How to discover all the Tableau-related content online

Do you want to keep track of the Tableau conversation online but don’t know where to start? In order to create a “Best of the Tableau Web” each month (go see May, April, March, for examples) I need to keep abreast of what’s being talked about; it might be on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, etc. This post is how I do it, and turn an onslaught of information into something easily digestible. With the demise of Google Reader today, you may also be looking for new ways to aggregate the information.
Andy Cotgreave

Do you want to keep track of the Tableau conversation online but don’t know where to start? In order to create a “Best of the Tableau Web” each month (go see May, April, March, for examples) I need to keep abreast of what’s being talked about; it might be on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, etc. This post is how I do it, and turn an onslaught of information into something easily digestible.

With the demise of Google Reader today, you may also be looking for new ways to aggregate the information.

My first principle is that I cannot expect to read every link when I first see it. I need to save stuff for later. For this, I use IFTTT, Pocket and Feedly. These two apps have revolutionised the way I can do my job.

Pocket - save stuff to read later

What does Pocket do? Saves articles so you can read them later. You can add an extension to Chrome, or install an app on your smartphone (Android or iOS). Any time you see something interesting, save it to Pocket so you can read it at your leisure. This way, you can allocate a part of your day to finding content, save it to Pocket, and then come back to it when you have the time.
Pocket is ideal for saving twitter links or news articles you don’t have time to read.

Feedly - for blog posts

There are countless great blogs about Tableau and/or data visualisation. But how are you supposed to keep track of when new posts are published? For this I use Feedly. Feedly has a great interface and it is easy to add new blogs as you find them. I have several categories including one for Tableau and one for Data Visualisation. This way, I never get to miss an article.

Which blogs do I follow? Here’s a list of Tableau bloggers I curate over on bit.ly: http://bit.ly/TableauBlogs

Twitter

For me, Twitter is where the most traffic is. It is not only great for conversations, it’s also great as a curated source of things to read. I mostly scan my Twitter feed for interesting links. I use Hootsuite and have columns specifically for #Tableau and @Tableau searches.

If I see a link that looks interesting, I need to get it into Pocket to read later. How?
I use an IFTTT recipe to save Favourites straight to Pocket. It's simple and effective. It means I can scan Twitter content finding interesting links without having to stop and read them there and then.

If you want to know who to follow on Twitter, click here for my curated list of Tableau-tweeters.

Feedly, Pocket, IFTTT and Twitter have changed the way I consume news. Instead of opening a newspaper or new website in the morning or on a train, I open up these two and catch up all the news and stories on the topics I am interested in.

And if you want to share?

Get on Twitter and tell the world! To share my own links, I shorten them bit.ly. I like the fact that you can collect links into bundles, check out the stats, and even query all the data to build out cool visualisations based on who’s clicking what.

These tools are not the only ones you can use to do this job, of course. What do you use? How do you keep on top of the Tableau-related internet content? I’d love to know what other systems you use.