Alter Everything Podcast

BrianO · ‎06-07-2018

A cavalcade of stars join us live from Day 3 of Inspire 2018 in Anaheim, California.

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BRIAN: 00:06	Live from day three of Inspire 2018 in Anaheim, California. This is Alter Everything, a podcast about data and analytics culture. We're joined by a cavalcade of stars to discuss their conference experience. Let's get right into it.
BRIAN: 00:28	Okay. So I'm here with Jason Mack. How's it going Jason?
JASON: 00:30	It's going wonderful, Brian.
BRIAN: 00:32	Awesome. So tell me about how many Inspires you've been to. I see it looks like this is your number five?
JASON: 00:37	No, this is number four for me.
BRIAN: 00:39	Number four for you.
JASON: 00:40	So my first Inspire was Boston 2015. But I have to say this is the best one so far.
BRIAN: 00:45	Okay. We like that. So speaking of best one so far, what have you done? What's been your agenda? What's that look like?
JASON: 00:51	I've done everything, Brian. I got in early.
BRIAN: 00:52	Done it all.
JASON: 00:53	And I did trainings on Monday. I've got trainings tomorrow. And I've been trying to get to every keynote and every session that I can.
BRIAN: 01:00	Okay. What about certification? Are you on the certification train yet?
JASON: 01:03	I am on the certification train. I completed the core certification at the end of last year. I have advanced to do next. And I guess now, there's another one that's out.
BRIAN: 01:12	We're all counting on you.
JASON: 01:13	Yeah. Why not?
BRIAN: 01:14	Awesome.
JASON: 01:15	I have a pin. So--
BRIAN: 01:16	I have a pin. So I want to talk a little bit about last night. So for folks listening, this is day three of the conference. And last night, we had of course the grand prix and the big party. So tell me a little bit about those for you. How did those go?
JASON: 01:28	Yeah, the grand prix is always a great event. If people haven't heard about it before, we have three analysts on stage that, through their local user groups, have kind of competed to build solutions quickly and get to an answer. Which is kind of what Alteryx is all about, is answering questions. And imagine three people sitting on their computers, except they're in a stadium with 2,000 cheering fans, 2,000 cheering data nerds who love nothing more than to watch logistic regression models and decision trees get built, probably the most exciting one so far because of how close it was with Nicole taking the first round very quickly, and then blanking in round two, and then coming down to seconds remaining in the third one. So by far, the most nail-biting and exciting, and super happy to see Nicole win, first woman grand prix cup champion. So--
BRIAN: 02:18	Yeah. That's awesome. And then the after party, which we dubbed Codechella, we had food trucks. We had some music, which we'll talk about. But I saw you hanging out in the VIP area. Tell me about what was going on in VIP.
JASON: 02:32	Oh, we had kind of an area right upfront there because all the Aces, we like to dance it up, I guess. So we had great entertainment, a great set-up last night, really. It felt very much like fitting for the Southern California scene here, with the food trucks and lights. The events team did a wonderful job. It was a great event. I think everyone had an amazing time.
BRIAN: 02:54	Awesome. And you had my favorite line of the conference so far. Somewhat self-serving for me, but here at the show, to promote the podcast, we have all these sporks that we printed up with the url to the podcast. And we were standing around. It was you, and me, and Dean, and some other folks. And I think Dean was asking what was up with the spork. And you came in with the perfect, "It was a modern, end to end, cutlery platform."
JASON: 03:18	That's right. I mean, Dean's been talking a lot in the keynotes and in some of the sessions he's been in about a platform versus point solution. So it seemed fitting that the all-in-one piece of cutlery there is not a point solution like an individual fork, an individual knife. It's everything you need. So I couldn't resist telling D&D the great job the swag team had done in giving us the platform cutlery. So--
BRIAN: 03:41	Right. So also at the party, there was two specific musical acts. I believe one was named Young. And he was like a one man band.
JASON: 03:51	Very talented. [crosstalk]. Amazing.
BRIAN: 03:52	Guy was throwing down some serious jams.
JASON: 03:53	Playing piano, playing drums all by himself. He was great.
BRIAN: 03:57	Right. And then we also had Baba Brinkman who came up and did some freestyle rap.
JASON: 04:00	I thought his name was Seth.
BRIAN: 04:01	Yeah. Well, inside joke for folks at the conference. But yeah, so Baba went up there. And we had him on the show yesterday. So anybody listening to this, if you listen to the previous day's episode, you can hear Baba throwing down some raps. But I heard-- it was funny because he was doing freestyle, and at the beginning some of the terms that were chucked at him were very kind of straight down the middle. And then there was a like-- what was it, a forest model, with cheese, somehow managed--
JASON: 04:28	Aces.
BRIAN: 04:29	Aces, Dean Stoker-- he managed to like really throw down some sick riffs on some of that.
JASON: 04:34	He did. He's a super creative guy to be able to think on your feet like that and take these kind of data science and technical terms and hang it all together in these creative raps. And he talked about that again at this morning's keynote, kind of relating his work as a music artist to what we do as analysts in terms of creating something, gathering feedback from it, and then iterating on it to make it better, in his process of sort of writing songs. But it's certainly amazing to see him do that on the fly, given any term. I don't think he took my term, serverless micro services. I don't know what would rhyme with that. But yeah, it was-- he did a great job.
BRIAN: 05:12	Yeah. No, I told him I'm going to practice. And next year, we're going to have him back and I'm going to battle him, live on the podcast. So I'm going to lose very badly. But--
JASON: 05:19	I think anyone would lose to him. So--
BRIAN: 05:19	Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So just to wrap up here, what's the rest of the agenda look like for you? What are you excited about?
