S3 E1: Welcome back to a new season

0:00Hello and welcome to a new season of mate?

0:05Come on.

0:06That's my job.

0:07Okay, fine.

0:07Go on.

0:08You started then, go on.

0:09Hello and welcome to season three.

0:11Yes, we're in a new season of the Dayton Podcast

0:13This is the first episode.

0:14Uh how you do, Ravi?

0:16Yeah, I'm good.

0:16New season, new decade, new year, everything's new, new, new.

0:19What are you trying to do still my job, Rick?

0:21Come on.

0:22I thought I'd like.

0:23Catch everyone a bit off guard, like everyone's starting to expect you to kick off.

0:26So I think give it a go, but um no, let's let's not let's not break a trusted system.

0:31Absolutely, absolutely

0:33It's been well, it was an all smir.

0:35I was about to say Corse that as if we're still in twenty nineteen, but we're in twenty twenty now.

0:38It was an awesome year last year

0:40It was.

0:40We we got a lot done, I think.

0:41Well, I mean more than we did the previous year, but still we uh missed our target of trying to get twenty-four episodes in.

0:47Yeah.

0:48Um just by a bit.

0:49Just by bit

0:51I think we got like what nine episodes uh eight episodes out and like it was like seven and a half if you count the the the sort of bonus sales force episode we did.

1:00Uh but for the record, we're we're on a tear this year because this is actually our second recording, right?

1:05Uh yeah we are, because uh we've actually done a couple um in advance.

1:09Um so we've got uh a new topic coming in uh next week for you guys.

1:13Uh we've actually gone forward in time, back in time, done a bit of time travel.

1:17Right.

1:17Um so you'll hear this uh the the the second episode which we actually recorded first.

1:21Exactly.

1:21Um which will be good fun.

1:23We were sort of having a debate about whether uh how we're gonna introduce the second episode when we first it recorded it.

1:27Um but I'm sure we'll find it's just a it was a fun episode

1:31Yeah, because we actually know what we're gonna talk about.

1:32Exactly, exactly.

1:33And so we thought for this episode it'd be really good to go over twenty nineteen, some of the episodes we'd done.

1:38Uh we haven't talked about the Tableau conference at all, uh having come back from it, which is which is like

1:43so long ago, November.

1:44Um exactly.

1:46Talk about holidays, periods, what people got up to, New Year's resolutions, ooh, themes.

1:52Um and uh and then also uh you know actually talk a bit about the podcast.

1:56and figure out um we have some awesome news on what our listeners listen to according to Spotify so stay tuned on that um uh for if you're if you're in if you were

2:05in for the stats.

2:06But but let me let me start Tim.

2:08So um how was your year both personally and professionally like as a as a sort of reflection on on what happened last year?

2:14Yeah, I think it was really good.

2:15Um I uh it's funny 'cause last year felt like uh I c I kind of the theme I would say that ended up being prevalent was I was preparing the way as it were.

2:25Um preparing the way for so many things.

2:27So preparing the way to get back into content.

2:30Towards the end of the year, I completely redid my blog.

2:33I literally rebuilt the back-end system using uh

2:37uh like a web platform called Gatsby which is React engine so I had to learn a bit of React development.

2:41You actually wanted a blog Tim.

2:42Yeah I actually wrote a blog.

2:43I actually wrote several unheard of.

2:47Yeah absolutely it was actually man I'm now's not the time to get into this but the TLDR is this.

2:51I just stopped blogging.

2:52I absolutely got really, really tired of blogging.

2:54It was just frustrating me so much.

2:56And it turned out that I was focusing too much on the mechanism of blogging.

3:00and not the actual, you know, blogging, you know, writing the content.

3:03And so I thought if I can shorten the time between writing and publishing to the point where literally what I write is just as is what is actually in the blog.

3:13then that would be sort of the dream system.

3:15And that's what I did.

3:16So I now write in something called Markdown, which is uh just a very simple way of writing notes and documents.

3:22in a much, much faster way.

3:23You can basically type something without ever having to reach for your mouse.

3:25So you just basically bash the keyboard and off you go.

3:28I moved to a system where the markdown can be written anywhere, my phone, my iPad.

3:32my laptop and then I changed I went downloaded all the old content I went and redid all that content I had to go through wow and re-put that content manually into the new

3:42system because there's no clean way of doing it.

3:44I did a bulk export but that still had issues.

3:46Repoint all the images so it also forced me to look back at all my old content which is an interesting

3:51reflective moment.

3:51And then I finally pushed the blog out like three days before I wrote the blog post on animations versus transitions.

3:58Which was which which was actually the first article back.

4:01But um I didn't really announce the website being coming back.

4:04It was just like a

4:05You know, one day it was there, one day it wasn't, and then next day it was the new website.

4:08So yeah.

4:09Excellent.

4:10Uh any sort of highlights personally, professionally, anything you want to call out and sort of review as as a as a twenty nineteen thing?

4:16Yeah, so I think

4:17Again, uh the highlight being sort of preparing the way.

4:20So I I moved a lot of systems, I moved a lot of sort of processes, at least personal ones, into a position that means that, you know, if if I want to play a more active role in in

4:28in terms of content, blogging, podcasting, I could do that in a you know, literally without having to worry too much about the process.

