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Tableau | Industry trends | Tool strategy | Community

S4 E1: Byte: 2020 in review and the year ahead

Tableau has never built a flagship feature for the viewer — and that's the reckoning coming in 2021.

Tim Ngwena •22 April 2024 •1 min read •68 min watch •4

Video and blogs win on accessibility and measurability over books: YouTube hosts and streams content for free, and you can actually track which segments people watch and find useful.
The big 2021 prediction is a 'reckoning' over whether analytics is a first-class business function or, like IT, a service that supports the core business — and Tableau is increasingly being positioned to serve a wider ecosystem.
Tableau has never shipped a flagship feature built specifically for the viewer, despite viewers being the largest and most expensive part of an enterprise licence; features like Ask Data and Explain Data hint at where viewer-first products could go.
Tableau's user base has fractured into distinct groups — IT integrators, creators, viewers and governance-minded CIOs — and Tableau should split teams to solve for each, the way YouTube serves viewers and creators differently.
The Gartner report's value isn't its quadrant position but the rare chance to discuss objectively whether Tableau meets its customers' needs, since no analyst can be a true expert across every non-standardised tool.

0:00Hello and welcome to Datum.

0:01This is episode one of season four.

0:03Ravi, how you doing?

0:04I'm good.

0:05We're at season four now, Malk.

0:07Like

0:07Going back to what was it, you when you're in your car recording one of the podcasts?

0:11More to the point when you came over and I forgot to hit the record button.

0:15Oh, yeah, exactly.

0:16The the first episode

0:18That was a lost tape.

0:19And we've got a second lost tape to add to that for 2021, right?

0:22We do have a second lost tape.

0:24Oh god, nightmare.

0:25So for context, um everyone listening, we actually recorded an episode just before Christmas.

0:30We did a whole year in review.

0:32It then took me about a month and a half to actually get to editing it.

0:36At which point I realized that my audio

0:39had uh some sort of feedback in it and it was just impossible to edit the feedback.

0:44Just proper crazy.

0:44Yeah, exactly.

0:46Actually a really interesting theme of all my tech recently.

0:48All the audio issues seem to just be

0:50popping up.

0:51Really stable gear, been using it for a while.

0:53Just premium gear, I'd say Tim.

0:55Yeah, I know.

0:56Exactly.

0:57I'm I'm personally very disappointed with some of it.

1:00But I think it's to do with USB C and USB hubs and all that jazz.

1:04So

1:04I now connect the mic directly into the Mac and um yeah, we get a nice clean audio.

1:08I won't talk to you soon.

1:09I have a backup recording for today, so excellent.

1:13Exactly, so yeah.

1:15How you?

1:15I'm t I'm alright, I'm alright.

1:16It's um we've got some dates lined up for when things are easing and

1:20phasing back to normality, vaccines are going out.

1:23So I'm optimistic, but yeah, no, it's um very much in the grandhog day stage of things.

1:27Um it's been a busy start to the year, I think, for me, especially um with work.

1:32Uh which has been keeping me busy.

1:34Um lots of football on.

1:35I mean when you when you're working across ten clubs and you've got four seasons click kicking off simultaneously and so many competitions, it's um yeah, lots going on.

1:45Yeah, it's a g it's uh it's nice to still have some sport back actually.

1:48In the first lockdown, I remember no sport was going on because we didn't really know, and I think there's just nothing to watch.

1:53So

1:54Sport is a little bit of normality.

1:56At least we can sort of cheer on our F1 teams, our football teams, whatever you follow.

2:00And even cricket.

2:02I saw some scenes of

2:03uh cricket in India with what looked like very like, you know, full on normal crowds.

2:07That was very sort of bizarre sight to see.

2:09Yeah.

2:13It's been a good couple of series actually.

2:16I won't get too deep into it.

2:17But yeah, they've got um 10% or 25% capacity in the stadiums.

2:21Only for cricket though, so uh the the Mumbai FC team um that that the City Foot Group have, they've not been able to have um fans in.

2:28So it's quite strange, yeah.

2:31Okay.

2:32Wow.

2:32Is there any particular logic behind that or is it just No idea.

2:36No idea.

2:36Um might be local government because it of course India's quite big and you've got state state lide legislation as well as sort of government regulations.

2:44So

2:44All right, fair enough.

2:45Good, good, good.

2:46How about you?

2:47How how are things?

2:47I mean, obviously uh with the little one Yeah, newborn and everything, just adjusting mostly, uh to be briefly honest.

2:54Uh I think most of the parenting is just about adjusting, isn't it?

2:58There's no there's no like um like if you ask most parents how they're doing, it's always, ah yeah, coping.

3:04surviving or you know those kind of terms right uh but all really really good to be honest again I I you know I'm really grateful um you know that I think COVID hasn't affected me too much um uh

3:14And been able just to stay safe, family safe.

3:16So I haven't I haven't had any sort of immediate um challenges per se.

3:20So that's good.

3:21And actually more time to be at home.

3:22So that's uh that's been good, more time to make videos as ever.

3:25So yeah, of course I'm I'm quite chuffed about that.

3:28Yeah.

3:28So yeah.

3:29But yeah, no, because a I mean in the in the previous loss tape year and r we did a little bit of a year in review, right?

3:35So

3:35Right.

3:35Like obviously you've hit a few fair few milestones recently, right?

3:38So you've got you hit ten 10k subscribers, um, having good kids, um and then yeah, and then and then most recently became a Tableau Zen master.

3:47So big congratulations.

3:50Yeah, no, it's nice.

3:51It's nice to get the um uh recognition um although you don't do it for that, uh you know.

3:56Um it's it's a very interesting sort of program to be part of and I I very much think of it that way.

4:01I'm not a Zen Nestor, I'm just part of the program

4:03So that's um that that's sort of how I feel.

4:06And um yeah, I'm looking forward to collaborating with other Zen Masters and whatever they're doing, whatever the endeavors they get up to.

4:12I think uh this uh obliges me to write a book um asking why you haven't written one yet.

4:17So Yeah, right.

4:18Then that's it almost feels like a right of passage, right?

4:20You you get Zen and then you're gonna be able to do it.

4:21It is starting to be Yeah, it's starting about six months later

4:26It's starting to be.

4:27I I man, I I've got so many views on books.

4:30I don't know if it's just me, um, but yeah, I'll I'll probably do a video um a little at some point on on you know why I make videos and don't write blogs and

4:39Yeah, I just yeah, I think up my issue with books is I actually don't think they're accessible as they claim to be.

4:45And I know that sounds like a really bold claim.

4:48Um, but I mean that in as much as accessibility in terms of, you know, consuming content and making it pleasurable and easy for s for people to do.

4:56And also in terms of who can actually afford to buy those books and actually consume them and cheaper.

5:04Yeah, exactly.

5:05Um and the knowledge in them is often actually knowledge that's already on blogs and often it's just been curated into one place.

5:11But I always say that

5:13If that's where the value is, then I think we need to strive to find better curation tools rather than putting it behind some sort of barrier, which is a book or something.

5:21something like that.

5:22I th I think I largely agree.

5:23I think it's a book is a good aggregator, right?

5:25When you're thinking of aggregating knowledge and compiling, almost like you've got a very specific audience in mind or very specific user or reader in mind.

5:33And you're saying, right, I'm I'm building this for this this set or subset of people.

5:37Um and it's it's gonna allow them to have a one-stop shop.

5:41Now, I think my my fundamental issue with books

5:44Is I mean it's a great thought experiment in and do I mean I guess you own some data data and data and data vis books.

5:51I do, I do, I've bought some.

5:52Um I don't consume them.

5:54I don't can see them in full, so it's weird.

5:57I I have them I have them I have them either through association or uh out of a sense of obligation.

6:04If that makes sense.

6:06I am gonna have this book.

6:08I'm gonna use it.

6:09Everyone's talking rave about it.

6:11And when someone references it again, I will put it out the shelf and I will use it.

6:16Yeah.

6:17But rarely do people reference them and rarely do I look through them and I think, oh yeah, like that thing, you know.

6:24My man my mind doesn't just think to open the book and go reference something.

6:27My mind is not the kind of person who

6:29consumes a book and then waits to deploy the knowledge.

6:31So um I guess it doesn't suit me.

6:33But also I'm dyslexic.

6:34So a book is like the worst thing you could possibly get.

6:38I am there I do have a bias in that sense.

6:40So yeah that's I've got to say that.

6:41M my my sort of view is

6:44Um I just feel bad because like obviously I've got a bunch of books on my my bookshelf and the only one I've really truly read almost cover to cover, not quite cover to cover, is Carl Nuss Balmer Netflix um storytelling with data.

