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Alter Everything

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BrianO
Alteryx Alumni (Retired)

A cavalcade of stars join us live from Day 1 of Inspire 2018 in Anaheim, California.

 


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Transcript

 

Episode Transcription

BRIAN: 00:06 

[music] Live from day one of Inspire 2018 in Anaheim, California, this is Alter Everything, a podcast about data and analytics culture. We're joined today by a cavalcade of stars to discuss their experience at the conference thus far. Let's get right into it. All right. Andrew Kim, how's it going, my friend? 

ANDREW: 00:29 

Amazing. I'm here at Inspire today and, of course, I'm inspired, and it's only day one. We're off to a great start. 

BRIAN: 00:36 

It's only day one. So how many Inspires have you been to? What is this for you? I see three on your badge. So I'm just going to call that out. 

ANDREW: 00:41 

Yeah. This is my third one. I wish there were more before, but we'll stick with the three, and maybe I'll fit some one-in-ones in here so you do. 

BRIAN: 00:51 

Nice. Nice. And what'd you do today? 

ANDREW: 00:53 

I did the build session. So we had the community Codeathon going on, and we were working on some stuff for Alteryx for Good. 

BRIAN: 01:03 

Okay, cool. What was the Alteryx for Good thing? 

ANDREW: 01:06 

So we have a handful of the user groups that are kind of joining forces right now. And we're getting excited about training the next group of-- the generation, actually, of Alteryx users. And then what we're also trying to do is connect parents who are in the data field with their children. So we were designing an app that could enable a parent or a child to plan out their future in the data industry. 

BRIAN: 01:36 

Whoa [laughter]. Oh, nice [laughter]. Yeah, get them early, man. We need as many as we can. 

ANDREW: 01:41 

Yeah. Then if they've never been hooked on Excel, I mean, the possibilities are endless. 

BRIAN: 01:47 

"The time is nigh [laughter]. Alteryx awaits." Very cool. Very Cool. So what's going on? We're here in the-- we're calling this AlterNation this year, downtown Alteryx. What do you think of this? Pretty cool, right? 

ANDREW: 01:59 

This is incredible. I mean, you can already see plenty of opportunity to mingle with people, take some pictures, learn, and obviously, some brew is being passed. 

BRIAN: 02:09 

Some brew [laughter]? Yeah, there's a little of brew. And there'll be a little of brew later. We have some custom Alteryx brew that we put together. So that'll be pretty sweet. 

ANDREW: 02:17 

I was checking out one of those bottles, you guys brewed them yourselves? 

BRIAN: 02:20 

We did. We went to a local brewery here in, I believe, in kind of like LA area, and we went-- it was like a four to six-hour thing. And it's kind of cool because you go, and they're teaching you about it, and you're putting the hops in, and you're putting all the ingredients. But there's also this downtime. So you do something, and then you wait for 30 minutes. And you do something, and you wait an hour. So it's really cool team-building. And we got them all labeled up. So I think it's-- let's see here. One is called, "Unconventioned Ale." And the other one is, "Liquid Insights." 

ANDREW: 02:52 

Liquid [laughter]--? 

BRIAN: 02:52 

So some lucky folks will be taking those home tonight. So it's great. 

ANDREW: 02:57 

That's incredible. 

BRIAN: 02:59 

Well, what do you doing the rest of the week? What are you excited about? What's on the agenda for you? 

ANDREW: 03:03 

So Joe Mako's-- 

BRIAN: 03:05 

Ooh. 

ANDREW: 03:06 

Yeah. 

BRIAN: 03:07 

Yeah. 

ANDREW: 03:07 

Is going to be a big one for me. I saw him walking around already. I haven't had a chance to say high. 

BRIAN: 03:11 

You've got to flag these people down. I saw someone full-sprint across the conference earlier trying to catch somebody. So it's definitely [laughter]-- the networking is on. 

ANDREW: 03:20 

I get-- so it's interesting having been on the site for a while, I get a lot of people who look at me, and then they do a double-take. So they recognize my face, but they don't know my name yet. That's almost good too because then it's like mysterious, right? 

BRIAN: 03:35 

In time, everyone shall know your name. 

ANDREW: 03:37 

No [laughter]. 

BRIAN: 03:39 

So speaking of knowing your name, Road to Inspire-- so for anyone who's listening to this that hasn't seen it yet, we had folks submit really cool stories about things that they do in their free time, things they're passionate about. And you sir, you won, and we came out to your area. Tell us a little bit about that. What was that like? 

