Why am I doing this?

I was inspired to quit a job and an industry that I had worked in for over 20 years to work in the technology field and promote data visualization.

My experience at the first Tableau User Conference in July of 2008 really motivated me to make this career change.  While having a very interesting and fulfilling job before I realized that there was a common theme every job responsibility or project I had to manage.

I wanted the data first.

A good friend of mine (Pierre Tanguay, The Wheelabrator Group) taught me an important lesson in the mid 1990’s.  That being; frequently the most experienced and knowledgeable “opinions” can be exactly wrong.

At that time Pierre and I were working at a transfer press molding operation that had invested a very large sum of money in a new process which would revolutionize the production of a rubber part which is a component in nearly every car in the United States.

The problem was, our process wasn’t producing the expected productivity and we were loosing money. 

The conventional expert opinion was that we needed to “add more pressure” to the transfer presses that were producing the parts.

Pierre designed an experiment in which we measured every variable of the molding process (temperature, time, pressure).  We collected data for two weeks.  What was the result?

The expert opinions were exactly wrong.  The answer turned out to be “less” pressure not more.

Had management relied on expert opinion and not the data we would have invested millions and received no benefit.  The data provided a clear and surprising answer.

Tableau is simply the best ad hoc data analytical tool I’ve seen in 25 years.  It’s accessible to the average user.  It scales to large data sources and Tableau only gives you appropriate visual tools for the variables you wish to analyze.

Simple and brilliant.  Tableau brings your “Dark Data” into the Light. 

My goal for this web site and blog is to help other people achieve results with there data using Tableau and the expertise we have within InterWorks.

I’ll post regularly to this blog about discoveries we make along this journey.  Stay tuned.