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Alter Everything

A podcast about data science and analytics culture.
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BrianO
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

Attendees at Inspire EU 2018 join us to chat about how Alteryx has Inspired them to Alter Everything.

 


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Episode Transcription

BRIAN 00:01 

Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Brian Oblinger. And I'll be your host. We're live in London for Inspire Europe 2018. And I'm here with Jordan Barker. Jordan, good morning. 

JORDAN 00:14 

Hello Brian. 

BRIAN 00:15 

How are you? 

JORDAN 00:15 

I'm doing very, very well today. 

BRIAN 00:17 

So tell me about this, how many inspires have you been to? Give me a little bit of the lay of the land here. 

JORDAN 00:23 

So this is my second Inspire. My first Inspire was in the US. As you can tell by my accent, I am from the UK. But I started my Alteryx journey in the US. So that was a good baptism into the Inspire. And then yeah, this is my second here at the O2. 

BRIAN 00:39 

Okay. Alright. And what did you think of the keynote this morning? 

JORDAN 00:42 

Yeah, awesome keynote, very exciting. Being with Alteryx for three years now, it's always nice to see what's coming in the product and very, very excited for some of the next releases. 

BRIAN 00:52 

Let's talk about Nick Jewell for a minute because I feel like-- 

JORDAN 00:54 

Absolutely. 

BRIAN 00:56 

All the presenters are great. But I just feel like Nick just goes up there and just crushes it. Is it because he's also British or-- what do you think contributes to that? 

JORDAN 01:07 

I'd like to think so. But the American speakers, they're good as well. But Nick Jewell just has that voice. 

BRIAN 01:14 

He's got the-- it's the voice. 

JORDAN 01:15 

It's the voice. 

BRIAN 01:15 

We got to get him on the show. 

JORDAN 01:16 

Melting butter is what he does. 

BRIAN 01:17 

Right. Melting butter-- okay I'm not even going to try that. Yeah, it's going to end very poorly. So tell me a little bit about-- what are you working on here today? I see you're over-- you're at solution city. What's going on over there? 

JORDAN 01:28 

Yeah, I'm at solution city. So essentially around the pillar over here is where you can bring your most difficult Alteryx challenges. That's what we thrive on. And that's really what we're going to be trying to look to solve today. 

BRIAN 01:39 

Hmm. So any challenges at all? Like you're just-- you can do it all, man. Is that what you're telling me? 

JORDAN 01:43 

Open book, open book. 

BRIAN 01:44 

Open book. 

JORDAN 01:44 

Yeah, my specialties are the connectors category. 

BRIAN 01:48 

Got it. 

JORDAN 01:48 

But anything around those would be good. 

BRIAN 01:50 

Okay. So the other thing I want to talk to you about real quick is this topic that's, I think, near and dear to both of our hearts. I had Tony Moses on the podcast awhile back. And me and Tony, we have a little bit of a rivalry. It's a little bit of a baseball thing. Which I think people in the UK don't care about. But I think this is a great time to-- while we're here, we got all day, just to maybe do like a deep dive on Tony Moses. Just give me your perspective because I know-- did you live with him? Or-- 

JORDAN 02:23 

So Tony was one of the first guys who took me under his wing whilst I was in the US. So I arrived from Boston-- 

BRIAN 02:30 

Was that a good thing or a bad thing? 

JORDAN 02:31 

We'll get there. 

BRIAN 02:32 

Okay. 

JORDAN 02:32 

We'll get there. So arrived from the east coast to the west coast, arrived at the Alteryx offices. And I had Carlos, which I'm sure we'll get to. And then we had Tony as well who'd recently started. So we were both in the customer support organization. We were learning our trade with Alteryx for the first year. And from there really, the competitions started heating up. We had our silo desks. And we were really sort of going head to head on a lot of cases. 

BRIAN 03:02 

I see. Let's just be honest. I mean, like where are your skills in relation to Tony? It's okay. This is-- no one will hear this. Don't worry about it. You can say whatever you want to say. 

JORDAN 03:11 

That's substantial. That's substantial. 

BRIAN 03:14 

Okay. Alright. Any words because I know Tony's probably listening to this right now. He can't respond. So you can say whatever you want right now. 

JORDAN 03:21 

I do have to say, as much as I hate to admit, Tony was a good person to follow the path with. He kept me on the straight and narrow. And he's always been leading the charge. 

BRIAN 03:35 

Why are we giving him credit right now? That's not what this was supposed to be. 

JORDAN 03:39 

I'm building him up to take him down. Okay. 

BRIAN 03:41 

Okay. 

JORDAN 03:42 

At the end of every quarter, the end of every year, I was always at the top of those handled support cases closed successfully. And then now we're on to the-- now we're obviously on to the revenue and also the community points, most importantly. 

BRIAN 03:55 

Right. Yeah. Yeah. So in terms of community, where would you say that you rank up against Tony in there? 

JORDAN 04:03 

Oh, I'm definitely taking him on that one, I'm definitely. He's still living off his one major article about comparing two data sets against one another. 

BRIAN 04:13 

Yeah. No, the guy does like one thing and his ego is just out of control. 

JORDAN 04:16 

It's good. It's a good article. But you have to have more strings to your [inaudible]. 

BRIAN 04:20 

Alright. We'll drop a link to that in the show notes just to further pad his ego a little bit. 

JORDAN 04:23 

Yeah. Definitely check it out. 

BRIAN 04:25 

Alright, Jordan. Well thanks for stopping by. I appreciate it. And enjoy the rest of conference. 

JORDAN 04:30 

Thanks Brian. 

BRIAN 04:35 

Alright. So we're back with Samantha Hughes. Samantha, welcome to the show. 

SAMANTHA 04:38 

Hi. Welcome. 

BRIAN 04:39 

So how many Inspires have you been to? I see your button and it's says three. So is this your third or you fourth? 

SAMANTHA 04:44 

Now that's a good question actually because I was debating that upon arrival. I remember there was a very small one before Inspire 16, back in Nottingham, somewhere with the [inaudible] crew. So I remember sort of being there. And I could've sworn that was an Inspire event. So I'm sure this is my fourth one in the UK. But I'm happy to be put right. 

BRIAN 05:07 

Okay. And where are you from here? 

SAMANTHA 05:09 

So I'm from Middlesbrough. But I actually live in Northampton. 

BRIAN 05:13 

Okay. Great. So how's the show been for you? So we're on day two here. Did you do any training yesterday? 

SAMANTHA 05:19 

I didn't, unfortunately. No. 

BRIAN 05:19 

No training. Alright. How was the keynote this morning for you? 

SAMANTHA 05:22 

The keynote blew me away. 

BRIAN 05:24 

Yeah. 

SAMANTHA 05:25 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 05:25 

Any cool new-- they showed a bunch of new features. Anything cool in there? 

SAMANTHA 05:28 

Yeah. So I really-- I'm loving the new designer look and the server look. I'm also thinking that the assistive modelling is going to really help with some of the stuff that I do because I'm not a data scientist. But I absolutely love the way that they step you through the different models to use. So I think that's amazing. 

BRIAN 05:49 

Alright. 

