a senior level, asks for data. Then somebody else goes and finds it. Of course you probably know this. If you read this blog there is a very good chance that you are part […]
When keeping it simple is stupid.
When I was a young kid my uncle had a stroke. A middle aged man with a wife and three daughters, it changed his life completely. Not so long after his stroke my uncle came to live with us, becoming part of our family unit for the final 30ish years of his life. Uncle Jack […]
Cleaning and Recoding in Tableau Prep
In late April of this year (2018) Tableau released a new tool called Tableau Prep. So what is Tableau Prep? You know all that very unsexy data prep stuff you have to do before you can create anything interesting? The stuff you do to get the dataset ready for analysis in Excel, or maybe in […]
How to use Tableau as a Simple User Interface for Data
Let’s not overthink Tableau. It’s a tool, and as a tool it can do some pretty cool things. But only if you have a reason to use it. Over the upcoming weeks I’m going to focus on specific tangible examples and use cases. Today I wanted to focus on one easy and powerful way to […]
Is it possible or is it useful?
Every time I drive to visit family in Maryland I sit in DC traffic and think…”I wish we could teleport.” Unfortunately, as far as I know, teleportation is not possible. At one point in time, you could go online and purchase a usb pet rock. This would be something that is possible, but not useful. […]
It takes a village, to get the most value from Tableau
Okay, so Tableau is technically something that one person can use effectively to support their work. But most of the time, to get actual value for the time/money commitment, it probably won’t be just a single person. See there are different roles to play when building something useful in Tableau. Chances are, if you already […]
Infographic Shminfographic, just create a slidedoc.
As someone who has at many different points in his career created infographics, I don’t really like them. And I get why most people who are used to writing reports also dislike them. I mean sure, the medium is printable, downloadable, and tweetable, but so much of the time it’s all sizzle no steak. And […]
Our puny brains can’t handle all this data.
I was trying to figure out how much data is flying around on the internet and I stumbled into this report by CISCO. Their estimate of daily global internet traffic in 2016 was about 23 million times as big as the estimate for 1992. That’s a lot of data flying back and forth. It’s no […]
And Tableau Goes Crash
I had a nice surprise this morning when Stephanie Evergreen sent me an email saying she was in town. It was really nice to catch up over lunch, trade consulting stories, and scheme a bit. One thing that came up in our conversation > Tableau. [Okay, so I brought it up, but Stephanie had some stories […]
Back to Blogging
Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays. –E.B. White. The same could be said for people who blog. Last year was a shitty year. And in a way, I think I lost my voice. With a return to blogging, I am going to try to find […]
What’s the deal with the Berlin Wall in my coworking space?
The white words on the front of the wall spell out a name. A picture documenting the wall following the fall by Edward G. Murray. When you see the wall for the first time, you would process the heart and guess that the word on top is the end of the word Love! But it’s […]
The Triangle’s Creative Diversity Problem.
I grew up in what was, and what still is, the whitest county in the Baltimore-Washington Metro Region. And to this day every time I leave my North Carolina suburb and travel up to my hometown of Westminster, MD I am jarred by the complete and utter lack of cultural diversity. The question about how […]