# S3 E4: Analogue: Kent Marten, Lead Product Manager, Maps and Spatial Analysis for @Tableau

> 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:** 2024-04-22
- **Format:** Video · 44 min watch · transcript available
- **Topics:** Data visualisation, Industry trends, Career
- **Tools:** Tableau (buffer, maps, parameters, spatial functions)
- **Canonical:** https://just-tim.com/posts/s3-e4-analogue-kent-marten-lead-product-manager-maps-and-spatial-analysis-for-tableau
- **Watch:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KgnD99lQpw

In the first 'analogue' episode of season three, I sit down in Seattle with Kent Marten, Lead Product Manager for Maps and Spatial Analysis at Tableau. We talk through the new buffer feature, the history of spatial development in Tableau, how product, engineering and research roles fit together, and how Kent went from a summer job in the British Virgin Islands to building mapping tools.

## Key takeaways

- Tableau's spatial roadmap was built on pillars: making spatial a native type, connecting to spatial data sources, enabling spatial joins via intersects, then proximity tools like make point, make line, distance and buffer.
- Buffer (distance-driven analysis) plus the earlier distance function now work across any data source, including spatial joins between a CSV and an Excel spreadsheet of lat/long points.
- Kent distinguishes the roles clearly: the product manager owns the 'what' and 'why', engineering owns the 'how', and research and design validate user experience throughout.
- When reporting a suspected bug, recreate it in a sample workbook, validate with peers, and share annotated screenshots or video so everyone is reasoning off the same context.
- Maps can mislead because large, sparsely populated areas dominate the view by area rather than by the value they represent, so choose the right visualisation rather than letting area distort the story.

## Chapters

- 0:00 Introducing the analogue format and Kent
- 1:31 Shipping the buffer feature
- 3:17 Naming features and community reaction
- 7:24 History and cadence of spatial features
- 10:45 Deciding when to build something
- 12:28 Roles: PM, engineer, researcher
- 14:00 Staying in touch after shipping
- 17:20 Giving good product feedback
- 21:02 How a PM gets work done
- 25:17 How Kent got into mapping
- 30:52 Innovation, AI and tool diversity
- 35:57 Pet peeves and maps that lie

Watch the full video, read the transcript and use chapter deep-links on the page: https://just-tim.com/posts/s3-e4-analogue-kent-marten-lead-product-manager-maps-and-spatial-analysis-for-tableau

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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