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This week, I was in Chicago to give speeches at the North Suburban Chicago TUG, Cars.com and Groupon. In addition, I had dinner with several InterWorks team members and Lawrence Corr, author of Agile Data Warehouse Design. Every event was well-attended. TUG leader Kevin Chaplin reported that it was the largest attendance ever for the NSCTUG (around 150). Thank you to Komatsu for hosting the event, and thanks to Charlie Sanders for organizing a packed week of engagement!

Below is my slide deck from the Chicago presentation followed by the relevant files:

• Big Trends in Data 1980 to Now
• Data Interpreter START Workbook
• Data Interpreter FINISHED Workbook
• Forecasting Workbook
• Parameters Workbook
• Dashboard Discovery Workbook
• Superstore for TYD2 XLSX
• NST-EST2015-01 XLSX

Here are a few photos:

This week was fun. I did a private talk for a large client in Portland, Oregon, then went to Phoenix, Arizona, to give a talk at the Phoenix Tableau User Group. The last time I spoke in Phoenix, AAA hosted a great but small event that around 15 people attended. This week, Wells Fargo hosted a much larger number (I would guess 80 to 90 people). Before my talk, Vinay Sriram and Omar Douglas from Wells Fargo’s Supply Chain Management Team discussed their new Tableau deployment. After that, another Well’s Fargo manager (whose name I didn’t write down) spoke about how his team was using Tableau to analyze credit operations.

After my talk finished, there was a special Q&A session entitled Data+Women that included statistician/consultant Melissa Kovacs (a fellow Purdue/Krannert Grad), Ann Jackson, Aetna and Stephanie McCrea of Wells Fargo. Jessica-Briggs-Sullivan of AAA (who also has one of the largest and coolest dashboard control center’s I’ve seen anywhere) was asking questions along with Angie Greenlaw of Wells Fargo.

It’s exciting to participate with a TUG that has excited members who are willing to share their success stories!

The sample files below include sections of the talk that I skipped due to time constraints. I enjoyed the conversion during the event and the reception afterwards with the TUG leadership and the presenters. This TUG has made a lot of progress over the last couple of years. A special thanks to Michael Perillo of Charles Schwab for organizing the evening and plugging my book! And thanks to my Phoenix-based teammate, Ken McBride, for the ride from the airport, lunch and the coffee!

Below are my slide decks from the presentations followed by the relevant files:

• Big Trends in Data 1980 to Now
• Data Interpreter START Workbook
• Data Interpreter FINISHED Workbook
• Forecasting Workbook
• Parameters Workbook
• Dashboard Discovery Workbook
• Superstore for TYD2 XLSX
• NST-EST2015-01 XLSX

Here are a few photos:

This week I did four talks in the Bay Area. The first was at WeWork, the shared office space that our San Francisco crew uses as their home office. The second talk was in the Woz Room, Soda Hall at UC Berkeley. Some good friends were there, but the audience was engaging and enthusiastic overall. I particularly enjoyed the Q&A with that group.

Later in the week, I did an onsite talk and round table discussion at Google and finished the week doing a virtual session for the Silicon Valley TUG.

It was great to spend some time with team members Kate Treadwell, Jason Chung, Anthony Ball, Nick Joslyn, Paul Mathewson and Javod Khalaj. Both Kate and Javod contributed drafts for the 2nd edition of the book. Javod is also the creator of Remote for Tableau Server, which allows you to manage server from your cell phone.

Below are my slide decks from the presentations followed by the relevant files:

• Big Trends in Data 1980 to Now
• Data Interpreter START Workbook
• Data Interpreter FINISHED Workbook
• Forecasting Workbook
• Parameters Workbook
• Dashboard Discovery Workbook
• Superstore for TYD2 XLSX
• NST-EST2015-01 XLSX

Here are a few photos from my week in the Bay Area (some photos courtesy of selfie master Anthony Ball, and others courtesy of Michael Adel):

It has been around 25 years since I had last ventured to Downtown Bellevue. At that time, there really wasn’t a “downtown.” There is now. With at least five major buildings under construction, Downtown Bellevue is growing.

The Bellevue TUG is relatively new, and the group was one of the smaller ones that I’ve spoken this year. Thanks to Jarrod Voth for organizing the event and to Marquis Leadership for hosting the location. According to my youngest daughter, Hannah (who was with me), there were 22 people in attendance. The group was lively and engaged. There were lots of good questions about Tableau Server, calculations, dashboards and embedding visualizations on web pages.

Dick Holm (my technical editor on the 2nd edition) gave Hannah and I a ride back to our hotel room in Seattle. Overall, it’s been an enjoyable week in Portland and Seattle. I had some great meetings at Tableau yesterday. Fremont is under construction as well, and Tableau is driving much of it.

I’m looking forward to five talks next week in the Bay Area. See you there!

Below is my slide deck from the presentation followed by the relevant files:

• Big Trends in Data 1980 to Now
• Data Interpreter START Workbook
• Data Interpreter FINISHED Workbook
• Forecasting Workbook
• Parameters Workbook
• Dashboard Discovery Workbook
• Superstore for TYD2 XLSX
• NST-EST2015-01 XLSX

Here are a few photos from Bellevue and Tableau HQ:

Seattle is one of my favorite cities in the world. Great coffee, big mountains and wonderful people who also know tech! Thanks to Anthony Gould for organizing the event. I really loved his presentation on the audience. SEATUG creates a dashboard of all meeting attendees and surveys the group for their self-reported skill level (beginner, intermediate and advanced). They track who signs-up, no shows and when people arrive for meetings. Then, they present those details in a Tableau dashboard at the start of the meeting. It’s always fun speaking in Seattle, and the reception afterwards was great fun with some good conversation. I also had the opportunity to introduce Dick Holm (who was my technical editor for the 2nd edition) during the speech.