SAMANTHA 05:50 

I can't wait to get my fingers on that. 

BRIAN 05:51 

Alright. Very cool. So speaking of your pending Acehood-- so you were telling me before we hit record here that you've set a goal for this year. What's that goal? 

SAMANTHA 06:01 

I really want to speak to [TV?] because I think I would love to be an Ace this time next year. 

BRIAN 06:07 

Oh, okay. Alright. So we're going to put your name in the hat. We're going to do it. I also see that you're holding some fluffy poodles. What's the story with the fluffy poodles here? 

SAMANTHA 06:17 

So I bumped into Macky Crewe here at Inspire. And he's got some amazing poodles. Which represent his dogs with the little t-shirts on. They're so cute. 

BRIAN 06:28 

We'll have to take a picture and put it in the show notes for anybody listening. 

SAMANTHA 06:31 

Yeah. You should get your hands on one of these. They're amazing. 

BRIAN 06:33 

Awesome. So what else are you looking forward to? Are you doing anything fun, going to any of the sessions? 

SAMANTHA 06:39 

Well I'm actually speaking tomorrow. And so I'm looking forward to that. So I got my team here. We're doing a trio thing on the stage. What else? I'm looking forward to understanding a bit more about what's coming and speaking with everyone. I think I'm so rewarded when you actually speak to some of the users and some of the Alteryx crew here, how much you learn about what's coming and what's really cool for them, and just being able to catch up with people as well. It's amazing. 

BRIAN 07:08 

Great. And so for your speaking, can you give us a little bit of a-- we won't spoil it. But give us a little preview. What's the topic like? What are you guys talking about? 

SAMANTHA 07:15 

So it's [inaudible] alters everything with Alteryx. And we are basically covering some of the hints, tips, and tricks that we found when we've been using Alteryx overthe last four years. So a few of them are spatial. But one of them, which is my personal fave, and I'm hoping to sort of put out a tool on the community at the back end of this year, is basically how do you mange the overhead if your email server changes and updating your Alteryx workflows with the new server name. 

BRIAN 07:47 

Wow. Okay. Well, I might have to drop in to that one. I'm going to have to see if I can squeeze in the back of the room there. I'm sure it will be packed. 

SAMANTHA 07:53 

I'll gave you a [way?]. 

BRIAN 07:54 

There you go. I appreciate it. I appreciate that. Alright. Well hey, thanks for being on the show. We'll be rooting for you on the Ace front. And good luck with your presentation. 

SAMANTHA 08:05 

Thank you very much. 

BRIAN 08:05 

Alright. Take care. 

SAMANTHA 08:06 

Bye. 

BRIAN 08:10 

Alright. So I'm back with Jesse Clark, who is currently the Alteryx certified expert. How are you today? 

JESSE 08:15 

I'm doing well. Thanks for asking. How about yourself? 

BRIAN 08:17 

Oh, it's beautiful. I know our viewers can't see this. I think I need to take a picture of this and put this in the show notes. But I have this great view of the river in the city right through the window here. So this is probably the best seat in the house right now. 

JESSE 08:30 

That's actually breathtaking. I had not looked out those windows yet. 

BRIAN 08:33 

It's great. It's great. Isn't it? 

JESSE 08:34 

That's awesome. 

BRIAN 08:34 

Yeah. We'll put that in the show notes for people. So how's the conference going for you so far? 

JESSE 08:38 

It's going really well so far. I just got out of a really good panel on the SDKs that was done by James Dunkerley, which was fantastic. The keynote was great. All of the events yesterday were fantastic. I'm just having a good time so far. 

BRIAN 08:51 

Very cool. And so I teased it at the top here. So tell me about Anaheim and your adventure to being the expert certified person that we have right now. 

JESSE 09:03 

So Anaheim was pretty incredible for me. It was a really good conference in general. But I knew that I was coming into it trying to pass expert. And so I did a couple of things to try and help myself out with that. I signed up for the predictive training session because I knew that was a soft spot of mine. And so I think that helped me out a lot. I also spent a good amount of time just in my hotel room, working with Alteryx and going over. With the expert exam, they give you brief themes of what the questions might be. And so I was going over those in my room and kind of just going, "Okay. How might I solve a problem like this with knowing nothing about it? What could I do without a data set to do this?" And I just played around. I worked on some stuff on the community. And so I went into the test. I got there a couple minutes early, scarfed down some food because I hadn't eaten yet that morning because I was crashing. I was doing some crash course Alteryx stuff, took the test, answered three questions. It's five questions on the test. You have to answer four. You have to get three right. I only managed to submit three. 

BRIAN 10:11 

Nailed it. 

JESSE 10:12 

Felt a little bad about it, by the end I was like, "Okay. I've either gotten all of these right. Or I've failed miserably." 

BRIAN 10:18 

Right. 

JESSE 10:19 

And I felt really comfortable about two, one that I wasn't so sure about. I was either expecting a bunch of people to pass or nobody to pass. I didn't expect to be the only person who passed. So I was kind of shell shocked when it got announced because I was just like, "Oh, okay. This isn't what I was expecting at all." 

BRIAN 10:36 

Yeah. So for our listeners at home, I guess, listening to this, the backstory is that in Anaheim, we had the first ever expert certification take place. And I think there was like 15 people-- 

JESSE 10:47 

20. 

BRIAN 10:47 

20 people. Yeah, let's pad the number. That makes you look even better. 

JESSE 10:50 

No, there's actually 20. 

BRIAN 10:52 

There was 20 people, and Jesse came out victorious. And so up until, really today, I guess today is the last day that you-- so we have, I think, 50 people taking it here in London. 

JESSE 11:02 

That sounds like what I've been hearing. 

BRIAN 11:04 

So what are you doing tonight? What's going to be your last night as the only person that has the expert certification [inaudible]? 

JESSE 11:09 

I mean, I'm definitely going to the grand prix because that's going to be awesome. I'm definitely going to the after party. After that, I'll probably-- 

BRIAN 11:16 

The after after party, and then the after after-- yeah. 

JESSE 11:17 

Do the after after party, and then the one after that. 

BRIAN 11:19 

I'll see you there, I think. 

JESSE 11:20 

Yeah. Absolutely. 

BRIAN 11:21 

We have a knack for running into each other at the after after after party, so. 

JESSE 11:24 

Absolutely. And that will be great. And so I'm just going to enjoy it. It's been kind of wild being the only expert for several months because I don't know very many people who are the only anything. And so it's just been kind of crazy to be able to say that. And I've got all my screenshots saved and archived-- 

BRIAN 11:43 

Of course. Of course. 

JESSE 11:43 

-- so that I can point back to it and be like, "Yeah. But I was the first person to have it." 

BRIAN 11:46 

Yeah. Do you just like-- do you just lord this over all the people at your office? Or what's the-- 

JESSE 11:50 

No. I'm pretty humble about it. I actually don't tell very many people at my work because they-- I've found that people at my work often will look at things that I say are easy and be like, "Oh, they're easy because you're good at the tool." And I'm like, "No. They're easy because they're easy." And so I try not to make it seem like I'm too good at what I do because I want people to recognize, "No. This tool's really good. It's not that I'm great at it. It's that you can do this." 