6:58Um for it's he's easy to read, it's accessible, and most importantly, it's short.

7:03Because I just feel bad about like the books that are that thick, I'm sort of gesturing on the camera, which is useless on a podcast, right?

7:11A thick-ish book about 200, 300, 400 pages.

7:14And it's like packed with knowledge.

7:15And you've you just know the authors, author authors have spent so much time curating and editing and getting the wording just right.

7:24Yeah.

7:24But it's like but you know how how many people truly are reading it cover to cover.

7:28And and and maybe maybe it's maybe I'm being cynical, you know, that there is a audience for this and of course there is because books sell, but

7:34I I think I think there is there has to be a better way of doing it and there has to be a more of a pull towards the content that you create in a book.

7:41Um or even like a collection.

7:43Um

7:44Yeah.

7:45But you know, um I don't think you can't I I don't think you should expect a book from me um for a while if it's me neither.

7:52Me neither.

7:52Oh wait, oh for a while.

7:54Okay, cool.

7:54And uh yeah, me neither.

7:56I I you know, I just think that so at least for me and what I do and what I like to do and I want to do, I look at the analytics from what I do and everything I do is in some way measurable.

8:09I I can actually tell you how many people watched a segment of a video and found it useful.

8:14And in terms of that feedbook look of if you're going to put content out into the community, where do you want to spend your time?

8:20You need those kind of small signals rather than just sort of a feet putting out

8:23air in the wind.

8:24Okay, sometimes you you get lucky, you do something and it just takes off and everyone gets it and that's fine.

8:29Yeah.

8:30But you know, people always ask you, well, how much impact are you making on these things?

8:34And actually

8:35you know, I think for me, video, uh, arguably blogs to an extent if you really go into Google Analytics and you really actually sort of pay attention to that kind of stuff, maybe to an extent that, but to me a video is just just just ticks so many boxes in terms of

8:48of accessibility got YouTube who hosts the video for you.

8:52That literally is literally the biggest value of YouTube.

8:56People don't understand how hard it is to put a video on the internet and then stream it to someone.

9:02Like my Tableau Explainer has had nearly 200,000 views.

9:07Now the hosting cost of that video to stream 200,000 plays of that video, I could not afford that.

9:15I could not afford that.

9:16But YouTube can.

9:18And so that is just a an amazing way of getting something out.

9:22And it takes care of even streaming it.

9:24It's shit quality.

9:25great quality, all these different things.

9:27Like it just handles all of that for free.

9:29And that is an amazing vessel for knowledge.

9:31So yeah, I really, really big appreciative of that.

9:34So yeah.

9:35I'll do a video on why I make videos.

9:36I think I'm making a video about how I make videos, but I an important part of that is why.

9:42So I'll think I'll split that

9:44So so the way that I share content is almost like blogs and maybe a couple of tweets

9:51And 90% of the time I blog is for my benefit or like the the just a reference point.

9:56Um I've done I've done a couple of pieces of medium recently with that which are just longer reads.

10:01But that's more of the structured thought.

10:03I think the the key for again the key for me is you can read at your own leisure, you can control F a blog post and it's indexed somewhere.

10:10Right.

10:10Right.

10:11And it's it's it's it's the access for me, right?

10:13It's the access.

10:14Yeah.

10:15To your point, like it's not exclusive to the people that have the print copy.

10:19Yeah.

10:20Exactly.

10:21Exactly.

10:22So yeah, I I think there's some challenges.

10:23I hope Salesforce can add some value to Tableau on this front.

10:26Um I saw the redesign of the community pages for for uh Tableau.

10:30That was that was interesting and good.

10:32Although uh to your point I've forgotten about it already.

10:34Like um you know I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not going back there again.

10:38It's not like bookmarked anywhere and But I think the the the additional thing there is it's not really for you, right?

10:44Like you you gotta remember that a lot of the things that Tableau do now that operate at scale

10:49Um is not for us.

10:50For me and you who are um somewhat plugged into the matrix and arguably, Tim, uh front ten rows, right?

10:57Like

10:58We are that cheering 1% or 5% at the front of the conference, uh cheering on everything they do, right?

11:04Whereas you know the community the community page and in fact some of the features and maybe we will come onto this in a bit.

11:09um are aimed and designed for the many, not the few, right?

11:13Like for for the masses of people who see Tableau as a tool on their desktops.

11:19Yeah.

11:19And ultimately for for for the salespeople of Tableau, right?

11:22So

11:23Tableau is one of their key selling points, of course, the community.

11:26It's one of the reasons Salesforce cited they they purchased the product or the company.

11:32And you know, for for a long time there wasn't a, there was like Big C, which is the community at large, and then the forums.

11:37Right.

11:37And then this sort of aggregates it together in a really nice way, I thought.

11:41So yeah.

11:43I I'd be interested to see, I'd really love that to become a hub.

11:46You know, I'd love to see them reach out to, you know, make over Monday and say, hey, could we create a space for you on the forum where people can actually

11:54Take part as a community with Tableau Public fully integrated.

11:57You put your data source here and it's already in public and all the visas related to that Makeover Monday are tagged.

12:02You know, that to me would be like

12:04But you know, next level really smart way of anticipating it.

12:08Yeah.

12:08Um, you know.

12:11To that point, I've um recently they sho uh showcased their data repository.

12:15Uh I don't know if you heard about this.

12:17So

12:18This is Tableau sharing data sources ready to go for Tableau online users.

12:22Um I think this goes back to your point of what was it in the last podcast, made the one after the the conference.

12:27We said the best experience for Tableau in next three years will be Tableau Online, right?

12:32And then this is almost edging towards that and giving you more carrot to be like, well actually maybe I should be using the browser.

12:38So

12:39100%.

12:40And I think you can translate that repository across the public and you've got a data.

12:45world-esque experience where it's hosting and allowing for collaboration.

12:50Yeah.

12:52Interesting and allowing for collaboration.

12:54Yeah.

12:57Is Tab, I just need to add those sort of last

13:01holding out points for uh features in the browser and also a little bit more clarity about the journey from tableau server on-premise to tableau online because that's not often been a path that's

13:12are commonly discussed, right?

13:14But normally the discussion goes the other way, tableau online, Saturday server, because online has always been the lesser citizen.

13:19But now going the other way

13:21Um, I think it actually poses more challenges, right?

13:23Because you have all these nasty inconsistencies of running Tableau Server on-prem, and somehow you have to put them into this uh actually quite well-oiled machine that is tabloid online.

13:32Um I say well all machine.

13:34The thing is, uh someone was saying to me, Oh, but you always get these status updates that it's down and so on and so forth.

13:40I was like, yeah, exactly.

13:40Oh

13:41I know when it's down.

13:43In your organization, I bet you don't even know a tenth of the time when your server is down.

13:47Because you why would you know about it?

13:49Why would they tell you about it?

13:56Let you build it as sort of weird perception.

13:58So I love the transparency that you actually know when Tableau Online is down and that

14:02You're not doing something silly.

14:03And you can go back and see a history of all the issues, what the issue was.

14:07Actually really clear, you know, the trust.

14:10tableau.

14:10com.

14:10That page gives really clear sort of guidance at least for why something broke or what is broken or what's not working.

14:16you know so I that that to me is again just another example of where the experience is better even when things aren't going well.

14:22Um so yeah I think I think we

14:26I think we talked about this in again the the lost tapes pod, but we talked about um we didn't make any prediction for 2020, right?

14:32We looked back and I think the only thing we said was

14:34Things might be different if things go well this time next year.

14:38And that was in reference to you potentially moving to the States, right

14:42Right, right.

14:43And and that that's not gonna happen anytime soon.

14:45That's not happening at a time state at all.

14:48So and like in what actually happened was I left the information lab, I moved on.

14:54Um

14:55And you had a kid and got engaged.

14:59So it's like, well, yeah, I mean we we are in a very different place to where we were last year, but I think it's also a good place to

15:05Um to almost start breaking prediction for 2021.

15:08So we can truly look back and actually have some some key checkpoints.

15:11So yeah.

15:12You can start off like what's your first prediction for this year will be?

15:16Uh for data and tech, I guess, is is a good place to start.

15:19Oh man.

15:21I think the reckoning is is here.

15:23Like the reckoning.

15:25The reckoning.

15:27It was a really interesting discussion about whether analytics is a first class function in a business context.

15:33whether it's a second-class citizen amongst other things that happen in an enterprise context.

15:38And this is in the context of the discussion of Power BI being bundled in and amongst, you know, lots of other Microsoft services.

