This will be my 10th Tableau Conference.
Ten. I had to count twice because that number does not feel real. When I showed up to my first TC, I was relatively new to the DataFam. Knew of people the way you know of a band before you've seen them live. A few names, a few faces from Twitter avatars, but no real connections. Nobody really knew me either. That first conference was a little overwhelming, honestly. A lot of "hi, nice to meet you" handshakes with people who would eventually become colleagues, collaborators, and genuinely good humans in my life.
A decade later? Walking into that conference center feels like a reunion. And this year, San Diego is back for the third year running, and honestly, at this point it just feels like home. Not a bad home, DataFam. Not bad at all.
Let me be real with you: this year's schedule is a lot. Tuesday, May 6th specifically is going to be a full send from jump. Here's what's happening:
If you're thinking about your next role, trying to grow your consultancy, or just want to connect with other data professionals who get it, this is your room. Come network, swap stories, and figure out your next Tableau move whether that's a new job, a new client, or a new collaboration. There will be a crew of cohosts ready to facilitate the conversation. Come hungry (for knowledge, and also probably actual food by that point in the day).
Co-leading this one with David Kelly, Program Manager at QTS Data Centers, and we are genuinely fired up about it. This is a beginner-friendly, hands-on session built for the person who is still cleaning data in Excel and thinking "there has to be a better way." (There is. It's called Tableau Prep and it's going to change your life a little bit.)
We're walking through joins, pivots, calculations, unions, and how to build automated flows that do the heavy lifting for you. Bring your laptop and your charger. No tablets, no phones. You're going to need both hands for this one.
Co-hosting this conversation with Leah Slate, BI Manager at Concord, and honestly the title says it all. Moving to Tableau Cloud is exciting. Dragging your years of server debt along with you is not. We're digging into content audits, how to define and handle stale assets, data source consolidation, and how to actually optimize before you migrate so you're not just moving a mess to a new address.
This one's going to be a real conversation, not a presentation. Come with questions. Come with opinions. Come ready to talk through the hard stuff.
This one is mine. Solo. And it's the one I'm probably most personally invested in.
Nine years of Workout Wednesday. Nine years of building, breaking, rebuilding, and figuring out what actually works when you take it out of the challenge context and into a real business environment. This session is the distillation of all of that: five elite techniques, the technical how-to and the strategic when-to behind each one. Not just "here's a cool trick" but "here's why this trick scales, drives performance, and delivers real business value."
If you are going to catch one session of mine this year, make it this one. Yes it's 8 AM. Set two alarms.
After all of that, we're doing the only sensible thing: happy hour.
Concord is hosting at Happy Does in the Gaslamp Quarter, Tuesday, May 6 from 5:00 - 8:00 PM PT. If you're in San Diego for TC, come find us. Good drinks, good people, and no dashboards required (though we'll probably end up talking about them anyway).
If any of this content is sparking ideas about what your team could be doing with Tableau and data, that's not an accident. Concord works with organizations to build out analytics capabilities that actually stick. Whether that's a full engagement or starting with one of our BI Workshops, we'd love to have that conversation.
Ten conferences. Four sessions. One happy hour. One city that feels like home.
San Diego, the DataFam is coming. Try to keep up.
Are you heading to TC this year? Find me on LinkedIn and let me know. If you're planning to come to any of my sessions or the happy hour, I'd love to know ahead of time. The more the merrier, and in ten years of doing this, that has never once been wrong.
Go Forth and Viz.
Not sure on your next step? We'd love to hear about your business challenges. No pitch. No strings attached.