4:35So I even built a new PC over the Christmas holiday.

4:38So I can literally have a computer that's just for video editing, that's just for podcast editing.

4:42and gaming on the side.

4:43But yeah, I can have all that ready to go without having to sort of do it on sort of my slightly cumbersome laptop and stuff like that.

4:49So very much uh that professionally I think um I worked with a whole range of clients last year.

4:54It was really interesting sort of trans

4:55transition.

4:56Ended up finishing the year working for a charity, which is always interesting.

4:58You don't often expect to work in charities when you're doing consulting, but that's been a really sort of um rewarding experience as well.

5:04And then going into the new year, I'm hoping to really take on some big new challenges

5:09Which uh probably best left unsaid until they actually, you know, come through.

5:13But yeah, I hope if they if they pan out then uh this time next year it'll be a very different episode.

5:19Yeah, absolutely.

5:20Absolutely very different indeed.

5:22Yeah

5:22Yeah, yeah.

5:23Um how about you?

5:24Yeah, no, my my year was um it was good.

5:27I think uh so I I continue my transition away from consulting into this customer success role.

5:33Um I th I'm trying to find a way to nicely re because I sort of changed my job on LinkedIn, I want to re- change it again where it's the same job, but I just want to change the title to be value engineering.

5:43Oh wow.

5:43Because it's sounds a lot more technical because customer success can seem a bit

5:47uh flaky but it's it's one of these fun jobs where it's like well what it actually do you do?

5:50Um so my year was basically spending time on that which effectively is helping customers, speaking to people, evangelizing about the software we use, Tableau Altrics, AWS.

6:01And trying to figure out how do we help customers and sort of the wider community of of data people, right?

6:07Like how do we help people be better and sort of grow this field?

6:11together, which has been a really exciting move.

6:13Um I think uh Tim when we spoke about this uh randomly at some point I talked about the fact that it's sort of moving away from consulting which is very much solving problems with a definitive answer or goal in mind.

6:23Whereas in this case it's solving people.

6:25Uh which sounds like an authoritarian dictatorship thing to say we're we're solving people but sounds like a philosopher, yeah.

6:31Right, yeah, exactly.

6:32But you're trying to figure out how do I uh work with people and change hearts and minds and

6:37uh everyone's differences.

6:39It's been a really nice very challenge in that in that sense as well.

6:42Alongside that personally I I had a lot of the big milestone of joining the property ladder this year.

6:47Yes.

6:49So um yeah, no, that that's been a fun challenge for the last uh four to s four to five months.

6:54Yeah.

6:54Um but no, it's it's I'm finally settling into the to the new place and um it's quite cool to have your own space really.

7:01somehow.

7:01But yeah, that that's what that's already my I think in terms of my theme for the year, I guess it's been like um trying to to break new ground, I think is is the best way to put it where it's

7:12you're not r you have an idea of what it is, but when it actually pans out in reality, um thing things do turn out to be slightly different, which is which has been like around the role and when you when you when you have the idea of what you're gonna do and all the things you're gonna achieve and starting to do them you start picking up all the different

7:26different different challenges that come alongside that.

7:28But um no, uh the 2020 vision is more of the same and and a few exciting challenges ahead as well.

7:35Nice, nice.

7:35Yeah that that twenty the term 2020 vision is

7:38literally everywhere.

7:39Everywhere.

7:40Everyone loves it.

7:41Oh my word.

7:42The pun potential for that.

7:44Yeah.

7:44But no, no, it's uh it's a very fulfilling year then.

7:47It sounds like you uh you you kind of had the year I think I'm about to have

7:51But yeah.

7:53Yeah, right.

7:54Where it's sort you you're you're sort of doing the similar things here, trying to find out where this this new new direction takes you.

8:00Exactly.

8:00So yeah, I think it's yeah, I think it does sound like your year ahead.

8:03Yeah.

8:03How about how about Tab Berg Conference?

8:05How did you find that?

8:05I mean I I I was lucky enough to spend a week before traveling a bit as well.

8:09So um hit the Grand Canyon again

8:11Bryce, Zion, a couple of other places.

8:13So that was really good fun.

8:14Good.

8:15I recommend going, everyone should go to the Grand Canyon, uh Bryce and Zion uh national parks at some point in their lives because

8:21uh it's just breathtaking because it's it's sort of like at that point with nature it's this stuff is there before after and during our time so it's it's worth checking

8:30But the conference itself is in Vegas.

8:31Um your favorite place in America, right?

8:34Yeah, absolutely.

8:35You can hear the enthusiasm in my voice.

8:37It's it's it's uh it's a it's a difficult place, Vegas, because I think once you've been there once

8:42it loses all its glam very very quickly like every time you go back you see you start to see through the charades right and and you're like uh um but but uh I think it was actually a really good conference

8:55Um I really enjoyed each year sort of conference takes a slight twist.

9:00I think the one the twist most people are talking about this year was uh the CEO of Salesforce doing dolphin and project

9:06That was amazing.

9:07I'm actually going to insert the audio clip.

9:08Mark's cell phone number is a little bit more.