15:45and where it sort of sits in that thing.

15:47Because in that world, um, I mean, at least from what I hear, I don't hear lots of Microsoft Power BI people being upset about

15:53that right they're quite happy that Power BI is part of this massive ecosystem.

15:57Whereas I think on the other side of the wall, people often talk about Tableau being like, oh well, if you value

16:03the the way that Power BI is bundled and you don't take analytics seriously.

16:07And I was like, well, do businesses actually take it seriously?

16:11You know?

16:11And and that's that to me is like what I think this year is going to be about.

16:15That reckoning is coming, right?

16:16And I think we're going to see businesses saying, yes, it's important, but actually the thing we do, the core of our business is this.

16:23And analytics is only a function that serves that.

16:26And

16:27The reckoning will be how that st that how that places things like Tableau or products like analytical tools and so on in context of other tools that companies buy and the priority and preferences that those those things decide.

16:40Oh this is hilarious.

16:41So you you this is almost like you've given me my next controversial blog post, right?

16:47You like like why analytics doesn't matter, right?

16:51Like why analytics is a second class citizen.

16:54'Cause I think I I I'm I'm of the opinion that it's it's almost like IT, right?

17:02Like you you you don't like you can think of IT as a function, but we all use IT, right?

17:06Like we all we all use

17:09the services and the sort of net that and the pro provision that um IT provide us in our organizations.

17:16Now

17:17Similarly, everyone uses analytics.

17:20It's just whether they are the the coders, whether they're setting up the security services.

17:26How involved they are is dependent, right?

17:28So thinking of analytics as a second-class synthesis.

17:31It's like, well.

17:32Th the the you always go back to the early 2010s where Tableau coming onto the scene

17:40Is this punk rock amazing garage band organization that's telling you you know what?

17:47You don't need ITTO analytics.

17:49You shouldn't even be in there rematch.

17:50You should be doing analytics yourself.

17:52Here's how we're going to help you set up a server under your desk so IT doesn't know about it.

17:55Here's here's us giving you giving you access to these licenses and to Tableau Public to get involved.

18:00Like Nyeg, like rebel against the man.

18:03And now we're at it we're at 2021.

18:06Where's A part of a bigger behemoth called Salesforce?

18:09And B

18:11Their Tableau almost is going hat in hand to the same IT professionals that it pissed off by opening up holes for security issues, by telling them that IT isn't required to do analytics.

18:23And they're like, well actually we we kind of care about what we do because a lot of what we want to do is integrate analytics into the processes.

18:29And where do processes live?

18:30They live in IT.

18:32Um

18:33So I'm in I'm in this weird position where I'm almost being like, well, what Power BI and Microsoft do makes sense.

18:40It's so convenient.

18:41And when you're working at scale, convenience is so important, right?

18:44So yeah, yeah.

18:45If if you're cobbling tableau together, you you need and you're working within an environment that's got

18:50a bit of Microsoft and you know a couple of other specialist products.

18:54You want to be able to integrate all of your identification IT services into that, right?

18:58Like without having to create pipelines using APIs

19:02and using something like Zapio in between, uh, or even power apps to just hook in something on some other things, right?

19:08So um I think that's something the Tableau leadership sought because otherwise why else would they push forward with the Salesforce acquisition?

19:16Of Tableau.

19:17Like Tableau could only have seen itself being stronger in and amongst a bigger ecosystem.

19:23And that by definition means that

19:25you know, at least the placement of Tableau um makes it something that serves a greater purpose, right?

19:33And I think there's nothing wrong with that.

19:34There's nothing wrong with sort of

19:36you know, that that value judgment a at all.

19:38It it it's it's fine for it to be a second rate citizen.

19:41The difficult thing is I think for too long we've built our tableau infrastructure

19:46expecting the rest of the business world to build themselves around it.

19:49So here's Tableau.

19:51Land and expand, baby.

19:52Land and expand.

19:54Uh let we build a server.

19:57Here's our infrastructure, here's how it works, here's an API to plug yourself into.

20:01By the way, can I do this?

20:03No, we do it this way.

20:04Um can I do this?

20:05No, we do it this way.

20:06Um what about CICD pop-ups?

20:08Can't do that.

20:09Um okay, what about um you know changing the setup of my server whilst it's on?

20:13No, sorry, you gotta take it down, back up, restart.

20:16Okay.

20:16Cool.

20:16Um, you know, all these things, and now suddenly the that conversation has just changed.

20:21Suddenly, you know, you're seeing Tableau explore more of the things they used to say no to, it's all of a sudden, um, because that is now the big requirement, especially from guess what.

20:30competitors like Power BI and so on and so forth.

20:33So um it's an interesting world.

20:35Um I always say I wish someone like AWS bought Tableau.

20:40Um only because only because, you know, you look at Power BI and look by Microsoft who have Azure.

20:46And so you see a natural relationship with something like AWS and Tableau.

20:50because you don't have many uh well you do have lots of customers who use Microsoft and AWS cloud infrastructures, but

20:58But if they're using Power BI, it's highly unlikely they're going to be using many of the database services that you find on AWS and so on and so forth, because they'll have invested in Azure most likely.

21:08And so that is a natural opportunity for Tableau to reach a new market of people.

21:12uh through AWS.

21:14Um, you know.

21:15Um, so yeah, uh it's it's just an interesting thing.

21:18But that that that's that to me is like my big prediction.

21:20This year we start to see

21:22Things either fall into place or start to get seriously challenged.

21:26And I think for us in this field, I think it's I think we as professionals in this community really have to be ready for this change.

21:34Yeah.

21:34Because

21:35It's coming to us, not the other way around.

21:37Like for a long while, we've gone to many parts of the businesses uh to say, hey, we can change the way you work, blah, blah, blah.

21:43And for me

21:46Uh now the conversations turn.

21:48Business is coming to us asking us, why can't you do this?

21:52Why isn't this done?

21:53You know, you told me this would be easy and great.

21:55Why am I still manually doing these things?

21:57You know, how can I automate this stuff?

21:59Sorry, you can't.

22:00Okay, great.

22:00You know, all these challenges are going to come back to us, and we need to start getting very critical about how we appraise Tableau on the features they do and don't resolve.

22:09We can't get excited about new desktop features.

22:12Because that is one part of the story, but it's a very small part of the bigger story, which is about business integration.

22:19Absolutely.

22:19I think to to that point, again, in the in the lost tapes, we we talked about the um

22:25Tableau view and not never getting any love.

22:26Right.

22:27Like the the majority of users at an organization, if you're enterprise wide, are gonna be those

22:342,000, 3,000, 5,000, 10,000 viewers.

22:37When was the last time Tableau had a flagship feature aimed at viewers?

22:41Never.

22:42Because it's always been server admins or desktop users.

22:46Or neat niche niche use cases like

22:48the SAP connector that seems to always get some level of improvement.

22:51Um no one really knows what it is, right?

22:54It's like SAP hand improvement.

22:56Exactly.

22:56Yeah, I I I I'm of the I'm of the firm opinion, and I don't mean this in any sort of critical way, but I'm of the firm of the opinion that Tableau don't have a product for the Tableau viewer.

23:06It just happens to have a bunch of other features that are

23:09uh accessible to the viewer, but they're not products built for the viewer that start with a viewer's perspective of the world, right?

23:15Creator has a great time and experience uh experience with um uh tableau because if you go literally go on the pricing page and look at the matrix of features

23:23And their ticks across each column for creator, explorer, and viewer.

23:27Now many of the reasons you talk about Tableau are in the creator and explorer column.

23:31Yeah?

23:32None of them are in the viewer column.

23:34So

23:35The thing you spend the most money on, yeah, is a thing that doesn't have any of the benefits that you currently spend money on Tableau on.

23:42Right?

23:42If you just take that license.

23:43I actually preferred the old model, where it was a core-based license.

23:46And actually you could sell the features because it was one big sort of offering, right?

23:50But by going down the subscription rate, I can very, very clearly ask, hey

23:54I'm paying a lot of money for essentially a CMS.

23:57What value is the eleven dollars a month per user per month getting me, right?

24:01Like what is that eleven dollar figure, right?

24:04And not just that, you say that, but actually if you take look at a 4,000 person estate, it's not just $11.

24:10It's actually what value am I getting for the majority of what I'm paying here, right?

24:15Um because you oh I hear you on all these features for the creators and explorer.

24:19They're great.

24:20Oh I love it.

24:20But hey, hold on.

24:22I'm spending, you know, three and a half thousand of my viewers right here.