JASON: 05:26	Well, we got a few more excellent breakout sessions today. And then Libby's keynote is always great to hear, talk about the work in the community. I think there's some awards there. And then a great guest speaker. And then another full day of training tomorrow. So although the core conference kind of ends, the learning goes on. And I got some great training sessions scheduled for tomorrow.
BRIAN: 05:44	The learning goes on. We will leave it there. Thank you so much Jason. And it's great to see you as always. And congrats being an Ace as always. And we'll catch you later man.
JASON: 05:54	Great to see you. Thanks for having me.
BRIAN: 05:56	Alright. Bye-bye.
BRIAN: 06:01	Alright. So we're back with Stephanie Cardwell. How's it going?
STEPHANIE: 06:04	It's going lovely. How are you?
BRIAN: 06:06	Awesome. So is this-- this is your second Inspire.
STEPHANIE: 06:09	Technically.
BRIAN: 06:11	Technically.
STEPHANIE: 06:11	I went to Inspire Europe last year. But this is my first Inspire Us.
BRIAN: 06:15	Okay. So actually, this is the perfect segue. You were talking about Inspire Europe. And why don't you tell folks what you do for us here at Alteryx.
STEPHANIE: 06:22	So I'm the Global Localization Lead, which is a fancy way of saying that I'm responsible for all things localization or translation as people commonly say.
BRIAN: 06:34	So let's talk about that because I know we talk about it all time. But when you say the word localization, people tend to just believe that that means, "Hey, we're just going to translate this word from English into German," or whatever the case might be. But there's a lot more to it. So can you talk about that a little bit.
STEPHANIE: 06:49	Yeah, for sure. So localization is actually the process of adapting content or product, for example designer, into different languages for various markets. And so translation is actually just the linguistic aspect of localization because localization includes things like adapting the currency, or date-time format, number formatting, and punctuation, and the list goes on, and on, and on. So you could just translate into German and say, "This is going to cost you $1 million." But localization would be, "It's going to cost you 1 million Euros," or what have you.
BRIAN: 07:24	Okay. Cool. So let's talk a little bit about the languages we have available today in our products.
STEPHANIE: 07:30	So late last summer, we first launched into French and Germany with-- or France and Germany, I should say. And then we recently launched a beta version in Q1 into Japanese. And our GA is available with our 2018.2 release. And so that's very exciting.
BRIAN: 07:48	Excellent. So what's the feedback been like from our non-English speaking friends out there?
STEPHANIE: 07:53	It's been both good and bad. I mean, there's always room for improvement because localization, again, is such an ongoing process. And we really want to make sure that we are adapting our products for that market. And so there are a lot of different things that we need to take into consideration when we're trying to think about our Japanese users. What do they need? Is it the same thing that our English speaking users need? Or is it something different? And in some cases it is different. And so we need to work towards that.
BRIAN: 08:21	Okay. Cool. So shifting to Inspire here a little bit. So what's it been like for you this time around? Have you-- what have you done? What's the coolest thing you've done? Let's ask that.
STEPHANIE: 08:31	The coolest thing I've done is people watching because there's just-- there's so much going on. It's such high energy. And it's just-- it's really thrilling to see all the feedback because at Inspire Europe, speaking with those customers, the communication style's very different. And it's a little bit smaller than this one. This is-- we went all out. It's so exciting. And so I just liked watching, and sitting in the solution center, and hearing all of the amazing questions our users have. Our users are really smart, much smarter than I am.
BRIAN: 09:07	Shh, don't tell-- let the secrets out.
STEPHANIE: 09:11	Yeah. So no, I am really excited to be here. And then speaking with our international customers, Class Method was actually awarded one of our partner of the year awards. And they're our premier partner in Japan, who I've been working closely with. And speaking with all of them, it's been awesome.
BRIAN: 09:27	Awesome. Well hey, thanks for doing this. Thanks for giving us the insights. We will look forward to conquering the globe,--
STEPHANIE: 09:32	Oh yeah.
BRIAN: 09:33	-- all over the world. And enjoy the rest of the show.
STEPHANIE: 09:36	Thank you.
BRIAN: 09:37	Alright. Take care.
STEPHANIE: 09:38	Bye.
BRIAN: 09:43	Okay. So I'm back with the always awesome Joe Mako. Hello Joe.
JOE MAKO: 09:48	Hello Brian.
BRIAN: 09:49	How are you?
JOE MAKO: 09:49	I'm doing well.
BRIAN: 09:50	Good. So you've been to quite a few of this. What number is this for you?
JOE MAKO: 09:53	This has got to be my fifth one.
BRIAN: 09:54	You're fifth one. Okay. And how does this rank so far for you?
JOE MAKO: 09:57	This is pretty good. I feel like you guys are getting larger, but still keeping that small feel that I don't feel like I'm a bunch of cattle being pushed around.
BRIAN: 10:06	Yeah, we-- man, we spend months, and months, and months, trying to figure out the experience. I'm glad you enjoy it. I've heard good feedback from other folks too. So that's great. So tell me about-- what have you done so far? Have you done training sessions? Have you gone to speaker sessions? Have you delivered any sessions of your own? How's that gone?
JOE MAKO: 10:22	Yeah, I gave a session first thing on Tuesday morning, talking about using the Alteryx HTML, GUI SDK, and the Bloomberg API, to pull data out of Bloomberg into Alteryx. So--
BRIAN: 10:35	And I heard that was packed, like jam packed session.