9:14That's pretty good.

9:15It's pretty good.

9:16So uh uh Mark, you know we we are today.

9:19It's so good.

9:20Like I I couldn't even begin to think how to do that.

9:23Exactly.

9:24And you just did it off the cuff, amazing.

9:26See yeah of a multi-billion dollar company

9:28gets on stage with his technically one of his new employees asks him how is Salesforce doing, like when when he's actually that person's boss, and then has the sort of relaxed nature to do dolphin impressions on

9:40stage.

9:41Very weird.

9:42But so many great connections again, once again.

9:45I just spend all my time talking to developers.

9:47Literally all my time talking to developers.

9:49Um so that was that was really rewarding and it's been great seeing some of those features actually come out.

9:55Um I think what was really revealing, we'll talk a bit about this later on, is that

9:59the the pace of development at Tableau is really picking up.

10:02And um I think one of the standout themes for me, and I I tried to edge some developers to see if I could get any earlier

10:08answers but with the Salesforce acquisition is that gonna change the focus of what they build?

10:12Is integration with Salesforce gonna take priority over new features or is Tableau gonna continue on its roadmap for you know scaling out to to sit

10:22of meet the enterprise needs.

10:23I think those two are gonna come at you know into friction because Salesforce traditionally right now with Tableau the interoperability is awful and you nearly always need something in between them

10:33to to get them to work.

10:33So that'll be an interesting take.

10:35We we talked a bit about this I think last year.

10:37I think we we we we said that you know the devs have got a new sugar daddy effectively, right?

10:40Exactly.

10:47Yeah.

10:47Near enough, whatever.

10:48Like you almost have that feeling.

10:49This is, by the way, no Intel.

10:51This is just us speculating about how developers work.

10:55But it's uh I agree.

10:56I think the the the direction that Tableau takes will be really interesting.

10:59But I think my favorite moment of well one of the many favorite moments this year in Vegas

11:03Uh was actually you found the guy you've been looking for for years, the UX designer, right?

11:07Yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:07So he's actually new for starters.

11:09He'd only been at Tableau for a week, but it's like the role that Tableau never had that really should have had this whole time.

11:14Uh

11:14Um so is a UX developer just joined Tableau and it was really really good to talk about.

11:18We literally sat down and he said tell me all about your UX problem and I was like okay you really you really don't know what you've just asked me to do right now So go on and let's uh let's have a seat and let's sit down

11:28About 17 bullet points later.

11:30And like I mean I I turned up at bullet point six and that was like 20 minutes in.

11:35Yeah, exactly.

11:36And like four pay four pages later

11:38Just so many small things that we all know Tableau could do better.

11:41And m my my point of reference is always because I spend a lot of time in design tools, so I still use Adobe Tools heavily.

11:47And it's interesting because Adobe know their audience.

11:49They know what they're trying to do.

11:50They know how they're trying to do it.

11:51They know they want to do it quickly.

11:53And they don't add features unless it helps them do that job faster and better and in a more performant way.

11:58And so

11:59Tableau at the moment is on a feature sprint, but it doesn't have that sort of UX focus where how you do those things matters just as much as having them there.

12:07And so it was really great to talk to this um uh sort of

12:10a new addition to Tableau and talk about the detail.

12:13Actually listen to the way they thought about it.

12:15And it's great because they're also new to the product.

12:17Right.

12:17So they're coming at it with a fresh perspective.

12:19perspective.

12:19I always think sometimes you talk to developers who've been at Tableau for a while, they start to think like the product because they kind of uh they've kind of been there a while.

12:27So they s you know, they've heard debates that have been had before.

12:30And so that stops them sort of rehearing that debate again and so on.

12:34I mean we we we we we also do that right me and you both it's very easy to get because we've used it for so long we we get sort of stuck in this way and we when we pick up other tools it's very easy to be like oh this isn't good picking

12:53Exactly.

12:54So so that's

12:55That was fun.

12:55No, that that sounds good.

12:56I mean TC was fantastic.

12:58Um, I think again, like I'm I echo what you say.

13:00It's it's very good to speak to um people who are doing interesting things and uh

13:05Um for me uh I met the there's a thing called the Tableau Blueprint that I've heavily worked on last year.

13:09Right.

13:09Um giving feedback throughout the year before it's released in in June.

13:13which is the strategy document that Tableau have created to help deploy um Tableau and Ash I think yeah well I've also used it for um other products and the concepts that are in there and all of these things the guy that actually wrote it I mean got to meet him and spent some time sping to him sort of getting a inside track.

13:28into that.

13:29And then also speaking to the certifications team I really enjoyed as well.

13:31Yeah.

13:32It's good.

13:33Yeah, it's it's fun, right?

13:34It's fun because you get to speak to these people and

13:36Uh I I think we're both at a point where we sort of catch up on sessions afterwards on the YouTube rather than attending them.

13:42Exactly.

13:43And uh we also did the hackathon with Andre, myself, and Lane.

13:46So that was good.

13:46We came an honorable second.

13:48Which was good fun.

13:49Uh I think we've got labeled the Cowboys for doing trying to do the most in the shortest amount of time.

