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Christian Chabot

Tableau is the new Apple again

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Fourteen thousand people looked on earlier this month as Tableau’s new CEO, Adam Selipsky plodded onto the stage. The stage was 10 times wider than at the first conference, an audience 70 times bigger — and a CEO not even a quarter as fiery as the first one. But he seems to be a good fit for Tableau’s new era.

I’ve watched this show every year since 2008, when founding-CEO Christian Chabot paced the 20-foot stage and put on his first tent-revival style keynote. Back then, I talked to many of the 200 or so attendees in the jammed hallways at the Seattle’s Edgewater Inn and heard story after story — most of which went something like this: We had data we didn’t understand, and then someone in our group said we should try this funny tool he’d downloaded. By the end of the day, we found something we had to tell the boss about.

Chabot’s pitch reminded me of Steve Jobs just after Jobs’s returned to Apple, and I wrote here that Tableau was “the new Apple.” The whole conference exuded warmth and humanity. Even the food was good.

If Chabot was the new Steve Jobs, Selipsky is the new Tim Cook. The question now is whether the product’s underlying humanity is safe with Selipsky. Is the product’s essence — what Selipsky has called “the golden egg” — safe from corruption from newer, bigger market pressures?

Until now, we felt assured that the three founders stood watch. No matter how they expressed the Tableau essence, they were always watching and guiding. But none of the three even showed up to the conference this year. They’ve ordained an executive who’s more suited to manage Tableau at its new maturity than than I assume any of those three are.

At a Q&A session for industry analysts, I asked how he could assure Tableau users that the “golden egg” will remain intact?

Excerpts of his answer:

The honest answer is I’m not 100% sure. It’s the hardest job that I have. I feel that very personally. … There are some things you know. You know when you understand the product. You know when you understand how we go to market. How do know when you understand the culture and what is valuable about it and what also needs to evolve about it? It’s something that has been an acute topic of thought for me over the past 13 months. … I kind of [feel like I’m in] a room where [we are] moving furniture around and doing a bunch of remodeling in the room. And there’s a golden egg somewhere in there. And we’re not 100 percent sure where it is; you can’t always see it. The thing we want to do is to make sure we don’t smash it as we’re doing a bunch of remodeling.

He’s sincere. He’ll identify the egg and respect it. A committee that chief product officer Francois Ajenstat described to me will care for it, cultivate it, and ensure that it has food, water, and warmth.

The funniest part of all this is that there never was any such egg or essence. I’ll bet that from the beginning the Tableau priesthood just felt their way in the dark. The product, the company, the competition, and the market is all too complex and too subtle for anything else. Those who look for any kind of true north will go crazy as poles shift.

In time, all that will remain of Tableau the company is yet another business story of innovation, disruption, and a final decline. The real, enduring legacy will be that, thanks to Christian Chabot, Chris Stolte, Pat Hanrahan, Jock MacKinlay and others, the data in those stories can be visualized, beautifully and meaningfully — with some tool or other.

So carry on, Adam Selipsky. Build a still bigger, higher, more secure nest. Next year, try to plod over more of the stage, deliver your lines better, and make sure the welcome reception serves edible food.

Data industry’s breakthrough starts with a smile

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The tweet stream running from Tableau’s presentation to the Boulder BI Brain Trust on Friday morning reflected one dominant reaction: awe. That’s easy when the product is a new shiny thing, but not so easy for number nine. As I said in one tweet, Tableau demos are always thrilling — no less than it was seven years ago. It’s magic, and it’s about time we give magic its due.

The question is what kind of magic? Is it the magic of a car salesman and his “new car smell”? Or is it an enduring magic that “takes a licking and keeps on ticking”?

The demos, at least, keep ticking. So far, now nine versions along, so does the product. How else can we explain the apparent, sustained cheer among the legions of seasoned users? Go ahead, tell me it’s all a fake. The walk on the Moon was a fake, too.

If there’s any sleight of hand in the Tableau show — and Qlik’s, too, by the way — it’s that it’s all about data. Listen to any Tableau presenter, and you hear them tell about data discovery in the context of a story. Storytelling is where the magic happens. I had this data, I looked at it this way, then that way, and I flipped over into this view, and then over to this one, and by god I saw this… It’s presentation magic, but unlike “new car smell,” this magic works even months or years after purchase.

Tableau has its doubters, of course. One bitter agent of the “just the facts, Ma’am” creed sat next to me last September during Tableau CEO Christian Chabot’s keynote and grumbled, “He’s telling them they’re artists.” Remember how that old song goes, “Do You Believe in Magic”: “I’ll tell you about the magic and it’ll free your soul, but it’s like tryin’ to tell a stranger ’bout rock and roll.”

