Community Spring Cleaning week is here! Join your fellow Maveryx in digging through your old posts and marking comments on them as solved. Learn more here!

Alter Everything

A podcast about data science and analytics culture.
Episode Guide

Interested in a specific topic or guest? Check out the guide for a list of all our episodes!

VIEW NOW
BrianO
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Deanna Sanchez and CJ Campbell join us to discuss National Volunteer Week, Alteryx for Good, and making an impact in your community through analytics.

 

<


Panelists

 

 

 


Topics

 

 


Community Picks

 

 

 


Transcript

 

Episode Transcription

BRIAN: 00:06 

Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data and analytics culture. I'm Brian Oblinger, and I'll be your host. On this very special episode of the podcast, we're joined by Deanna Sanchez and CJ Campbell to discuss National Volunteer Week, Alteryx for Good, and how you can make an impact in your local community through analytics. Let's get started. Let's go ahead as always and get started with some introductions, so Deanna, why don't you give us the down low on how you got into analytics, how you got into data, and just a little bit about you? 

DEANNA: 00:39 

Hi everyone, I'm Deanna Sanchez, and I'm a senior consultant with Teknion Data Solutions. Teknion is an Alteryx partner, and I actually got started in analytics way back when, when I got into GIS. So my degree is in Geography and GIS from the University of North Texas, and they have an outstanding GIS program. And I actually have a focus in medical geography, so along with GIS, my focus is on epidemiology and healthcare-related analytics. And so I got started all those years ago looking at census data and demographic data and performing those types of spatial analytics, and around 2005, I started using this really neat product called SRC. And it had a tool in it called Allocate, so SRC actually turned into what we now know as Alteryx. And we still have the Allocate tools as well, but back then, Allocate was this really fantastic product that would truly, properly allocate block centroids into their proper areas within a block group boundary. 

DEANNA: 01:55 

So if you had a radius clipping a block group, for example, Allocate would use underlying block centroids and correctly, truly allocate - as the name is - the population or households or other data correctly into the radius, and I was so amazed with this product. I thought, "Wow, there's hardly any other product out there at this time that truly does that," and fell in love with what is now called Alteryx, so now, I actually specialize in spatial and demographic analyses in Alteryx. And I take Alteryx with me everywhere I go. I actually worked in the corporate world for quite a long time, and anywhere I went, I would bring Alteryx with me and tell people, "Hey, have you seen this product? Have you seen how blazingly fast this is? Let me show you." So that's really how I got started not only in analytics but in using Alteryx. 

CJ: 02:52 

Wow, so I'm super impressed. Right now, my background is not quite as extensive, but I went to Florida State University. I did not graduate, actually. I studied physics while I was there, and I'm about 10 credits away from a degree but never finished it off. And after college, I hopped around from job to job, ended up working at a water desalination company, doing research and development for a physicist because I had a physics background - and it worked out - then from there, worked at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, working in their optical microscopy department, and what was neat about both of those jobs was there was a lot more research. With the desalination work, we were trying to use humidification, dehumidification to basically find a new water source that was much cheaper than the current humidification-dehumidification process, and it was crazy interesting. A lot of data that we tried to push through, it was hard to sit there in Excel world, getting all of this stuff to work appropriately and to get some viable data out of that was just a pain. 

CJ: 04:05 

Working at the MagLab in Tallahassee was quite interesting as well. I didn't do so much with data there, but I did work with the optical microscopists and their images analyzed. So it was a different kind of data analyzation happening in that position, and then coming to Alteryx, doing software, has been extremely eye-opening in the way that we process data - we push stuff through - especially from someone working on the back end of these things, seeing how efficient they make it. The CTO here, Ned, set up an amazing platform for us to build off of, and it always encourages me so much to hear how much people love the product and how much easier it makes their lives. It makes you feel a little bit-- at least as a developer, there's so many different routes you can go with your work, and knowing that the way that we are going is actually improving and getting to people to the answers they want to get to is crazy encouraging. No, but I have a much shorter tenure, but that's about my history with analytics, just doing the software thing right now, which is pretty great. 

DEANNA: 05:14 

Oh, well, CJ, I am so impressed by you, actually. It is excellent to hear your background, especially in physics. I truly love physics, and I think it's such an amazing discipline. I actually majored in physics for just a little while. I actually started as a music major at UNT and almost graduated in it. I really only have about a year left, I think, in music, and while I was transitioning over to GIS, I actually started to major in physics for a bit. And I really wanted to go into astronomy, so one of my goals was actually to help to map the universe. So I think that was kind of a hint right there that I always loved maps, and I was really getting into mapping. And so I think thinking about mapping the stars of the universe and the boundary - if there is one - of the universe kind of really was a hint to me that, "Hey, I might go into this mapping field," and it was soon after that that I heard about GIS. 

