0:00With a week to go before tablet conference
0:02it's time to dial in, set up and figure out
0:04what you're
0:05going to be doing for tablet conference. In
0:07this video I'm going to help you out and
0:08make
0:09sure you're ready whether you're attending
0:11virtually or in person. As ever let's get
0:13stuck in.
0:13Okay so we've only got a week to go before
0:15conference and what I wanted to do is walk
0:18you through how to make sure you're set up
0:20whether you're attending in person or
0:22virtually. For full
0:24disclosure I can't attend in person this
0:26year, everyone's been asking me this, I
0:27unfortunately
0:28can't go, I just had surgery over a month
0:30ago and I'm really not clear to travel so I
0:33won't be
0:33coming this year but next year my word will
0:35be coming out big. But for now I want to
0:38make sure
0:38if you're attending in person this year I
0:40can help you out make sure you're set up. I
0:42've been to over
0:43five, six, seven conferences in my lifetime
0:45, I've been very fortunate to have been
0:47supported to go
0:48to these conferences so if you're going for
0:50the first time it's almost a duty for
0:52anyone who's
0:53been to conference before to help you set
0:55up because as a first-time conference goer
0:58it can be daunting
0:58even if it's your second or third time it's
1:00not until your fourth one where you really
1:02get into
1:02the stride and understand how conferences
1:04work. Now one other gem I'm going to
1:06recommend right
1:07before we get stuck into this session is
1:09Sarah Bartlett's Tableau Conference Guide
1:112023. Sarah
1:12does these every year, she does a little
1:14bit of a blog post to show you what to go
1:16to, what to know
1:17before you go and it's a great place to go.
1:19It really details everything about the
1:21location, what
1:22you can expect, the keynotes, how
1:24everything is structured, what these events
1:26are in a much more
1:27detail than I've even gone into in this
1:29video. So instead of just you know
1:31repeating what's on this
1:32blog post go ahead and check Sarah's
1:34content out it's absolutely fantastic I'll
1:36link to it in the
1:37description of this video so you can check
1:39it out. Let's hop into the video. So the
1:41first thing to do,
1:42the first thing you have to make sure you
1:44do is you have your details all lined up.
1:46Now you would
1:47have probably lined this up when booking
1:49the ticket but it's an easy mistake to make
1:51, it's easy to get
1:52the date wrong and turn up in the wrong
1:54place at the wrong time. I know people who
1:56've done that so
1:57make sure number one your flights,
1:59everything, check all your details, triple
2:01check your hotel
2:02bookings, make sure you've got the start
2:04dates and end dates all dialed in so you're
2:05not going to miss
2:06a thing. Once you've done all that you
2:08should have registered essentially for the
2:10conference and
2:10there's two ways of registering essentially
2:12if you're buying a ticket you'll have
2:13registered and
2:14bought the ticket that way but if you're
2:16not actually going there's a way to
2:18register for
2:18the virtual conference I'll come to that
2:20very shortly and you can find links to
2:22everything
2:22I'm talking about in the description below.
2:26Now once you've registered you should, let
2:29's just go
2:29over here, you should have a page that
2:31looks like this. This is pretty much once
2:32you've logged in
2:33you'll have a page that looks like this.
2:35Obviously I'm not going to, I've asked a
2:37friend if I could
2:38get their login details to show you how to
2:40navigate this page and set everything up.
2:43The number one thing you want to do is
2:44check all your details are correct. The
2:46number two thing you
2:47want to do is start planning your sessions
2:48ahead of time and the way to do that is to
2:50go to the
2:51sessions tab. Now the sessions are super
2:53important because really when you go to
2:55conference
2:56I always encourage people to go to sessions
2:58that they can't otherwise see virtually or
3:02in person
3:03very easily. What does that mean? Well they
3:05're going to be sessions that are recorded
3:07and then
3:08put onto Salesforce Plus, they're going to
3:10be sessions that are recorded then put on
3:12YouTube
3:12and there'll be sessions that have been
3:14done before and are just being repeated at
3:16this
3:16conference and therefore you can kind of
3:18catch them in previous back catalogs of
3:20conference
3:20content. It's a controversial thing to say
3:23but I actually think don't go to those
3:25sessions because
3:26you can catch them any other place. The
3:28sessions to go to are the sessions where
3:30they're only
3:30happening at this conference, you're really
3:33looking for something valuable from that
3:35specific session
3:36and you want to take something actionable
3:38from that session immediately after. So
3:40go ahead browse the whole session database,
3:43it's really quite robust and you can
3:45bookmark and save
3:46things to your agenda while you're here. So
3:48if I'm not sure about a session I can
3:50bookmark it.