BRIAN 12:16 

This is a masterclass right now, an expert class, one might say in setting proper expectations is what you're delivering here today-- 

JESSE 12:22 

Absolutely. Absolutely. 

BRIAN 12:24 

-- to the ear holes of our listeners. 

JESSE 12:26 

So I'm excited for people to be taking the test. It will be a little sad for me once somebody else passes it. But I'm still going to be super excited for them. I know a bunch of the people who are taking it. And I'm rooting then on. 

BRIAN 12:37 

Are you? Are you though? 

JESSE 12:38 

Yeah. Absolutely. 

BRIAN 12:39 

Let's be honest. 

JESSE 12:40 

I've been-- 

BRIAN 12:40 

It's okay. No one's going to hear this. You can be honest. 

JESSE 12:42 

We're definitely not recording this. 

BRIAN 12:43 

Yeah. 

JESSE 12:44 

Yeah. I mean, MarqueeCrew's taking it. Josh is taking it. And that's fantastic. I'm super excited for them. They both took it last time. They both came super close. And so I'm sure they'll do it this time. And I'm just looking forwards to seeing that and seeing who else might pass it. And it'll be really cool. It'll be great to see that kind of mature and keep going. 

BRIAN 13:06 

Very cool. One last question I have for you, it sparked my memory this morning. In the keynote, Nick Jewell was-- and Jay Harelson and all of them were showing off some things that they had built to show off the capabilities of Alteryx. But it was around music and-- what do you listen to when you're working? What's your go to there? 

JESSE 13:24 

So I don't always listen to music when I work. But when I do, it's usually some kind of like indie pop type stuff. So there's an artist called Ryn Weaver who I listen to. She's very, very good. I highly recommend all of her stuff. She just came out with a new demo track recently. 

BRIAN 13:41 

Okay. We'll link it up. 

JESSE 13:43 

I listen to that more than I probably should. But her stuff is very like upbeat. It's very nice to listen to while I'm working. And I can kind of get into a rhythm and get moving. So when I've got a long project that I need to work on, that's usually what I listen to. 

BRIAN 13:56 

Right on. Okay. Yeah, the other day we were-- I happen to be in Austin, Texas for another conference. And for whatever reason, I got up super early in the morning. And I went over to Voodoo Donut. And they were like blaring Daft Punk at like seven in the morning. And yeah, I don't know if I can recommend that to anybody. 

JESSE 14:11 

Fair enough. Daft Punk's a little abrasive sometimes, especially at seven in the morning. 

BRIAN 14:15 

Seven in the morning. 

JESSE 14:16 

Good music, but-- 

BRIAN 14:18 

Yeah. Alright man. Well hey, thanks for coming out. Thanks for being awesome. Congrats as always on being an expert. And of course, I see you're wearing your Ace shirt. 

JESSE 14:27 

I am. 

BRIAN 14:28 

So tell me-- actually, let's talk about that. We didn't talk about that. Tell me a little bit about that. 

JESSE 14:33 

So it came as a surprise to me. I found out like a month or so ago on a call with [inaudible]. She did a really good job of not letting me know that's what the call was about. And she had told me and asked if I was interested. And I was just like, "Absolutely. 100%." And then I went, "Oh, I guess I probably need to find a way to get to Europe." So I was not planning to come to this event because I had to get a passport. I had to pay for all of my flights and all of that. I was just planning on being at home for this. And then that came in. And I was like, "I have to go. I can't not be here." 

BRIAN 15:05 

So you got your passport just to come to Inspire London. 

JESSE 15:07 

Just for Inspire London. 

BRIAN 15:08 

That is legit. 

JESSE 15:09 

Yeah. And I got it expedited and everything because I had like three weeks. 

BRIAN 15:11 

See, that's why you're an Ace, man. There it is, right there. 

JESSE 15:15 

And so it's been great. It's been really cool to be an Ace and have conversations with Aces. I've known them. I've talked to them before. But it's kind of an [inaudible] club to some extent. And that's really cool to just be able to talk to people at like length about Alteryx is awesome. And I've had fun just talking to prospects here and just anybody at this point. I've had gotten into some pretty cool conversations. And I think being an Ace helps to say like, "Hey look, this is what I've been doing." 

BRIAN 15:41 

It certainly helps when you have the shirt with the big Ace logo on it. 

JESSE 15:43 

Yeah. And you can be like, "Well this is why I'm here." 

BRIAN 15:45 

And you're sort of walking around with your chest out. 

JESSE 15:47 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 15:47 

Like, "Hey, what's up." 

JESSE 15:48 

"Hey, check this out." 

BRIAN 15:49 

Yeah. 

JESSE 15:49 

Yeah. And then I can talk to people. And it's really cool. It's kind of unreal, so. 

BRIAN 15:54 

Very cool. Alright. Well, thanks again for being on. We will see you tonight at the after after after party. 

JESSE 16:00 

Absolutely. 

BRIAN 16:01 

And no pictures of that one, sorry. Sorry listeners. I'm definitely not taking any photos tonight of that. And we will see you again soon. 

JESSE 16:09 

Absolutely. 

BRIAN 16:09 

Alright. Bye-bye. 

JESSE 16:10 

Bye. 

BRIAN 16:14 

Alright. I'm back with Caleb Catalano. How are you? 

CALEB 16:17 

Yes. I'm doing well. How are you? 

BRIAN 16:18 

Awesome. Awesome. So how's Inspire going for you so far. 

CALEB 16:22 

So far, so good. I feel like I'm fully adjusted now to the time change and the jet lag. It caught up to me a little bit last night. 

BRIAN 16:29 

Yeah, you're adjusted. That makes one of us. 

CALEB 16:31 

Right. 

BRIAN 16:31 

Yeah. 

CALEB 16:32 

Yeah. I think I'm adjusted. We'll see tonight if I'm up until 4am or something like that. 

BRIAN 16:37 

Yeah, at the after after after party. 

CALEB 16:39 

Oh why? Is that tonight? 

BRIAN 16:40 

Yeah. 

CALEB 16:40 

Well. 

BRIAN 16:41 

Thats every night that that's-- 

CALEB 16:42 

Good. Then I'm well-rested for it. 

BRIAN 16:43 

Okay. Excellent. So what have you done so far today? You got any sessions? You went to the keynote? Tell me a little bit about that. 

CALEB 16:51 

Yep. I checked out a couple sessions here and there. I checked out the breakfast. 

BRIAN 16:58 

Checked out the breakfast. 

CALEB 16:59 

I actually took a nap too. So today has been less strategically valuable for me than yesterday. If you'd like to talk about the value of yesterday and the partner summit and all that, I can probably weigh in better. 

BRIAN 17:13 

Let's talk about that. Yeah, let's talk about-- tell me about yesterday. 

CALEB 17:16 

Yeah. No, yesterday was great. I really enjoyed being a part of the partner summit. It's super valuable for us to be able to see the things that are coming and to really be able to start having those conversations with our clients about the software that's already amazing. So I say that because when I say elevating your game with Alteryx, it doesn't mean it's not elevated already. It's just taking you to a new level. 