JOE MAKO: 10:38	It was okay. And we had a good time, and ran through it quickly, and spent a lot of time on Q&A.
BRIAN: 10:42	Great. Cool. So what else has been going on. We had the grand prix yesterday. We had the party. What's excited you? What's been the most exciting thing?
JOE MAKO: 10:51	So for me, it's really all about extending Alteryx, that Alteryx is not just a tool that you use off the shelf as is. You got to add your own code. You got to modify it. Like playing in a game, you can get these mods that make it into a whole new game. And that's what I love about the focus of this conference. There's all sorts of talks about the SDK, talks about Macros and extending it, and what everybody's doing to make it a more variety, and more capabilities, that we're really using Alteryx as a platform. And I think that's beautiful.
BRIAN: 11:24	Yeah. Some of the stories-- I slipped into a few sessions the other day. And some of the things people are doing will just blow your mind. It's-- I don't even know what to say. I'm just blown away by it. It's unbelievable. So cool. So what are you doing for the rest of the conference here? Anything else exciting happening?
JOE MAKO: 11:41	Well we're just about done. But there's a couple more sessions. Again, there's going to be one on more the SDK and what a couple of different people in the area are doing, breaking it out by the-- like Python, and a C++ or a Csharp and-- so seeing more code is really valuable to me.
BRIAN: 11:58	Very cool. Well hey, I think-- it's always great to see you. Congrats on being an Ace yet again. And enjoy the rest of the show, Joe.
JOE MAKO: 12:05	Alright.
BRIAN: 12:06	Alright. Take care.
JOE MAKO: 12:07	Bye-bye.
BRIAN: 12:11	Alright. So I'm back with Jason Starling. Jason, welcome to the show.
JASON: 12:14	Thank you very much.
BRIAN: 12:15	Awesome. So how many Inspires have you been to?
JASON: 12:17	This is my first one.
BRIAN: 12:18	This is your first one.
JASON: 12:19	Yeah.
BRIAN: 12:19	How's it going so far?
JASON: 12:19	It's great. I'm really enjoying it. I'm really enjoying hearing how other people are using the tool. I'm fairly new to it. So I've only been using it for about five months.
BRIAN: 12:28	Okay. And what's that been like?
JASON: 12:30	Oh, it's been a dream. I used to do development queries and reporting out of like Access and a few other programs.
BRIAN: 12:38	Hmm, Access.
JASON: 12:39	Yeah, where you have to type everything.
BRIAN: 12:42	Quick spoiler alert, if you go to painintheaccess.com-- I'm just going to say that. It will redirect you somewhere. But painintheaccess.com. It's safe for work.
JASON: 12:50	I can imagine all the content.
BRIAN: 12:52	It's going to be fine.
JASON: 12:53	Okay.
BRIAN: 12:53	But for those listening at home, painintheaccess.com
JASON: 12:56	I can just envision the kind of content on that website. Yeah, that's [nightmare?] fuel. That's what that is.
BRIAN: 13:02	Yeah. Nice. So what have you done so far in the conference? Did you partake in the training? Have you been going to sessions?
JASON: 13:08	I haven't done any of the training yet. But I've gone to several sessions. I went to the Juniper networks with Brian. Is his name Brian? I think that's right.
BRIAN: 13:18	We'll go with that, Brian from Juniper.
JASON: 13:19	Yeah. Sure, Brian from Juniper. And that was really interesting because he talked about coming into a company and changing the culture to be more receptive to analytics, to reporting. And that really rang true for me. As I came into this new job a few months ago, we were really trying to change the culture. We're really trying to introduce better reporting for the whole business. And so he had some really great perspectives on what that looked like, some of the resistance that he saw, but also the successes that he was able to achieve.
BRIAN: 13:57	Very cool. So we've had a couple of keynotes and a party. What's been your favorite out of those?
JASON: 14:04	That's right. Well, I'm based in Atlanta, so by the time the party started up--
BRIAN: 14:10	That's a little late for you.
JASON: 14:11	I'm three hours ahead. And so I'm kind of fading. But yeah, last night was great. They had the food trucks out there. It was all delicious. And the music was going. And so it was a great crowd, got to meet a few really nice people and sort of talked business with them, but also just sort of chat casually. So it's been really great.
BRIAN: 14:30	Yeah. It's like a big family. It's crazy.
JASON: 14:31	That's right. That's right. Everybody's excited about data analytics, you could say. It's interesting.
BRIAN: 14:36	Cool. So what are you doing? We got about another day of sessions here. What's looking up on your schedule?
JASON: 14:42	This afternoon, I'm going to try to find a table around here, somewhere, and put some of this stuff into practice. I've been able to meet with a few people over in the Solution--
BRIAN: 14:52	Right. Solution Center.
JASON: 14:53	-- City.
BRIAN: 14:54	Yep.
JASON: 14:54	That's right. And we've gone over a few of my workflows. So I've got some great ideas and I need to go ahead and get them in place while the fire's hot. So that's the plan for this afternoon. And then tomorrow, I'm doing one class on spatial analytics. That's sort of the next step for us.
BRIAN: 15:12	Yeah. And so what are you guys doing with spatial analytics over there?
JASON: 15:14	We're going to be looking at more effectively routing our patients to their closest clinic. So as we expand, as we open new locations, we want to make sure that we're populating those clinics with plenty of patients. So we're getting everybody to the closest one for them. Atlanta's a little bit of a nightmare to navigate around. And so we want to make sure we're not sending anybody all the way across town when there's a closer location. So that's going to be our next project.
