The Tableau Experience

Today I attended “The Tableau Experience.” I’ve been struggling with what to call it: a conference, a convention… It had only one speaker, and a Q&A – and a wet-bar.  So… I’m settling with ‘experience’ as they do. What it really was though, was an advertisement.

Don’t get me wrong – I like using Tableau to recreate charts for the Tobacco Ebook I’m working on, and this ‘experience’ was worth it for several reasons:

1. The speaker demoed several ways to share data that I haven’t seen in action since I’ve only been using it to create charts for data sets that are already created for me.

Tableau_Experience

 

2. There were a lot of people there from many different kinds of institutions.  I met others from universities like me – Georgia Tech, Gwinnett College, and so on. But I spent most of the time schmoozing with a lady from Home Depot, and then talked briefly to a man from a company called Norfolk. Everyone was using Tableau for something different – I’m pretty sure I was the only one making an Ebook.

3. I was able to ask about that pesky issue Ryan Cagle and I have been having in trying to get the distance between pane tick marks and labels to be exactly the same in all our charts so they’re uniform within the Ebook. Sorry, Ryan – there is no way to do this. The guy I asked said your idea was the smartest.

Overall, I’m glad I went to the Tableau Experience. And so I leave you with a picture of my spoils, the swanky bathroom in the wetbar, and the view from the 16th floor. Enjoy:

Tableau_Experience-2

Art Vandenberg and the World Community Grid

Today I went to the talk given in CURVE by Art Vandenberg. When I decided to attend, I didn’t know what the World Community Grid was, and now I know – and I think you should know too.

First, Art started off telling us a bit about himself. Here he is on the right:

I hope you all recognize that guy on the left by now :)

I hope you all recognize that guy on the left by now 🙂

Art was funny, and personable, and the perfect person to be telling us about World Community Grid.

What IS the World Community Grid, you ask?

ArtV_1

It’s pretty much the most complex, yet most simple thing you can do to help save the world. Essentially, if you join the world community grid (make sure you join the GSU team!), whenever you’re not using your computer, and it’s on (this also works on android phones, but they have to be plugged in), the world community grid can use your computing power to increase their ability to solve data problems like producing clean water, or mapping cancer markers. It’s really that simple.

And what’s cooler, is that all of our library computers (CURVE too) are already running world community. When the library is closed, there is a lot of world saving going on in there.

I left the link up there at the top of this entry – check it out. And if you have additional questions, go ahead an leave them below in the comments and I’ll see what I can do to find you an answer.

SIF: positivity, morale and accomplishments

This week, the SIF overlords contacted me and asked me to collect and catalog SIF accomplishments so far. As someone whose default setting is >excited with bouncy option – I am excited that I get to do this job.

And while it may seem a little early to start talking about accomplishments, I know that I’ve already learned enough to fill a whole brain noodle – and I’m hoping that others feel the same way. So I created a Google Forms survey to send out to everyone – and Joe, and Brennan already beta-tested it! That was so fast!

I’ve used Google  Forms before, but only as someone filling out the form. This time I got to make, not one, but TWO forms! I made one today for the beta test for the Tools Wiki, which I will send to a few of you in the next week or so, and one for SIF Accomplishments. The forms are really easy to make, and have a variety of options for users to answer – like multiple choice, scale, text, and so on. My favorite part though is that they have lots of themes to choose from that make the forms look a little more fun.

By the time you read this, you’ll probably have already filled out my form, and some of you may have already met with me. My hope is that by all of us thinking about the most positive and helpful aspects of SIFdom, we will be able to deliver an accurate picture of our accomplishments to the powers that be, as well as grow as a community of innovators.

And remember – if you’re having a bad SIF day, Zoe brings candy to the Exchange, Justin makes weird noises sometimes, and there’s always coffee in the common area.