# Dreamforce reaction

> This is content from just-tim, the data-and-analytics channel by Tim Ngwena (formerly 'Tableau Tim'). Tim has 12+ years of hands-on BI experience and covers Tableau most of all, plus Power BI, Looker, Hex, SQL and data modelling, the analytics industry, and the craft of doing the job — always tool-agnostic and honest about the trade-offs.

- **Author:** Tim Ngwena (just-tim, https://just-tim.com/about)
- **Published:** 2021-10-03
- **Format:** Video · 4199 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Industry trends, AI & ML, Data visualisation
- **Tools:** Tableau (ask data, dashboards, einstein, explain data, extensions, slack)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/dreamforce-reaction
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHNGQPrC_Lk

I put my headphones on and do a live, unscripted reaction to the Tableau keynote from Dreamforce 2021, the first big outing for Tableau as part of the Salesforce family. I walk through the Salesforce+ content hub, then critique the keynote's branding, claims and demos around speed, intelligence and Slack collaboration.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau AI is largely a rebrand of what was Einstein Analytics, so a lot of "new" Dreamforce content is repackaging existing Salesforce capabilities under the Tableau name.
- Salesforce's new dashboard starters tie back to its acquisition of Swiss Tableau partner Lin Tao, which built industry dashboard templates.
- Several keynote demos showed forward-looking, not-yet-shipped features (Ask Data and Einstein Discovery in Slack are slated for spring 2022 or later), so the "live" workflows aren't always available today.
- The conversational Ask Data response inside Slack is genuinely new and impressive, even if it likely depends on data being prepared a specific way via Einstein.
- Customer stories like Kellogg's tend to sell outcomes and talking points without explaining the actual "how" behind the analytics.

## Chapters

- 0:00 Why react to Dreamforce
- 0:53 Navigating the Salesforce+ content hub
- 6:44 Salesforce branding and nature aesthetics
- 9:32 Mark Nelson's opening and audience
- 12:00 Five pillars of a data culture
- 16:33 Francois on speed and connectors
- 22:15 Dashboard starters and the Lin Tao acquisition
- 25:05 Kellogg's customer story
- 34:08 Avni on intelligence and augmented analytics
- 36:18 Phil Cooper's dashboard and Slack demo
- 44:53 Ask Data, classification and Slack collaboration

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/dreamforce-reaction

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just-tim — Data and analytics, with a point of view. · https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7HYxRWmaNlJux-X7rNLZyw · https://twitter.com/TableauTim · https://www.linkedin.com/in/timngwena