13:54I think that's like a I don't know if that's a compliment or not, but uh no, it was really good fun actually.

13:58The the amount of energy for uh sort of development based

14:02you know capabilities and tableaus really really growing and that event really showed that off and just lastly on the point about blueprint I don't think there was anything at conference that didn't mention blueprint.

14:10I think every everything like

14:12From Adam Solipsky basically spent half an hour like spelling out what the blueprint was and how it works.

14:18Like first before anything else at conference.

14:20So I think that's that's really a testament to sort of some of the the work you've put in to kind of help beef that up and you know get some

14:26some of our customers involved with that, but also um it really shows how important Tableau really value that particular initiative because I think what they're realizing.

14:36Without s a strategy and clear defined vision, buying software is just

14:40You're spying software, right?

14:41Exactly.

14:42If you don't know how to use it, there's a point around it.

14:44Yeah.

14:45So yeah, I think that was a really, really interesting yeah, I think

14:48The year ended.

14:49Uh we finally we had a general election here in the UK.

14:51That probably well, depending on where you sit, yeah.

14:53But yeah, at least for you and me it didn't go the way we wanted.

14:56But hey ho.

14:56Um it is what it is.

14:58Uh still Brexit.

15:01Oh yeah, two weeks.

15:02We've been trying to leave Brexit now well.

15:03We're trying to leave EU for now three three and a bit years now.

15:06So it's just never gonna happen.

15:08Yeah, until until until until the end of this month.

15:12Anyway, well let's let's not let's not divulge politics too much.

15:14Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:15Yeah.

15:15So, um maybe it's a good opportunity just to review the episodes uh from last year, right?

15:20Right?

15:20What did we actually What did we actually talk about?

15:23So I've got a list of the shows.

15:25Uh we started off the year, um which is it, season two trailer, okay.

15:29Fine.

15:30Talked about Hyper.

15:31That was a really big thing at the time because Hyper had just come out in I think it just come out the

15:38Christmas before and we basically went into a year a year of hyper and we've we've sort of worked with it, we've played with it a lot more.

15:47I have to say it hasn't really developed into anything we can see other than

15:51than just being a data.

15:52There's an API now.

15:53Well yeah, uh yeah, there's an API, but in many ways you could still call that the Tableau Data Extract API.

15:59It's true.

15:59Like in all in all essence, you could have taken TDE, replaced it with hyper, and no one would really

16:05have noticed the difference.

16:06I'm still going back to that PowerPoint they showed us of all the things it's going to enable and we haven't seen too many of those just yet.

16:12So I think that's going to be an interesting one.

16:13I think maybe prep is using some of that

16:15hyper capability to work uh the way it is.

16:18But you know, always always wondering for Tableau, when is Tableau going to look at a database proper?

16:23You know, hyper is a database or designed to be a database.

16:26So the kind of elephant in the room is when will they actually make it a database?

16:30Well, it also, I mean, this is something that Salesforce could easily

16:34almost even spin out if they wanted to.

16:36Yeah, absolutely.

16:37Yeah.

16:38Exactly.

16:39Or implement it into different parts of of of the customer 360.

16:42Yeah.

16:43So that's gonna be interesting to see.

16:44I think uh as you mentioned, the the the the elements of of hyper we talked about the three sort of layers and I've only seen like one and maybe part of the second one being used.

16:54Um but it'd be really interesting to see where that goes this year.

16:56Um but that was I think that was a that was a heavy dry start to the year last year.

17:00Oh yeah.

17:01Um we went into hyper, then we talked about Viz literacy, which is actually uh you know, a general sort of discussion actually has come out about data literacy more

17:10broadly but um sure visualization literacy was a really sort of big topic about you know we what visualizations do people use do people actually understand what they are right and bearing that in mind how does that sort of

17:22of influencer choices you make when you build visualization.

17:25And I think I think I'm seeing evidence of this being becoming more sort of apparent.

17:29I think people are going for simpler

17:31and simpler chart types.

17:32I don't think they're deliberately doing it.

17:34I just think the community is gravitating towards a norm, if that makes sense.

17:39I think everyone has uh every everyone sort of knows the lines where it's got to that's why

17:44Everyone knows the lines of best practice, everyone knows the lines of um why charts are good, some charts are bad, and whether you're just doing things for iCandy.

17:51I think that's the big thing that's come out um very recently.

17:54Yeah.

17:54I I don't think biz literacy is talked about as much anymore.

17:57Um

17:58It's almost just become sort of dissolved into the the wider rhetoric where it's just assumed everyone knows that this is a thing, rather than calling out as an individual different um thing where

18:09uh a topic where it's focused on.

18:12Um so uh yeah I'm I'm not sure it's sort of an interesting one to to to ponder.

18:17I don't even think it will come back this year because

18:20I I almost think last year was a was an interesting year where people figured out that you don't actually when you when you invest in something

18:29The issue isn't that it's invested.

18:31I'm seeing this in the football analytics world.

18:33Every ever everyone's doing data and you do all this integrate, really deep, deep digging into the tracking data, all these things.

18:40And at the end of it, you sort of look at your top ten list and you see Messi at the top.

18:44It's like, just watch the video, like watch matches.

