Reflections on one year at Tableau

I started working with Tableau a year ago. I'd been a Tableau user for 4 years already by that time; I was a data analyst at the University of Oxford. I was reflecting on how the move to Tableau has influenced my career and figured it was time to check out my LinkedIn professional network. LinkedIn has a great tool that draws a network graph of all your connections. I hadn't done this for a year, so I didn't know what to expect. What I didn't expect was the overwhelming orange hairball of BI connections.
Andy Cotgreave

I started working with Tableau a year ago. I'd been a Tableau user for 4 years already by that time; I was a data analyst at the University of Oxford. I was reflecting on how the move to Tableau has influenced my career and figured it was time to check out my LinkedIn professional network. LinkedIn has a great tool that draws a network graph of all your connections. I hadn't done this for a year, so I didn't know what to expect. What I didn't expect was the overwhelming orange hairball of BI connections.

I was amazed that my network was so completely skewed. Sure, part of this is purely a result of working in a more technical company, but I wanted to reflect on the bigger meaning of this hairball. That massive tangle of orange represents the reason that this is such an amazing company in an amazing industry in an amazing time. I get to share my working day with bright, passionate and fun people. These aren't just colleagues, they also represent our user champions, our customers, even our competitors. Many are now good friends.

I hope over the coming years that this hairball grows and grows. Why? For two reasons. First, I love our company's mission to help the world see and understand its data. I don't think there's anyone better placed than Tableau to do that right now. And second for personal growth - through this big hairball of BI/visualisation experts I have learnt more this year than I could have imagined.