Behind the scenes Receiving the Golden Hoodie | Dreamforce 23
This is the inception moment where I'm in the Dreamforce keynote whilst doing a reaction video to myself.
- Managing live lag on a virtual keynote meant starting to speak the instant the host finished, since the audio feedback revealed a two-second delay
- A solid home setup over Zoom can be a viable substitute for being on stage in person when you can't attend an event
- My route into Tableau began unknowingly at the University of York, downloading data from an embedded student dashboard before later learning the authoring tool professionally
- Teaching and making videos deepens your own understanding far more than simply learning a topic, creating a feedback loop of better questions from the community
- The whole channel started by pledging to make three videos after a planned move to New York fell through
0:00Hey it's Tim here, in this video I actually
0:02take the segment from the keynote where I
0:05got my golden
0:06hoodie, this hoodie that I'm wearing here
0:08inverted and I've just put it out here
0:09because in the
0:10actual breakdown of the keynote I did a
0:13slightly more detailed sort of explanation
0:16of some of the
0:17questions I was asked during the keynote
0:19itself. So I've taken that out and I've
0:21also added some
0:21behind the scenes footage of what it was
0:23like inside of the actual conference venue
0:26because
0:26the public stream was very different to
0:28actually being there so big thanks to April
0:30for sending me
0:31some footage from inside of the actual
0:33venue itself so you can get a chance to see
0:35what
0:36that's like. It's a very short video thanks
0:38for watching as ever let's get started.
0:41But I am so excited because today we have a
0:44very special guest tuning in live from his
0:48home in the
0:49UK, Tableau visionary Tim Nguyen. Oh god,
0:54also known as Tableau Tim. He is...
0:57Hi there fam. You almost need no
1:02introduction.
1:08I wanted to stop it here because this is
1:09the inception moment where I'm in the
1:11keynote
1:12whilst doing a reaction video. I still
1:14laugh at this because it's absolutely crazy
1:16honestly.
1:17So at this point I'm not going to kind of
1:19continue watching myself in this keynote.
1:24The context here
1:25is that initially it's sort of funny I
1:27should have known what was coming but
1:30initially I actually
1:31didn't put two or two together until the
1:33event. But I'd started talking to Tableau I
1:37think two,
1:37two, three months ago actually about doing
1:40something in Dreamforce.
1:42And I just thought, hey, as they have done
1:44with customers, they wanted me to talk
1:47about
1:47AI and how it could help data on this,
1:49specifically around skills and education.
1:51And actually this is
1:52what we go on talking about. And I'll talk
1:54a bit more about my response to the
1:55questions I get
1:56asked here. But anyway, it kind of ended
1:59with a surprise. And yeah, it's been a
2:01pretty incredible
2:02response, frankly, from the community. I'm
2:06absolutely hugely grateful and genuinely
2:09shocked
2:09at the time. And I think afterwards it's
2:12sort of weird. The life of a creator is
2:15completely weird
2:16because I signed my room here in a virtual
2:20event. I'm actually in the keynote, we're
2:24live. Nothing
2:25was pre-recorded. There was incredible
2:27amounts of lag and so a bit of inside
2:29baseball. As soon as I
2:31responded the first time to Larissa, I
2:33immediately knew how much lag there was
2:36because I could hear
2:37the feedback from the, what do you call it,
2:40from the audience, from the room through
2:43her microphone.
2:44So as soon as I said the first thing and
2:47then it came back to me two seconds, I was
2:49like, oh crap,
2:50I need to listen to what Larissa is saying.
2:52And as soon as I think she's about to
2:54finish, start
2:54talking immediately. So the lag is like
2:56hard almost. And that's essentially what I
2:58did for the
2:59whole thing. So every time I responded, I
3:01was actually trying to do that just to cut
3:03the lag.
3:03These are the kind of things that go
3:06through my head here. Rather than worrying
3:08or stressing about
3:09what I'm going to say, that's sort of what
3:11was going through my mind. I was kind of
3:13stressing
3:14a whole ton. I actually start sweating in
3:16this video. It's so embarrassing. I'm
3:18calling it out
3:18now because I can and it's afterwards. But
3:21nonetheless, yeah, I really enjoyed this
3:23sort
3:23of whole interview. Anyway, I'm going to
3:25wait and maybe give a little bit more color
3:27to each
3:28of my responses in this because I think in
3:30this section, I have to give short, sharp
3:32responses.
