Tableau Conferences 2019
This year has marked a massive year of change for Tableau. Most notably, Salesforce acquired Tableau at a purchase price if $15.7B. It was a massive play in a rapidly growing data visualization market. Tableau is a major technology offering for Sophinea. This past year, we attended Tableau Conference Europe in Berlin, Tableau Conference in Las Vegas, and Tableau’s Government Summit in Washington, DC.
The initial announcement of the acquisition occurred on June 10, 2019, which is a week prior to the Tableau Europe Conference. The future strategic vision related to the acquisition was not discussed during the conference, but you could sense a cautious excitement about the potential of the acquisition. Several attendees discussed how the combination of Salesforce’s and Tableau’s technical resources could improve the product while others expressed some concern about how the Tableau community might be impacted now that Tableau is no longer a single entity. The Tableau community, or #DataFam, is an important feature of Tableau’s brand. Tableau Conference in Las Vegas occurred after the completion of the deal, so Salesforce was a more central presence at the conference — including Marc Benioff speaking with Adam Selipsky during the conference’s opening keynote.
Some of the concerns about the deal’s impact on the Tableau community expressed during Tableau Europe were also subject of conversation at Tableau Conference. However, as a company with experience with Salesforce and Tableau, I think the cultural fit is good. I also have a great deal of respect and admiration for Salesforce’s CEO, Marc Benioff. I am excited about how he will lead the integration of the two companies and am certain he will approach integration in a manner that will ensure the continued strengthening and growth of the Tableau community.
Both conferences were phenomenal experiences, aside from IT infrastructure issues that caused challenges during boot camps and hands-on training at Tableau Conference in Las Vegas. I think these technical challenges were likely the result of the continued growth of the event and will be repeated next year. There were many sessions focused on 2019.X features released this past year and the typical announcements of upcoming enhancements during Devs on Stage. However, one of the general themes was on user enablement. Some of those enablement efforts were apparent through new technical solutions in Tableau Desktop, including set actions and parameter actions.
Other solutions are being sold as add-ons to Tableau Server, including simplifying data preparation through continued maturation of Tableau Prep, a new Tableau Data Catalogue that offers improved insight to data assets and lineage, and a Server Management tool that offers powerful features that Enterprises with large Tableau Server deployments would find valuable.
However, Tableau has not ignored the softer aspects related to successfully deploying and scaling Tableau. Tableau Blueprint provides deployment leaders with the fundamentals required to successfully deploy Tableau within an organization. Unsurprisingly, training the workforce to use Tableau and also developing a community to promote and support users’ adoption of Tableau are important pieces of the Tableau Blueprint.
I think this is a smart strategy for Tableau. Tableau Desktop and Server must continue to push existing boundaries of Visualization by providing superusers, such as Tableau Zen Masters, with features that enable them to deliver increasingly valuable insights to their clients and coworkers. At the same time, many organizations are struggling to adopt analytics at scale and are only using a fraction of Tableau’s existing features. For these organizations, the primary focus is determining the best path forward to drive adoption and meet their organizational goals for Tableau. The new features are great, but the guidance available through Tableau Blueprint is invaluable.
The mix of phenomenal content and community of Tableau Conference makes it a must-attend conference for Tableau users. I bring back new learnings and perspectives from each conference and have implemented many of the lessons learned for our clients within weeks of the conference. For these reasons, I would encourage any Tableau user or Executive Sponsor to attend.
Brian Thamm
President/CEO
Sophinea Corporation
Sophinea enables clients to bring clarity to their data by providing comprehensive Technology and Business Consulting expertise to our clients’ data projects. Visit www.sophinea.io to learn more about how Sophinea can assist you in meeting your data objectives.