BRIAN: 15:43	Cool. Well hey, we're looking forward to hearing back from you once you put some of this stuff into practice. And enjoy the rest of the show.
JASON: 15:49	Thanks a lot, Brian.
BRIAN: 15:50	Alright. Take care.
JASON: 15:51	Really appreciate it.
BRIAN: 15:51	Yep. Bye-bye.
BRIAN: 15:57	Okay. So we're here with Mr. Ace himself, Joe Lipski. Joe, how's it going?
JOE LIPSKI: 16:01	Yeah. Very well. Thank you Brian.
BRIAN: 16:02	Very good.
JOE LIPSKI: 16:03	All good.
BRIAN: 16:03	So how many years have you been to Inspire because I think you're a long term veteran at this point?
JOE LIPSKI: 16:09	Yeah, I think I'm nearly in that category. This is my fifth US Inspire. And I've been to the two European ones. And well, I'll obviously attending-- coming up, this coming October.
BRIAN: 16:19	Obviously. Okay. Good. So what's the show been like so far? What's been your favorite part?
JOE LIPSKI: 16:24	It's been brilliant. I think this is one of my favorites after obviously the first one. The first one's always your favorite. No, it's been great. I just love hanging around with old friends, making new friends, all the community, just hanging around with Alteryx. Enthusiast is the best thing about the conference.
BRIAN: 16:42	Very cool. So in terms of-- who's the coolest person you've met? Let's explore that a little bit.
JOE LIPSKI: 16:47	Coolest.
BRIAN: 16:48	Me, say Brian.
JOE LIPSKI: 16:51	No, I don't think it is you, Brian. Coolest is a tough one. Chris Love's an obvious example. Mr. Alteryx himself, I think he's won the grand prix two or three times. He knows everything. So yeah.
BRIAN: 17:09	I just had Joe Mako and Jason Mack up here a few minutes ago.
JOE LIPSKI: 17:13	Pretty cool.
BRIAN: 17:13	And those are some guys to know.
JOE LIPSKI: 17:15	Pretty cool.
BRIAN: 17:15	Let me tell you, I feel like just being around them, I'm somehow smarter. Probably not because I'm me. But a guy can dream.
JOE LIPSKI: 17:22	I have to give a shoutout to Daniel Braun as well who-- we just did our talk together, so.
BRIAN: 17:25	Okay. Well, how'd that go? What was the talk about?
JOE LIPSKI: 17:27	Yeah. It was really good. It was called data rules everything around us. And it was really around using Alteryx with other third party tools and API integration. So we spoke about using the sentiment analysis tools, Twitter scrapping, doing some image recognition AI using Google Vision. So yeah, it was great. It was a full house. I think people were-- lots of people were sitting on the floor. Unfortunately, people had to be turned away. But that was great.
BRIAN: 17:51	We need an encore, I guess, huh. Yeah.
JOE LIPSKI: 17:53	Yeah.
BRIAN: 17:53	Cool. So what about trainings and certifications, have you done any of those while you've been here?
JOE LIPSKI: 17:58	Not here, although I've obviously done lots of trainings in the past. I run lots of different training sessions myself back in the UK. Certification, no. But I have my core and advanced certifications. Which I've done remotely over the past few months. And anyone listening, definitely check them out. And get them under your belt. They're a good experience, good fun, and give you that certification. I know the expert one's potentially happening tomorrow, I think.
BRIAN: 18:23	It is. It is.
JOE LIPSKI: 18:24	Which I might see if I can hang around for.
BRIAN: 18:26	See if you can slide right in there.
JOE LIPSKI: 18:28	Yeah.
BRIAN: 18:28	Yeah.
JOE LIPSKI: 18:29	Exactly.
BRIAN: 18:29	Okay. Were you at the party last night? Tell me a little bit about the party.
JOE LIPSKI: 18:33	I was at the party, Brian. I think this is a loaded question.
BRIAN: 18:37	I mean, I'm just asking. It's totally innocent man. I don't--
JOE LIPSKI: 18:41	No, I think we were up on stage at one point. Weren't we?
BRIAN: 18:42	Yeah. We may or may not have been up on stage, pretty much on the drum kit towards the end of the show there. But--
JOE LIPSKI: 18:50	Me and Daniel actually opened up our talk offering people the chance to leave if they saw us on the stage a bit at the party. But everyone had trust in us. And I think we pulled it off. But no, it was great. It was really good fun, though.
BRIAN: 19:02	Yeah. I instructed my team to destroy all photos and videos of that particular event. So-- very cool. So we're winding this thing down. But what's left for you? What are you doing the rest of today or tomorrow?
JOE LIPSKI: 19:13	Me, I've got another panel. So I'm on the Ace [inaudible] panel at two o'clock. So I probably better head off to that.
BRIAN: 19:21	Like right now.
JOE LIPSKI: 19:21	Fairly soon.
BRIAN: 19:22	Oops.
JOE LIPSKI: 19:23	So no, that should be good fun. I've done that in the past, two years ago. So it's a good chance to answer some questions and chat with some people in the audience around why we are in Ace and what we like about Alteryx. And then other than that, probably just a few more drinks and dinner tonight again, to celebrate, or even commiserate the end of the conference, but celebrate how good it's been, and look forward and wait for the one in October in London. Which I can't wait for.