18:47Everyone knows Messi's the best player in the world.

18:48It's almost getting to that stage where either you're

18:52Your in-depth data is just giving you obvious answers that you can get from tacit know some knowledge that you already have, or it's getting to a point where people are realizing that in order to make these things work, you need to educate everyone into being

19:05just literate and data and viz and everything at the same time.

19:09You have to really just force this change upon people, otherwise, you know it

19:13It gets to a point where you know I think the the the number is like twenty or thirty percent of people just don't like work or don't work with data or don't like working with data in order to for this revolution to happen.

19:23It's just it's everyone has to.

19:25It's and it we're at the point where it's like guys big data's dead.

19:29It's it's everyone's got it.

19:30We we get it, but the reason it's not moving anymore is because people it's not embraced on mass

19:36Exactly.

19:36Yeah.

19:37And that is that is the um it's an interesting one because I think w it you know, these things tend to cycle.

19:44They tend to go up and down.

19:45So it's not trendy now, but it will become trendy again, um, at some point once.

19:50you know, someone in the community decides to focus in on it, like just like AI was and big data was, uh, it's gonna be one of those sort of passing trends.

19:58Um yeah.

19:59Natural language processing.

20:00This is more of a bit, right?

20:01So this is our one of after hyper, this is the second bit.

20:04I think it was a really interesting topic.

20:05Machine learning and sort of AI and predictive analysis.

20:09Those were sort of an ongoing conversation point.

20:11They always have been.

20:13But NLP is one of those areas where clients always ask for some sort of text processing or language processing.

20:19Sure.

20:20And as soon as you start the conversation, it immediately turns them off.

20:23So it's still one of those uh sort of areas I feel is almost exclusive to uh really advanced data scientists.

20:29Who really comfortable with what's required in terms of understanding how to do that, you know, technically capable individuals who actually understand how to do natural language processing and the philosophy

20:40behind it and principles and stuff like that.

20:42But also then comfortable turning that into real business value, right?

20:46How do you take a bunch of like random uh just stuff from lots of different places and mine it?

20:52The h the really true to form data mining, right?

20:54Right.

20:54Where you're basically just taking data in the language form and just finding insights from it.

20:59Yeah, I I think there's also industries which will benefit from it more than others.

21:04Yeah, exactly.

21:05Industries and specific tasks that you need to do.

21:07that will would need natural language processing.

21:10I think it's one of these things where I do you know what I actually think this is this is maybe a bit rogue, but the next five years is where Connected Home will really come into its own research.

21:21smart speakers.

21:22Right, right.

21:22Because smart speakers are having that the wearables revolution right now.

21:25And that's actually where natural language processing will probably have the most impact.

21:29Yeah.

21:29In in connected home in automation and and sort of the the the Java senior rooms.

21:35Yeah, I think it's having that necessary first step, which is just sort of proliferation.

21:40Proliferation, yeah, like literally for Christmas you could have got like a Google Home Mini brand new.

21:43So

21:44second genera for like a tenor.

21:45It's just unbelievable.

21:47So um uh it's it's really sort of fascinating how that's happening.

21:51But I think the next step is the so what and what can we connect into it?

21:55What can we

21:56what else can you do?

21:57At the moment mine are just glorified speakers um that are connected together and I can switch the lights on and off and I can do a few things, I can ask it silly questions, but it's you know, can I sh can I shout something into it and then have it control something?

22:10on my MacBook, not yet, because everything's not integrated enough.

22:14The Google, Apple, Amazon, you know, Windows systems are all not integrated with each other.

22:19And I think the platforms are starting to realize this.

22:21So they start

22:22to collaborate and give each other access to each other's systems because they've both reali everyone's realized that they don't make progress if they keep their s own systems closed to them.

22:30themselves.

22:30Man, like Connected Home is a is an episode onto itself, and I think that's something we're gonna do this year.

22:34But um just just to close off just to close off natural language processing, I'm I'm gonna uh my favorite uh current so in my Google Home Mini the my favorite one is to tell uh

22:44uh to tell Google, um I've got a I've got a script in IFTTT, which is if this then that, which basically if I call my Google assistant and say

22:52say a certain phrase, um it will then add something to my to-do list shopping list and then give a custom response.

22:58Uh so it's like three different phrases I can use to say add whatever or I need to buy this or something

23:03like that and then we just respond saying it's now on your shopping list or uh very fun that I've created it to do so nice um it's more stuff like that I think that natural language will will will shape

23:12um than so much data in data in general.

23:16Yep, absolutely.

23:18Then we had a couple of soft topics back to back.

23:21So we had champions firstly.

23:22And then that's when we also changed the name of the podcast, if you remember.

23:30to datum, which is a welcome change.

23:32But Champions was a good trick, great topic.

23:33I think this coincided a lot with the work I was doing at the time, so I think we've just made a decision to

23:39Let's talk about that.

23:40Exactly.

23:40Um and and sort of firing those champions and what that actually means um to a business.

23:44And then the one after that I think was

23:46Maybe my favorite one of the year.

23:48I really enjoyed talking about behavioral design.

23:49Right, right.