ANDREW: 03:58 

That was an incredible experience. So obviously, Alteryx is an amazing product, but they actually-- all the team feels like family to me. 

BRIAN: 04:07 

Wow. 

ANDREW: 04:08 

When you guys came out, it was incredible. We went blueberry picking for the day. That's something that we do during the summer and then make some fresh pancakes and stuff. 

BRIAN: 04:19 

Fresh pancakes. 

ANDREW: 04:20 

Yeah, man. 

BRIAN: 04:21 

You can't go wrong with-- now, did you eat the pancakes before or after you went on that-- what was that, the sky-crane, sky-dive thing that you did [laughter]? What was that all about? 

ANDREW: 04:29 

So we don't share the pancakes in our house. 

BRIAN: 04:31 

Oh, okay. Oh, oh, okay. 

ANDREW: 04:32 

Yeah. So that's [hard?] limit for Alteryx [laughter]. But no, so we picked all the blueberries. We did share a nice family picnic with them, and then what we did is we went to-- I'm going to blank on the name. 

BRIAN: 04:52 

It was like this crazy amusement park situation I saw-- 

ANDREW: 04:54 

Yeah. 

BRIAN: 04:55 

--with rollercoasters and whatnot. 

ANDREW: 04:56 

So they have a couple of smaller places like that that we go to for some go-karts; the locals hang out. And whenever we went to go visit there, I took the team around, we did a little bit of dancing. Got all our muscles nice and loose [laughter], and then we shared a couple of screens. So my wife went with me, and then we had a couple of the Alteryx team members, Leah-- 

BRIAN: 05:23 

Dan and Leah. 

ANDREW: 05:24 

Yeah. 

BRIAN: 05:24 

Dan and Leah made that happen every day out there on the long road to Inspire [laughter]. 

ANDREW: 05:28 

Yeah. They were incredible. And then after that, we went and grabbed some dinner and some local brew and pizza. 

BRIAN: 05:36 

Nice. Very cool. 

ANDREW: 05:37 

Sweet. 

BRIAN: 05:38 

Well, thanks for coming up my friend. It's always good to see, and we will catch you hopefully more times throughout the conference here. You'll have to check back in. We'll have to hear what you've been up to every day. 

ANDREW: 05:48 

That sounds great. I'm going to be doing some video shooting with a GoPro and helping to share Inspire. Everybody should be coming to this. It's an incredible opportunity and experience. There's tons of people to talk to and learn from here and Solution Center, man-- 

BRIAN: 06:08 

Solution center, baby. It's packed right now. We are looking at it. This thing just opened 10 minutes ago, and it is wall-to-wall just slam-packed. It's unbelievable. 

ANDREW: 06:18 

Okay. That's incredible. I can get my problems solved and have a brew. 

BRIAN: 06:22 

Yeah. Well, if you look around the room here, we have a 360-degree view and you kind of see the hierarchy of analytical needs here because some people, they just forewent with the food, and they just went straight to Solution Center [laughter], right? So I think that tells you a little something. 

ANDREW: 06:39 

That's pretty awesome. 

BRIAN: 06:39 

Very cool, man. Well, where can people get more Andrew Kim? I know you're on Twitter. What's your Twitter handle there? 

ANDREW: 06:46 

So AndrewDataKim. 

BRIAN: 06:47 

AndrewDataKim? 

ANDREW: 06:48 

Yeah. And then I do have a site, and that's DataIsMyMiddleName [laughter]. 

BRIAN: 06:53 

Sweet. dot-com? 

ANDREW: 06:54 

Dot-com. 

BRIAN: 06:55 

Dot-com. All right. Very cool, man. Well, thanks for coming up, and we will catch you on the flip side. 

ANDREW: 07:00 

Thank you, Brian. 

BRIAN: 07:01 

All right, take care. 

 

[music] 

BRIAN: 07:06 

All right. So we are back here with Nicole Johnson. Nicole, how's it going? 

NICOLE: 07:10 

It's going great. How about you? 

BRIAN: 07:11 

I am just fantastic. How has your Inspire been so far? 

NICOLE: 07:14 

It's been awesome. 

BRIAN: 07:16 

What did you--? 

NICOLE: 07:16 

It's been a crazy one. 

BRIAN: 07:16 

Yeah. What did you do today? Day one? 

NICOLE: 07:18 

So day one, I did a little bit of predictive analytics training this morning, and then I participated in the Industry Analysts Day. So I got to talk to some folks about all the cool things that we're doing at T-Mobile with Alteryx. 