DEANNA: 06:18 

I took my first class in GIS just out of curiosity and instantly realized, "Yes, I'm in the right place. This is exactly where I need to be," and so I truly love not only physics though as well-- while I was a GIS major, I worked as a research assistant for a biophysicist, so that physics background, those classes really came into play. And I actually was the GIS analyst on a project where I mapped mathematical models of how forests would grow through time. So the biophysicist would create the models. And then I would do three-dimensional GIS mapping using Esri products to show the forests actually growing through time. It was a really incredible project, so CJ, kudos to you for all your work in physics and your really cool background. I think that's amazing. 

BRIAN: 07:17 

Yeah, I am duly impressed. I do have a degree. But I don't know if you guys have heard or not, but I run a website and a podcast. So I think you're all doing pretty well over there with your spatial and your astronomy and your saxophone and your physics. I am the least of the-- I'm not going to impress anybody on this thing, so congrats to you guys for all that. All right. Great. Well, let's get into Alteryx for Good. So just a primer for those that are listening to the show, this week is National Volunteer Week, which is put on by an organization called Points of Light, and we'll put the link to that in show notes. And really, what this week is all about is talking about the contributions that people make to giving back in their local communities, and I know that both of you have done just amazing jobs at that. And I'd like to start with you, Deanna, to talk a little bit about the things you've done in your local community through Alteryx for Good. 

DEANNA: 08:16 

So Alteryx for Good has really been a life-changer for me. I'm actually always searching for ways to do good and really efficient ways to do good - I'll put it that way - looking for opportunities to where I can donate my time and my expertise and really have an immediate and wide-reaching impact right away, so Alteryx for Good really provided that to me, amazingly. We actually got started during Alteryx for Good Week last year, which was the week of April 23rd, and with the Dallas Alteryx User Group, which I've leading for four years. We now actually have over 200 members on LinkedIn and constantly growing. It's really amazing to see it really blossom the way it has, but our User Group got together, and we introduced Alteryx for Good Week and did a call for volunteers. And we ended up having 12 volunteers right away. It was really wonderful, and we decided to choose the Commit Partnership. 

DEANNA: 09:27 

And the Commit Partnership in Dallas is really this wonderful coalition of over 200 partners. It involves public and private schools, colleges and universities and business and nonprofits, and they all work together through this organization called the Commit Partnership. And they really solve the region's largest educational challenges. They use public data, such as the Texas Education Agency data and so on, and they actually perform analytics on this data and then distribute the data out to school districts and principals and universities and, really, everyone who's involved in improving education. Not just for the Dallas area, but it really has stretched out through the state of Texas, and they're doing a phenomenal job of really how they analyze data and put the data together. 

DEANNA: 10:27 

So we chose Commit as our recipient for Alteryx for Good last year, and it turns out that we decided for Alteryx for Good Week, we were going to hit it hard and heavy. We actually met on-site with Commit three times that first week, and actually, on the very first day, really in the first hour, we took one of their laborious Excel processes and we converted it over to Alteryx. This was a spreadsheet that combined a lot of data from public information, tons of tabs in the spreadsheet, a lot of cutting and pasting, a lot of formulas inside Excel to try to make sure all the data's analyzed properly, and we actually took that spreadsheet and converted it to a workflow that ran in about two minutes. 

DEANNA: 11:20 

They were ecstatic. Commit couldn't believe that Alteryx was capable of this, and they really said, "Okay. Wow, we didn't even know it was possible to transfer our data over to this and have it run so quickly." And so they said, "What else can we do?" And the volunteers and I, we were very, very happy with this and said, "Hey, yeah, this is Alteryx. This is what it does. Get ready for what else we can do you," and it was really cool to start working with them and really transferring a lot of their processes over into Alteryx. We're actually now creating analytic apps for them, really making their lives easier with that, automating a bunch of processes, and really getting them access into large data sets that, before Alteryx, they couldn't even harness. They really couldn't even touch. They said, "This doesn't fit in Excel. We just kind of have to leave that data set out there," knowing that it's there, but they really couldn't perform analytics on it. 

BRIAN: 12:24 

Yeah. Yeah, that is amazing stuff. Thank you for telling that story, and I hope that inspires anyone who's listening to get involved whether they're in Dallas or elsewhere. I think this is also a good place to put in a plug for Alteryx for Good. We instituted that program a couple of years back with the idea that we could give back not just time but also software, and so for those that go to AlteryxforGood.com, you'll find that, as Deanna was just pointing out, we actually do provide free copies of Alteryx Designer for educators, for small government, for 501(c)(3) charitable organizations. So it's a really great program, I think, in which we're doing our best to enable some of the things that are being described there, so thank you for that, Deanna, for sure. And CJ, how about you? 