24:26I'm paying eleven scale

24:28That is my biggest cost in this whole license.

24:31What are they getting?

24:32What additional value are they getting?

24:34Other than the the improved quality of what you know people can build for them.

24:38Um and I think the customers is

24:40I think customers are seeing that as well.

24:41Like I remember having conversations the last 18 months while when I was at the information lab, where you almost start to see

24:48businesses tighten their belts and be like, we're spending a fair bit of money on tablet.

24:52Can we how much money do we get back?

24:54Like how do we how are you like giving me the ROI of the the stuff you're doing?

25:00And that's kind of like a weird question to us.

25:03Like you don't really ask IT how much money do you save us.

25:05It's like we we run your organization.

25:07But so ask if we if we're doing that comparison of

25:10Analytics will become similar to IT in that wrapper around the organizations.

25:15Um it's it's tough.

25:18Uh and and analytics does get that thing because of the high cost nature of it.

25:21I think once that if that stigma and that stick off the bat comes, that's where you'll see that development.

25:27I think my prediction for the year will be that you'll see

25:34I'd put this delicately.

25:36You'll see a lot of people having to grow up a bit, like grow out of wanting the thing and and thinking it's it's for them, right?

25:45Like

25:45There's so much I think and I think this this this hugs to a bigger point about the end users of analytics tools in 2021 versus 2011.

25:55The end user analytics tools in 2011 was Excel reports and PowerPoints, right?

26:00And ThinkCell, if you do remember ThinkCell?

26:03I don't know if you ever used it.

26:04Yeah.

26:05It's like you the the consumer was using tools like that and there's been a massive boom if you look back in 10 years.

26:11These tools, um like if you look at old school enterprise BI products.

26:15They were really clunky and you know people didn't really use them.

26:18And suddenly you've got this edge towards design and there's so much creativity in the space.

26:23And the the user base for these tools is so much bigger than it was

26:28When tools like Tableau were breaking into the market and where they did have fans and tools were built for them

26:36Now Tableau's almost grown up.

26:37It's got it's got to that point where you know you're in high school now.

26:40Uh you've got to be a bit more cooler.

26:42You can't run around playing it in the playground.

26:44Um

26:47You're thinking about who you are as a person and figuring out that that identity.

26:51And I think Tableau's identity has shifted over the years.

26:55Like is small steps such as moving to subscription.

26:58And then becoming part of the Salesforce ecosystem, the the Ohana, the 360.

27:03Um and and I think the the next step will be

27:07trying to conserve this great asset of the community and continue to grow it while also

27:15trying to explain to the old school almost the generations of users of Tableau that look we're gonna release a bunch of features and they won't be for you.

27:26Right.

27:27Like that's that's that that should be the the the saying, right?

27:30Because you must I think we've I don't know if we mentioned on the podcast, but the generations of Tableau users that you had, I think Right, yeah.

27:37I think you you said that the pre-8 crowd, which is you

27:40Oh old mountain over here.

27:42Um.

27:44Careful now.

27:46Um so yeah, oh maybe nine is a good example, right?

27:49So pre-Lods.

27:50Right.

27:50So yeah, like I I I came in at nine, which is I had LOD.

27:53I didn't really have to deal with doing backflips with lookup calcs.

27:57So you had pri pre-nine, um, which is your like

28:01OGs, right?

28:02And then you've got pre-4, which are like the proper adopters.

28:05Yeah.

28:05But I think nine is your first majority.

28:08Then you've got a gap to think 10-5.

28:10That's your second generation.

28:12Like 10 was the revamp, 10-5 gave you hyper, I think.

28:16Yeah.

28:16And then the final sort of generation is

28:20A TSM, right?

28:21The the 2019 2018 2.

28:233 and beyond changing how this all works and Linux and stuff coming into it as well.

28:28Yeah.

28:28Right.

28:28And it's it's sort of you and with the with the move to Linux, you're almost again, you're palliing to the IT people that you pissed off in the early 2010 crowd, right?

28:36So you've got the new day of data, you've got you've got TSM, and I think uh we said the the final generation was data model plus.

28:44Right.

28:45Um I don't know if you had any thoughts to add on to the generations of Tableau users and who they are today, I guess, is a is a is a good pivot for you there.

28:54Yeah.

28:54Yeah, yeah, exactly.

28:55Like

28:56Oh man, generations of Tableau A users.

28:59Like the there's two ways of looking at this, right?

29:03There is the version you use and the way you learn to use it.

29:07Then there is another way of looking at it, which is from a user experience perspective, which is like, what do you actually use this for?

29:13And actually in Tableau's journey.

29:15There've actually been new and different people using it throughout that journey.

29:19Like if you take your pre-uh, you know, 10 crowd, the users there were described purely as the authors.

29:26You didn't have viewers as users of Tableau.

29:29Like, I I can't remember a time pre-10 where people consuming reports were considered in a grouping such as viewers, right?

29:38And so

29:40What was interesting about that is that you paid a price and you got what you got, and you only ever thought about it about, you know, as a as a place where you create visualization that is really good for sharing them.

29:50And then you have the introduction of subscription pricing and the death of core pricing.

29:54That really rocked, you know, a few organizations because they really like the core pricing, right?

29:58And so that's that's the next generation.

30:00This is the post-core generation who, if I'm honest, have always been kicking and screaming at the change, right?

30:07Never, they've never really enjoyed the change

30:10Uh they've really hated the pricing and you know that's when you started to hear about oh compared to Power BI this stuff's really expensive.

30:17Uh-oh.

30:18And you know, yeah, exactly.

30:19So that that that's like another generation of users that's

30:22kind of different from the first.

30:24It's more of like how we're describing the different phases of Tableau here.

30:27And then more recently, and I think I'm noticing this a lot more, maybe because I'm embedding myself more in the community and I'm making videos for people and getting lots of feedback back.

30:36But I'm realizing that there is a massive divide between people who build using Tableau and the people who consume building Tableau

30:44And I don't see as many people in the community who are passionate about purely consuming tableau content.

30:52Does that make sense?

30:54I see all the passion when it comes to making.

30:56I see Tableau Public.

30:57I see all the visits.

30:58But there are Tim.

31:00I get it.

31:00I get it.

31:01I love it.

31:01And I see it and I love it.

31:02And I, you know, I I couldn't be prouder to be part of that community.

31:06But what I don't see is the other side of that, which is like, okay, for everyone who they're building content for coming out and saying, wow, you know, this is great.

31:13And maybe that doesn't matter.

31:15Maybe they don't need to know that it was

31:16built using Tableau and that's sort of part of the art and that's part of the the greatness.

31:21But because we don't see that we we're missing this other generation of users who will never build anything in Tableau

31:27That's why RS data exists.

31:29It's explained data exists kind of for that people.

31:32And therefore, I wonder what their version of an analytics tool looks like.

31:36What does an analytics tool look like to someone who will never build a visualization?

31:40And that to me is the new generation of user.

31:43And that to me is you know where this this sort of whole thing is going.

31:47That's such a great segue into dashboardness.

31:52Right?

31:53Like I I think I think you you're you're the two things you're missing there is the the the way that I I envisage in the next three to five years the consumer building like that that person building analytics

32:06is through asking questions.

32:08Now the issue of course is A, there's no

32:14Data orientation training, uh, to borrow Anna Casey's phrase, right?

32:18Data orientation is such a big thing that's missing.

32:20So like similar to IT orientation when you join a new company, that you get to understand what systems they use in tools.

32:26There's no, here's the data we use and the data you have access to to ask questions and find interesting nuggets to help our business grow, right?

32:32To towards our ethos.

32:35And and that transparency doesn't exist per se.

32:38Right.

32:39But but but I think you're spot on in

32:43It's it Tableau should be catering to those people, right?

32:46The people that don't need to know the difference between green and blue, that don't need to understand how to build an LOD, right?

32:52All they need to do is have the answer to the question when they have it.

32:55Like, it's that just-in-time point.

32:58And therefore, alongside that, the creators get to create and also excel.

33:02Right.

33:02And I think I think the old I think the the mid to older generation of Tableau users, the the the pre-20, the the pre-20 2018.

33:101 version, a 2018.

33:113 or other I'd say.

33:14Those people just want lifestyle adjustments, right?

33:18They want their formatting.

33:19Like we we want some better dashboarding tools.

33:21We want some we want some

33:23You know, some some just things that help us be be better and then carry on helping out and expanding explained age from RC.

33:29I think that's the thing.

33:30But the trade-off is I don't I don't see that

33:34Bigger picture thinking from the older older older users, right?

33:37The the core creators who are evangelizing Tableau in our community.

