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| Kathy Sierra, 2005 click to read more |
Someone recently implied, quite publicly, that Tableau users are 'dumb'. I'm not even going to provide the link to the interview because this type of nonsense marketing is becoming more common. Get quoted saying something negative about Tableau and hopefully you'll get people to check out your product. Is that really 'smart' marketing?
Kathy Sierra wrote about this phenomenon a while back:
You don't really have passionate users until someone starts accusing them of "drinking the koolaid." You might have happy users, even loyal users, but it's the truly passionate that piss off others enough to motivate them to say something. Where there is passion, there is always anti-passion... or rather passion in the hate dimension. If you create passionate users, you have to expect passionate detractors. You should welcome their appearance in blogs, forums, and user groups. It means you've arrived. Forget the tipping point--if you want to measure passion, look for the koolaid point.
Personally, I don't mind being referred to as dumb. I love being underestimated - it happens to me all the time because I'm a little odd. It's my secret weapon. 'Promise a ham sandwich and deliver roast pig' (Joss Whedon reference for you diehard browncoats). Tableau enables me to do this, with all the trimmings.
10 Signs You Too Are TabAddicted
- You use the word 'viz' in real world conversations. For example, talking to family and friends about Game of Thrones. "Yeah, the red wedding was awesome; I did a viz about it". Conversation dies.
- You have Tableau friends you have never met in the real world.
- You can't read the paper without being 'viz' inspired and heading to your computer to hunt down data on the subject.
- When asked for help by a colleague, you say "Check out my blog, I did a post about that" and you know you sound like a dork the instant the words leave your mouth.
- It's 7 o'clock and you haven't left your desk all day, but your Tableau workbook has 56 tabs of visualizations, your eyeballs look like swirling lollipops and you look around to high-five someone, but everyone else has gone home like normal people.
- You use Tableau-isms, such as Tablites, Tableaudown, and Tablites. Paul.
- You refer to other Tableau users by their twitter handles, eg. @russiansphinx, @datablick, @datapscientist.
- You dream of charts IN COLOR.
- You have nightmares of being chased by pac-man-like exploding pie charts.
- Your spouse has informed you that he/she will smother you in your sleep if you go near your computer during the next holiday.
Sorry, I don't have one. Shouldn't everyone be so lucky to have a tool that makes them kick-ass and obsessively in love with their work?