CJ: 13:16 

Yeah, so some of the volunteering that I've done specifically with Alteryx for Good has been with going to DC for the HHS Opioid Hackathon. I'm sorry. It wasn't a hackathon; it was a code-a-thon. But yeah, no, it was a really great experience. It was awesome. Alteryx sent out a huge group of us to go work on this project, and the goal was to use Alteryx to try and find a way where we could provide some sort of solution or data processing to help with the opioid crisis. And I worked with Dr. Dan Putler and a few other members, and it was very interesting to work with him in particular just because he is a data scientist and not a software engineer. And I'm very used to working with other software engineers here at Alteryx. And because I do have a background with analytics and data, but also because I can code in multiple languages, I code in C++, C#, JavaScript, HTML, been learning Python recently, so because I had a much broader full stack, there was a lot of different places where I could contribute and help these guys out. 

CJ: 14:24 

But it was really encouraging being there, seeing how many different people were trying to find these really creative solutions to the opioid crisis and being able to contribute to that with Alteryx and getting this data out to people very quickly. We only had, I believe, 48 hours to work on this project and to get that done and have a viable solution-- not solution, but a viable presentation to say, "Hey, here's some problem areas where you can focus your efforts and really do a lot of help." I mean, especially with physical addiction, I find that to be on the more extreme as far as helping causes go because it's one thing if you're already in pain. You're taking opioids for a reason, but then to compound that with now a physical addiction, you're just adding to somebody's suffering, which hits me at my core. I don't want anyone to have to suffer these types of things, so knowing that we were able to bring through some viable efforts to say, "Hey, you guys can focus your efforts here. You can try different things in different areas on this end, this scale." It was very neat. They were using a lot of the mapping capabilities of Alteryx to see different hotspots of usage issues, and Dr. Dan, in particular, just did a phenomenal job of presenting it to - I believe they had - a board of judges who were with the human health services. And they seemed to take to it pretty well, and we also had a bunch of ACEs show up as well. And they had some really great work that they were able to do in using Alteryx and non-Alteryx methods, so we've done a little bit of volunteering with Alteryx for Good. And it's been pretty great so far. 

BRIAN: 16:12 

That's great, and what was it like in that room? I mean, I know everybody was probably tired and about ready to pass out from the sort of the a-thon that happened. But when those presentations happened, I was watching the livestream, and it seemed like there was a good bit of optimism, a good bit of feeling of, "Hey, this is something that we can solve or that we can fix, right? It's just going to take some people like you guys to get in there and do that." From your perspective, what was that like when people were presenting? And did you get that feeling, or was there something else? 

CJ: 16:48 

So the presentations were amazing. I mean, the presentations themselves were extremely energizing for me. You could tell people had some really close experiences with opioid addiction. One guy who presented, in particular, talked about his brother who died from an overdose and just methods that he thought would be extremely helpful that instead of stigmatizing people who have addictions, but working with them, knowing they have a support system. And he came up with this beautiful phone app where people who were suffering from addiction could just contact each other and have a buddy so that way, if something did go wrong, they would have a support system there for them. There was another group. They presented this idea of using a busing system. The stigma behind it was quite awful, so people don't want treatment facilities in their neighborhoods. And if you have a neighborhood or a community that needs treatment but then people are not wanting to have the facilities nearby, it causes a real issue, so they suggested having a busing system where you could have these mobile treatment facilities that go where they need to go and then leave. So this way, the community doesn't feel that they're losing value on their properties or that the community is somehow lesser because of these facilities and people can still get the treatment they need. So I mean, we were able to provide data on where those buses could go, where people could implement these different methods, which was amazing, and then to see these other ideas come out of it, it was so encouraging. 

BRIAN: 18:23 

Yeah, no, that's a really interesting example, and it also sort of dovetails with one that we've talked about here for a while. There's an organization called Lava Mae out of the Bay Area in San Francisco, and it's the same situation that you just described where - and of course, San Francisco being a dense city - there's not as much space, right, to have those kind of treatment centers and things like that. And so what Lava Mae is doing is they've purchased a bunch of buses, and they've dressed them up with showers and personal care items and all kinds of things. And so they drive around the city, and what's great is that the homeless population and folks that are trying to get back on their feet and trying to go to a job interview get the opportunity to go up into the bus and take a shower. They have clothes for them. They get hygiene, things like that. And it just gives them that leg up to be able to go out and do a job interview or have the dignity that they deserve, so I think we're seeing a lot of that as well. 