33:42And and to be honest.

33:43um why would you like they are creators if you look at any other ecosystem any other ecosystem where it's hard to blame them right essentially content creators right

33:52I hate to use the YouTube analogy, but we're gonna go there.

33:55We've got essentially got a content creator market, right?

33:58And the way content creators react is they build what consumers want, right?

34:03And so you've got to tackle this.

34:05If you're Tableau, what you've actually got to see this is an evolution of a diversification of your customer.

34:11Base, right?

34:12Yeah.

34:12You've you've met that sort of content creator audience and you've given them what they want, and they have a core of features that are really strong and capable

34:20Now you simultaneously need to be developing the offering you have for your non-creator-based people.

34:26It's funny they call them creators, right?

34:28Like but by that analogy, like what are you offering to your viewers that is like I'd love to know a feature that a viewer has that a creator doesn't have.

34:37That's when you know you've actually built something for viewers specifically that a content creator has no need for, isn't asking for, but a viewer is absolutely asking.

34:46And I don't know what that is.

34:48Right, yeah, exactly.

34:52It's a perfect example of them, right?

34:54Like a creator absolutely does not want you to export to PowerPoint, but a viewer loves it.

34:58They love it.

34:59Absolutely, absolutely.

35:00But that's something that created can do.

35:02What I really mean is, you know, imagine if there was like a wave consuming tablet that only viewers could could access.

35:08that allowed them to go and do stuff.

35:10An interesting pricing model that I've come across, which is LinkedIn, right?

35:13LinkedIn has those different pricing, depends on what you're doing.

35:16Are you looking for a new job?

35:17Are you just interested in networking?

35:19Are you a salesperson or a recruiter?

35:21Right.

35:21And based on what you select, it completely changes the sort of uh focus of of where

35:27LinkedIn and what LinkedIn is going to be for you.

35:29And I'd love to see that sort of segmentation to the point where you actually have the viewer team fighting with the creator team to get like time into the product, right?

35:39Um look at it that way.

35:41I actually love that.

35:42I think the the great the great part about that is stuff like asked data explained data is not accessible to the creator.

35:49Like yeah if you don't want it, don't let me see it.

35:52Right?

35:52Like you you then take that away because again it's marketed, these people now

35:56It's almost like Tableau should shift its view of how do we convert viewers into explorers and explorers into creatives.

36:03If you ignore that hierarchy and just say these are three distinct users.

36:06Um suddenly it becomes way more viable.

36:09Yeah, yeah.

36:10And I'd love to see a model on Tableau Server as well where a viewer takes control of what they see rather than the current model, which is

36:19A viewer, sorry, a creator explorer imposes a bunch of things on the code.

36:24100%.

36:25That doesn't mean that that doesn't mean that permissions and stuff go out the window.

36:28It stays the same.

36:29You know, what you can see or can't see remains the same.

36:31It's just that as a viewer, you have the power now to articulate that in a much more organic way based on the fact you're not creating anything.

36:39Whereas at the moment, I think it's predominantly a creator-led experience, right?

36:43So somewhat like the so you can see nuggets of that starting to creep through, right?

36:47You can see metrics.

36:49Metrics is something like that where you create collections, templates, spaces, things that allow you to

36:54Things that allow you to have your own home and your own curation of a homepage and experience, which is absolutely absolutely what you're looking for.

37:04Uh I don't think Tableau Server is that place for all this stuff.

37:07I really don't.

37:08Uh, you know, it just I I just look at I just look, I just take three clients I'm working with right now.

37:14Um they go out of their way to get to Tableau.

37:17They have to stop what they're doing, right?

37:20Open up a browser tab.

37:22Remember their little password, because they don't not all of them have SSO.

37:26Log in, find the folder, a project.

37:30Then go look at the report, open another tab and go back to what they were doing, right?

37:34It it just nearly always breaks their flow if they want to try and do something.

37:37And so

37:38I would love an experience which doesn't lean on Tableau Server.

37:41I'd love Tableau to be really brave and say, look, we really believe it, believe in the core of our product.

37:46Like the way people can build visualizations is so powerful.

37:50Let's take those visualizations outside of the server and into new places, right?

37:54Give me an API where I can render revis without needing to build it first and tell

37:59Right.

37:59Give me the capability to go and do something uh creative with the metadata tableau without first having to go and configure, you know, all of this stuff.

38:08So your experience can start wherever you want.

38:11And I think that that that talks about flow, right?

38:13Like your flow is w when do you need it and and how how do you consume it?

38:18And this is where you almost get to the point of

38:21We're now at the point where everyone's realized that they they won't be an aggregator.

38:26Yeah.

38:26Right.

38:27We talked about this two years ago, I think, in season two, where we talked about the fact that every analytics provider is an analytics platform.

38:33Right?

38:34Yeah.

38:34Well the really the only true analytics platforms are AWS, Salesforce, Google, and Azure.

38:41That's it.

38:44No one else should even bother.

38:45But yeah, so if you're if you're a tech startup or a new tech company, your objective should just be how do I get grandfathered into one of these behemoths?

38:54Right.

38:55purely because you realize I want their like breadth and their the ability for them to reach Slack to reach like all to to reach teams.

39:04to reach where people collaborate a lot easier, right?

39:07Wherever it ends up, maybe it might even be a text message sent out using Twilio, right?

39:11What you want it to be able to do is hook in and push.

39:14And that's that's what you're aiming for.

39:17I think once once Tableau understands has understood that and maybe being part of Salesforce, maybe they've they've done it, right?

39:23They've been grandfathered by Behemoth and they're now part of a wider ecosystem.

39:27And now they can really start pulling apart their platform and saying which bits do we want to keep and develop and really push on with.

39:33Yeah.

39:33And which do we want to double down on as part of our core offering.

39:37Yeah.

39:38I I think and to add to that, I think this we're also in the phase where Tableau can't continue to listen to its existing customers.

39:45And I know that sounds like a really stupid thing to

39:47to say.

39:47I can hear it.

39:48That's kind of what I was saying earlier, right?

39:50What yeah exactly.

39:51Like what are you smoking, Tim?

39:53And and it's the reason is is because we will ask for unreasonable things that don't make sense.

39:58We as customers can only look at the problems we face and ask for the solution to that rather than looking beyond those problems and actually saying

40:06What is the overarching problem here that we're all having, right?

40:10Um, is it actually a better CMS system for analytical content?

40:13Is that actually the solution?

40:14Instead of building server, let's just build that product that is just a CMS for analytical system.

40:19systems and white label it and sell it to everyone, including Power BI people.

40:23And they can just embed everything in there, right?

40:25Maybe that's actually the the product that that viewers need, a better CMS system.

40:30for analytical consumption, right?

40:31Or just or just like a way to track what um types of users you have, like a profile layer.

40:38Exactly, exactly.

40:39Like it's it's an interesting thing.

40:41Like if you were if you were AWS

40:43That's exactly what you'd build.

40:44You'd build a CMS system separate from the core system, separate from the permissioning system, and you'd sell each and every one of them as a product.

40:52That's basically the AWS model, right?

40:54Um and so you know VizQL would be a product in in the AWS platform.

40:59And uh the metadata API would be another product.

41:02Um and actually if you look at it the product that way, you might get more sort of

41:07traction in in places where you haven't typically gotten traction.

41:10Um but yeah go for that.

41:12I think I think i it comes back to Henry Ford's horses, right?

41:14Like if you if people wanted something faster they'd ask for faster horses, right?

41:17Like they wouldn't imagine the car.

41:19And I think that that goes to your point of

41:21This is why you stop asking the front ten rows like what they want, right?

41:24Like while while they're the most plugged in and the most evangelical, they'll also just continue supporting no matter what.

41:29Like if if Tableau did something like me and you would still be like, Yeah, but it's still amazing.

41:33I still love working with them.

41:34We still had fun, like

41:36It it's been such a fundamental part of our lives that it like and I say this to when I talk to Tableau developers all the time.

41:43I always preface it by look, I'm a consultant, so I see

41:47edge cases every day.

41:48And so when I come to you with a problem, don't treat them like they're the kind of issues that everyone sees every single day.

41:55I I experience a higher than normal level of traffic of some of these issues because of what to the volume of usage, yeah.

42:02Yeah, exactly.

42:03And in the same light, I think they also have to start, you know, understanding we have a diverse customer base now.

42:10It's not what it used to be where we just had to bring in one kind of person.

42:13Now we have the IT profession who wants to integrate everything and have it make it really easy to develop and transform.

42:18We have the author who wants to be a creative, wants to build beautiful things, wants really powerful control over every single inch of what they build.