3:50What I'd always say is always underestimate
3:54your skill level for the sessions and that
3:57sounds like
3:57a weird thing to say. If the session says
4:01intermediate or beginner, just if it says
4:04intermediate assume you're not advanced
4:11basically. Because often what happens is
4:15that you'll see a
4:16session, so it will say beginner, you go to
4:17it and actually you learn a bunch of stuff
4:19you didn't know
4:20and so if it says intermediate I think you
4:22should be going to that. Assume that
4:24actually that's an
4:24advanced session and you should be dialing
4:26into that and again if it says advanced
4:28assume it's
4:29like you know S-tier level content and you
4:31should be going to that to learn even more
4:33about it. That's
4:34sort of the best way to sort of move
4:36yourself forward in a conference but also
4:38not miss out
4:39on the really useful small sessions that
4:41you can slot into. The other thing about
4:43sessions is you
4:44want to overbook the sessions. The reason
4:46this is is because you might find yourself
4:48in the wrong
4:49place at the wrong time for the session you
4:51planned to attend. So by having additional
4:53sessions that you can go to it gives you
4:55options in lots of different places. So I
4:58tend to overbook
4:59by about three or four sessions per slot.
5:01That way if I'm in the wrong place and I'm
5:03you know
5:04trying to find what can I do instead I have
5:06some other alternatives. The other reason
5:08you might
5:08want to do this is if the session is full
5:10you don't waste time waiting for the next
5:12round of
5:13sessions you're actually better off walking
5:14to another session. It will only miss the
5:16first five
5:17to ten minutes and you'll still get all the
5:18valuable good stuff that comes normally
5:20towards
5:21the middle and the end of a session. So go
5:23ahead and browse all the sessions you've
5:25got different
5:25filters you can browse by role, you can
5:28browse by industry, by product, by there's
5:31literally
5:32everything in here. It's sort of
5:34interesting that it says by product because
5:36you you'd think product
5:37and tableau product are the same thing but
5:39it almost feels like two separate hierarch
5:41ies.
5:42Just kind of interesting. You've also got
5:44topics, session levels, so this is what I
5:46was saying if it
5:47says beginner and you think you're a
5:49beginner you like to downgrade yourself a
5:52little bit and go to
5:53to the session that would be at that level.
5:55So if it says advanced you know downgrade
5:57your knowledge
5:58to intermediate and go to the advanced
6:00session. If it says intermediate downgrade
6:02your knowledge a
6:03bit say think of yourself as a beginner and
6:05go to the intermediate session. It's a
6:07really sort of
6:08useful trick and I've been to conferences
6:10where you know it I've gone to what is an
6:12intermediate
6:13session as someone who's quite advanced and
6:15learned a ton of stuff and creative ways of
6:18using the product that I would have never
6:20otherwise realized. So not to murder the
6:22point
6:22overbook your sessions get these all done
6:25and what you should then be able to do is
6:27as you build out
6:28your agenda you should be able to add them
6:29to your calendar and then make sure you've
6:31got them on your
6:31phone calendar on some sort of calendar
6:33that you can check because when you're on
6:35conference floor
6:36the data's poor you want to be able to
6:38quickly pull another source of information
6:40so you can
6:41even go to your phone calendar look at the
6:43location and then use the conference
6:45signage
6:46to get yourself from A to B. Super super
6:48handy. Now the other thing to be aware of
6:50if I go to the
6:51schedule are the what I would call the
6:53headline events. Now the headline events
6:55are pretty much
6:57dictated so the key ones are the keynote
6:59which is to this year like last year
7:01together with
7:02devs on stage so keynote and devs on stage
7:05are one thing. You've got ironviz which is
7:07another sort of
7:08keynote item and then you've got the
7:10keynote speakers essentially. So the
7:12keynote speakers
7:12are guests that have come to the Tableau
7:14conference to essentially talk about data
7:17or the culture
7:18around data in their respective industries.