3:33I did know what questions she was going to
3:34ask me. I didn't know what was coming at
3:36the end. But
3:36I wanted to give more context here because
3:39I think it's important and it's actually,
3:40you know, I sat here and critiqued the
3:42whole entire keynote. I guess I have to
3:44critique
3:45myself. So let's take this a little bit
3:48further. I might skip a few.
3:49Also known as Tablo Tim, he is an analytic
3:52consultant and instructor.
3:54Let's skip ahead a little bit here.
3:55And a YouTube sensation with more than 55,
3:56000 subscribers and more than 2.8 million
3:59views.
3:59Let's double through this.
4:00Yeah. With all of his effort, he is helping
4:03people everywhere for other data sales.
4:04Okay. Let's carry on from here.
4:05Thank you so much for joining us today.
4:06Absolutely a pleasure.
4:10So there you go. That's when I noticed lag.
4:12Okay. How did you get from your very first
4:16viz to where you are now in your career?
4:19So it started out in student analytics. I
4:23was looking at student data at the
4:25University of
4:25York where I studied and I ended up going
4:28to another opportunity to work in marketing
4:31and communications. And the data there just
4:33sort of pulled me in. The problem I had
4:37though is that
4:37the stories that were coming from that data
4:39weren't as compelling. A lot of the social
4:42media data. So another thing I'm actually
4:44quite impressed by is we're using Zoom here
4:46.
4:46Like I'm patched into conference by Zoom
4:50and Zoom held up like it was solid. The
4:52sound was good.
4:53The video quality was coming through
4:54totally fine. I think Zoom compresses the
4:56video down to 720p.
4:58I had like a proper camera going, which
5:00could have pushed a 4k stream to this,
5:02but I think some ACP would have been fine
5:04anyway.
5:04The kind of thing I'm interested as this is
5:08this actually works pretty well. And I
5:09think it's a
5:10good example of, hey, if you can't get
5:12someone to the keynote, if they've got the
5:14setup, you can do
5:15a virtual setup. And that was always sort
5:17of my pitch to tablet. Hey, I can't be
5:18there in person,
5:19but I think I've got a good enough setup to
5:21do this this way. And I think it worked out
5:23.
5:23But anyway, really, really cool. Now the
5:25context of this answer is about how I
5:28actually started
5:28out in analytics. In essence, I used Table
5:31au for the first time without realizing it.
5:33I was
5:34understanding data about postgraduate
5:36students because I worked briefly as a
5:39student union
5:40president, essentially student politics
5:42here in the UK. And the super interesting
5:45thing there was
5:45that the university I went to, University
5:47of York, was one of the early adopters of
5:49Tableau. They
5:49were using Tableau to visualize student
5:51metrics, and they were sharing it on their
5:53website through
5:54like an embedded sort of setup so you could
5:57have this little Tableau dashboard that
5:59people could
5:59explore and you could actually download
6:01your data from it and do various things.
6:03This is very early
6:04days of Tableau. And so I actually did that
6:06. I downloaded the data off a chart and then
6:09repivoted it and did some stuff in Excel to
6:11then go and try and visualize and
6:13understand what was
6:13going on with postgraduate students. Anyway
6:15, I didn't know it at the time, but that was
6:17Tableau.
6:18That was basically what I was using. And it
6:19's only a few years later where I then came
6:22across Tableau
6:23again, like two, three years later, came
6:25across Tableau. This time as like a
6:26professional. And I
6:27realized, hey, I've used this before. I
6:29used it when I was looking at student
6:30politics, but now
6:31I'm using the authoring experience. And so
6:33that's actually sort of how it started. And
6:36I got to that
6:37experience through someone I met at
6:38university, the information lab, so Craig
6:41Bloodworth. And he
6:42encouraged me to say, hey, come join this
6:44small company. It's called the information
6:45lab. You'll
6:47learn a lot more about data than working in
6:49marketing and communications. So that's
6:50what
6:50I did. I joined back then when it was a
6:53company with 11 people. And then fast
6:55forward a decade
6:56later, information lab has grown. I've
6:58since moved on from the information lab. I
7:00've worked
7:01at Accenture and now work at Endpoint
7:03Digital. And it's super interesting just to
7:06see that journey.