BRIAN 17:40 

Yep. 

CALEB 17:40 

And I'm incredibly excited about some of those announcements. I think they're really going to help the way people interact with the tool and be able to do more of the same sorts of interesting things that they're already doing. And I'm also excited to get in there and use some of them. So that was excellent. It's also great to connect with some people out here in the London market-- 

BRIAN 18:01 

Yeah. 

CALEB 18:02 

-- in ways that we haven't been able to do in the past, and really start to take [Slalom?] global in a real way. 

BRIAN 18:07 

Cool. 

CALEB 18:08 

So I'm excited about that. 

BRIAN 18:09 

Cool. Alright. So speaking of yesterday, you attended our top contributor event. 

CALEB 18:14 

I did yeah. 

BRIAN 18:15 

Which was pretty awesome. I had a good time there. And you were recognized, and rewarded, and gave us a little speech about some of your work for Alteryx for Good. So I'd love to bring that to the podcast listeners, if you would for us. 

CALEB 18:30 

Sure. Yeah, that was a great experience. And thanks for having me there. It was one of the things that I was most looking forward to here in London, sharing that story about Alteryx for Good. It's been a really interesting journey for me with that because it kind of came about in a unique and unexpected way. The project was an opportunity for me to partner with some folks that I had worked with in my past when I had done some non-profit work. Tim Noles and Shane Evans left the University of Chicago after many years there, doing really incredible work with the University of Chicago Charter School and the Urban Education Institute to start a new non-profit called the academy group. Which is essentially a after school, intensive support program to students in Chicago, in the urban center that seeks to involve them in this programming throughout their entire career from K through 12. And after that, once they go to college and finish, they have a job waiting for them at the other end. Which is really a unique model. 

BRIAN 19:38 

That's cool. Yeah. 

CALEB 19:39 

And one of the things they wanted to do there is bring modern analytics to their summer program last year was their sort of inaugural program, the first time they were doing anything. So they had a bunch of teachers who were doing summer programming during their summer, so the time that their off. One of the best parts about being a teacher, and they're still working. And they wanted to have some analytics for those folks, which can be really powerful. And it was, for teachers at the University of Chicago Charter School. So I worked with Alteryx for Good to acquire a designer license for them and then used the G-suite to provide really some data intake tools, as well as some general dashboards, which some people may not be familiar with. You can do a lot of really cool things with Alteryx and the Google API that are super low cost, right? 

BRIAN 20:33 

Yeah. 

CALEB 20:33 

So not everybody can afford Tableau. Power BI is not always the most accessible or scalable solution even at the free level. And so I was being able to create some things around Alteryx using free tool like the G-suite using Google forms. It sounds silly, but doing data intake with Google forms is possible when you're transforming the data using Alteryx. 

BRIAN 20:52 

Yeah. And I think most schools now are on the G-suite, right? 

CALEB 20:55 

They are. 

BRIAN 20:55 

Like it's kind of a standard thing that most people are doing. 

CALEB 20:57 

Well it's a really clever thing that Google's done, right. So it's really cost effective for schools and maybe a good business move, a good business play for Google to get students used to using their product early on, right. And so kids get familiar with it. Schools have it and is successful for them to use. So it's really-- it's good strategic play in two ways for those reasons. So we basically created data intake for grades, demerits, attendance, all the metrics you'd think a teacher would care about, transform and process that data using Alteryx, scheduled it, and then pushed it out to the Google data studio, which is like their free viz platform, and basically gave them real time boarding as much as possible. 

BRIAN 21:45 

Very cool. Very cool. Yeah, you were telling the story last night and I felt people-- you could feel it in the room, these stories. And we talk about Alteryx for Good all the time where we're sitting right across from the booth here. And Dean talked about it this morning on stage, right? 

CALEB 22:01 

Mm-hmm. 

BRIAN 22:02 

I think what's great about it is it's easy to talk about this stuff, right. 

CALEB 22:05 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 22:05 

It's another thing to go and do it, and give your time, and make the commitment. 

CALEB 22:08 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 22:09 

And so I appreciate your story for that, and everybody else out there that's doing stuff for Alteryx for Good, so. 

CALEB 22:15 

Yeah. And I encourage everyone listening to go out there and get involved. Like you probably know someone in your network who is involved in a not for profit in some way. And those folks have data and they need help. And I was thinking about this after the talk, one of the things I didn't talk about. In the private sector, RPA and automation is a really hot topic right. And it's a hot topic for a number of reasons. RPA, Robotic Process Automation takes mundane, slow, manual processes and automates it. Now that, a lot of times, spells the loss of roles. Now I think there's also a huge opportunity in places like private sector-- I'm sorry, pardon me, public sector and education because RPA can actually create capacity where a role never existed in manual processes. And this is what Alteryx helped do for the academy group. And so there's a lot of opportunity there. There's opportunity for smart people to invest a small amount of time to make a big difference. So get out there and get involved. 

BRIAN 23:17 

Yeah. No, that's awesome, man. And for those listening on the show here, go to Alteryx.com/forgood, all one word. And that'll dump you off on the page there and you can learn more about Alteryx for Good and all the awesome stuff that's happening, so. Cool. So what about the rest of the show? You checked out breakfast this morning. That's great. 

CALEB 23:35 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 23:35 

What are your plans? What sessions are you going to? 

CALEB 23:37 

Well next is lunch. 

BRIAN 23:38 

Lunch, okay. There's a theme emerging here. 

CALEB 23:42 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 23:42 

Yeah. 

CALEB 23:43 

It's all-- London, not known for the food. But I'm going to try it all. 

BRIAN 23:47 

Okay. 

CALEB 23:48 

Yeah. No, I haven't had an opportunity to look at what sessions I'm going to be doing for the rest of day. I was going to take some time and spend a little bit of it with the Alteryx for Good crew here, next to the podcast, see if we can get some folks involved, maybe get out there and meet a few folks here from Europe and from the London market network a bit, really looking forward to the grand prix tonight. 

BRIAN 24:10 

Yeah. 

CALEB 24:10 

It's always amazing to see-- 

BRIAN 24:12 

That's awesome. 

CALEB 24:12 

-- the level, the elevated level of basically how good people can be. It really inspired me to get better and to do things in more clever ways. 

BRIAN 24:21 

Yeah. When are you going to be-- when are you going to make the grand prix? When's that? You want to-- we like earmark that for next year for you? Or what? 

CALEB 24:25 

Yeah, maybe next year I can-- we can do a live podcast during it or something. 

BRIAN 24:29 

During. 

CALEB 24:30 

[inaudible] color commentary. 

BRIAN 24:31 

You're going to be so good that you'll just be podcasting whilst grand prixing. 

CALEB 24:35 

[inaudible] yeah, that's good. I'm dragging the download tool into the canvas [inaudible]. 

BRIAN 24:39 

Yeah. "Yeah, describe what you're doing right now." Alright. And the last question I have, and I have been asking some of our guests this so far. This morning Katie Harelson and Nick Jewell were doing some demos on stage and they were Spotify data. And it always reminds me to ask people, what's your go to jam when you need to crank out some serious analytics badassery? What's the go to tune selection like for you? 