7:21So if you go to this schedule you can see
7:24what those
7:24high level sessions are. So on Tuesday you
7:27've got registration, Tableau Doctor and
7:29then you've got
7:30here main keynote and devs on stage. So
7:32while those are happening nothing else is
7:34going on.
7:35Sessions are not planned around those
7:37events. So if you were planning to skip a
7:40keynote and
7:40do something well don't just go to these
7:42sessions they're really super valuable. Now
7:44trust me you
7:44will see something super useful. The other
7:47thing to bear in mind is where lunch is and
7:49when and how
7:51you should sort of plan your time around
7:53those sessions. Now you'll see that lunch
7:55is actually
7:55from 11 30 to 1 30 but there are sessions
7:59that can run into that specific window and
8:01so if you
8:02want to sort of organize yourself make sure
8:04that you pay attention to those lunch and
8:06food slots
8:07and then if you need some specific help
8:08with certain things for example the Tableau
8:10Doctor
8:11make sure that you put enough time in to go
8:13and do that. With the conference being one
8:16day shorter
8:17this year there is a small risk that
8:18actually you have to compress what used to
8:20happen over four days
8:22into three days. So just be sure you leave
8:23enough time to do everything. So if I go
8:26through the
8:26different schedules here you can see there
8:28's lots of different bits and bits of
8:30information. You've
8:30got the data nights out, you've got ironviz
8:32, data for good keynote. So there's a lot of
8:35things
8:35happening all throughout conference. So
8:37really build out your schedule. I can't
8:39obviously show
8:39you mine and I don't want to mess with Ravi
8:42's here. So I can't build a schedule here
8:45and sort of
8:46you know show you what you should do. This
8:48is really up to you and once you've done
8:49that you're
8:50golden. You're pretty much good to go. Now
8:53if you're going virtually there's still
8:56some
8:56opportunity for you. So let me just open
8:58this up and you'll see that it actually
9:00opens up a new
9:01portal and if I go to this portal it's on
9:03Salesforce+. Now Salesforce+ is the
9:06equivalent
9:07of the streaming platform for Salesforce
9:09and of course Tableau is now part of the
9:11Salesforce family.
9:12This is where you can watch the events live
9:14and so what you can do is you can register
9:16for free.
9:16If I go ahead and hit register you can go
9:18ahead and sign up for free. Now what this
9:21will do is
9:21it'll throw you off to this login and you
9:23'll see that I'm already registered with
9:25Salesforce+
9:25cloud. So I'll go in log in with my google
9:27it will get my details. We'll go ahead and
9:29log in
9:31and then what this will allow me to do once
9:34this is up, let's wait for it, is that it
9:38will add it to
9:38my sessions. Now it's May the 9th to May
9:42the 11th so you might be wondering well how
9:45do I go in and
9:46start to book sessions. Well what I
9:48personally do is put it into your calendar.
9:49It's already in my
9:50calendar for goodness sake so I'll go ahead
9:52and save it and then come out of that go
9:54back to the
9:55event and then we'll go up and close all
9:57these pop-ups that are popping up
9:58everywhere and what
9:59you can see is you can see the sessions
10:01here. So you can you've got the actual
10:03schedule and if I go
10:04over here to the schedule you can see that
10:07all of these sessions are actually dialed
10:09in. So if you're
10:10attending virtually this is what you want
10:12to make sure you dial into and the thing to
10:15bear in mind
10:16is that everything is set up I believe in
10:18your local time. So can you see that it
10:20says 5 45 to
10:226 pm GMT plus one this is because I'm in
10:24the UK. So these are your actual timing so
10:28don't make the
10:28mistake of thinking this is 5 45 in the US.