BRIAN: 19:47	Awesome. Well hey, thanks for doing this. Thanks for all your help and support. Congrats on being an Ace as always. And we will see you sir in London in a few short months.
JOE LIPSKI: 19:55	Cheers Brian. Anytime. Thanks buddy.
BRIAN: 19:56	Alright. Take care. Bye-bye.

BRIAN: 00:06 Live from day three of Inspire 2018 in Anaheim, California. This is Alter Everything, a podcast about data and analytics culture. We're joined by a cavalcade of stars to discuss their conference experience. Let's get right into it. BRIAN: 00:28 Okay. So I'm here with Jason Mack. How's it going Jason? JASON: 00:30 It's going wonderful, Brian. BRIAN: 00:32 Awesome. So tell me about how many Inspires you've been to. I see it looks like this is your number five? JASON: 00:37 No, this is number four for me. BRIAN: 00:39 Number four for you. JASON: 00:40 So my first Inspire was Boston 2015. But I have to say this is the best one so far. BRIAN: 00:45 Okay. We like that. So speaking of best one so far, what have you done? What's been your agenda? What's that look like? JASON: 00:51 I've done everything, Brian. I got in early. BRIAN: 00:52 Done it all. JASON: 00:53 And I did trainings on Monday. I've got trainings tomorrow. And I've been trying to get to every keynote and every session that I can. BRIAN: 01:00 Okay. What about certification? Are you on the certification train yet? JASON: 01:03 I am on the certification train. I completed the core certification at the end of last year. I have advanced to do next. And I guess now, there's another one that's out. BRIAN: 01:12 We're all counting on you. JASON: 01:13 Yeah. Why not? BRIAN: 01:14 Awesome. JASON: 01:15 I have a pin. So-- BRIAN: 01:16 I have a pin. So I want to talk a little bit about last night. So for folks listening, this is day three of the conference. And last night, we had of course the grand prix and the big party. So tell me a little bit about those for you. How did those go? JASON: 01:28 Yeah, the grand prix is always a great event. If people haven't heard about it before, we have three analysts on stage that, through their local user groups, have kind of competed to build solutions quickly and get to an answer. Which is kind of what Alteryx is all about, is answering questions. And imagine three people sitting on their computers, except they're in a stadium with 2,000 cheering fans, 2,000 cheering data nerds who love nothing more than to watch logistic regression models and decision trees get built, probably the most exciting one so far because of how close it was with Nicole taking the first round very quickly, and then blanking in round two, and then coming down to seconds remaining in the third one. So by far, the most nail-biting and exciting, and super happy to see Nicole win, first woman grand prix cup champion. So-- BRIAN: 02:18 Yeah. That's awesome. And then the after party, which we dubbed Codechella, we had food trucks. We had some music, which we'll talk about. But I saw you hanging out in the VIP area. Tell me about what was going on in VIP. JASON: 02:32 Oh, we had kind of an area right upfront there because all the Aces, we like to dance it up, I guess. So we had great entertainment, a great set-up last night, really. It felt very much like fitting for the Southern California scene here, with the food trucks and lights. The events team did a wonderful job. It was a great event. I think everyone had an amazing time. BRIAN: 02:54 Awesome. And you had my favorite line of the conference so far. Somewhat self-serving for me, but here at the show, to promote the podcast, we have all these sporks that we printed up with the url to the podcast. And we were standing around. It was you, and me, and Dean, and some other folks. And I think Dean was asking what was up with the spork. And you came in with the perfect, "It was a modern, end to end, cutlery platform." JASON: 03:18 That's right. I mean, Dean's been talking a lot in the keynotes and in some of the sessions he's been in about a platform versus point solution. So it seemed fitting that the all-in-one piece of cutlery there is not a point solution like an individual fork, an individual knife. It's everything you need. So I couldn't resist telling D&D the great job the swag team had done in giving us the platform cutlery. So-- BRIAN: 03:41 Right. So also at the party, there was two specific musical acts. I believe one was named Young. And he was like a one man band. JASON: 03:51 Very talented. [crosstalk]. Amazing. BRIAN: 03:52 Guy was throwing down some serious jams. JASON: 03:53 Playing piano, playing drums all by himself. He was great. BRIAN: 03:57 Right. And then we also had Baba Brinkman who came up and did some freestyle rap. JASON: 04:00 I thought his name was Seth. BRIAN: 04:01 Yeah. Well, inside joke for folks at the conference. But yeah, so Baba went up there. And we had him on the show yesterday. So anybody listening to this, if you listen to the previous day's episode, you can hear Baba throwing down some raps. But I heard-- it was funny because he was doing freestyle, and at the beginning some of the terms that were chucked at him were very kind of straight down the middle. And then there was a like-- what was it, a forest model, with cheese, somehow managed-- JASON: 04:28 Aces. BRIAN: 04:29 Aces, Dean Stoker-- he managed to like really throw down some sick riffs on some of that. JASON: 04:34 He did. He's a super creative guy to be able to think on your feet like that and take these kind of data science and technical terms and hang it all together in these creative raps. And he talked about that again at this morning's keynote, kind of relating his work as a music artist to what we do as analysts in terms of creating something, gathering feedback from it, and then iterating on it to make it better, in his process of sort of writing songs. But it's certainly amazing to see him do that on the fly, given any