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 […]
Searching for Un-Rut Stuckers
Makers of Change are everywhere. They are the people you turn to when you get stuck in a rut. They are the ones who seem to “get it” when you talk about change. When everyone else runs away from things that are different and new, they run towards it. They are the people who can […]
Why the world needs you to become a catalyst.
Years ago I launched a digital workshop. My goal was to teach evaluators and researchers how to design, based on the challenges that evaluators who design would face. It was exactly how I found success, and built a following, during my own research and evaluation career. The workshop was filled with short courses, activities, and […]