BRIAN: 19:21 

And Lava Mae's using Alteryx to sort of do some demographic targeting and donor lists and things like that so that they can get to that data, but I think what's really awesome about all of this as a whole is that we're hearing data for good. I think it's really important, right. With the stories that have come out around Facebook and other things, people are becoming a little suspect about data, right, and what it is and how it gets used. And I think it's really important to tell these positive stories with outcomes that are really helping local communities and people in need because we don't want people to get to the point where they think, "All data is bad, and it's all used for nefarious purposes," because that certainly isn't the case. And you two have some pretty strong stories about that, but there's also plenty of other stories out there on our community and others about how data is getting used for good. So it's great to hear. 

BRIAN: 20:18 

Great, so we talked a little bit about Alteryx for Good and National Volunteer Week and some of the cool things that you've been doing and what the impact is on the community. What I'd like to hear from both of you, though, also is what is your favorite thing that you've ever done volunteering in general, whether it was those two things you just talked about or some other volunteering event, and how did you feel? How did you get involved? And maybe some tips for other folks about how they can get involved because I think that volunteering and giving back is something that most people know they should do. They hear a lot about it on TV and media and other places, but I think until you experience it yourself, you might not know exactly what you're going to get out of it. I think everybody gets some different out of it, depending on the opportunities that are available to them in their local markets, so I'd love for you both to kind of talk about your experience from that perspective and what you got out of it, how it made you feel. Maybe we can kind of bring that to the listeners a little bit, so CJ, let's start with you on that one. 

CJ: 21:22 

Yeah, so there's a few different ways that people can give back. Sometimes, it's monetary. Sometimes, it's volunteering. Sometimes, it's going out and just being part of a community, and for me, giving back monetary-wise, I think it's a very good thing because there's some really good people out there doing some amazing work, especially if it's something you support and you want to see them continue to do that type of work. But it's a very passive way of participating in a community. When you go and you volunteer, there's something about being with people, being around people, seeing them either struggling or succeeding and propelling forward. 

CJ: 22:06 

To me, it strikes me so much harder in my heart and at my core because I grew up in a very small town up in rural Ohio. It's about 4000 people small, so when I went to school at Florida State, the stadium there, I believe, holds 80,000 people, the football stadium. All right, so you could fit 20 of my towns in the football stadium that I went to school at, and it was hard to really experience and empathize with people when you grow up in an environment like that. And volunteering, going out, stretching yourself, being challenged by other people and seeing their situation, I think one, it allows you to give back and really help other people who need it, but it also too, I think, allows you to grow as an individual and be a better human being. When you keep yourself in a small bubble and you don't get challenged by other people's circumstances, you yourself can't know how you feel about something. You can't really reflect and have that introspection of "How do I think? Is this okay? Am I all right with a situation, or do I want to do something about it?" 

CJ: 23:17 

One of the really cool volunteer experiences I got to do about a year ago was with FIRST Robotics, and what they do is they encourage kids to go build robots, basically, and then compete. And it was so neat to see all these kids coming together and working to do this, and they had kids from all different walks of life. And meeting all these different people, seeing their experiences or hearing about their experiences and seeing how they interacted really allowed me to not only look at them and say, "Wow, you are so cool. You're doing such a good job. This is amazing. I want to help you succeed," but it also allowed me to take a step back and say, "Wow, how am I doing this outside of this volunteer effort? How am I helping other young people succeed in science and technology? How am I being supportive for these people to get to where they want to go, regardless of what gender they are or what sexual orientation they have, what background they come from, what color their skin is?" How are we allowing everyone these technology and science opportunities? So for me, that's where volunteering becomes an amazing experience, just the level of empathy, experience, getting outside of your shell, being challenged as a human being, and growing as a person. 

BRIAN: 24:40 

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's right. Growing up, I did a little bit of volunteering as a kid, and we gave monetarily where we could. But it wasn't until I got together with my now wife, and her father, so my father-in-law, is really big into volunteering in Phoenix. And he took us to a couple of the soup kitchens that he volunteers, and there is something distinctly different about volunteering with the actual people that are being served as opposed to doing it sort of one step or two steps removed, not that there's anything wrong with that by the way. I do a lot of that as well, but there is something that fundamentally sort of changes you when you're there serving those less-fortunate folks or people with mental disabilities or those kinds of things. And I think, for a lot of people, that can be a little bit of a scary endeavor, right? That kind of puts them out of their comfort zone, but I totally agree with what you're saying there that when you do that, it really changes your mindset into not just how am I going to do this in the two or three hours that I'm volunteering but ongoing in the rest of my life, right? Everything that I do every day, how do I think about serving others better and making sure that I'm voting the right ways and making decisions that are going to benefit the greater good? So I totally hear what you're saying and agree with that. Deanna, how about you? 