term. I don't think he took my term, serverless micro services. I don't know what would rhyme with that. But yeah, it was-- he did a great job. BRIAN: 05:12 Yeah. No, I told him I'm going to practice. And next year, we're going to have him back and I'm going to battle him, live on the podcast. So I'm going to lose very badly. But-- JASON: 05:19 I think anyone would lose to him. So-- BRIAN: 05:19 Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. So just to wrap up here, what's the rest of the agenda look like for you? What are you excited about? JASON: 05:26 Well, we got a few more excellent breakout sessions today. And then Libby's keynote is always great to hear, talk about the work in the community. I think there's some awards there. And then a great guest speaker. And then another full day of training tomorrow. So although the core conference kind of ends, the learning goes on. And I got some great training sessions scheduled for tomorrow. BRIAN: 05:44 The learning goes on. We will leave it there. Thank you so much Jason. And it's great to see you as always. And congrats being an Ace as always. And we'll catch you later man. JASON: 05:54 Great to see you. Thanks for having me. BRIAN: 05:56 Alright. Bye-bye. BRIAN: 06:01 Alright. So we're back with Stephanie Cardwell. How's it going? STEPHANIE: 06:04 It's going lovely. How are you? BRIAN: 06:06 Awesome. So is this-- this is your second Inspire. STEPHANIE: 06:09 Technically. BRIAN: 06:11 Technically. STEPHANIE: 06:11 I went to Inspire Europe last year. But this is my first Inspire Us. BRIAN: 06:15 Okay. So actually, this is the perfect segue. You were talking about Inspire Europe. And why don't you tell folks what you do for us here at Alteryx. STEPHANIE: 06:22 So I'm the Global Localization Lead, which is a fancy way of saying that I'm responsible for all things localization or translation as people commonly say. BRIAN: 06:34 So let's talk about that because I know we talk about it all time. But when you say the word localization, people tend to just believe that that means, "Hey, we're just going to translate this word from English into German," or whatever the case might be. But there's a lot more to it. So can you talk about that a little bit. STEPHANIE: 06:49 Yeah, for sure. So localization is actually the process of adapting content or product, for example designer, into different languages for various markets. And so translation is actually just the linguistic aspect of localization because localization includes things like adapting the currency, or date-time format, number formatting, and punctuation, and the list goes on, and on, and on. So you could just translate into German and say, "This is going to cost you $1 million." But localization would be, "It's going to cost you 1 million Euros," or what have you. BRIAN: 07:24 Okay. Cool. So let's talk a little bit about the languages we have available today in our products. STEPHANIE: 07:30 So late last summer, we first launched into French and Germany with-- or France and Germany, I should say. And then we recently launched a beta version in Q1 into Japanese. And our GA is available with our 2018.2 release. And so that's very exciting. BRIAN: 07:48 Excellent. So what's the feedback been like from our non-English speaking friends out there? STEPHANIE: 07:53 It's been both good and bad. I mean, there's always room for improvement because localization, again, is such an ongoing process. And we really want to make sure that we are adapting our products for that market. And so there are a lot of different things that we need to take into consideration when we're trying to think about our Japanese users. What do they need? Is it the same thing that our English speaking users need? Or is it something different? And in some cases it is different. And so we need to work towards that. BRIAN: 08:21 Okay. Cool. So shifting to Inspire here a little bit. So what's it been like for you this time around? Have you-- what have you done? What's the coolest thing you've done? Let's ask that. STEPHANIE: 08:31 The coolest thing I've done is people watching because there's just-- there's so much going on. It's such high energy. And it's just-- it's really thrilling to see all the feedback because at Inspire Europe, speaking with those customers, the communication style's very different. And it's a little bit smaller than this one. This is-- we went all out. It's so exciting. And so I just liked watching, and sitting in the solution center, and hearing all of the amazing questions our users have. Our users are really smart, much smarter than I am. BRIAN: 09:07 Shh, don't tell-- let the secrets out. STEPHANIE: 09:11 Yeah. So no, I am really excited to be here. And then speaking with our international customers, Class Method was actually awarded one of our partner of the year awards. And they're our premier partner in Japan, who I've been working closely with. And speaking with all of them, it's been awesome. BRIAN: 09:27 Awesome. Well hey, thanks for doing this. Thanks for giving us the insights. We will look forward to conquering the globe,-- STEPHANIE: 09:32 Oh yeah. BRIAN: 09:33 -- all over the world. And enjoy the rest of the show. STEPHANIE: 09:36 Thank you. BRIAN: 09:37 Alright. Take care. STEPHANIE: 09:38 Bye. BRIAN: 09:43 Okay. So I'm back with the always awesome Joe Mako. Hello Joe. JOE MAKO: 09:48 Hello Brian. BRIAN: 09:49 How are you? JOE MAKO: 09:49 I'm doing well. BRIAN: 09:50 Good. So you've been to quite a few of this. What number is this for you? JOE MAKO: 09:53 This has got to be my fifth one. BRIAN: 09:54 You're fifth one. Okay. And how does this rank so far for you? JOE MAKO: 09:57 This is pretty good. I feel like you guys are getting larger, but still keeping that small feel that I don't feel like I'm a bunch of cattle being pushed around. BRIAN: 10:06 Yeah, we-- man, we spend months, and months, and months, trying