Apply to share your Tableau story at TC17

Big news! After months of waiting, the moment you’ve been looking forward to is here. The deadline to apply to speak at TC17 is Friday, March 31, 2017.

Big news! After months of waiting, the moment you’ve been looking forward to is here: Apply now to speak at TC17.

The deadline to apply to speak at TC17 is Friday, March 31, 2017.

Customer speakers are a huge part of what makes the Tableau Conference such a special event. Year after year, we hear that customer sessions are the highlight for attendees. Representing a diverse span of industries, use cases, and organizations, we welcome the highest caliber of customer speakers to TC. We hope you’ll apply to join us this October.

We look forward to hearing what you're building with Tableau. Click here to access the application.

Got questions? We've got an FAQ!

Who should apply to speak at TC17?

Tableau customers with a story to share! Each year, we accept a mix of speakers from household name brands as well as speakers from small and medium businesses, including non-profits, educational institutions, and healthcare.

We accept speakers from companies that have enormous Tableau Server deployments, and we accept speakers who are using Tableau within a single department or team. We encourage applicants from all industries, functional roles, and use cases. We're looking for thought-leaders and trailblazers: people who are out on the front lines defining and redefining what's possible with analytics and data visualization.

For 2017, we're especially on the hunt for stories that speak to some of the most relevant data challenges and opportunities we face:

Big data and IoT
Cloud data
Data warehouses
Enterprise-wide adoption

What if I’m a consultant with a great Tableau story? Can I apply to speak?

Customer speaker applications must come from full-time employees at the organization listed in the application. We rarely accept applications from consultants or partners.

That said, we know that there’s some truly innovative work done by consultants and partners so there will be a very limited number of slots available for partner or consultant-led sessions. We are happy to consider applications from consultants and partners that focus on technical topics and topics like data visualization best practices and design. We are less inclined to consider case studies from partners or consultants. Sessions from partners and consultants should not be about selling--at all.

Okay, but as a FTE at my company, I worked with a consultant/partner. Can s/he speak with me?

Generally, all speaker applicants must be full-time employees of the company they're representing. Your partner/consultant may be present to help with the 15 minutes of Q&A at the end of a session.

If you are a partner and would like more information on partnership opportunities, including sponsored speaking sessions, email sponsorship@tableau.com.

Consultants and partners: We do not recommend you submit customer case studies as session proposals for the customer track. Instead, encourage your customer to submit an application to speak about the joint solution.

I spoke at TC16. Can I apply to speak at TC17?

It’s very rare that we accept back-to-back customer speakers at Tableau Conference. Part of what makes TC such a special event is the brand new content attendees have not seen anywhere else. Unless your proposed session content is significantly different than last year’s, we encourage you to hold your application until next year.

What should I speak about?

There's no "right" answer here, but some topics that we're always looking for include:

Growing Tableau inside your company
IT use cases: data governance, metadata management, capacity planning, agile BI, Tableau as a shared service, cloud analytics
Big data stories
Deploying Tableau on the cloud or through mobile devices
Executive dashboards
How to communicate insights through great dashboard design
How to tell compelling stories with data
Technical talks
Integrating Tableau with specific data sources
All the other cool stuff you're building!

Can I see some examples?

You sure can! You can find hundreds more examples from Tableau Conference and our global On Tour conferences on our YouTube playlist.
And here are some examples of different types of customer sessions from TC15 and TC16:

What do you look for in successful applications?

Funny you should ask. We actually do have some suggestions:

Be specific in your abstract. Make it clear what you're planning to speak about, what attendees will learn, and why it will be valuable for them. A one-sentence abstract is not what success looks like here. (Neither is a 50-sentence abstract.)
Include dashboards! The session submission form has space to upload dashboards or images of dashboards. We will NOT share these dashboards externally, ever. But we will say that showing us great dashboards as a part of your application increases the likelihood we'll accept your session. (We understand that for some stories and companies this is not possible or doesn't make sense in the context of the session topic.)
Show us you know your stuff! There are fields in the application that request background on you and your use case. Don't rush through or ignore these fields. Use them to show us that you're the real deal—someone the TC audience can learn from.

Do I get a free pass?

Yes! (Maybe!) Tableau offers one full TC17 registration per accepted session. This means if you submit an accepted session with more than one speaker, only one speaker can use the complimentary registration. The other speakers will need to buy tickets, although we will provide 1 discount code for a co-speaker.

But it's not just about the free ticket! All customer speakers are conference VIPs, which means VIP access to events throughout the week and a special speaker party just for you!

Tableau does not cover the cost of airfare or hotel for customer speakers.

When do I find out if I got accepted?

We'll notify accepted speakers in May.

If I get accepted, will I be refunded the cost of my ticket if I've already purchased it?

Yes! If you’re one of our accepted speakers and you’ve purchased a ticket, we will process a full refund for you after you’ve confirmed your session.

If I get accepted, can someone else from my company do the presentation?

No. We accept people, not companies, as customer speakers. Please do not expect that someone else from your company can present on your behalf if you're accepted. Tableau reserves the right to rescind a speaking slot if the original applicant is no longer available to speak.

I have more questions and I'd like to talk to a real human about them.

We totally get it. Feel free to reach out to Kathryn Holtz, our fearless customer marketing coordinator and bona-fide actual human, with any burning questions that aren't addressed either in this FAQ or in the application.