42:25Then we have the viewer.

42:27He doesn't want to be disrupted.

42:28Who they who wants to be in their flare of analysis wherever they are and all the time, right?

42:33And they do want to email

42:35Someone for permission.

42:36Yeah, exactly, right?

42:37Yeah.

42:38And then you also have the, you know, the enterprise of uh uh what no, that's the wrong word.

42:43Uh let's say the um

42:46The CIO who's really keen to make sure information travels through his organization in a trusted and governed way.

42:52Yeah.

42:52And so he's a data model.

42:55Yeah.

42:55He's interested in things like the data model, you know.

42:58the t things like TSM like those are the different product owners now inside of the Tableau ecosystem and I'd love Tableau to take sort of the Apple approach.

43:07Which is to say, right, we we see you though, we see these groups, we're gonna split our teams into solving problems for those dedicated groups, and then we'll bring our product back together again, having gone and created those problems.

43:19problems right because I go going back to a YouTube point like and not once have I ever thought oh but how is a YouTube content creator gonna deal with this new feature in YouTube right like I just go and watch YouTube and that's what a viewer is literally literally what a viewer is I I go on

43:34I answer my question, I get the thing I'm looking for, which is a compilation like the the 300th compilation of Vine compilations that I've seen that day.

43:42Yeah.

43:43Or it's a or it's a video, a trailer or something.

43:45But for a content creator, what they care about is who are my users, how can I encourage them to come in?

43:50How do I tag things properly?

43:51Like give me the ability to

43:53Make quick edits on the fly.

43:55Right.

43:55Like and this is where you've got your split between what a creator wants and what a creator sees and what a viewer sees and what a viewer wants.

44:02Yeah.

44:03Yeah.

44:03Exactly.

44:04It's actually a beautiful example because

44:06Perfect exactly.

44:06You know, YouTube does does do exactly that.

44:09You know, if you only ever consume content on YouTube and you have zero subscribers, your experience of YouTube is technically still great.

44:15Whereas if you're a content creator

44:17You ask lots of tough questions about YouTube.

44:19You don't get the answer to all of them, but that's because the experience isn't built around you.

44:22It's built around viewers.

44:24It's built around making their experience good as well.

44:26I also I also really like the like what in the the question is but where do explorers fit?

44:30Well explorer fit in with the when you want to join a live chat on YouTube you can't comment until you've created a YouTube studio account, right?

44:39Like

44:39Yeah.

44:40That's the step.

44:41There's your hard barrier from being a viewer to being an explorer.

44:46You're someone who's doing you're consuming plus one up one other thing.

44:49Again, borrowing something that Francois said to me once.

44:51Yeah.

44:52Like and that's what I see an explorer.

44:54Yeah, exactly.

44:55An explorer is like a curator i in some sense, but also

45:00Um contributor.

45:02It's uh it's like a trans yeah, it's like a it's a contributor rather than a creator.

45:05That's the best way to put it actually.

45:07Like the person who edited your content or the person who

45:10you know had one look at it before it went out to the real world that that's really actually who your explorer is.

45:15I love how we've basically just redefined like all the roles.

45:18Oh yeah 100% the title of the podcast

45:21Uh tableau server roles redefined.

45:24Yeah.

45:27So yeah, no, it's it's an interesting thing.

45:29Like um it's actually a good segue onto this um Gartner report that came out now a couple of weeks ago, right?

45:34um that came out.

45:35And I look I have to always preface this by saying, look, I I don't I don't enjoy the body of what's in a Gartner report.

45:43What I do enjoy is the opportunity to talk about whether Tableau is meeting the needs of its customers or not.

45:51And whenever we have this discussion every year and people go just focus so hard.

45:56on the outcome of this report.

45:58Like the only parallel I can draw to it is like the way the royal family is behaving right now.

46:02Like they keep saying we're not gonna be phased we're not gonna be phased by this thing.

46:06Uh it doesn't exist in our world.

46:08We'll draw no comments

46:09And, you know, all that kind of jazz.

46:11It's like, yes, no one's asking for your comment.

46:13It's just an opportunity to talk about what Tableau could be doing better, right?

46:19Um and so that's where my focus is.

46:20I don't want to get drawn into this, oh, positions and stuff like that.

46:23Cause I don't I don't I don't subscribe to that line of thought.

46:26What I do subscribe to is the Gartner report makes

46:28some statements about, you know, things that are strengths and weaknesses.

46:31And I think most of those are wrong.

46:33And I'd actually go as far as saying some of them are generous, right?

46:36Like very generous, as from my perspective.

46:38And so I'd love to talk about that.

46:40What do people think is

46:42What do people think isn't on there that should be on there?

46:44As a community, let's build our own sort of analysis of the situation.

46:48And every year I think is a good time to do it.

46:50They're the only ones doing it, right?

46:51So we might as well take that opportunity and

46:54Change the discussion a little bit.

46:55My my my focus on Gartner is simple.

46:58Um it comes back to this thing I mentioned before.

47:00It's it's not for you.

47:02Right, like the people I see commenting and telling you that Gartner's irrelevant and we should really be caring about Gartner in the year of our law, 2021, and all this stuff.

47:10Like it used to matter, now it doesn't.

47:11Look at these different things.

47:13Okay, but it's not for you to matter.

47:15Like the the thing you should be approaching as is if I'm a if I'm I've I've been promoted into this weird position where I'm like right I need to

47:24Someone just said analytics to me and we should probably be doing it.

47:27Uh we need a tool.

47:29Right.

47:29I need to f I need to find feedback.

47:31So you go to all the vendors and then you're like, well, every vendor's gonna tell me they're better and they've got their complete statements.

47:36Okay

47:37Well, I need an objective view.

47:39And then you search the Ginternet and what you end up with is a industry leading market report named Gartner, which is cited by each vendor.

47:47You're like, well, actually, maybe these guys have an objective view

47:50Yeah.

47:50It it's it's it's so weird that a community of analytics professionals are complaining about analytics, right?

47:58Like what whilst it's it's probably more qualitative analysis and think that's the issue, right?

48:03Like there's not really much

48:04apples to apples comparison and but it but it's impossible to do that because all of these products are geared and designed in different ways.

48:11So for me for me the Gartner argument is is is a bit

48:15Misled in that it shouldn't matter what the outcome is or where you are in this position.

48:21What should matter is is this perspective what perspective

48:25customers think right like yes i i is it are are these conclusions valid um when evaluating a product right

48:34Are you is this giving you a good helicopter view of being able to quickly understand the difference between QuickSight, Looker, Tableau, and Power BI?

48:44And the argument probably is yeah, right?

48:47Like

48:48It doesn't need to mention the community and I mean it I think Gartner does, right?

48:51Like Gartner actually mentioned the Tableau community.

48:53Yeah, yeah.

48:54We'll come to that in a second, because I got bones to pick with some of these strengths and weaknesses.

49:02By and large, what the product is.

49:03Does it go into details about can you do a running total?

49:06No, because it doesn't matter.

49:08Like the people that are reading the guardian report

49:10I'm the analyst, they're decision makers.

49:12And the decision makers care about what is going to give me the biggest catchable solution that my organization can make the most out of.

49:19Yeah, exactly.

49:20And actually ad goes far as saying there's no possible way four contributors could be possibly experts in all the products

49:26in a way that allows them to compare them.

49:28It unlike a car review where you can drive every single car, race it round the track, objectively measure it based on

49:34You know, twenty or so metrics that every car owner knows about, MPG, speed, miles, but all those all those stuff is standardized across cars.

49:41Exactly.

49:42Whereas analytical products, they're not standardized because they're not all solving the same challenge in the same way.

49:46And so it it's it's such a difficult thing.

49:50So going back to your point, you can only rely on what people say about it, and actually, generally speaking

49:55uh the sentiment around it, right?

49:57Uh and so that that's that's where I think the report, to be fair to it, makes a decent attempt.

50:01It doesn't it doesn't labor the point.

50:03It's

50:03It it brings up certain characteristics and criteria for judging, which to be honest are quite general.

50:09Um they define how they see the market.

50:11You don't have to agree with it.

50:12No one's asking you to.

50:13It's just there for for you to indulge and if you don't like it, don't pay for it.

50:16You know, that's

50:17It's as simple as that.

50:18But I'll say this, Tableau put it on their homepage, right?

50:20Um Tableau, you know, Francois wrote a blog post championing and lauding all the strengths and weaknesses over the last decade of play.

50:28So you also can't say it doesn't matter because it does matter to Tableau.