to figure out the experience. I'm glad you enjoy it. I've heard good feedback from other folks too. So that's great. So tell me about-- what have you done so far? Have you done training sessions? Have you gone to speaker sessions? Have you delivered any sessions of your own? How's that gone? JOE MAKO: 10:22 Yeah, I gave a session first thing on Tuesday morning, talking about using the Alteryx HTML, GUI SDK, and the Bloomberg API, to pull data out of Bloomberg into Alteryx. So-- BRIAN: 10:35 And I heard that was packed, like jam packed session. JOE MAKO: 10:38 It was okay. And we had a good time, and ran through it quickly, and spent a lot of time on Q&A. BRIAN: 10:42 Great. Cool. So what else has been going on. We had the grand prix yesterday. We had the party. What's excited you? What's been the most exciting thing? JOE MAKO: 10:51 So for me, it's really all about extending Alteryx, that Alteryx is not just a tool that you use off the shelf as is. You got to add your own code. You got to modify it. Like playing in a game, you can get these mods that make it into a whole new game. And that's what I love about the focus of this conference. There's all sorts of talks about the SDK, talks about Macros and extending it, and what everybody's doing to make it a more variety, and more capabilities, that we're really using Alteryx as a platform. And I think that's beautiful. BRIAN: 11:24 Yeah. Some of the stories-- I slipped into a few sessions the other day. And some of the things people are doing will just blow your mind. It's-- I don't even know what to say. I'm just blown away by it. It's unbelievable. So cool. So what are you doing for the rest of the conference here? Anything else exciting happening? JOE MAKO: 11:41 Well we're just about done. But there's a couple more sessions. Again, there's going to be one on more the SDK and what a couple of different people in the area are doing, breaking it out by the-- like Python, and a C++ or a Csharp and-- so seeing more code is really valuable to me. BRIAN: 11:58 Very cool. Well hey, I think-- it's always great to see you. Congrats on being an Ace yet again. And enjoy the rest of the show, Joe. JOE MAKO: 12:05 Alright. BRIAN: 12:06 Alright. Take care. JOE MAKO: 12:07 Bye-bye. BRIAN: 12:11 Alright. So I'm back with Jason Starling. Jason, welcome to the show. JASON: 12:14 Thank you very much. BRIAN: 12:15 Awesome. So how many Inspires have you been to? JASON: 12:17 This is my first one. BRIAN: 12:18 This is your first one. JASON: 12:19 Yeah. BRIAN: 12:19 How's it going so far? JASON: 12:19 It's great. I'm really enjoying it. I'm really enjoying hearing how other people are using the tool. I'm fairly new to it. So I've only been using it for about five months. BRIAN: 12:28 Okay. And what's that been like? JASON: 12:30 Oh, it's been a dream. I used to do development queries and reporting out of like Access and a few other programs. BRIAN: 12:38 Hmm, Access. JASON: 12:39 Yeah, where you have to type everything. BRIAN: 12:42 Quick spoiler alert, if you go to painintheaccess.com-- I'm just going to say that. It will redirect you somewhere. But painintheaccess.com. It's safe for work. JASON: 12:50 I can imagine all the content. BRIAN: 12:52 It's going to be fine. JASON: 12:53 Okay. BRIAN: 12:53 But for those listening at home, painintheaccess.com JASON: 12:56 I can just envision the kind of content on that website. Yeah, that's [nightmare?] fuel. That's what that is. BRIAN: 13:02 Yeah. Nice. So what have you done so far in the conference? Did you partake in the training? Have you been going to sessions? JASON: 13:08 I haven't done any of the training yet. But I've gone to several sessions. I went to the Juniper networks with Brian. Is his name Brian? I think that's right. BRIAN: 13:18 We'll go with that, Brian from Juniper. JASON: 13:19 Yeah. Sure, Brian from Juniper. And that was really interesting because he talked about coming into a company and changing the culture to be more receptive to analytics, to reporting. And that really rang true for me. As I came into this new job a few months ago, we were really trying to change the culture. We're really trying to introduce better reporting for the whole business. And so he had some really great perspectives on what that looked like, some of the resistance that he saw, but also the successes that he was able to achieve. BRIAN: 13:57 Very cool. So we've had a couple of keynotes and a party. What's been your favorite out of those? JASON: 14:04 That's right. Well, I'm based in Atlanta, so by the time the party started up-- BRIAN: 14:10 That's a little late for you. JASON: 14:11 I'm three hours ahead. And so I'm kind of fading. But yeah, last night was great. They had the food trucks out there. It was all delicious. And the music was going. And so it was a great crowd, got to meet a few really nice people and sort of talked business with them, but also just sort of chat casually. So it's been really great. BRIAN: 14:30 Yeah. It's like a big family. It's crazy. JASON: 14:31 That's right. That's right. Everybody's excited about data analytics, you could say. It's interesting. BRIAN: 14:36 Cool. So what are you doing? We got about another day of sessions here. What's looking up on your schedule? JASON: 14:42 This afternoon, I'm going to try to find a table around here, somewhere, and put some of this stuff into practice. I've been able to meet with a few people over in the Solution-- BRIAN: 14:52 Right. Solution Center. JASON: 14:53 -- City. BRIAN: 14:54 Yep. JASON: 14:54 That's right. And we've gone over a few of my workflows. So I've got some great ideas and I need to go ahead and get them in place while the fire's hot. So that's the plan for this afternoon. And then tomorrow, I'm doing one class on spatial analytics. That's sort of the next step for us. BRIAN: 15:12 Yeah. And so what are you guys doing with spatial analytics over there? JASON: 15:14 