CALEB 25:02 

Ooh, it depends on the pallet, my friend. 

BRIAN 25:04 

Okay. Well give me some flavors here. Let's-- 

CALEB 25:06 

Okay. So I guess if I'm doing like preparation, it's probably Rolling Stones. 

BRIAN 25:11 

Okay. So Rolling Stones is prep and blend. 

CALEB 25:14 

That's prep and blend. 

BRIAN 25:15 

Alright. 

CALEB 25:16 

If I'm doing connectors, it's got to be Grateful Dead. 

BRIAN 25:19 

Okay. 

CALEB 25:19 

It has to be. 

BRIAN 25:20 

Okay. 

CALEB 25:20 

The download tool inspired by it. 

BRIAN 25:22 

Alright. 

CALEB 25:23 

Although-- 

BRIAN 25:23 

This is true. 

CALEB 25:24 

-- I guess I could also say Pink Floyd for the preparation pallet. 

BRIAN 25:27 

Alright. Okay. 

CALEB 25:28 

Right. Dark Side of the Moon. 

BRIAN 25:28 

Alright. 

CALEB 25:29 

So it's classic rock most of the time. 

BRIAN 25:30 

Got it. 

CALEB 25:31 

But hey, you might hear a little Future in there too. 

BRIAN 25:33 

When do you deviate? What kind of work are you doing at that point? 

CALEB 25:37 

I guess-- 

BRIAN 25:37 

Just like some next level action, or what? 

CALEB 25:39 

Yeah, it depends on the deadline, my friend. 

BRIAN 25:42 

Okay. 

CALEB 25:42 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 25:42 

Yes. 

CALEB 25:43 

It depends on the deadline. There might even be a podcast in there if I'm having more-- 

BRIAN 25:46 

Oh, okay. 

CALEB 25:47 

-- yeah, a soft deadline. Maybe I'm just doing some conceptual development, we might have a podcast [crosstalk]. 

BRIAN 25:52 

Is it weird to like listen to your self while you're Alteryxing? 

CALEB 25:55 

We can listen to this podcast [inaudible]. Yeah. 

BRIAN 25:56 

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Alright, man. Well thanks for coming. Thanks for everything you do-- 

CALEB 26:01 

Thank you. 

BRIAN 26:01 

-- at the Alteryx for Good stuff. It was a great story. And hopefully it's inspiring other people. I know everybody at the event last night seemed like there was some watery eyes. And hopefully we spurred them into some action. So I appreciate it. 

CALEB 26:13 

I hope so. I hope to see this continue to grow. I don't know of another program like it that can have the impact that it can. 

BRIAN 26:21 

Yeah. 

CALEB 26:21 

So I'm really looking forward to the future of it. 

BRIAN 26:22 

Very cool. 

CALEB 26:23 

And thank you so much. 

BRIAN 26:24 

Alright, man. Well thank so much. Enjoy the rest of the conference. And we'll catch up with you soon. 

CALEB 26:28 

Absolutely. Thank you. 

BRIAN 26:29 

Alright. Bye-bye. 

CALEB 26:30 

Bye. 

BRIAN 26:34 

Okay. So I'm back with Sydney Firm. And Sydney, welcome to London. 

SYDNEY 26:36 

Thank you. I'm really happy to be here. 

BRIAN 26:38 

Awesome. So how many Inspires is this for you now? 

SYDNEY 26:40 

This is number two. I got to go to Anaheim this year. 

BRIAN 26:43 

Okay. And how was that for you? 

SYDNEY 26:44 

Awesome. It was really cool. 

BRIAN 26:46 

Now I know we're only halfway through into the London situation here. But how are you comparing the two? Or are you liking London, I guess, is what I'm trying to ask you? 

SYDNEY 26:55 

London's been amazing. It's a different feel. But it's still very Alteryx. Excellent. 

BRIAN 27:00 

Yeah. Okay. So give us a little bit of a bio. So there's quite a lot of folks who don't know who you are. Tell us a little bit about kind of how you-- where you came from, how you came into analytics. Give us that backstory. 

SYDNEY 27:12 

So I did my master's degree in Geography. And while I was doing that, I was working a lot with R and spatial data. And so when I was applying for jobs after travelling for awhile, the customer support position at Alteryx, GIS and predictive analytics were listed as things that were nice to have. And so I went for it. And-- 

BRIAN 27:32 

Oh, so you have all the nice to haves. You're very nice to have. 

SYDNEY 27:34 

It was not like two of the nice to haves. It was-- they were bonus criteria. 

BRIAN 27:39 

Oh, so you're just showing off now, is what you're saying. 

SYDNEY 27:41 

No. Yeah. 

BRIAN 27:46 

No. But yeah, just kidding. 

SYDNEY 27:47 

But yeah, no. 

BRIAN 27:48 

But seriously-- Okay. Great. So someone, they'll remain unnamed, I think, we'll keep them anonymous for now, I'm not going to name names or anything, Tasha Alfano, but she totally called you out a few minutes ago, something about neural networks. So tell me-- what's that all about? 

SYDNEY 28:07 

Well I recently published a blog on the data science blog kind of talking about how neural network models work. And so that was, I think, probably what she was referencing. 

BRIAN 28:17 

Okay. And what's the meat of that? Give me the audio version of this blog post. 

SYDNEY 28:22 

Well neural network models are really cool. They've been around for a really long time. But they're loosely modelled off of how brains work. And it's supposed to be different nodes or neurons connecting, and passing data through all of these neurons so that it can create weights and an estimate of your target variable that way. 

BRIAN 28:42 

Okay. So you're wicked smart. I'm realizing now this was a bad idea. I don't know what you're talking about. I hope the audience does. 

SYDNEY 28:48 

I probably didn't explain clearly. Read the blog post. 

BRIAN 28:50 

No. I will read the blog post. 

SYDNEY 28:51 

I'm much better on the page. 

BRIAN 28:53 

Okay. Got it. Got it. So you were in support. I know the answer to this. But our listeners don't. What are you doing these days? What are you up to? 

SYDNEY 29:00 

I'm a community content engineer now. 

BRIAN 29:01 

Yeah, you are. Alright. So what's your mission? What are you working on for the content team? 

SYDNEY 29:07 

Well I have a couple different objectives. But what I get really excited about is making predictive analytics accessible and fun through blog posts and knowledge based articles. 

BRIAN 29:17 

And how are you accomplishing that? Because some of the content engineers we had in the past, Matt DeSimone especially, have attempted to use GIFs and other kinds of fun ways of drawing people in. What's your preferred method of making it accessible? 

SYDNEY 29:30 

Explaining concisely and clearly, and then all the GIFs, so many memes. 

BRIAN 29:34 

So many GIFs, got it. So what are you doing for the rest-- did you do some training? Did you-- tell me about that. 

SYDNEY 29:41 

I got to assist on the analytics introductory class yesterday. And I helped with the reporting class today. But mostly I'll be in the solution center. 

BRIAN 29:51 

Okay. And what are you doing in the solution center? 

SYDNEY 29:53 

General help and then predictive, sometimes spatial. 