50:31And so whilst it does matter to Tableau, I think it's valid to say, right, we're going to critique certain aspects of this.

50:37I'm not going to indulge uh critiquing Power BI.

50:39I never use Power BI.

50:41So I can't sit here and say, oh

50:42yeah like why do why do Power BI use this like this and stuff?

50:45Neither can I critique the position of anything because you don't get the stats about what goes into the position.

50:50So let's just focus on Tableau and let's let you know let's see what it says about that and and move on rather than just

50:56Just going around in these circles every year.

50:58Yeah.

50:59Yeah.

50:59And and and and the the like the argument of like Microsoft and Power BI and Microsoft shouldn't have its own dot is it's just silly.

51:05Like it's well Salesforce shouldn't have its own thing then either, right?

51:09Like you know Tableau is acquired by Salesforce.

51:11So you know I think it actually says Google Looker at the top, and I would argue that yes.

51:16uh now it should say Salesforce not Tableau and someone said oh uh uh Microsoft not a product yeah Tableau is just it's exactly the same reasoning with Tableau

51:26I can't remember the exact tweet, but I was sort of super I was a little bit critical of it because it's like, well, but that reckoning, like where have you been for the last two years?

51:33Like it is it's the opposite, it's the opposite question.

51:37I think next year it would be Salesforce.

51:40Yeah, the the the questions being um um approached it a different way.

51:43So you said you had you said a couple of thoughts on the the community mentioned there.

51:48Oh yeah, so the interesting the interesting um thing here is if you go look at the I'm s I'm just pulling it up here so I can get

51:56get the exact wording correct.

51:57I don't wanna get this wrong in any way.

52:00So um s they they write a generally generous report actually.

52:04I think I say generous in the sense that I think it's

52:06Congratulates Tableau about a lot of things it does do well and it's a very kind report.

52:10I don't mean generous as in they've given too much.

52:12Where I do think it's generous, it's going a bit too far, is uh some of the strengths.

52:16So they talk about analytics user experience

52:19Although Tableau keeps adding new capabilities, it always maintains a sleek experience for users.

52:23Now stop right there.

52:24Have you tried building a dashboard in Tableau?

52:29I'm sorry, like generally speaking, I would agree with the statement.

52:33It does maintain a sleek experience for users.

52:35But if you actually go to the people who actually build these features, they would argue that it's missing a lot of formatting capabilities.

52:41And the next point, literally the next sentence goes on to say, although visual-based exploration is highly commoditized in today's market

52:49Table can still differentiate itself by offering an intuitive analytics experience with richer capabilities based on its patented VSQL engine.

52:56It's the best thing.

52:58Yeah, and I and I'd say, okay, well that's fine, but you know, you need to continue developing it.

53:04It's actually, I I can go into Google Data CD today and build a dashboard faster than I can in Tableau.

53:11I literally draw the box, I put things where I want them, automatically aligns them, and boom, I've got a dashboard.

53:17How long does it take me to build each and every one of those sheets?

53:20Much longer.

53:21But the experience of putting it together is much, much better in so many other tools.

53:25And that's sort of the detail that's missed in this in this report.

53:28And the fact that it's highly commoditized as well should hint to Tableau that they need to start

53:33Making sure that they continue to build in things that are unique to Tableau.

53:37Anytime you're in a field where you're kind of competing against something that's highly commoditized,

53:42It's basically a race to the bottom, isn't it?

53:43Who can build the best features at the lowest cost, and that becomes like a loss leading exercise and no one

53:49Especially Tableau doesn't want to be in that.

53:51Tableau's always actually prided itself on its research and loss leading mentality isn't sort of the place you want to be because things will just get copied.

53:59These are just features, they're not unique things about the product.

54:02So they can be copied.

54:03Um customer enthusiasm.

54:05I saw this as like a back-handed compliment if I'm honest.

54:08Like when when when when buying Tableau, when is customer enthusiasm

54:12uh been placed on the table with a thud.

54:15Does that make sense?

54:16Like you know, like I I yes, I get the element of support.

54:20I get the element support and TCA.

54:22Yeah, that all makes sense.

54:23But it this point talks about many customers

54:26demonstrate a fan-like attitude towards Tableau, as evidenced by more than 145,000 people who attended its 20,000, 2020 online customer user conference.

54:36Okay.

54:37I mean that was an edge case.

54:39Like, you know, it was the first online conference.

54:43It was free to everyone.

54:44So how do you how do you really judge that, right?

54:46Um Tableau Public, a free platform, great, called out, love that.

54:50Has over three million interactive visualizations.

54:52How many of those are the long tail of, you know, visas that, you know, get published and don't get touched and you wouldn't consider as a best practice of

54:59Tableau, right?

55:00Um a user experience focused design means that particularly for users in analyst roles, Tableau's offering is compelling and even enjoyable to use.

55:06This is all great, but when has that paragraph

55:09been the dis the reason a company goes for Tableau over something else.

55:15Right?

55:15I think there's an element there's an element of the vendor having

55:19I again pure speculation here.

55:22But the vendor having some sort of inkling of like, you know, what do you pride yourselves in?

55:26And Tableau 100% pride themselves in their customer enthusiasm.

55:30They 100% pride themselves in Tableau Public, right?

55:32Like

55:33The the these sound like things that Tableau themselves want to champion and have almost said to God, like this this is what we're about, right?

55:40Like this is this is who we are.

55:42And while whilst I agree with the community,

55:46Exactly.

55:47I think the the fan like community is simultaneously established greatest strength and biggest

55:54Not Achilles heel, but it it can be such a potent force aga as a case against Tableau.

56:01Because because of the almost blind faith.

56:04Um and and and I I say that with the with the absolute utmost love, right?

56:08Because

56:09The community challenges, the community pushes, and the community definitely shares back feedback on Tableau.

56:16But what it also does is almost is

56:19It's it's like a um it's what when you find something that's quite cool and then you're like, have you not heard of that?

56:24It's it's it's so good, it's the best thing ever.

56:26Like, how do you not know about this?

56:28Do you even work in BI?

56:30And I think that that's that's the tricky part.

56:32And I think going back to our earlier conversation, segmenting user types really will help change that perception, I think.

56:39Yeah, yeah.

56:41Uh and uh

56:43I don't know, it depends how you look at this.

56:45If you're looking at this to buy a tableau, um, I j honest to God, maybe I'm totally wrong on this, but I just I just want to hear from consumers and

56:54Users and not people who use the product, people who make the buying decision.

56:58I want to hear from them that customer enthusiasm is a reason they went with Tableau over something else.

57:05Right?

57:06That's that's my only that's my only qualm with this point.

57:09If if those people exist and they are generally the people who make the purchasing decision, and this is a reason why they went with Tableau, perfect.

57:16I'd love to see the case.

57:18The caveat I would add to that is that person, I don't want to say cannot or should uh I'd rather say should not, should not be in that front five rows, right?

57:27Like it should it shouldn't be someone who's

57:30Almost a lot of things.

57:31I don't think anyone is.

57:32With growth.

57:34Right, right, right.

57:42I I I don't know how to sort of put it put it put it tactfully, but in essence, it doesn't matter where you sit in the conference if I if I'm honest, actually, just just demonstrate that enthusiasm in the community

57:54Is a reason you went with one product over the other.

57:57For creators, I can see that.

57:58For you and me, I can see why we'd go with Tableau, of course.

58:01Absolutely.

58:02But for people person who makes a buying decision, I'd love to see this be a reason, a main reason.

58:07as Gartner have put it on here, which is my issue with it, which is I think that is a reason to be part of the community.

58:14I think that is a reason to be uh not worried about your TCO and not worry about things like training and not worry about support

58:21Because you can see there's an active community.

58:23That means they're going to develop the product, it's going to keep it fresh, all of that stuff.

58:26Like an active community is often the sign of a well-maintained product.

58:30But it's not the reason you buy something, right?

58:34Yep.

58:35Um I mean and I guess I'm happy to be proved wrong.

58:39And every every time I mention this like first five, ten rows, I I I always have to caveat like I'm part of that.

58:43Like I am 100% that cheering person who's

58:47Right, exactly.

58:48We're both part of that cheering crowd of people who are so enthusiastic about Tableau that whilst we can give some level of an objective judgment, there's gonna be bias.

58:56Right, like yeah, like as as much as as much as I'm like fully appreciative of the of the Microsoft stack and what it is and how it's competing, it's also

59:11Like I'm always gonna say Tableau is the better tool because it's it's so good and we I enjoy using it so much.

59:16So it's um yeah yeah I I think I think f finding those people who are making decisions and seeing

59:24What what was the thing that swayed them ultimately for or against Tableau is is hard.

59:29Yeah.

59:30And again, if if Gotton is the people that are able to do that and get that feedback, then fair enough.

59:35Yeah, yeah, exactly.

59:37We've got two more points on here.

59:39Actually, three more points.

59:40Salesforce is a point, pricing is a point, and not cloud native is a point.

59:44If I tackle sort of the easiest ones, not cloud native, I think everyone knows that

59:49Um it's strange because they work with uh well they're now owned by a company that is, you know, SaaS-based company that runs mostly on cloud technology, AWS.

59:58So I think that's an interesting transition.

60:00They're gonna have to become better at it anyway.

60:02Tableau online is the closest thing to that.

60:05And I think that's again why you'll see that get become really big this year.

60:08They'll add more and more capability into that offering

60:10um especially through the browser.

60:12So that would be interesting.

60:14Premium pricing.

60:15Again, I can't really talk to this other than the the discussion that we had before about viewer not really having a product.

60:21that that maybe is what makes Tableau feel premium, right?

60:25Because you And also I don't say add on to that the I'd also add on to that the add-ons.

60:29Like right the number and and I feel like management add-on

60:34It's hard to justify the value that value add for an ROI for the value of the code.

60:38Tablo would say they're not add-ons.

60:40I went through a training session um a while back and the general consensus is don't think of these as add-ons.

60:48Uh I can't remember the exact those direction.

60:52I know they're called add-ons, but basically the the the approach was that look, if you think of them as add-on, then you don't value the things that those things produce.

61:01Right?

61:02Yeah.

61:02Um, and and that is true for some organizations, but also it also touches on this point that actually Tableau have trained their customers

61:10to expect everything bundled into a single price over the years, right?

61:13Yep.

61:14At just a hundred percent.

61:15So suddenly you turn up and now you have a subscription nice and great.

61:19Then you start telling people, actually don't get everything you need with that price.

61:23It starts to sort of, you know, become really, really difficult, actually.

61:26Because again.

61:28Usual behavior is that you got everything with your license.

61:31You never had to.

61:31There were no bundles.

61:32Never so no such thing.

61:34And more and more is being added into the bundle.

61:37And it feels it it can feel for someone who's been using Tableau for the last decade, it's a little bit of a shocker.

61:43But if you're new to Tableau, you won't know and therefore, you know, it's not a new thing.

61:46To you.

61:47Um integration challenges with Salesforce.

61:50Man, Salesforce.

61:51So it it's both a strength and an and uh weakness.

61:55So the first one is Salesforce Opportunity.

61:57The Tableau Viz Lightning Web Component offers a

61:59It's a little plug-in for Salesforce, honestly.

62:02Um it's not a phone.

62:07Yeah, like it's um

62:09I d I don't know why this made it into this uh thing, and maybe it's one of your things where Tableau put it forward as like, you know, something big they're working on, they see this sort of being really valuable to Salesforce customers, and that's fine.

62:20The deeper integration of MuleSoft data connector capabilities, a newly acquired Slack collaboration tool, means that Salesforce clients have a strengthening set of reasons to consider tablet.

62:29Well this point is about Tableau, not Salesforce.

62:32So what I'd argue is like these are all great for Salesforce users who happen to have Tableau.

62:37But what about Tableau users who don't have Salesforce?

62:40Like where where is the where is the strength here?

62:42And y'all you'd argue there isn't any other than actually weakness, which is the integration challenges

62:48Actually it's actually taking Salesforce surprisingly long to integrate some of the more basic aspects of Salesforce into Tableau.

62:55Very simple one I butt my head against in like every month is that in desktop and prep they don't read data from the APIs in the same way.

63:02So field name and desktop is called something entirely different to what it's called in prep, which makes it an absolute nightmare when you built a solution before prep supported Salesforce Connection.

63:14And then now you're having to port those to run in prep, it's just, oh man, it's just not not a pretty not a pretty world at all.

63:21So, and I I also would argue that

63:24We we've seen a lot of value from Tableau go over to Salesforce, which it makes sense.

63:29That's why they acquired them.

63:30I'm not sure we've seen yet that sort of, you know, next level value that Salesforce is up.

63:36offering to Tableau users who don't have Salesforce, right?

63:39You know.

63:40Yeah.

63:40I don't know what that number is.

63:42I'd love to know what percentage of Tableau customers

63:44use Salesforce today.

63:46And if that number is over 60%, then this is totally the right thing for Tableau to be doing, building more and more Salesforce integration.

63:53But if it's not, it's a very risky strategy because more and more, if you look at 2021.

63:591, uh, the first like three features are Salesforce features.

64:03So I just skip right past those because I don't use Salesforce on the day.

64:06daily basis.

64:06Yeah.

64:07Um so yeah, it'd be an interesting sort of dynamic to see how that evolves over the next two years.

64:11Because I don't think it'll take a year.

64:12I think it's it I think it's also a natural point for Gartner to mention it, right?

64:15Like they they have to, right?

64:17They're owned by the um

64:19by big daddy Benny off.

64:20So what you end up doing is you have to mention that the fact that as a fact, right?

64:25So Yeah, yeah.

64:26Yeah.

64:27So yeah, interesting, interesting group of challenges.

64:31Um I think we should do like a the analysts quadrant, right?

64:36Where we get uh we get

64:38uh professionals from each product to talk about the strengths and weaknesses they see in their product.

64:43But that is it.

64:44You're not judging like a Power BI person isn't judging Tableau and a Tableau person isn't judging

64:50You know, Power BI, you just get each of the users of the product talk about the strengths and weaknesses of their own respective products

64:57And then you do like an aggregated view of what are what do people say about these things.

65:01So there's a similar one in web development called survey of uh JavaScript developers.

65:05Uh and they basically talk about JavaScript every single year and then try and analyze what are people doing with JavaScript.

65:11This should still be the same thing.

65:12Maybe it's something you should do actually.

65:14Maybe I'll try to reset it up or something.

65:16Yeah, exactly.

65:17Like I think it's a bit it's a bit a huge effort.

65:19Um huge effort.

65:20I think you'd have to nail down the survey and the question, but who knows?

65:23Maybe maybe with enough runtime this year, we could do it by the end of the year.

65:27Trump Gartner to do it to their report in general.

65:31The end-of-year survey of analytics professionals where you try and get people just to Yeah, that's not a bad idea.

65:38I mean you've got 11,000 subscrib or 10,000, 11,000 subscribers on YouTube

65:43Oh God.

65:44Start with Tableau first, I guess.

65:46That's what I can do.

65:47Maybe do like an annual survey and just say, hey, I'd really love to know your experience of using Tableau and just

65:54Come up with some solid questions.

65:56Um yeah, something we should do.

65:58Think about it.

65:59Think about it.

66:00Absolutely.

66:01Then do people not get us up that idea.

66:04Yeah.

66:04Give me some objective data, right?

66:07Yes, exactly, exactly.

66:09So yeah.

66:10So oh God.

66:11Amazing.

66:12Absolute, absolute bumper boot of content there.

66:15Kind of covered some lost tapes, covered some uh new new stuff for this year

66:20It's season four, so um yeah, we're gonna try and get back into the regime.

66:24Um Ravi's now taking care of all scheduling, so I am no longer responsible for any late episodes or anything like that.

66:32Yeah, yeah, yeah.

66:34Um

66:34Yeah, I'm I'm the bosun rather than I'm I'm I'm cracking the whip and so no so yeah this this is we're gonna get back into uh analog we're gonna bring back a few um

66:48Few few people for that.

66:49Maybe maybe even dig a bit deeper into some of the topics.

66:52I think one of the things that I'd like to talk about is data literacy.

66:55Like what's going on there?

66:57Like what is it?

66:59I think you know there's there's

67:01So the the world reopening and the challenges that that will face and the changes um as well.

67:07But yeah, no, as ever, like ple please let us know.

67:09Like tweet us, um, drop us a line.

67:11Um always happy to listen and hear for from you guys and

67:15Get some feedback.

67:16So no, as ever, thank you for listening.

67:19Thank you for another year of um what the 200-ish people that tune in.

67:24Um love it, love it

67:27And yeah, let's let's let's power through.

67:30Okay, thanks for listening.

67:31Um you know where to find us?

67:33Datum pod on Twitter, datum podcast on

67:37So by all means send us feedback on any of those platforms.

67:39We'd love to hear from you.

67:41And of course, yeah, we'll catch you in the next episode.

67:43Take it easy.

67:44Nice one.

67:45Take care, everyone.

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