We're going to be looking at more effectively routing our patients to their closest clinic. So as we expand, as we open new locations, we want to make sure that we're populating those clinics with plenty of patients. So we're getting everybody to the closest one for them. Atlanta's a little bit of a nightmare to navigate around. And so we want to make sure we're not sending anybody all the way across town when there's a closer location. So that's going to be our next project. BRIAN: 15:43 Cool. Well hey, we're looking forward to hearing back from you once you put some of this stuff into practice. And enjoy the rest of the show. JASON: 15:49 Thanks a lot, Brian. BRIAN: 15:50 Alright. Take care. JASON: 15:51 Really appreciate it. BRIAN: 15:51 Yep. Bye-bye. BRIAN: 15:57 Okay. So we're here with Mr. Ace himself, Joe Lipski. Joe, how's it going? JOE LIPSKI: 16:01 Yeah. Very well. Thank you Brian. BRIAN: 16:02 Very good. JOE LIPSKI: 16:03 All good. BRIAN: 16:03 So how many years have you been to Inspire because I think you're a long term veteran at this point? JOE LIPSKI: 16:09 Yeah, I think I'm nearly in that category. This is my fifth US Inspire. And I've been to the two European ones. And well, I'll obviously attending-- coming up, this coming October. BRIAN: 16:19 Obviously. Okay. Good. So what's the show been like so far? What's been your favorite part? JOE LIPSKI: 16:24 It's been brilliant. I think this is one of my favorites after obviously the first one. The first one's always your favorite. No, it's been great. I just love hanging around with old friends, making new friends, all the community, just hanging around with Alteryx. Enthusiast is the best thing about the conference. BRIAN: 16:42 Very cool. So in terms of-- who's the coolest person you've met? Let's explore that a little bit. JOE LIPSKI: 16:47 Coolest. BRIAN: 16:48 Me, say Brian. JOE LIPSKI: 16:51 No, I don't think it is you, Brian. Coolest is a tough one. Chris Love's an obvious example. Mr. Alteryx himself, I think he's won the grand prix two or three times. He knows everything. So yeah. BRIAN: 17:09 I just had Joe Mako and Jason Mack up here a few minutes ago. JOE LIPSKI: 17:13 Pretty cool. BRIAN: 17:13 And those are some guys to know. JOE LIPSKI: 17:15 Pretty cool. BRIAN: 17:15 Let me tell you, I feel like just being around them, I'm somehow smarter. Probably not because I'm me. But a guy can dream. JOE LIPSKI: 17:22 I have to give a shoutout to Daniel Braun as well who-- we just did our talk together, so. BRIAN: 17:25 Okay. Well, how'd that go? What was the talk about? JOE LIPSKI: 17:27 Yeah. It was really good. It was called data rules everything around us. And it was really around using Alteryx with other third party tools and API integration. So we spoke about using the sentiment analysis tools, Twitter scrapping, doing some image recognition AI using Google Vision. So yeah, it was great. It was a full house. I think people were-- lots of people were sitting on the floor. Unfortunately, people had to be turned away. But that was great. BRIAN: 17:51 We need an encore, I guess, huh. Yeah. JOE LIPSKI: 17:53 Yeah. BRIAN: 17:53 Cool. So what about trainings and certifications, have you done any of those while you've been here? JOE LIPSKI: 17:58 Not here, although I've obviously done lots of trainings in the past. I run lots of different training sessions myself back in the UK. Certification, no. But I have my core and advanced certifications. Which I've done remotely over the past few months. And anyone listening, definitely check them out. And get them under your belt. They're a good experience, good fun, and give you that certification. I know the expert one's potentially happening tomorrow, I think. BRIAN: 18:23 It is. It is. JOE LIPSKI: 18:24 Which I might see if I can hang around for. BRIAN: 18:26 See if you can slide right in there. JOE LIPSKI: 18:28 Yeah. BRIAN: 18:28 Yeah. JOE LIPSKI: 18:29 Exactly. BRIAN: 18:29 Okay. Were you at the party last night? Tell me a little bit about the party. JOE LIPSKI: 18:33 I was at the party, Brian. I think this is a loaded question. BRIAN: 18:37 I mean, I'm just asking. It's totally innocent man. I don't-- JOE LIPSKI: 18:41 No, I think we were up on stage at one point. Weren't we? BRIAN: 18:42 Yeah. We may or may not have been up on stage, pretty much on the drum kit towards the end of the show there. But-- JOE LIPSKI: 18:50 Me and Daniel actually opened up our talk offering people the chance to leave if they saw us on the stage a bit at the party. But everyone had trust in us. And I think we pulled it off. But no, it was great. It was really good fun, though. BRIAN: 19:02 Yeah. I instructed my team to destroy all photos and videos of that particular event. So-- very cool. So we're winding this thing down. But what's left for you? What are you doing the rest of today or tomorrow? JOE LIPSKI: 19:13 Me, I've got another panel. So I'm on the Ace [inaudible] panel at two o'clock. So I probably better head off to that. BRIAN: 19:21 Like right now. JOE LIPSKI: 19:21 Fairly soon. BRIAN: 19:22 Oops. JOE LIPSKI: 19:23 So no, that should be good fun. I've done that in the past, two years ago. So it's a good chance to answer some questions and chat with some people in the audience around why we are in Ace and what we like about Alteryx. And then other than that, probably just a few more drinks and dinner tonight again, to celebrate, or even commiserate the end of the conference, but celebrate how good it's been, and look forward and wait for the one in October in London. Which I can't wait for. BRIAN: 19:47 Awesome. Well hey, thanks for doing this. Thanks for all your help and support. Congrats on being an Ace as always. And we will see you sir in London in a few short months. JOE LIPSKI: 19:55 Cheers Brian. Anytime. Thanks buddy. BRIAN: 19:56 Alright. Take care. Bye-bye.

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