DEANNA: 26:10 

Yeah, I think, for me, volunteering really has made such an impact for me. It's actually something I do constantly. Any time I get a free moment, I'm not only volunteering for Alteryx for Good with Commit, which I truly love to do, but I also volunteer for other organizations. I actually joined the Rotary Club of Dallas, and so I volunteer through Rotary quite a bit. And again, I was looking for a type of volunteering that has a true, tangible, and immediate impact, and I got to know about Rotary through a friend and realized Rotary definitely has an immediate impact. The Dallas Rotary Club actually goes to Ghana, Africa once a year, and they actually dig water wells. They actually put together a group that digs the wells, and so they really help these communities to where people and even children are walking miles a day just to get their regular, potable water. And to have a well in their village really transforms their lives, and to me, this is an immediate impact as something that happens right away. 

DEANNA: 27:29 

It is one thing. It's really wonderful to donate money, and I think it's fantastic when you can do that because that does have a huge impact as well for nonprofits and for organizations that are doing good, but I think it's another thing where you can actually be on-site and volunteering in-person. You get these tangible results that you see right away, and you get this incredible feeling that you're contributing, you're doing something good. And you're working with others to actually help these ripples of good to occur throughout the world, and to me, that's something that goes straight to my heart. I have to be out there making those tangible results happen. 

DEANNA: 28:18 

For example, when I'm on-site with Commit or even collaborating by WebX, they say to me, "Wow, I didn't even know this was possible in Alteryx. You have no idea how much this is going to improve things." Say we just made an app together, for example, to me, that's what gets it for me. That's what clinches it and says, "Okay. Yeah, I'm doing the right thing. I'm spending my time very wisely here." So it's really doing that type of volunteer work that's out there and contributing and using my skills. I think when you can use the gifts that you've been given to do good, that's really the key for all of volunteering. You may not be able to donate financially, but maybe you can donate with your expertise in Alteryx. You've got these amazing skills that you've learned. Why not put them to use? 

DEANNA: 29:12 

And in my opinion, when you're starting your Alteryx for Good work, you don't have to have this full team of 18 volunteers like we do in Dallas. It can be just one person volunteering. One person volunteering at a nonprofit, sitting by someone and teaching them Alteryx, providing solutions for them, showing them what's capable makes a major difference. It actually has a huge impact, and even if it's just for a few hours, you're still making a difference with that nonprofit organization or university and so on. So don't feel that you have to make this whole team of volunteers to start Alteryx for Good. You can actually just have a team of one and go out there and start making a difference. I think the key is if you're part of a User Group, go ahead and let the User Group know what you're doing with this team of one, and I think that will inspire other members of your User Group to volunteer with you. Also, if you don't have a User Group, you can actually start one. Our Dallas User Group started with just a handful of people about four years ago, and now, as mentioned, it's over 200 on LinkedIn. So if you don't have a User Group in your area, there's resources available online on the Alteryx Community where you can start your own User Group, and you can start right away with Alteryx for Good. If you don't know of a nonprofit that you want to choose as your recipient for Alteryx for Good, contact the Alteryx for Good staff. They actually have a list of nonprofits and universities that they can recommend for you to start working with, so it's actually a lot easier than it sounds. It's really easy just to take that first step and get started, so I just wanted to throw that out there for your User Groups and getting them involved. 

CJ: 31:11 

I might add that there are so many different ways too to volunteer: soup kitchens and going and picking up trash and working with kids are phenomenal ways to volunteer. I've had friends who've also done firefighting, and the cool thing about some of these volunteer opportunities, if you are a volunteer firefighter, a lot of times, if you put in a certain amount of years and hours, they will give you a pension at the end of it. So not only are you learning amazing skills and helping to protect the community that you're in, but you're also guaranteeing some financial security for yourself along the way. There's also volunteering-- I know, in Colorado, we have people who volunteer for avalanche rescue, right, so learning about the area you're in and not just the community but nature, skills for yourself. It's amazing. You can learn so much and just be a better human being overall. 

BRIAN: 32:08 

Yeah, no, that's awesome, and on your last point, I was in New York last week and was fortunate enough to be able to make a trip over to the 9/11 Memorial. And seeing the names of the people on the memorial, the First Responders as well as some of the folks that had volunteered to come down there after the tragedy, was just really inspiring, and I feel like when I volunteer, I'm packaging food and I'm helping animals and things like that, which is still really valuable. But it's a different level when you're putting your life at risk in your volunteering endeavors, so I think that's really important to call out as well. 

DEANNA: 32:47 

And there's actually studies out there, and I recommend, if you have time, to google them. Look up how volunteering transforms you and improves your health. There's all these neat health benefits and neat things that happen to the physical body and emotionally and mentally when you volunteer. Endorphins are released. You make more red blood cells, for example. It's really very cool that you're actually being transformed by the good work that you do, literally in the human sense, so I recommend, if you have time, to google some of those articles. It's really interesting and amazing to see the effects of that. 

BRIAN: 33:35 

Okay, so that brings us to our final segment of the show, which is, of course, Community Picks, and with this particular episode, we have a really great opportunity here to not only talk about our picks from the Alteryx Community itself but also charities, charitable organizations, ways to give back. I just want to list as many as possible that we know about or that we've partaken in the past to try and bring some exposure to these wonderful organizations that are out there, recognizing that not all of our listeners are going to be in Orange County or the Denver area or Texas, but I think it's a great way to kind of showcase all of the different opportunities and ways to get involved that are out there. So CJ, let's start with you. 

CJ: 34:19 

Yeah, so one of the community posts that I've been following is the Contest to Alter Everything on the Road to Inspire. Basically, we have a contest going on. I don't know if it's closed off just yet, but people have been posting different things that Alteryx has helped them in their lives with and them then posting videos and pictures of what they're able to do because they have so much free time because Alteryx is able to do things really fast for them. And it's just been super fun to see all the different stuff people are doing. Everything from skydiving to aerial acrobatics, dog training, agility stuff, it's been really cool just to see how vibrant our customers are. I'm behind a computer a lot, writing a lot of code and software, and when you have your head in the weeds like that, you tend to forget that there's human beings on the other side of the product using it who are also vibrant and have lives. And that we are improving their quality of life just makes me very happy inside, so it kind of brings the person back into the picture when I'm writing my code, which is great. So seeing all the different things that people are doing on this post has just been crazy fun for me to keep up with, and some of the charities that I want to give a shout-out to is FIRST Robotics. 

CJ: 35:48 

I think what they're doing is absolutely awesome, especially for kids who don't necessarily have a lot of opportunities in science and technology. They're really pushing especially for girls and minorities to get involved, and I think that's amazing. When I was a kid, I didn't have a chance to build a robot and to get really involved with science, especially being in a rural community in Ohio, so seeing that there is groups like this, especially because Colorado is so rural, that are giving and allowing these kids to have so much fun-- and I know FIRST does it outside of Colorado. They do it all over the world, so seeing that here in Colorado, though, is just absolutely amazing. There's also the Center for Alternative Lifestyles here in Colorado. They help out a lot of gay, trans, people of all different types to just know that they're cared about and that they are human beings also, that they have a support group where they're not going to be shamed and disrespected, and that, to me, is amazing because it's spreading love instead of hate. So knowing that these people are giving back, I think, is just absolutely wonderful, and also, a huge shout-out the firefighters who volunteer here in Colorado and people who volunteer with First Responders and Avalanche Assistance. I think that's absolutely amazing. These people are putting themselves in harm's way at no cost to the community. They're doing it because they care and they want to give back and, in all seriousness, could lose their lives in the process, so I think it's so amazing to have these wonderful human beings out there. So yeah, that's what I got. 

BRIAN: 37:37 

Yep. Great. Okay. Deanna, how about you? 

DEANNA: 37:39 

Let's see. For my Community Pick, I would like to say it would be the User Group resources. Those are amazing, so the User Group staff at Alteryx, which is Tuvi and Lauren and Tatiana was there for a long time as well, they've done an excellent job at putting together a ton of resources for User Groups and starting your own User Group. So I highly recommend that, so again, I've been leading the Dallas User Group for four years now with the other leadership team members. And I've actually used quite a few of these resources, so they have agenda templates. They have meeting templates. They have things to think about when you're scheduling a meeting and location such as, "Make sure your AV is working," and things like that, so that'll be my Community Pick. 

DEANNA: 38:38 

Feel free to look through that, and if you're interested in starting your own User Group, it's actually a lot easier than it seems. Again, you can just have one leader and one user, and it might even be the same person, but go ahead and feel free to start your User Group in your community because it's a fantastic way of networking and bringing people together who love Alteryx and who are interested in learning more. And you can actually not only have guest speakers from people who are using Alteryx but you can also do how-tos. You can show how to do, say, reporting, for example, or how to use the cross-tab tool and things like that, and so these are great ways of getting people together who love Alteryx and who are eager to do more with it. And again, it's a great way of networking. You'll meet all sorts of people and maybe even start your Alteryx for Good volunteering this week as well, and who knows whose lives you might transform by doing this type of volunteering through your User Group? So that's going to be my plug for the Community Picks. 

DEANNA: 39:48 

And for organizations that I really love to support and charities that I think are doing a fantastic job out there and I want to let others know about them, I definitely have to give kudos and a shout-out to Luvin Arms. Actually, Tara McCoy of Alteryx, she has actually been with Alteryx since the beginning, I believe. Tara was also a winner of the Alteryx for Good Champion Award last year. I was very privileged to win it last year as well in 2017, and Tara was the other winner and very well deserved because of her work with Luvin Arms, which is an animal sanctuary. So they did quite a lot of amazing things, and I highly recommend getting on the community and googling Luvin Arms or even just Tara McCoy. And you'll see the amazing work that they do. 

DEANNA: 40:43 

And hopefully, this would inspire other User Groups to do very similar type of work, going out and volunteering for animal sanctuaries and animal shelters. There's such a great need out there, and you really can get a group of people together to help even if just for a weekend. It makes a huge impact, and with that, I also want to say I really support the SPCA, Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. That actually means a lot to me, and I really do think that the SPCA could use an introduction to Alteryx. So I'm going to put that plug out there, so hopefully, some User Groups will pick that up and maybe help the SPCA in their area utilize Alteryx to analyze their data and to track numbers. Another one that I've just been introduced is Metrocrest Services. They provide some really amazing support for people in need in the north Dallas area, and we actually are talking with them about helping them obtain an Alteryx for Good license. So we'll keep you posted on that, but depending on if and when they obtain that license, we might be using some of our volunteers for Metrocrest Services. And feel free to look these up. I know we'll be posting the links to each of these along with the podcast, but hopefully, this will inspire other communities to create organizations similar to Metrocrest as well. They really do help a lot of people, and I went to one of their events recently and learned quite a lot. They even have a food pantry, and people in need who qualify can come and get food that's very essential at that time to help their children and their families. 

DEANNA: 42:41 

So again, feel free to look at their website and learn more about them. As mentioned, I volunteer for the Rotary Club of Dallas, very happy to be on their membership committee as well, and that's something that is going to be a lifelong commitment for me. Rotary does some amazing things and, again, huge and immediate impacts, and that's something that I'm glad to be a part of. So I highly recommend learning more about your Rotary club in your area if you're interested. Most people don't know this; Rotary was actually the organization responsible for helping to eradicate polio throughout the world, so feel free to look that up and learn how they did that. It's really amazing what an organization can do. Another one that I support greatly is EarthX, formerly Earth Day Texas. It was founded by Trammell S. Crow, who was one of the top real estate developers in Texas and in the country, really, and EarthX is a wonderful organization that supports education about the environment. So they host film festivals. They host events. They host hands-on learning opportunities, so when you have time, look up EarthX. It's a very cool organization, and again, hopefully, this will inspire others to form a similar organization as well in your community. 

DEANNA: 44:15 

And one volunteer that I'd like to really mention and I highly support is actually a person employed at Alteryx, Tatiana Servin. She was with the User Group team for a long time, and now she's on the Marketing staff of Alteryx. And she actually used to be a teacher, and she has written this wonderful blog. If you have time on the Alteryx Community-- in the Alteryx Community News section to look up, it's called In Good Company Corporate Volunteering with Data and Middle Schoolers, and she really has done an excellent job of showing what you can do with this volunteering in the corporate world and the impact that can happen with this. It's a fantastic article, and it really reminds me a lot of what the Commit partnership is doing with education-based data and really improving education and not just in grade school and middle school and high school but helping these people graduate and go on to very fulfilling lives, going onto college and elsewhere, and doing good in their community also. So I did want to give a shout-out to Tatiana as well. 

BRIAN: 45:32 

That is an awesome list, truly, and I will round us out. I have quite a list here as well. For my Community Pick, yeah, totally shameless here, right? So for my Community Pick, I actually also chose - we did not plan this, but - the Luvin Arms, as Tara called it, the fur-ever home story, so I will link the blog post that Tara wrote about that. And I was fortunate enough a couple of years back when Tara was doing work to find a location for their sanctuary. We actually went out there on a somewhat brisk Colorado day to help them build a barn, which is now their big barn for all of their animals. And I think they're coming up on their one- or two-year anniversary out there, so a great organization locally there in the Denver area. So let's see here. I have a big list. Bear with me, so Second Harvest is one that I volunteer at regularly here in Orange County. They're not all that dissimilar from probably any other food bank that you might find in your local communities out there. It's always great to just go on a weekend for a couple hours and build some boxes of food or check some produce for freshness and get that sent out to the community. 

BRIAN: 46:48 

The Orange County Rooster Foundation, so these guys, we actually worked with them around Christmastime last year here in Orange County, and they did a partnership with Second Harvest. And what they do is every single year - I think for the last couple of decades - they put on this big event where you show up and you build boxes of food, but these are special boxes of food because they're sort of like a Thanksgiving dinner in a box. So you've got a turkey, and you got all the fixings and all the good stuff. And they basically partner with other local organizations to get those out to the community. And so less-fortunate families get to have this big box show up at their house, and they get a full-blown Thanksgiving or Christmas Day meal, which is really amazing. So they do great work, and we've been working with them through Alteryx for Good here in the Irvine area. 

BRIAN: 47:41 

And as far as monetary, Save the Children is a great organization that you can donate money to, and they use that money to help education and impoverished children around the world, namely in third-world countries but also here in the US as well. Phoenix Philanthropists, I mentioned earlier in the episode that my father-in-law has been volunteering for a while, and this is a group back when I used to live in Phoenix that we got involved in. And I don't think people realize in sites like Meetup, for example, you can just go on there, and there's tons of volunteer organizations that are hosted on MeetUp.com. And Phoenix Philanthropists is one of those, and we used to volunteer through that organization at soup kitchens and food banks and churches and things like that. So that's a really great if you're ever in the Phoenix area. Of course, Humane Society, I'm a big animal guy, so I have a bunch on the list here like Humane Society. Marine Mammal Center is a pretty cool one if you're ever in-- if you're ever in Orange County. In Laguna Beach, the Marine Mammal Center, you go there, and they have rescued sea lions and seals. And you get to go see them and hang out, and of course, you can donate or give your time there as well. Irvine Animal Care Center, again, the local animal shelter here is a good one. 

BRIAN: 49:03 

Parrot Sanctuary Gardens is one that I volunteered at for a while when we first moved to Orange County. We were looking for kind of unique opportunities to volunteer, and a really great organization, they actually get parrots from people. And they rescue them because what happens is the birds live so long that they end up outliving their owners, and then when their owners pass away, there's nowhere for the bird to go. And so there has to be some sort of organization like this that can take the bird and care for them, so a really good one there. A Precious Child, which is actually in Broomfield, just a stone's throw away from the Alteryx office in Broomfield, is a really great organization. It's basically a thrift shop for underprivileged families and most of all kids, and so what they do is they basically run a thrift store where kids can come in and - I'm using air quotes here - "purchase" clothes and backpacks and school supplies. And obviously, it's all free to them, but they give the dignity to the children and to the families so that they can go to school every day and not get teased or made fun of because they wore the same clothes or things like that. So that's a fantastic one that we've really put a lot of time and effort out of the Broomfield office into as well. 

BRIAN: 50:21 

Boys & Girls Club, Red Cross, all of those that you might know, I know that Apple and Google do some pretty cool things nowadays with organizations like Red Cross whenever there's a disaster or an event that requires a sudden influx of cash, right, not dissimilar to the events that happened in Texas last year with the hurricane, and you can just go right on your phone, right in the App Store and donate 10 bucks or whatever. It's super low-barrier and a great way if you don't have the ability to actually physically volunteer to just quickly give some money in a hurry to some people who need it, and as I mentioned earlier on the show, the last one I'll just end on is the 9/11 piece just because it's fresh in my mind from last week. And all the folks that obviously showed up there to volunteer around those events was just amazing, so a whole of bunch of picks here today folks but I think definitely worthy of the time. So all right. Well, hey, from the bottom of my heart and from Alteryx and everybody who works there, I just want to say to both of you thank you for your efforts and all the things you're doing for National Volunteer Week and Alteryx for Good and your personal giving-back endeavors. It's really inspiring to hear all of the things that you're doing, and hopefully, we've inspired those that are listening to the podcast here to check out some of these organizations and Alteryx for Good and all these things. So thank you so much for everything, and thanks for being on the show. 

DEANNA: 51:56 

Yeah, and thank you, Brian, very much for having me on the podcast. It's been a real privilege, and CJ, it's been a privilege as well just to get to meet you and talk with you. Again, I'm so impressed with all that you're doing and all the volunteer work that you're doing as well, especially with the opioid crisis, and I actually look forward to meeting you in person at the Inspire Conference. So I hope that you get to attend, and I hope to actually get to talk with you then. So thank you again for having me. It's been a real privilege. Thank you. 

CJ: 52:30 

Yeah, thank you so much, Brian. This was great. 

BRIAN: 52:32 

All right. Well, take care. 

   

 

Comments