BRIAN 29:56 

So for anyone not-- who's not been to an Inspire, I find that hard to believe if you're listening to this show. What are you doing with your life? Consider what you're doing with your life. But anyway, if you haven't been to an Inspire, the solution center is always ranked among the top reasons why people come over to Inspire. And it's-- can you explain to the the fine folks at home what is the solution center. 

SYDNEY 30:20 

I think of the solution center as a face to face support. So if you have questions on how something works or you're really stuck on a problem, it's an opportunity to work with someone that has a lot of experience in Alteryx and in a specialty area and kind of work through the problem together. 

BRIAN 30:36 

Alright. Yeah. And so I'm looking out here. So from left to right here, or right to left rather, we have the spatial circles. These are named after streets we have Macros and Apps avenue. We have Build it boulevard, Solution City. Is that Mountain way? What is MTWY? That's Mountain way, right? 

SYDNEY 30:53 

Yeah, I think so. 

BRIAN 30:54 

So that's a hold over from Denver. Okay. 

SYDNEY 30:56 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 30:57 

And then we have Server Square Connect-- I can't see that far, Connect Court. 

SYDNEY 31:01 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 31:02 

And then I can't see past that. But anyway, so they're these little pods. And depending on what you're particular challenge or issue is, you can just mozy on up there and talk to support folks, developers, product managers. I might make small appearance there and probably set you down the complete wrong track. So don't talk to me if you find me in the solution center. But yeah, we find that people come and they're super excited to get the help. And I've seen a lot of aha moments. A lot of times, you'll walk past and you'll see someone sort of light up with, "Oh, that's the thing I needed to get past. I've been struggling with this for days, or weeks or whatever." So cool. What's the-- from your solution center experience so far here, or last time in Anaheim, what's like the-- what's a good example of something that someone brought to you and you helped them solve? 

SYDNEY 31:52 

So especially with predictive tools, a lot of the time, it's-- people want to know how they work and how the underlying model works. So that's really fun to get to talk about the statistics a little bit. 

BRIAN 32:03 

Get a little nerdy. 

SYDNEY 32:04 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 32:04 

Get a little down and dirty in the data. 

SYDNEY 32:06 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 32:06 

A little bit of predictive action. 

SYDNEY 32:08 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 32:08 

Yeah. Okay. Alright. So the last question I have for you, this has-- we've been asking everybody this. So in terms of music, what kind of music do you listen to when you're Alteryxing? 

SYDNEY 32:19 

So it's kind of hipstery. It's the equivalent of like 80s new wave, but made in the last ten years. 

BRIAN 32:27 

Oh, okay. I was going to say you can't say it's hipster if it's 80s. That's not right. 

SYDNEY 32:33 

I've been told that a lot of hipster music is just trying to be 80s music. 

BRIAN 32:37 

This is true. 

SYDNEY 32:37 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 32:38 

It's all circling back. 

SYDNEY 32:39 

it does. 

BRIAN 32:40 

So give me song songs here. We're going to make a-- I think we're going to try and make a playlist for the folks at home. So give me-- hit me with some tracks. 

SYDNEY 32:46 

Oh, Passion Pit - Cry Like A Ghost. 

BRIAN 32:48 

Okay. 

SYDNEY 32:49 

Okay. Which is actually the Holy Ghost. 

BRIAN 32:53 

Okay. There's a theme emerging. 

SYDNEY 32:58 

I guess so. That's all that's floating up to the top. 

BRIAN 33:02 

That's it. You got-- those are the only two songs that you put on repeat. 

SYDNEY 33:03 

Yeah. Those are just on repeat, always. I hope they're good. 

BRIAN 33:08 

Nailed it. Alright. Well hey, thanks for doing this. Thanks for being awesome. Thanks for helping people in the solution center. 

SYDNEY 33:14 

It's awesome. 

BRIAN 33:15 

And we'll look forward to many, many, many, many, many more epic blogposts from you in the data science blog. 

SYDNEY 33:22 

We will be meme rich, yes. 

BRIAN 33:23 

Okay. I appreciate that. Thanks Sidney. 

SYDNEY 33:26 

Thanks Brian. 

BRIAN 33:26 

Bye. 

BRIAN 33:30 

Alright. I'm back with Tessa. Tessa, how are you? 

TESSA 33:32 

I'm doing really good. How are you, Brian? 

BRIAN 33:33 

Really good. Really good. How's your Inspire experience been so far? 

TESSA 33:37 

So far, so good. 

BRIAN 33:39 

Yeah. 

TESSA 33:39 

I'm loving it here. I've never been to London. 

BRIAN 33:41 

This is your first time. 

TESSA 33:43 

Mm-hmm. 

BRIAN 33:44 

Alright. 

TESSA 33:44 

My first time in London. So that alone is making this experience incredible. 

BRIAN 33:49 

Okay. Did you see any of the sites or anything? Or-- 

TESSA 33:52 

I haven't done much yet. But that's my plan for Thursday. 

BRIAN 33:56 

Oh, okay. Alright. 

TESSA 33:58 

So what I've done so far, I've gone to the Phantom of the Opera, some pubs. 

BRIAN 34:02 

Okay. So you got a pretty good-- I mean, you're pretty much on your way. It's like-- 

TESSA 34:05 

I'm on my way. 

BRIAN 34:05 

Yeah. Alright. Very good. 

TESSA 34:07 

I learned the tubes a little bit. 

BRIAN 34:08 

The tubes. 

TESSA 34:09 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 34:09 

Okay. Cool. So what's Inspire London been like so far? What kind of sessions have you gone to? Have you learned anything? What's the flavor so far? 

TESSA 34:18 

So far what I've done is I did the training yesterday, three training sessions. 

BRIAN 34:23 

Three. 

TESSA 34:23 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 34:24 

Woah. 

TESSA 34:24 

It was a really good balance though because I did macros for beginner users first. So that gave-- that's like beginner. And then I did the Python SDK connectors, which was advanced. So I went from beginner to advanced. And then I did RegEx, which was kind of in the middle there. 

BRIAN 34:38 

What. 

TESSA 34:39 

So it was a great blend. It wasn't overwhelming. Like it was perfect. 

BRIAN 34:43 

I like how you just, "Yeah, did three trainings. Whatever. It's no big deal. It's fine. Nothing big." 

TESSA 34:48 

I was tired by the end of it though. 

BRIAN 34:49 

Okay. 

TESSA 34:50 

It was a lot of information I was trying to cram in my brain. 

BRIAN 34:52 

Alright. 

TESSA 34:53 

But it was perfect. 

BRIAN 34:54 

Are you signed up for the expert certification? 

TESSA 34:57 

No. I still have to take the advanced. And that's my feedback. Why is it not provided? Why can't you take it here? 

BRIAN 35:04 

Well, we can only squeeze so many in here. 

TESSA 35:06 

Oh, okay. 

BRIAN 35:07 

We're going to catch you on the next one, for sure. 

TESSA 35:08 

Okay. Okay. 

BRIAN 35:09 

For sure. Okay. 

TESSA 35:09 

I might not be able to wait that long. 

BRIAN 35:11 

Okay. 

TESSA 35:11 

I probably won't. 