23:50Um Mainly because, of course, uh behavioral science, behavioral economics, and behavioral psychology

23:56uh three topics I'm really really interested in and of course design given the job that we both do um feeds into that quite nicely so I've really enjoyed that episode and I think it's definitely one we can um recap especially in the um an analogue section

24:10Absolutely, absolutely.

24:11Um after that came the data side hustle.

24:13So what you and I get up to outside of work.

24:15Um but the focus there was just, you know

24:18Going over how that reinforces the work we do.

24:20So essentially, you know, you and sports analytics, uh, myself and quantified self.

24:25Sounds like a

24:26uh the title of a book, Myself and Quantified Self.

24:28Myself and Quantif Myself.

24:29Oh copyright that fast.

24:32Copyright that fast.

24:33It's actually not that bad.

24:34But anyway.

24:34It's a rename number.

24:36Wow.

24:38We should cut this out so no one ever copies it.

24:40Like bleep it.

24:41Yeah.

24:42Until everyone just messages it back on Twitter and says that's an awful

24:45name.

24:45Yeah, right, exactly.

24:46But no, um it's actually a really good name for a book.

24:51Yeah

24:54It's like it's Andy's your version of um the the Feltron report.

24:57So to the those of you listeners who haven't heard of the Feltron report, uh Google it's a guy called Nicholas Feltron who uh just does this amazing, gorgeous quantified cell.

25:06Yeah.

25:07Reviews of his year.

25:09I've stolen his colour palettes shamelessly for some for some visualizations.

25:15because they're just it's just stunning.

25:16Yeah what you've done.

25:18So uh and then the final two of the year we had going back going back on topic uh away from um Tim's book probably

25:24publishing habits or desires.

25:26Was a hot take on Salesforce acquisition.

25:28It was a quick 20-minute one that we did.

25:30And then finishing off the year with AWS, which is something that Tim and I are learning.

25:35Tim's further along on his journey than I am.

25:38But sort of getting more stuck into the the cloud world.

25:40Mm-hmm.

25:41I've actually got my solution architect examples.

25:43Did congratulations.

25:45No, no, no.

25:45That was the cloud practitioner.

25:47This is the this is the actual exam that actually matters a little bit.

25:49little bit more.

25:50It's the way these companies have these exams is they have an exam just to kind of wet wet your appetite, make you feel good about yourself.

25:55Then they have another slightly harder exam which is like, okay, we're getting serious now.

25:59You you need to really

26:00spent some time in the product.

26:01Then they have the actual exam, which is like the exam.

26:05And this this exam about to do is like the one before that.

26:11Like I was in have so many exams.

26:13There's like I kind of got excited the cloud practitioner, but then I realized actually I think everyone who does analytics could

26:19probably pass this with you know a few few hours of focus revision a day maybe that's it you you should be good okay cloud gurus yeah hey cloud gurus that's a bit of an in-joke if you're doing the course uh I won't go into it here it's not the appropriate place

26:32But um if if you're uh oh man, if you're looking to get into AWS, just look at their certification tree.

26:39It's very rigid and it's very structured.

26:41But I think it's one of the things that's most rewarding, actually, if you manage to get through it, then it really does enable you to do

26:47do some really awesome things which don't just apply to analytics actually it applies to technology generally you can go into whole new sectors and careers with that

26:56skill because it's a very, very uh hard to find skill, highly sought after, and often focuses around sort of building products.

27:02So yeah.

27:03Yeah, no, it it's also free.

27:04There's a a lot of the training content and satisfaction content is free.

27:07Like there are tiers.

27:08Um

27:08Obviously the ones that Tim was mentioning here are the paid for ones, which you can just pay for yourself.

27:12But the actual learning materials online are in-depth and uh free of charge to play with.

27:17So uh if you're interested, do um have a look at the AWS.

27:20certifications.

27:22Absolutely.

27:22So it's a pretty interesting year of yeah.

27:24Varied year.

27:26It's funny because one thing I did midway through the year is I actually added all our podcasts to Spotify.

27:32So

27:32um and I know that you have been listening to Spotify because one thing Spotify does is it gives us metrics for the year.

27:38So considering I added the podcast in April, according to Spotify

27:43We've had about 52 listeners.

27:45Now, the thing here is that our podcast has always been on Apple Podcast first, and then various other podcast uh clients uh since

27:53Since then.

27:54So this is only sort of a small part of the picture.

27:56And Spotify technically only really represents about five percent of the listenership um globally of podcasts.

28:03Uh Apple Podcast itself actually represents seventy to sixty

28:07on average across all podcasts.

28:09So Apple users tend to listen to podcasts a lot more, partly because the device has a good podcast player, but also because the Android scene on podcast players hasn't actually been that good.

28:19And so these numbers, 52, is actually sort of underrepresent represents our listenership.

28:24I think the actual number of listeners we have is around about just under 100, so 90 or so.

28:28And the amount of sort of time listened and so on is is

28:31is you know I I can't really estimate that because analytics don't let us do that at the moment but it's very interesting because another thing that um Spotify do is tell us about our audience

28:43This is really fun.

28:44This is fun or creepy, depending on how you look at it.

28:46So uh let's let's dig into it.

