I’ve been pondering on starting a blog for a while now. There’s lots of excellent content from our community on the ‘interweb’ and I kept procrastinating with questions like; do we really need another blog? what would I blog about ? what words of wisdom could I offer to the community? who’s going to listen to me? do I have enough time?

So why have I started this blog?  Settle in and let me tell you a story ……..

Oct 2017, I was all set to attend TC17 in Vegas.

Some unfortunate family events back at home in the UK meant I had to cancel the trip and I didn’t make it TC17. Instead of flying to Vegas I had to fly back to London and spend time with the family for what would be a few weeks.

TC17 had been and gone by now however I managed to catch up on some of the sessions I had planned on seeing via the TC17 Live. I had been off social media for a few weeks, so I jumped back on to see what the Twittersphere had been up to. I saw a tweet from Eva, she was rambling on about #MakeOverMonday again…..or something along those lines 😉 …… anyway …. below the tweet showed Eva was in London (Eva is usually based in Germany). I decided to reach out on the off chance she could meet for catch up. A quick email which migrated quickly to a WhatsApp exchange we arranged coffee the next day before she flew back Germany later that evening …… result !!!

This got me thinking…. who else in the local Tableau community could I reach out to while I was in town? I then remembered Paul Banoub is also based in London. His office is actually just a few minutes’ walk from my old firm when I was working in the UK. A quick email exchange and ⚡boom another coffee catch up arranged the next day.

This then reminded me of an email I sent several months ago to The Data School about their placement program (I was exploring the possibly of getting a Data Schooler over to Sydney for a placement). I jumped back on the email and managed to arrange a meeting and lunch with Dan Raines and managed to time it after my visit with Paul in the morning.

Coffee with Eva

Now I must confess this wasn’t the first time I had met Eva. Back in May 17 I managed to organise a #MakeOverMonday session at my office Sydney during her last visit to Australia, you can read about it here.

I only had an hour or so with Eva enough time for a quick catch up, get her take outs from TC17 and a quick chat about EXASOL. As we wrap up Eva invites me up to the EXASOL office for a quick tour. The office shares a neighbouring space with the Data School which was enough time for a fly by visit and a selfie with Andy Kriebel and Tom Brown.

Coffee with Paul

Having worked in the London CBD before moving to Sydney, catching the commuter train in normal rush hour bought back some memories of things I miss and do not miss about London, the commute and October weather being the latter.

I had been virtually introduced to Paul over email by Fiona Gordan or some of you may know her as VizChic when we were planning for our Tableau Version 10 upgrade.  Paul’s blog is one that I’m constantly referring back to as I run very similar CoE’esque practise in my organisation.

Being able to catch up on the TC17 sessions (including Paul’s) on the TC17 Live site was great but it was the networking and discussion opportunities that I missed out on during TC17, this helped make up for it. We only had an hour or so to geek out together and get a run down his TC17 experience and picking his brain with questions about his CoE, but I’m glad he managed to find some time his day to have a chat.

Later that day was a visit to the Data School and some good discussions with Dan Raines & Tom Brown about their TC17 and the Data School itself. If you want to know more about what they do go here.

On my way home I sent a message to Paul thanking him for his time and asked if he could connect me with other members of the London Tableau community as I had a few more days left in London. I would have been happy for a virtual introduction over email or twitter but Paul goes out of his way to organise some after work drinks with other London TUG members Sarah Bartlett, Pablo Gomez just a few days later in the Fire Station Pub (London Waterloo).

Having a few drinks after work in the buzz of London is something I do miss and although this was the first-time meeting Sarah and Pablo and second meeting Paul a few hours flew by pretty quickly talking all things data, Tableau, #MakeoverMonday, #TC17, #LondonTUG and blogging.

I’m now almost 4 years into my relationship with Tableau and data visualisation and I can safely say a big chunk of what I’ve learnt has been from the resources contributed by the community and a network of likeminded people.

If you’ve managed to get this far, thanks for staying with me and feel free to say ‘hi’ in comment below to boost my ego. It’s more than likely you’re already part of what is a pretty unique and dare I say ‘magical’ community of data and Tableau enthusiast’s who are always happy to help and answer questions or connect you to people who can. You are the people who have inspired me to start this blog.

Happy new year people!!!!