7:07And I think I'd go on to explain more about
7:10that. But in essence, it started off with
7:12sort of my
7:14passion for quantified self, which is what
7:15really sort of made things connect in my
7:17mind. It made me
7:18really understand that I was getting
7:20passionate about data, my own data in a
7:21specific way. And
7:22actually businesses had the same passion
7:25with their own data. People in businesses
7:27really
7:28understood their businesses as well as I
7:29understood my music data, as well as I
7:31understood my running
7:32data. And so in talking to people and
7:34talking to people about their data, I
7:37started to see
7:38some challenges, things that weren't quite
7:39clicking, concepts that weren't working in
7:41Tableau. And so what I did way back when,
7:43if you go to the oldest videos on this
7:45channel,
7:46you'll see the first one's about layout
7:47containers. You'll see some others about
7:49Tableau 10 and design. I just thought, hey,
7:51let me make some videos just highlighting
7:53these things
7:54so that I can point people to them and see
7:56what they're like. I started and I stopped
7:59and I gave
7:59up basically. I did it for like three
8:01months and then I gave up. I just did the
8:03classic sort of
8:04defeated setup. And what was super
8:06interesting about that is that having done
8:08that,
8:09we then, you know, I just sort of carried
8:12on for another two years, went to Accenture
8:16.
8:16And at Accenture, I came across this
8:17problem again, but this time it was with
8:19younger day
8:20trends, people who were just starting out
8:22as associates at Accenture and they were
8:24just starting
8:25a career and asking me, hey, how do I use
8:26Tableau? How do I do this? How do I do this
8:28?
8:28And it was really easy to explain to them
8:30what was going on, but I just ended up most
8:32of the time
8:33just getting on a call and just showing
8:35them. So I thought, huh, what if I just
8:37record videos
8:38instead and then send them the link? That
8:39would be much faster. So that's what I
8:41started doing.
8:42And then I gave up again. And then right
8:45before COVID, there was an opportunity that
8:48came up to
8:49go to New York for a reason I won't go into
8:51. And it didn't play through because
8:54something happened
8:55in my life that changed sort of the outcome
8:56of that. So instead of going to New York,
8:58I ended up staying here in the UK. And
8:59after that, I was like really bummed out
9:03that I wasn't going
9:03to New York. So I thought, you know what,
9:05God damn it. Honestly, seriously, what can
9:08I do?
9:08Is there a way I can do what I was going to
9:11do in New York without, you know, without
9:14sort of
9:14changing something? Could I approach this
9:16concept in a bigger way? Can I make a
9:17bigger impact
9:18doing something else? I look back on my
9:20videos and I thought, you know what,
9:22actually I can.
9:23I can go back to that concept of videos and
9:25start making more. So I pledged to make
9:27three videos.
9:28I pledged to make a video explaining what
9:30Tableau is. And I pledged to start making
9:32videos about
9:32what's new in Tableau. So the new in Table
9:34au videos are what came first. Four months
9:36later,
9:37you saw the What Is Tableau video that was
9:39basically planned like before that video
9:42was
9:42released. Well before. And yeah, here we
9:45are. What at 55,000 subs later, and you
9:49know, many more
9:50thousands watching every single week, every
9:53month. We're hitting milestones. And that's
9:56supported lots of people on LinkedIn,
9:58essentially taking the same concept, just
10:00scaling it up and
10:01explaining to people what Tableau is and
10:03helping people understand how to use it and
10:05how to work
10:06with data fundamentals. And so that's what
10:08this conversation was actually sort of crun
10:10ched down
10:11from. That was sort of the full context,
10:13but it was synthesized just to fit in this
10:15sort of three
10:15minute segment in the key. So I thought
10:17that was useful context nonetheless. And
10:20that's sort of
10:20what we spoke about. And I'm not sure I'm
10:22now willing to live it to myself, go
10:24through any of
10:25that in like a third of the time, but
10:27nonetheless, yeah, that's what it is. So
10:30let's quickly, I might
10:32double speed through this and just go right
10:34past the end. So let's watch this quickly.
10:36- To the time just measured the likes and
10:38these sort of basic metrics. And so I ended
10:40up finding
10:41a route into analytics. And when I started
10:42to work with data, I started to realize the
10:43business was
10:44super passionate about their data. But the
10:45moment it clicked was when I started
10:46looking at quantified
10:46self data. That's the kind of data Ryan was
10:48talking about, data from Strava, Last of M,
10:49and so on and so forth. And it's only then
10:50I realized that the passion I had for my
10:51own data
10:52was the passion that businesses had for
10:53their data. And so I started to spot some
10:55common themes
10:56that people were struggling with as they
10:58were working with their data. And I thought
10:59I'd start
11:00to make a visual way of sort of helping
11:02them understand those problems and get past
11:04them.
11:05So that's how it started. And then here we
11:06are today.