28:47So I mean by the end of the year we had about 30 followers, which is good fun.

28:51Our gender split isn't ideal.

28:53We attract uh 31% of our listeners according to Spotify are female, 68% male.

28:58I think that's partly because we are both male hosts.

29:01So I think part of what we're hoping to do this year, bringing guests on will help address this a little bit more.

29:08Um

29:09In terms of age, we're s right smack bang on in our age range, so 28 to 34.

29:15Was it 28 to 34?

29:1628 to 34.

29:17Weird age range.

29:20Um but it's reassuring to see that actually for for younger angels the gender age split is actually a little bit better.

29:25So um yeah.

29:29Yeah, exactly.

29:29Yeah, we have we have a few listeners in the 0 to 17.

29:32Very aspiring uh listeners, I'd say.

29:35Um 18 to 22 uh is is is is nice to see as well.

29:39But broadly speaking, 23 to uh to basically 59 is the age range uh that has that.

29:46And then here comes probably the most

29:48funniest statistic uh of of them all which is what do our listeners listen to on Spotify?

29:54Like which artists do they listen to?

29:57This is where I'm not so thankful about the uh the 18 to 20

30:00But here we go anyway.

30:02Little baby is our most listened to artist.

30:07I didn't I've never even heard who Little Baby is.

30:09But I'm gonna just play a song.

30:19I can guarantee you if you my cash, you got everybody, you can imagine being all I know about little baby is he was in the news.

30:24before Christmas or around Christmas.

30:26That's all I know.

30:27Interesting.

30:27Interesting.

30:27But also looking at the the sort of geo geographies, uh we've only got four streamers on Spotify from the UK, right?

30:34Which is like, what the hell?

30:35Come on.

30:35That's basically you and me.

30:38If we listen on Spotify, I think this is a thing, right?

30:40I think Spotify as a podcast platform hasn't really taken off in the UK.

30:43Not yet.

30:44Not yet.

30:45Not yet, right, exactly.

30:46So it it

30:47It's quite interesting to see.

30:48Um, and then also there's a lot more in of our listeners who are listening to our podcast on um on Spotify in the US.

30:55Right.

30:55I think that's also a virtue of the fact that there are a lot of people that

30:58Exactly, exactly.

30:59And so that's I mean that's always gonna happen.

31:01Um these numbers kind of have a long tail.

31:04You know, uh we have one listener in pretty much every country in the world, Singapore, Malaysia, Netherlands.

31:09Brazil, Poland, you know, the list goes on and on.

31:11But um what's always a caveat to these numbers is that you know this is just a fraction of our listenership.

31:16Uh Apple Podcast doesn't do as good a job as we found out um reporting analytics according to Apple um

31:23podcast, uh it claims that two people listened to our AWS episode, which can't be true because I just I just know more people than that personally that I know have listened to our episode.

31:33said including my girlfriend and me.

31:38That's the two.

31:39Those are the two.

31:40But and she doesn't even have an iPhone, so it could have been Apple Podcasts.

31:45Um but then the other thing is that um I think what's what's what's gonna be really interesting is actually the amount of time listened is is really what we really care about.

31:52So

31:53People who are listening to the show, bits of the show, you know, and so on and so forth.

31:56That really, really sort of resonates with us.

31:58And actually I think the numbers hold out pretty good.

32:00I think on average people spent 20 minutes listening.

32:02to an episode, which is good.

32:04You start, you stop, maybe you've heard what you need to and you move on.

32:06Because of our format, you maybe just listen to the chunk you need.

32:09We put chapters.

32:11I'm not actually sure people use those, but if if you use chapters, you find it useful, please let me know

32:15Because it takes so long to add them in that if literally one person replies, and I'm really sorry for that person, I might just stop doing it.

32:21But hey, um, we'll we we'll get there.

32:23Um

32:24And then uh obviously we also started the season format before we just used to do episodes, but the season format also gave us an opportunity to kind of have a break, which I think was

32:34was needed.

32:35Never never planned breaks, but we have the bricks anyway.

32:37Yeah, yeah, yeah.

32:38So season three, I think we have a very different uh sort of approach.

32:41So maybe let's talk a bit about that.

32:43Sure, but before before we get into season three, I just want to say um I really want to know where people were listening to.

32:48If you're listening to our podcast, I really wanna sh um let us know.

32:51Uh tweet us like

32:52selfies, hashtags, whatever, right?

32:54Like uh our our Twitter handle is um at Datum Pod.

32:58We also have an email address um which is uh datumpod um

33:02at gmail.

33:03com.

33:03So uh email us, tweet us, whatever, whatever your chosen form of communication is, uh tag myself or Tim.

33:08I'm at scribbler underscore 42, Tim's at Tableau Tim.

33:12But we just want to know where you're listening to, what you're listening to.

33:14um how you're listening to it just to get a better idea so we have a a rough rough field of uh our listenership uh which is always cool to see.

33:21Uh we we mentioned passing the pod, so if you like the pod,

33:25Is that from Pizza Crash?

33:27Is that from Pizza Crash?

33:27That is from the Pizza Crouch podcast.

33:29What are you doing to me?

33:31Incre which is another fantastic podcast.