BRIAN: 07:34 

Cool. How did the training go? What was that like? 

NICOLE: 07:35 

It was good. It was covering kind of just the basics of a lot of the predictive tools, a lot of good best practices. And so that was really helpful. It's an area I haven't spent a lot of time in, but it was good. It was a good introduction. I guess it was an advanced course, but [laughter] it was a pretty intense introduction. 

BRIAN: 07:52 

"Yeah, I just waltzed into the advanced course." 

NICOLE: 07:54 

Waltzed into [laughter]-- 

BRIAN: 07:55 

"And I just crushed it. Whatever. No big deal." 

NICOLE: 07:57 

I don't know that I really understood a lot of what was happening [laughter], but it looked good on the canvas. 

BRIAN: 08:03 

Nice, nice. So how many Inspires have you been to? 

NICOLE: 08:05 

I've been to two. 

BRIAN: 08:06 

You've been to two? 

NICOLE: 08:06 

This is my second one. 

BRIAN: 08:07 

So how does this rank on the scale of one and two [laughter]? Where would you put this one? 

NICOLE: 08:12 

Well, so this one's a little different for me than last year. So last year being my first one, it was very cool and very exciting. It went from like zero to 60 since this year, I'm all over the place in this Inspire and participating and speaking and totally terrified about the Grand Prix tomorrow [laughter]. And yeah, it's been a busy one, but really cool. Also, really cool. 

BRIAN: 08:33 

That's great. So actually, that's great. Tell us about the Grand Prix. What's going on there? 

NICOLE: 08:36 

Yeah. So let's see, I've done the preliminary rounds to get into the Grand Prix, I think three times. And so it was a little bit of a surprise when I got the phone call, "Hey, so it turns out you might get to compete this year." And so I'm excited about it. I mean, I've done a lot of the weekly challenges, and I think it's kind of fun to do the quick-- see how fast I can solve it. It'll be a little different doing it in an arena-- 

BRIAN: 09:05 

Yeah. 

NICOLE: 09:06 

--with lots of people [crosstalk]-- 

BRIAN: 09:06 

No, it's just a few thousand screaming fans. No big deal. You'll be fine. You're not under any pressure or anything like that [laughter]. 

NICOLE: 09:11 

No, it's no big deal [laughter]. Yeah, so a little different, but I'm excited. I'm really excited. 

BRIAN: 09:16 

Now you are, I'm just going to say it, the undisputed champion of weekly challenges [laughter]. 

NICOLE: 09:23 

Oh, don't-- there's many people who will not appreciate you saying that [laughter]. 

BRIAN: 09:26 

So they can come up here and podcast, and they can get theirs in. But I think-- so tell me about that. Tell me about the weekly challenges. Tell me about how you got started and kind of where you've gone with that. 

NICOLE: 09:37 

Oh, my gosh. So it actually was the Grand Prix preliminary challenges that really got me going on it or the preliminary rounds for the Grand Prix, I think, last year. We needed a spatial person for our user group, and nobody would volunteer. So I said, "Eh, okay. How hard can it be [laughter]? I'll try." It did not go well. But I needed to go somewhere to figure out what I was doing. I had no real way to do anything at work with that kind of information. And so I went and found the weekly challenges, and I did all the spatial ones trying to prep for the preliminary rounds. And I was hooked, and then I said, "Huh, what are all these other ones?" And so I just started kind of checking them off one-by-one, and, I mean, it really just became a hobby. And so kind of fun. It turns out I guess I'm a little competitive when it comes to-- 

BRIAN: 10:23 

Oh, just a little? 

NICOLE: 10:24 

Just a little bit. 

BRIAN: 10:25 

A little bit? 

NICOLE: 10:26 

A little bit competitive when it comes to weekly challenges. So worked me through all of them and got caught up and ran out of challenges and so then got involved on the discussion boards and helping find solutions for people. 

BRIAN: 10:39 

Now I just want to say for those playing along at home [laughter], to really fully drive this home, when Nicole says she ran out of challenges, that's just because she's done, what is it, 118 at this point? 119? 

NICOLE: 10:50 

I did 118, now, yeah. 

BRIAN: 10:51 

Yeah. So just a couple of challenges, which you've handled there. 

NICOLE: 10:56 

Yeah. Just a few. 

BRIAN: 10:57 

Very nice. So what else you doing this week? What are you looking forward to? 

NICOLE: 11:01 

I'm pretty excited. We've got community track this year. I love the way that this company embraces the users and the way that they deal with the whole community involvement. And so I've worked with Tara and Matt, and we've got a game show session on Wednesday that's going to be hilarious. 