10:32No this is your local timing this the site
10:34is sort
10:34of smart enough to do that. So go ahead and
10:37sort of figure out what you want to do here
10:40if you want a
10:40specific session you can add it to your
10:43calendar so you can go ahead add this
10:46particular event to
10:47the calendar. If you want to I don't know
10:50go to one of these other events that say
10:52career connection
10:53community let's go to that you can see you
10:56can add those specific sessions to your
10:59calendar and
11:00yeah just keep browsing all the content.
11:02Now the thing to bear in mind here is there
11:04's a different
11:05toggle for each day so make sure you go
11:06through each of the days and you really
11:08sort of try and
11:09find what you're looking for the ironviz
11:11keynote these are the main events but do
11:14remember that
11:14there are some sessions that are only going
11:16to be available in person so you won't get
11:18as full a list
11:19of all the events that as you'd expect they
11:21're only going to be certain things there.
11:23Now if you
11:24go to on demand you can see that basically
11:26once the conference is over there will be
11:28sessions
11:28that you can access after the event and
11:31here the keynotes are essentially think of
11:34it as like a TV
11:35episode so when I click on the series it's
11:37going to show up as these are coming soon
11:39so as soon as
11:40the session is finished they're put on here
11:42and you can watch them after the fact
11:43instead of going
11:44to youtube or something you can come here
11:46and sort of check them out and it's got a
11:47bunch of nice
11:48sofa keys that you can check out you can
11:51bookmark this page but I do recommend just
11:54getting familiar
11:55with this sort of site and just getting
11:56your bearings because one of the things
11:58about this
11:58is sometimes it changes small things and it
12:01's difficult to know okay you know where am
12:03I going
12:03to find that piece of content where am I
12:05going to find that specific talk and if you
12:07can't find it
12:08on here then you know that it's maybe not
12:09being recorded and you can ask ahead of
12:11time rather
12:12than expecting something and then finding
12:13out at the last minute that it's not
12:15available. Now the
12:16other thing I'm surprised I haven't seen is
12:18a slack community I don't know if this is
12:21sort of
12:21intentional but in the past there has been
12:23a slack that you can join and can kind of
12:25get involved with
12:26but I can't see that here and I can't sort
12:28of it's not mentioned anywhere in the FAQ
12:31and it's one of
12:32those things that actually works really
12:34really well at conferences has worked a
12:35Tableau conference in
12:36the past it's also worked at other
12:38conferences dbt conferences admittedly not
12:41the same scale but I
12:42actually think the slack worked really
12:44really well there so it's a super
12:45interesting sort of space
12:47but nevertheless this is how to get
12:48involved virtually. Now I'm also going to
12:51be doing the
12:52usual roundups unfortunately I can't I don
12:54't think I don't think I can do a live
12:56stream of the keynote
12:57I might be able to do a live stream of devs
13:00of sorry ironviz and some of the other sort
13:03of
13:03keynotes but I can't do the keynotes on t
13:05uesday itself for personal reasons so I'm
13:08just not going
13:09to be available so unlike in previous years
13:11I won't be able to do those but I will be
13:13able to
13:14do rundowns and in fact I'm going to sort
13:16of turn it up to 11 to make up for the fact
13:18that I'm not
13:19doing the live stream we're going to do
13:21little short snippets about all the
13:23features so if you
13:24tune into my channel you'll be able to get
13:27two to three minute long updates just
13:29detailing small
13:30bits of information that have come out of
13:31conference and things you can look forward
13:33to
13:33over the next year there'll be four videos
13:35there won't be shorts I do shorts
13:37separately if that
13:38makes sense so don't panic if you think I'm
13:40going to be flooding the stream with shorts
13:41I'll do four
13:42videos and shorts separately anyway that's
13:44it I just wanted to make sure everyone's
13:46ready for
13:46conference and make sure you get stuck in
13:48thanks for watching and I'll catch you in
13:50the next one.
13:51you
13:51you
14:01[ Silence ]
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