33:33Anyway, so

33:35Season three.

33:36Yeah, absolutely.

33:36What are we doing in season three?

33:38So uh we're gonna continue with bits and bytes.

33:40I think bits and bytes were great last year.

33:41That really helped frame and we had this sort of

33:44the more technical and then the more um discussion based um podcasts.

33:47Right.

33:48Uh we're gonna kick off the year this year with uh data ethics, uh which is a byte.

33:53That is with Gwillem Lockwood, one of our colleagues who has been really interested in death ethics for a while.

33:59This is the podcast we recorded.

34:00earlier on today.

34:02We've also got a couple more things.

34:04So we've got about nine episodes planned out with topic headers.

34:07And we also mentioned analog last year.

34:09Right.

34:10So analog was this concept where we're gonna get people.

34:12We're gonna actually have pin more people on.

34:14So Gwillem sort of falls into the um half analog but more of a bite.

34:20side of things.

34:20Um but in the analog podcast we want to we want to speak to people who are actually building stuff in the tech sphere.

34:26People who build the products we use, they build the feedback.

34:29features we like, people who are coming up with creative solutions to problems.

34:32So not just you know developers but also um people who hack, you know, people who really take something and add the develop or add some extensibility capability.

34:41To the product.

34:42And I think that's going to be a really interesting theme.

34:44So we have bits, bytes, and analog, uh, which are coincidentally three days.

34:49types but hey hey uh analog's gonna be fun I think because it's it's almost we get to speak about the the journey of becoming a dev because I've never seen a dev actually do work

35:00Right.

35:00So um I'm looking forward to hearing more about that.

35:03It sounded like you don't think they work, but I think you meant you've never you don't understand you've never seen the process of being.

35:08Yeah, exactly.

35:08Sorry, yeah.

35:11Everything I've heard from devs is just me shouting at them being really good.

35:13Yeah, right.

35:14If they're talking to you, whether they're working.

35:15Yeah, exactly.

35:16No, but um that it's just that entire process, right?

35:19Like they're using documentation, using things like GitHub, using different processes, what is the impact of the uh groupthink discussions they have, how do they do UXL?

35:28just so much to speak to these guys about.

35:30And we're not just going to be speaking to people who are developing and um sort of innovating in the in the data and tech sphere.

35:36We're also going to be talking to people who are innovating and doing cool stuff in other spheres.

35:41So for example

35:42uh productivity is one that's quite exciting to both of us.

35:45Uh or interesting to both of us rather than exciting.

35:48Um and and sort of all of these different other peripheral topics that we're interested in, finding the experts and finding just a little bit more more about those things and how they as human beings.

35:58Yeah, exactly, exactly.

35:59We should um I think we're gonna hit some really sort of really interesting sort of content and it's gonna take us a little bit off track as well because

36:06It gives us an opportunity to talk about people, which I think is is going to be in really important focus as we go into the new year.

36:11I think we often as a community spend too much time uh talking about the product and actually we don't take enough time to focus on

36:18people and the side effect of that is you don't really sometimes understand the diversity the community has to offer.

36:23And so by focusing on people we hope to have some sort of way or mechanism of uh being able to uh sort of highlight that

36:30Yeah.

36:31Yep, absolutely.

36:32Um so that's the plan for the year.

36:34Uh it's gonna be quite exciting.

36:35We're gonna do our best to keep on top of the podcast this year.

36:38I think um

36:39What was it?

36:39We got uh eight or seven and a half out last year, so that's that's a that's a target to beat this year.

36:44Well we're we're already uh what two uh three episodes in basically so Yeah, right, exactly.

36:49So we're starting off strong.

36:51Yeah, exactly

36:52Exactly.

36:53All right.

36:53And I think I think that was it.

36:54This is a very brief episode, but just wanted to give you an update, let you know what's coming up, introduce you to the new season, season three.

37:00Um I I also just while we're here while we're here, I think uh how long have we been doing this podcast?

37:05Um

37:05Let me see.

37:06The first one is Jan 2018.

37:08So it's actually our third anniversary almost.

37:11We're going into our third year.

37:13And it's awesome.

37:13I think it was it's really could have it's been a really fun time podcasting with you.

37:17Oh thank you.

37:19I think our actual first podcast wasn't in January, it was before that, but I forgot to press record as you recall, say.

37:24Right, yeah, so it was it was sometime in like November.

37:30In your old place in Colchester.

37:32Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

37:33I forgot to press record.

37:34Awkward.

37:35Amazing.

37:36Um yeah, no, it's but it's it's good.

37:38It's good.

37:38Um no I've I've enjoyed.

37:39I think um

37:41where we we spoke about wanting to do oh well I m I spoke that I mentioned that I wanted to do a podcast and it sort of what it went from there we we just yeah it's it's been great to discover these topics and and and uh almost curate our conversations.

37:52I think that was the main

37:53Main thing we're spending many train journeys back back to East Anglia just talking.

37:57It's like we should just do a podcast so we can actually refer to these and exactly speak about these in them more flick.

38:02Exactly.

38:02And so yeah, I look forward to the year and uh I'll catch you in the next one.

38:06Nice one.

38:06Take care everyone