BRIAN: 11:23 

So it's, "So You Think You Can Alter It?" I believe is the game show. 

NICOLE: 11:25 

Yes. 

BRIAN: 11:26 

I won't spoil any more of that-- 

NICOLE: 11:27 

Yes. No, that's pretty good. 

BRIAN: 11:28 

--but anybody who's listening to this, definitely sign up for that session [laughter]. 

NICOLE: 11:32 

It's going to be good. It's going to be epic. 

BRIAN: 11:34 

It's going to be great. Very cool. So where can people get more Nicole Johnson? So you're on the community. Are you on Twitter? Are you an active Twitter user? 

NICOLE: 11:41 

I'm not currently, but I have been informed by several people that there are errors in my ways that I am not on Twitter. So I have a feeling I will be on Twitter shortly. 

BRIAN: 11:52 

I'm just going to move the weekly challenges to Twitter, and then you'll have to be [laughter] on Twitter. 

NICOLE: 11:56 

That would be a really effective way to do that [laughter]. 

BRIAN: 11:59 

Very cool. Well, hey, thanks so much for doing this. Thanks for coming to Inspire, and we'll talk to you soon. 

NICOLE: 12:04 

Thank you. It's been great. 

BRIAN: 12:05 

All right. Take care. 

 

[music] 

BRIAN: 12:11 

All right. So we are here with the always venerable, Joe Miller. Joe, how are you doing today? 

JOE: 12:16 

I'm doing awesome. Day one of training is in the books. So I'm happy. One more day to go. I've been [crosstalk]-- 

BRIAN: 12:21 

Happy campers. So for anybody listening to this show right now, if you don't know Joe Miller, shame on you. But Joe Miller is the man with the plan behind all of our training and certification, both online, live here at Inspire. So, Joe, tell us a little bit about the training situation, in general, here this year at Inspire. 

JOE: 12:42 

So this year's training is a gargantuan effort, and it continues to grow year-after-year. I added it up, the amount of staff that we allocate to training over a two-day-period-- 

BRIAN: 12:51 

Allocate. 

JOE: 12:52 

Allocate, yeah [laughter]. Over 680 hours in a two-day period. 

BRIAN: 12:56 

Wow. Whoa [laughter]. 

JOE: 12:57 

If you designated somebody to do that, that would be a quarter of their year, and we split that into two days worth of training, which is a pretty amazing stat in terms of how much support we at Alteryx have to bring this all together. 

BRIAN: 13:11 

Right. And how many years have you been doing this, Joe? 

JOE: 13:13 

So this is actually my third Inspire in the US. The first year that I came was in San Diego, and there I worked in a product trainer functionality. And then last year was the first year that I oversaw the training over in Vegas, and here we are-- 

BRIAN: 13:31 

Here we are [laughter]. 

JOE: 13:31 

--in Anaheim. 

BRIAN: 13:32 

And here we are. 

JOE: 13:32 

Yep, still around. 

BRIAN: 13:33 

So what do you think, man? We're here. We're in downtown Alteryx. It's pretty wild, right? 

JOE: 13:38 

Yeah. I couldn't believe when I walked in, I felt I was in a club, all of the sudden [laughter]. 

BRIAN: 13:41 

It is a little-- 

JOE: 13:42 

The beats, the good music. 

BRIAN: 13:43 

--club-y in here tonight. 

JOE: 13:44 

Yeah, I [inaudible] start breaking it down right at the doorway. 

BRIAN: 13:47 

Lot of pastels, lot of beats happening. 

JOE: 13:50 

When you walk in, right by Spin City. 

BRIAN: 13:52 

Spin-- I know. 

JOE: 13:53 

Everything's glowing, everybody's getting excited, and I'm up here on this podcast. I've got a birds-eye-view of all the fun everybody's happening. Beautiful scene. 

BRIAN: 14:01 

Very cool, man. So the other thing we're doing live here this year is we're doing a little bit of certification. Tell us about that. 

JOE: 14:08 

Yeah. So our certification was initially launched after Inspire, Europe last year. And so on October 1st, we spun out our first production-ready core certification exam. Since then, we released our advanced certification exam for Designer January 2nd. And then coming this conference, we're spinning out our third and highest tier of certification for the Alteryx Designer; the expert exam. So there's going to be an elite squad of Alteryx people who have done both core and advanced taking this. It's going to be 20 people. It's going to be rough [laughter]. They're going to brawl for it. It's only five questions, right? 