Above: Catching up with Dick Holm in Seattle.

Dick sent me a detailed critical evaluation of the 1st edition of Tableau Your Data! It was very helpful and he had obviously taken a lot of time to layout areas that the book could be improved. That’s why I asked him to edit the 2nd edition. He did a great job and made the end product better. Thank you Dick!

Below is my slide deck from the presentation followed by the relevant files:

• Big Trends in Data 1980 to Now
• Data Interpreter START Workbook
• Data Interpreter FINISHED Workbook
• Forecasting Workbook
• Parameters Workbook
• Dashboard Discovery Workbook
• Superstore for TYD2 XLSX
• NST-EST2015-01 XLSX

Here are a few photos from Seattle:

Cambia Health sponsored the talk for the Portland TUG event. It was an unusual venue and very nice. I’ve never done a speech in front of a 20-foot long fireplace before. Also, good friend (and tech guru) Mark Madsen was in attendance. I always enjoy my visits to Portland for the food, the coffee and the excellent and quirky eateries. Special thanks to William O’Shea for organizing the event!

Below is my slide deck from the presentation followed by the relevant files:

• Big Trends in Data 1980 to Now
• Data Interpreter START Workbook
• Data Interpreter FINISHED Workbook
• Forecasting Workbook
• Parameters Workbook
• Dashboard Discovery Workbook
• Superstore for TYD2 XLSX
• NST-EST2015-01 XLSX

Here are a few photos from Portland:

I always enjoy speaking in Boston at the Broad Institute. Zach Leber runs a tight ship, and the audience is smart and a little intimidating. The crowd is different than most TUGs – there are more PhDs in attendance and the venue is beautiful.

The night started with a one-hour informal get-together in the main entrance of the Broad building. I took pictures of some of the machines on display that are used for genome mapping and spent time talking to some of the attendees. Zach told me that it was the largest crowd they have ever had for a meeting (around 200), so I was excited and eager to start.

I added an introductory slide that I credited to Scott Klein of ProPublica, whom I saw present at Tapestry the day before at the Stanley Hotle in Estes Park, Colorado. I’ll be reporting on that event later this week. Scott presented newspaper visualizations from the last several hundred years which were surprising and fascinating.

I finished the main part of my talk but answered questions for an additional 90 minutes. Thank you Boston TUG for an engaging evening of discussion!

Below is my slide deck from the presentation followed by the relevant files:

• Big Trends in Data 1980 to Now
• Data Interpreter START Workbook
• Data Interpreter FINISHED Workbook
• Forecasting Workbook
• Parameters Workbook
• Dashboard Discovery Workbook
• Superstore for TYD2 XLSX
• NST-EST2014-01 XLS

Here are a few photos from Boston (credit to Zach and other audience members for some of these):

I’m always excited to speak in the Research Triangle. The many great universities and businesses in the area make for a great crowd. I also have lots of good friends in the area, including Greg Lewandowski, Chris Schultz, Ken Patton, Kevin Taylor and a new friend, Bryce Gartner. I also want to thank the good folks at Lenovo for hosting the event! It was a full house and lots of good discussion happened after I finished.

Below is my slide deck from the presentation followed by the relevant files:

• Big Trends in Data 1980 to Now
• Data Interpreter START Workbook
• Data Interpreter FINISHED Workbook
• Forecasting Workbook
• Parameters Workbook
• Dashboard Discovery Workbook
• Superstore for TYD2 XLSX
• NST-EST2014-01 XLS

Here are a few photos from Raleigh (credit to Chris Schultz and other audience members for some of these):

This was the fourth time I’ve come to Pittsburgh to speak at the Tableau user group there. The crowd was overflowing and engaged. There were lots of good questions.

Arriving Monday night, I had dinner with an old friend, Paul Bosetti. Paul and I worked together in my pre-consulting day and he attended the first Tableau Conference with me at the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle. Paul is now working for a company inserted between the operating people and IT. He’s using Tableau, but his company selected other platforms for the majority of their reporting and analysis. It was good to see him.

The weather was freakishly warm (in the 60’s), and the Uber driver that took me to Carnegie Mellon from airport was into data. He asked me a bunch of tech questions. This is one of the reasons that I love using Uber — you get interesting drivers.

Jill Wooster gave me two hours for my talk (it was basically the entire meeting), which was great because that left plenty of time for Q & A after I had finished. I was surprised to hear that my friend Ted Curran was no longer at CMU. If you read this, Ted, please contact me. I’d like to hear what your are up to.

It’s gratifying to see how Tableau has spread in the Pittsburgh community. Just a couple of years ago, a TUG meeting in Pittsburgh would attract about 30 people. Most of those folks worked at banks and insurance companies. I would guess between 125-150 people attended this talk. There were many more industries and companies of all sizes represented.

Below is my slide deck from the presentation followed by the relevant files:

• Big Trends in Data 1980 to Now
• Data Interpreter START Workbook
• Data Interpreter FINISHED Workbook
• Forecasting Workbook
• Parameters Workbook
• Dashboard Discovery Workbook
• Superstore for TYD2 XLSX
• NST-EST2014-01 XLS

Here are a few photos: