Announcing the 2nd Iron Viz global qualifier—join the ultimate data competition

We are thrilled to announce the second Iron Viz global qualifier is officially open and the theme for this contest is MUSIC! What do you stand to gain from participating? Advice, encouragement, and some mad new skills. So grab your headphones, put on your favorite playlist, and get into the data viz groove!

The winner will advance to compete in the Iron Viz Championship at this year’s Tableau Conference (#data19) in Las Vegas. Submissions are accepted until July 21st, 2019 (11:59:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time). For more information on prizes, rules, and participation instructions, see the contest page.

Analyze your love for music

Music is universal. It’s one of the most common threads connecting us, shaping our culture and identities. And, it just so happens that there is a TON of data on music! For this qualifier, we’re asking you to combine your love of music and data. Visualize the history of your favorite genre, the evolution of your favorite band, or the songs you stream all day long—the possibilities are endless!

Use any music-related data set

For this qualifier contest, create a data visualization using Tableau and any public data set of your choosing, as long as it relates to the theme!

Not sure where to start? Explore these resources:

• data.world
• Kaggle
• statista
• Data.Gov
• Google Dataset Search
• MusicBrainz
• Million Song Dataset
• GitHub
• Wikipedia list of online music databases

You can also check out Jacob Olsufka’s blog post on finding free data sets or read Tableau Zen Master David Murphy’s blog post to pick up some tips for creating a data set of your own.

Meet the judges

Some amazing members of the Tableau community will help us determine the Top 10 entries. Once the entries are narrowed to a short list, a panel of guest judges will select the finalist who will advance to the Iron Viz Championship at Tableau Conference 2019 Las Vegas on November 15th, 2019. Vizzes will be scored based on three criteria: Analysis, Design, and Storytelling. Please note, judges are not allowed to provide feedback on entries during the submission period. To ensure fairness, each entry will be judged by more than one judge and the average score will be used.

First-Round Community Judges

Corey Jones is a Senior Financial Analyst at Johnson & Johnson and Tableau Public Ambassador. He was also an Iron Viz finalist in 2018. Corey graduated from St. Joseph’s University with majors in Business Intelligence and Accounting.

Simon Beaumont is a Global B.I. Centre of Excellence Director at JLL and Tableau Zen Master. He’s also co-chair of the UK Healthcare User Group and co-lead of #SportsVizSunday.

Emily Kund is the founder of The Fringe Festival and Analytics to Inform and a Tableau Social Media Ambassador. She uses analytics to help entrepreneurs learn more about their business to serve their clients and communities. Emily is also a data visualization instructor.

Siroros Roongdonsai is a Data Scientist and Analyst and Tableau Public Ambassador who loves art and data discovery. She was also a Viz Games Finalist at the Tableau Experience Thailand in 2018.

Emma Whyte is a Head of Customer Success at The Information Lab UK and a Tableau Zen Master. She is also the author of Woman in Data. In her free time Emma enjoys cooking, cylcing and the great outdoors.

Steve Wexler is the founder of Data Revelations and co-author of The Big Book of Dashboards: Visualizing Your Data Using Real-World Business Scenarios. His passion for data and comprehensive knowledge about Tableau led him to become the 2011 Iron Viz Champion.

Lilach Manheim is a Lead Analytics Engineer at Pluralsight, Tableau Zen Master, and human-centered information designer. She’s also the author of Data Bard.

Second-Round Guest Judges

Alberto Cairo is an educator and visualization and infographics designer. He is the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami and director of the visualization program at UM's Center for Computational Science. Cairo is also a freelancer and consultant for organizations and institutions such as Google and the Congressional Budget Office. He's the author of multiple books, including his most recent work 'How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter About Visual Information' (2019). He also authors a blog about information design and visualization.

Tom Barber leads the data engineering side of Virgin Atlantic’s data and insights team, working to build their commercial analytics platform. He has been using Tableau for 6 years in the Airline Industry at both easyJet and Virgin Atlantic and now runs training sessions at both airlines. Thomas’s passion for music comes from DJing at clubs and events over the past ten years. He is currently one of the resident DJs at Heaven in London and combines work with his hobby by DJing for Virgin Atlantic and Delta at LGBT pride events in Brighton, New York, and London!

Nicholas Rougeux is a web designer at Webitects and data visualization artist. He’s been building websites and data visualizations for nearly 20 years and recently began exploring the artistic side of data. Nick is mostly self-taught and always enjoys learning more. In his free time, he creates and sells artwork based on data on a variety of topics like science, music, literature, transit, and more. Nick’s work has been displayed in publications like Fast Company, WIRED, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Mental Floss, and more.

Valentina D'Efilippo is a designer, illustrator, and creative director based in London. After leading the design team at Signal Noise, a data design agency part of the Economist Group, she returned to run her own practice full-time. Pursuing imaginative and compelling visual language, her practice focuses on information design and data visualization and her work takes many forms–from theatre productions to interactive platforms. In 2013, she collaborated with data-journalist James Ball to publish The Infographic History of the World.

Why enter Iron Viz?

Wondering what's in it for you? Learn faster, gain inspiration, and build lasting connections. Additionally, the winner of this qualifier contest will receive:

• Free registration for the Tableau Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada
• Hotel accommodations for three nights in Las Vegas
• One round trip plane ticket to Tableau Conference in Las Vegas

Our winner will advance to compete against the other two finalists onstage at Tableau Conference in Las Vegas. Remember, every achievement starts with the decision to try!

Ready to get started?

Follow these steps to put your data skills to the test:

1. Download Tableau Desktop.
2. Create a Tableau Public profile.
3. Find some data.
4. Submit your viz. Publish your visualization to your Tableau Public Profile. Once published, submit a link to your published visualization here.

Don't miss the chance to tune your data skills and compete with data rockstars from around the world! Win or learn—you can’t lose.

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Open to legal residents of Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom Or The United States who are validly registered users of Tableau Public, who have validly registered in the Contest, and who are at least the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence at the time of entry. Three “Contest Periods”, from 4/8/2019 at 12:01 a.m. PT to 5/5/2019 at 11:59 p.m. PT; 6/20/2019 at 12:01 a.m. PT to 7/21/2019 at 11:59 p.m. PT; and 8/9/2019 at 12:01 a.m. PT to 9/8/2019 at 11:59 p.m. PT. To enter, during a Contest Period: (a) visit tableau.com/iron-viz and register as a contestant in the Contest; (b) properly download the Tableau Public software and connect to any publicly available data set; (c) produce and publish a Tableau Public data visualization; and (d) provide the URL of the visualization to Sponsor at tableau.com/iron-viz. Three winners will be scored based on the following judging criteria (a) Design of Submission, (b) storytelling of Submission, and (c) Submission’s analysis of the Data Set within 14 days after each Contest Period. Winners will each receive (a) one conference registration to the 2019 Tableau Customer Conference Las Vegas (ARV:$1,895 USD); (b) double occupancy hotel accommodations for four nights (ARV: $1,012 USD); (c) one round trip plane ticket to Las Vegas, Nevada (ARV: $2,246); and (d) qualification to participate in the finals. Odds of winning depend on number and quality of eligible entries. Contest subject to Official Rules. Details and restrictions apply, so visit tableau.com/iron-viz for Official Rules. Sponsor: Tableau Software, Inc.