BRIAN: 14:45 

It's going to be wild. 

JOE: 14:46 

It's going to be tough. So I'll be really interested to see who comes out of it, and they'll call themselves the first elite graduating force of Alteryx users. 

BRIAN: 14:56 

Yeah, it's been crazy. We put this-- we have the knack, right? We have the idea that this was going to be a big deal, but I'm not sure we really understood how big of a deal certification was going to be. And, I mean, we've just seen-- I mean, you can talk about it-- but, I mean, we've just seen an incredible amount of people taking this. And I think after this conference doing it live and kind of getting it out there in the air, people are just going to eat this thing up. 

JOE: 15:19 

So I have a great story for you that you should hear-- 

BRIAN: 15:21 

All right. Here we go. 

JOE: 15:22 

--about some things. Such a great example of how much people are into our certification program. So yesterday when we came here to Inspire, the whole community team sat down inside our booth. We checked it out, and Neil Ryan was there. And I'm like, "Hey, Neil, check out these certification pins we have." And I gave him one, and he put on his [inaudible]; the only person he did that for [laughter]. The only person. 20 minutes into today, I got my first email from Josh Kushner-- 

BRIAN: 15:47 

Oh, there you go. There you go. Yep. 

JOE: 15:50 

--saying, "Where are these certifications pin at? Where can I get them?" So that's just how excited people are to get into the certification program, show off their knowledge and show off their accreditations. Really excited to provide people the opportunity. And here at the Community Booth tomorrow, you can come by, pick up your pins, show that you're core-advanced. 

BRIAN: 16:08 

Very sweet. So that's awesome. And so the folks that aren't here at Inspire or are listening to this after the fact that didn't get a chance to do certification, where do they go online? How can they get certified? 

JOE: 16:20 

Yeah, if you go to academy.alteryx.com, that'll take you right to Alteryx Academy, which lives on our community. And you'll see there's a couple of different training options there. But we have our certification tab on the far right. And from there, once you click on that, you can see all of the offerings that we have. Registration for core and advanced is right there, along with descriptions and some videos and some practice exams. For the expert exam, that is something that is a limited time run-only. That will be available only here at Inspire, US in addition to Inspire, Europe, and they are the only opportunities to take those over this year. 

BRIAN: 16:54 

Yeah. No, that's cool. And I just want to stress for everybody out there, if you don't know, certification at Alteryx is free currently, right? So you go online, you kind of do it at your own pace, you sign up for it. We're not charging for this thing. We want everybody that wants to be certified to be certified. 

JOE: 17:12 

Absolutely. And I think the biggest reason that we went free, and the reason that we see a lot of people enjoy it for is you don't have to shell out $700 and feel the loss, right? 

BRIAN: 17:23 

Right. 

JOE: 17:23 

And we built this exam to be tough. Even the core one, even the most beginning. But we want it to be a learning experience, right? So it's not only an assessment tool where you say, "Are you at this level? $700. Yes or no?" We want to say, "Are you at this level? No? Hey, here's some things that are your shortcomings. Let's go ahead and try to fill out your knowledge there or fill in this gap here and make you a well-rounded Alteryx user." So making that free exam is really-- we've seen a lot of people excel. I've even had people come up to me and say, "Hey, I had no reason to ever use this particular tool," say an Iterative Macro, "your exam pushed me to do it, and now I use it weekly." 

BRIAN: 17:58 

That's awesome. 

JOE: 17:58 

Yep. 

BRIAN: 17:59 

That's unbelievable. All right, Joe. Anything else? Any parting words? What else are you looking forward to here at Inspire? 

JOE: 18:06 

Well, I am just looking forward to not doing training for the next two days [laughter]. I'm excited just to hang out here with my team. In previous years, I was just kind of in my separate world. And I'm excited just to hang out with my team, be in the community hub. Share all the excitement going on in the community. The whole Alteryx Academy. This is the first Inspire where we actually have it spun up, right? We had it available for Inspire, but it's doing a whole new skin and a whole new experience. It's got progress tracking, a lot of stuff that wasn't there at that time. So really being able to interact with people and see what they like, what they've enjoyed, what the benefit is for them or if they haven't, right? See if it's something that they're really interested in. 

BRIAN: 18:45 

Very cool, man. Well, thanks for coming by. Certification, training, it's unbelievable. Thank you for putting that all together for us and enjoy the rest of the show. 

JOE: 18:53 

All right. Thanks, Brian. 

BRIAN: 18:54 

All right. Take care. 