BRIAN 35:12 

Okay. Cool. So what are the rest of your plans for the conference here? Are there any other sessions you're looking forward to? Anybody you're trying to meet? Kind of what's that all about? 

TESSA 35:23 

I'm trying to get some face time with Chris Love because I love talking to him about-- well I want to ask him some questions about his macro that he put on the gallery for the tableau, making the [inaudible] tableau. I can't remember the name of the actual macro. 

BRIAN 35:38 

Is this the one he showed in the session just a few minutes ago? 

TESSA 35:40 

I didn't go to his session. I was testing products. 

BRIAN 35:43 

Okay. 

TESSA 35:43 

Yeah, the new Alteryx products. 

BRIAN 35:45 

Alright. 

TESSA 35:46 

Yeah. 

BRIAN 35:46 

Yeah. So Chris showed off. There were six Aces in there. And Chris showed off. He had built this workflow-- I'm not going to do this justice, spoiler alert for folks. But my understanding of what he built was he was scraping all kinds of football or for our American audience, soccer data off of some website somewhere because I guess it's like really hard to get that data freely. So he was scraping it off there. And it was like down to the every minute or every play of every game like ever played. And then he had those in visualizations of the field. And you could see like how a play would develop, and like where the shot was from, and if it scored or not, and if it did score, like which corner of the goal did it go in, and this just like insanely detailed, just bananas like stuff. So you should ask him about that. 

TESSA 36:37 

I will. And do we get recording of all these sessions afterwards? I know that was something-- 

BRIAN 36:41 

That's a good question. I'm not sure what the recording situation is. 

TESSA 36:44 

I would go back and watch that. 

BRIAN 36:46 

Alright. Cool. So before we got on here, not to put you on the spot, you were kind of repping your Instagram account right now. So what's that all about? 

TESSA 36:56 

So I do a matching mother daughter Instagram account. So all these outfits are custom picked by me. Not custom designed, but I go through a lot to make sure that we're head to toe, we're in the same outfit. And then we do these different poses so I have quote that will go with it, just kind of motivation, empowerment. I'm really trying to feed the message of working mothers or single mothers just being-- portraying this confidence about them. Not so much to say that it's not easy or it's not hard, but that's the whole message behind it, is be confident, be strong, learn to [code?]. 

BRIAN 37:33 

Okay. I love it. 

TESSA 37:34 

Like do anything you want to do. As a mother, it doesn't mean that you're limited in any way, shape, or form. 

BRIAN 37:40 

Cool. 

TESSA 37:40 

And I do have some Alteryx photos on there two with me and her wearing Alteryx t-shirts. 

BRIAN 37:44 

Alright. That's awesome. So what's the Instagram account? [inaudible] point people towards the link. 

TESSA 37:49 

Okay. So it's Instragram.com/Tessy, T-E-S-S-Y and Z, so A-N-D-Z like zebra. 

BRIAN 37:58 

Z. Alright. Alright. We'll link that up on the show notes. You're going to have a flood of new followers to check out the mother daughter. 

TESSA 38:05 

Although this crowd is really into Twitter. I've noticed that this is more of a Twitter crowd. 

BRIAN 38:09 

It's a little bit more of a twitter crowd. 

TESSA 38:10 

Yeah. Maybe I'll put some mother daughter [inaudible] as well. 

BRIAN 38:13 

Okay. Alright. Cool. So yeah, anything else? What else do you want to get out here? We got time. 

TESSA 38:21 

Well, I'm loving the venue. The venue is awesome. The food has been awesome. That sessions have been great. So the one I went to today about the predictive modelling, that was dynamite. And the room was so packed. 

BRIAN 38:32 

And who led that one? We'll find out later. We're trying to open our apps right now. 

TESSA 38:38 

Here's the thing, I use my brain to remember all the content. And then I-- the name is like the hardest one to-- 

BRIAN 38:42 

Yeah. We'll figure it out. We'll link it in the show notes. No worries. 

TESSA 38:45 

Thank you so much. Can you just do like a voice over me so it sounds like I'm saying it? 

BRIAN 38:48 

Yeah. No, I'll totally voice over. 

TESSA 38:49 

Okay. 

BRIAN 38:50 

Yeah. 

TESSA 38:50 

So-- 

BRIAN 38:51 

No, I'm not going to do that all. But yeah, I'll promise you that I'll do it. Then I won't do it. We'll just publish this. 

TESSA 38:55 

That's one of my things I'm trying to get better at, is names. 

BRIAN 38:58 

That's okay. Oh, I mean, yeah, all day everyday, people are coming up. And I'm getting the reputation now for the podcast thing. And people are like, "Hey, you're that guy." And I'm like, "I don't-- yeah. Do I know you?" 

TESSA 39:08 

I can tell you his outfit, head to toe. I can tell you like a whole summary of what he talked about. I can even tell you random details about like his shoe laces. But I can't tell you his first and last name. That's-- 

BRIAN 39:20 

You should've been like-- you should work for the police where you're just like memorizing stuff. And then-- is that a thing? Maybe that's not a thing. I don't-- 

TESSA 39:26 

Or there should be an app where you can-- I don't know, somehow screen someone's face and then their first and last name comes out. But that get's on the line of very creepy. 

BRIAN 39:34 

I bet Facebook has something like that. 

TESSA 39:35 

It probably does. 

BRIAN 39:36 

Anyway, moving on. Cool. 

TESSA 39:38 

Design an Alteryx workflow for that. 

BRIAN 39:40 

Yeah, that's right. 

TESSA 39:41 

That's-- 

BRIAN 39:41 

That's right. Well hey, thanks for being on. As always, it's a pleasure to talk to you. We'll check out your instagram account. And have a great time at the rest of the show. 

TESSA 39:50 

Thank you Brian. 

BRIAN 39:51 

Alright. Bye-bye. 

TESSA 39:52 

Bye. 

BRIAN 39:55 

Alright. So I'm back here with Kat Erb. Did I say it right? 

KAT 39:58 

Yep. That's alright. Perfect. 

BRIAN 39:59 

Awesome. So I'm so happy to have you on here. I've been trying to track you down all day. You are a celebrity here. 

KAT 40:06 

Aww, thank you. 

BRIAN 40:07 

For sure. So before we get to the main event, I want to kind of walk back here a little bit and ask you about your Inspire experience. Is this your first Inspire? 

KAT 40:18 

Yeah. This actually is my first Inspire. 

BRIAN 40:19 

Okay. And tell me about that. How's it going for you so far? 

KAT 40:21 

So it's been really great, so inspiring. Inspire is working. So I've not been able to attend that many session actually because I've been quite caught up in practice runs and giving my own session [inaudible]. But the sessions I've been able to attend have been really great. And it's so inspiring and motivating how everyone's just coming together. And everyone's kind and asking questions. And it felt like there's-- no one felt shy to ask something. So the community spirit was really great. 

BRIAN 40:46 

Right. Right. Okay. So tell us about this-- you mentioned the session that you did. Tell me a little bit about that. 