11:07- Such a story journey. Now, many people
11:11here are-
11:12- I think Larissa also understood the lag
11:14was quite big because she cut in
11:16faster than I think it would have taken for
11:18that. So I think we were both doing this
11:20thing where
11:20she knew what I was going to say, generally
11:23speaking. So she knew when I was coming to
11:25the
11:26end of my point. So she could just actually
11:28cut in and I could do the same as well
11:30because I kind
11:30of knew the general question she was going
11:32to ask me. So we kind of did some great
11:35teamwork here to
11:35kind of make it work with less lag than the
11:38Atlanta Ocean actually allowed. So that's
11:40pretty funny.
11:41- So just getting started on their
11:43analytics journey. And it's a little bit of
11:47a different
11:47landscape today. What has you most excited
11:50as you think about Tableau and this new AI
11:52revolution?
11:53- I think AI has this incredible
11:56opportunity to amplify people who are
12:00already exceptionally
12:02skilled, sort of raise their skills up to
12:04the ceiling. But also for people who are
12:07struggling
12:07to get into these topics or struggling to
12:09pick up these skills, it actually has an
12:11ability to
12:11lower the barriers, almost help them get
12:14into these topics. And so it can simplify
12:17the entry
12:17points for a particular topic. We saw
12:19Hunter do a nice demo there. But also I
12:21think it's got this
12:22ability to help people with their skills.
12:24It kind of brings them into a topic so they
12:26can understand
12:27what to Google. - So what's going through
12:29our mind right now is like, this is just
12:31stressful.
12:32I make videos all the time and it's no
12:35different to the videos except for this is
12:39live, right? And
12:40I'm not going to a script either. I'm not
12:42reading like a teleprompter. I actually
12:45thought after the
12:45event, why didn't I just set this up as a
12:47teleprompter? I wouldn't have been
12:48stressing
12:49myself out trying to make sure I thread the
12:51point I was trying to make in less sort of
12:54compressed
12:54time, rather than just waffle on like I do
12:56here and like I do in most videos actually.
12:58And so you can see on my face, I'm
12:59literally stressing. If you see like sort
13:02of the
13:02sort of silver lining, it's so bad. It's
13:06honestly embarrassing, but the room wasn't
13:10even that hot.
13:10It's just one of these things where you're
13:12panicking because that's just like how the
13:15human body works, right? And I just
13:17suddenly got really, really hot. And then
13:20yeah, I just
13:21started panicking, I guess. Started
13:23sweating my head off. - And then how to
13:25build on those skills.
13:26- Now with your platform, you're bringing
13:29data skills to so many people.
13:31What is something that you can share with
13:33us about teaching and giving back?
13:35- It's a super interesting... - That meme
13:39of the guy sweating previously comes to my
13:42face at the
13:42moment. - I think one of the things that I
13:46always tell people is that when I make
13:48videos, I learn a
13:49lot more about the topic than I would have
13:51done if I just went to learn about the
13:53topic. So teaching
13:54kind of makes you understand the topic to
13:56another level. And when you put that
13:57content out there
13:58into the community, you get sort of
14:00responses. People ask you more questions.
14:01And actually those
14:02questions are the best questions to answer
14:04because they enhance your understanding. So
14:06it's this sort
14:06of nice feedback loop that just sort of
14:09happens. And what is nice about that is
14:11that I got my sort
14:13of breaking data through the data farm and
14:14it's just been really special to sort of
14:16give it back
14:17as well. So hopefully that cycle continues
14:19and we keep building the data farm. - Well,
14:21speaking of
14:22giving back, you've done... - At this point
14:24, I am just absolutely... The sweat is fully
14:27formed.
14:28I think if you'd gone on for another two
14:30minutes, you would have seen one drip down
14:31my head,
14:32honestly. I don't know why I'm tearing
14:33myself apart here, but it's just so funny.
14:35I don't know.
14:37If you've ever been on stage in front of
14:38people and had this feeling, you know
14:40exactly what I'm
14:40talking about. But anyway, here we go. - So
14:43much for Tableau and for the data farm.
14:46Before I let
14:47you go, I have one more thing I'd like to
14:50share. It's a golden honey and we have one
14:53in the mail
14:54on its way to you now. Tim, you truly
14:57embody what it means to be a Tableau
15:01community leader
15:02and a visionary. Thank you so much for
15:05everything that you've done.
15:08Congratulations again and thank
15:10you so much for joining us today. Let's
15:11give them a round of applause. - Thank you.
15:19-
15:20Wow, what a magical moment. I wish you
15:22would have been here, but this was fun too.
15:24Back in 2023...
15:27[Music]
15:39[ Silence ]
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