Sure, “You’re an artist” wins over the rubes in the cheap seats. But there’s more to it. In fact, many are a kind of artist, data storytellers. Forget Tableau’s “story points,” the cave painting kit for beginners, and look instead at what users produce. Look at not just Tableau’s stories about data discovery but at stories of discovery from users.

Perhaps the Other 80 Percent — the estimated mass of business users who’ve shied from the cold grip of traditional data tools — needs to feel swept up in discovery and data stories. That could just be the data industry’s salvation.

Looking for Kool-Aid at the Tableau conference

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It’s no secret that some people hear about Tableau’s passionate users and wonder what all the fuss is about. Back in June, in fact, one skeptical industry analyst tweeted to a Tableau fan, “Pal, you seem to have had a bit too much Tableau Kool-Aid.”

Tableau users I know just shrug. People who say things like that find passion for data suspicious, and there’s nothing you can do for them.

Then Tableau itself invited a delegation of industry analysts, most of them from the traditional end of BI, to its annual conference at the Encore hotel in Las Vegas. The company hopes for their blessing to make that leap across the chasm from early adoption to early majority.

My big question: Would the industry “influencers” and Tableau’s influential users play nice together?

I hang out with both groups, the doubters and the devoted. I do periodic retreats to TDWI and other events. I’ve also been an observer of Tableau since 2008 when I blogged that “Tableau is the new Apple.” I have no stake in Tableau’s success except that I think it’s a strong part of BI’s dream fulfilled, a bearer of fruit.

Experts can quibble over its limitations all they want to, but they must acknowledge one thing: It excites users. Few other tools do.

I spotted trouble on the first morning. In the opening keynote, CEO Christian Chabot had invoked one of his favorite themes: how Tableau would “change this tired, paternalistic BI order.” As usual, he got applause. To illustrate an anecdote about dairies, he pulled out a bottle of milk and poured himself a glass. Things were going well.

But about then, an industry expert tweeted from somewhere in the audience. He hinted at a suspicion of Kool-Aid: “It’s just a visualization tool with publishing capabilities.”

He might as well have asked what these 1400 or so nut cases were doing there, packed into that ballroom? Why, going by numbers from Tableau CMO Elissa Fink, did Experian send 17 people, Apple 19, and eBay 35? Did they come for the gambling, the shows, and a sweet sip of delusion?

Two special meetings with Tableau founders and the delegation of experts went better. As we sipped water from the Encore’s handsome tumblers, Chabot and fellow founders Chris Stolte and Pat Hanrahan talked about business plans and technology. Most of the influencers asked about the technology. We’ll have to watch their blogs for reactions.

Eventually, we left technology for more interesting, big picture questions. Neil Raden, of Constellation Research, asked how the company would grow and still satisfy the new demands of the broad new audience? Other technology vendors have stumbled on this. I asked a similar question: If they do as everyone expects and offer an IPO, how would their passion and vision endure under the new pressures?

The gist of both answers: They said they’re not doing this for the money, and they’ll continue to be driven by the same passion for a great tool, and that they’ll be guided by the same integrity. Cynics will scoff, but I believe them.

Meanwhile, out on “the street,” influential Tableau users expressed harsh opinions of the BI regulars.

One man with long experience in business intelligence and data warehousing, whose employer prohibits public statements, called the general class of BI experts “process junkies.” He said, “They don’t understand that I have this data and I want to understand what it tells me. It doesn’t fit.”

Similarly blunt: “I don’t care what these supposed experts think,” said Dan Murray, a longtime Tableau user and chief operating officer of InterWorks Inc, a fast-growing technology consultancy. The company is listed in the Inc. 5000, and it attributes much of its growth to database development and Tableau visualization.

“The BI people are back where we were a long time ago,” said Murray. “We’re past that.” To him, the people who really matter in data analysis now are the ones with passion for data analysis. He said, “Those are the superstars.”

Just who the superstars are marks the line between those who’ve had the “Kool-Aid” and the BI regulars. Most of the usual experts seem to live in the backend, where database administrators and other geeks rule. Back there, the game is all about process and data hygiene. The experts love to talk about all that, and only a few actually analyze data.

Up where the data analysts work, it’s all about analyzing data. They take seriously all the factors that the mainstream BI world does — such as data quality and data governance — but always with the end in mind, not as ends in themselves.

Ask them what they like about Tableau and their answers come down to one point: the thing gets out of the way and let them work almost as fast as they can think. It does so far better than any other data tool they’ve known. They feel that the tool is designed with them in mind — not for any purchaser, not for any security goon, and for not any consultant’s ego.

They are passionate. I had gone to dinner with a half dozen Tableau users when one wondered aloud about the Las Vegas airport’s on-time record. Someone had his laptop along, loaded with FAA data from an earlier analysis. We found seats in a bar near the casino and looked at the data. I don’t know of many others for whom data analysis beats ESPN.

We ordered beers.