KAT 40:51 

Right. So I gave a session on my company [Standard Bank?] on how we are using Alteryx. So we actually-- so it was [Standard Bank?]'s journey to automate everything. And we just spoke about the problems that we faced, sort of why we chose Alteryx, sort of like the lack of value add and key [inaudible] independencies that we had, and then why we chose Alteryx. And we discussed some use cases that we had. And then we went into actually also discussing the organization or business challenges that we face because actually building the workflows is often the easiest part. The much harder part is convincing the business, and getting the buy in, and just spreading the word. Because despite how great the software is, the uptake has been quite slow and difficult. So working on that is something that we focused on in the chat. 

BRIAN 41:39 

Good. Okay. Well I heard good things about that. 

KAT 41:41 

Thank you. 

BRIAN 41:42 

Unfortunately I couldn't attend that one. But I heard people came out of it awestruck and amazed. 

KAT 41:47 

That's great. 

BRIAN 41:47 

Speaking of awestruck and amazed, that brings us to the grand prix of which, whoever's is listening to this right now, if you don't know, Kat won the grand prix here in London. 

KAT 41:58 

Yay. 

BRIAN 41:58 

So tell me about that experience. How did you get there? How did it go for you? What was it like in the moment? 

KAT 42:05 

So how it went was great of course. 

BRIAN 42:08 

Yeah. It went great. Yeah. Okay. Good. Next question. 

KAT 42:11 

So the lead up to it, so I started using Alteryx about a year ago. And I started using it at work and was using the work things. And then I wanted to just improve my skills a little bit. So I started doing the weekly challenges and sort of got into those. And then I started-- I did my first qualifying exam. And then that one was quite easy. So I was like, "Oh, let me just try the second one." 

BRIAN 42:35 

Oh, so easy, yeah. No big deal at all. 

KAT 42:37 

Easiest. 

BRIAN 42:37 

Just breezed right through it. 

KAT 42:39 

But then the-- so I was like, "Okay. Let me try the second one." I thought I could sort of wing it the same way, just use Google [inaudible]. Not the case-- so I like-- so I noticed you really need to-- you need to know spatial [inaudible]. So I did all the spatial challenges, [inaudible] myself in spatial. And then I started [inaudible] actually done quite a few challenges and that was really going well. So I kind of kept on it. And then at some point, I was really close to the top ten. Then I made the top ten. Then my colleagues were like, "Oh, this is great. But ten is not really that great." 

BRIAN 43:09 

That's not what they're saying now. 

KAT 43:11 

Yeah. So then-- so exactly. So I worked myself up. And then I finally got to one. And then I was like, "Okay. Why don't I try for the grand prix." I did even not-- did not even believe for one second that I would make the prelims. So tried the prelims, got the call from Cailin. It was like-- that was actually [inaudible]-- I was completely blown away that I made it. I did not think so, and then made it to the grand prix. And then I was actually a lot less nervous than I thought I would be at the grand prix, which was surprising. 

BRIAN 43:38 

I have to say, you looked super locked in. Like you had your headphones. At one point, I think your eyes were maybe at maximum, 4cm from the screen. Like you were right there. You were focused on that. 

KAT 43:51 

And I was hiding actually. And so I deliberately put my chair super low. And then I was hiding behind the screen so I wouldn't see anyone really. So I was just like completely focused on the screen, with my earphones, with the music, just pretending nothing else was happening other than Alteryx. 

BRIAN 44:05 

Which seems like it worked out for you. 

KAT 44:07 

It did. 

BRIAN 44:07 

It was a good strategy. 

KAT 44:08 

Yes. Yeah, I couldn't believe it actually when I won [inaudible]. If anyone looks at the footage of it, you'll see like how I was just like, "What just happened?" 

BRIAN 44:16 

So has it sunk in yet? Do you need some more time? 

KAT 44:21 

I definitely need some more time. 

BRIAN 44:22 

Okay. 

KAT 44:23 

I think when I take my holiday maybe. 

BRIAN 44:25 

There you go. 

KAT 44:25 

It will sink in. 

BRIAN 44:26 

Now are you going to take the trophy with you, just on holiday, are you going to just carry it around with you, show it off? 

KAT 44:30 

Definitely not. 

BRIAN 44:32 

Leave it in your hotel room? 

KAT 44:33 

No. All that attention is a bit too much for me so I'm also not wearing the shirt anymore or anything like that. And then actually the trophy's going to be shipped to me. So I don't have to carry it with me. 

BRIAN 44:42 

Okay. Got it. Well you'll definitely have to drink out of it and parade it around the office and let your colleagues know what happened. And one thing you mentioned, and I think this is one of the-- well, there's two great things about your win other than that you've won. One is you are the second woman in a row to win. 

KAT 44:58 

Yes. Yay women. 

BRIAN 44:59 

Yeah. And you are also the second person in a row to win that is essentially self taught based on the Alteryx Academy weekly challenges. So I just want to put a plug out there for anybody listening, I think we talk about weekly challenges on every episode of the cast, but this is why. Because we hear people getting value. And we see your success and Nicole's success. 

KAT 45:22 

Definitely. 

BRIAN 45:23 

And that's great. So going back to the first one though, the women piece, we just came from the women of analytics panel, of which you were there as well. You're everywhere. She's everywhere, all the time. And you had a great chat about women in analytics, women in the industry, women in business and things that can sort of improve there and how we should do that. So tell me a little bit about that experience for you as well. 

KAT 45:47 

Yeah, that was really great as well, to being on the stage there with other great panelists at [inaudible], and just talking through all the challenges that women might face. Although none of the three of us, panelists, we faced that many challenges for being a woman. We actually, all three, very fortunate to be in companies that really support us and that have never put any bias on anything and in those kind of direction on us being women. But what we are actually discussing afterwards as well is that it needs to start earlier. So we almost-- the people here all converted. They're all using Alteryx. But it's the young women, like the children and the younger girls that needs to be converted and convinced that starting a career in tech is the right thing and definitely achievable and desirable. I mean, there's so many jobs available in analytics right now that there's no reason to not go into it. It's not like there's a shortage of these kind of jobs. And so definitely, all women should take it. 

BRIAN 46:38 

Yeah. Well, I think you're helping lead the charge. Hopefully everybody's seen you win all the things and be on all the stages. And hopefully it's inspires anyone else out there, so. 

KAT 46:49 

Hopefully. 

BRIAN 46:49 

Alright. Well, thank you so much for coming. Thank you for everything you've done. Congratulations on the win, and the panel, and the presentation. And we look forward to seeing you again anytime. Just come on down, if you're ever around, just come to the office. But we'll see you hopefully in all the Inspires to come. 

KAT 47:09 

Hopefully, yes. And thank you Alteryx for all the great support that you guysgive to us as well as customers. 

BRIAN 47:13 

Absolutely. Thank you. Have a good one. 

KAT 47:15 

Thank you. 

BRIAN 47:15 

Bye-bye. 

JOSH: 47:20 

This podcast has been brought to you by The Join Tool. When two long lost data sets found each other, they joined forces the one data set to rule them all. The Join Tool, bringing data and people together since 1997. To find out more, send an email to podcast.alteryx.com with coupon code, predict this. 

 

This episode of Alter Everything was produced by Maddie Johannsen (@MaddieJ).

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