Sharing Your Data Online
After surveying the crowd and finding nearly all attendees are sharing data internally, Dan Jewett, VP of Product Management, asked the attendees who currently shares data externally, or outside of company firewalls. Hardly a hand went up.
Pushing data online is a relatively new concept for many. While as consumers we may have accessed online data (typically static), we’re not so sure about how to get data online, what the uses of data on the Web might be, and the benefits of sharing data globally.
In bold letters on the presentation slide it said, “Today it is easier to put videos on the Web than to put data online.” Tableau has broken through this barrier. As proof, they demonstrated their partnership with a local Seattle real estate blogger who tracks and provides commentary on home sales, new listings, and other real estate metrics to over 4500 readers. After working with the Tableau team, his site now includes interactive data visualizations where readers can manipulate the charts and graphs to suit their own needs.
Ellie Fields, Director of Product Marketing, went on to talk about the author’s conundrum of sharing online. How do you present information in a cogent view for the audience? She then offered four best practice tips:
- Publish for a point – Understand how it will be used, who will use it, and what do they already know.
- Target the most critical activity – Prioritize what you show and use filters (3 or less) and highlighting to guide the reader.
- Extract wisely – Know your data and how long the response time is. The more users care, the longer they will wait. The converse is also true.
- Make it beautiful – The visualizations should be intuitive and attractive to lead the audience in.
Bottom line is, Tableau makes getting your data online easy, letting you share it with your own audience, allowing them to create their own views and increasing its usefulness and value.
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