 

[music] 

BRIAN: 19:00 

Okay. So we're here with Tessa Enns Hello. 

TESSA: 19:02 

Hello. 

BRIAN: 19:03 

How are you? 

TESSA: 19:04 

I'm doing well. How are you? 

BRIAN: 19:05 

Good. Good. So tell me about your day. What have you done so far? 

TESSA: 19:09 

Today, I did the all-day macro 201 training. 

BRIAN: 19:13 

Okay. How'd that go? 

TESSA: 19:14 

It went great. We learned a lot about best practices, how to think about macros. And I'm just getting into it myself. So I learned that there are three different types of macros, the iterative, the batch, and then the traditional right-to-left flow. And we also learned about [laughter] tips and tricks. We learned about how to put fancy icons and a lot of things that I didn't think about. So it went well. I took a lot of notes. I made three macros today. 

BRIAN: 19:45 

Very cool. So you're the macro champion of the world is what you're telling me? 

TESSA: 19:48 

Maybe on my small team, yeah [laughter]. 

BRIAN: 19:51 

Yeah, you've got to lord that over them now. You did-- 

TESSA: 19:52 

Yeah, lower the bar a little bit. 

BRIAN: 19:54 

Are they here? 

TESSA: 19:55 

I have people from Cargo here, but no one on my team is here. 

BRIAN: 19:58 

Okay. 

TESSA: 19:59 

I think we have 20 or 30 Cargo, or more, attendees. 

BRIAN: 20:04 

Wow. 

TESSA: 20:04 

Some are from Europe. Kansas, Minnesota representing. Iowa. So we have a big group here. 

BRIAN: 20:12 

Very cool. And so how many Inspires have you been to? 

TESSA: 20:15 

My first one. 

 

This is your first one? What do you think so far? 

 

I'm thoroughly impressed. This is like a party [laughter]. 

 

It is a little bit of party. "We drink our own champagne," as Dean likes to say. 

TESSA: 20:25 

Right. Right. Yeah, no, I was talking to my friend, and I told her, "I can't believe this is work right now. I'm learning and I'm having fun at the same time." The speakers were amazing. They were easy to listen to. They took it at a great pace, and I learned a lot, and I'm having fun at the same time. What more could I ask for? 

BRIAN: 20:44 

Very cool. So what are you doing for the rest of the week? What does that look like for you? 

TESSA: 20:47 

Tonight, I'm going to the brewery, the Unsung Brewery. 

BRIAN: 20:49 

Yeah, you are. 

TESSA: 20:50 

Yes, I am [laughter]. Tomorrow, I have some more training. Wednesday, I am presenting for Cargo and talking about our use cases, our workflows, how we've used Alteryx and done some dynamite stuff with it. And Thursday, I'm taking the certification exam. 

BRIAN: 21:08 

Wow. 

TESSA: 21:09 

Friday-- 

BRIAN: 21:08 

That's a busy schedule, huh? 

TESSA: 21:10 

Yep. And Friday, I go home. 

BRIAN: 21:11 

Now which certification are you doing? 

TESSA: 21:12 

I'm in the core certification. 

BRIAN: 21:13 

The core? 

TESSA: 21:14 

Yep. 

BRIAN: 21:14 

Okay, all right. 

TESSA: 21:14 

Haven't taken that yet. 

BRIAN: 21:15 

The advanced is awaiting you. It's ready. 

TESSA: 21:18 

Yes. That will be next. Absolutely. 

BRIAN: 21:19 

Very cool. So what sessions are you going to? What excites you? Who do you want to hear talk? 

TESSA: 21:24 

Tomorrow, I'm doing Fuzzy Matching with Mark Frisch. 

BRIAN: 21:27 

Mark Frisch? 

TESSA: 21:28 

Marky crew. 

BRIAN: 21:28 

I might know that go. He may be hovering. I know people can't see this [laughter], but he's hovering here around the desk. 

TESSA: 21:35 

Yep. He's taking photos of this podcast right now [laughter]. But yeah, I'm going to his session. I'm excited, I've heard there's going to be swag from-- 

BRIAN: 21:43 

There's swag everywhere, this is Inspire. 

TESSA: 21:45 

But some poodle swag. 

BRIAN: 21:47 

Oh, some poodle swag? 

TESSA: 21:48 

Some stuffed animal swag. So I'm excited for that. And my schedule is jam-packed. I would need to see my phone [laughter]. I can't remember everything. There's so much going on. 

BRIAN: 22:00 

Very cool. 

TESSA: 22:00 

I know it's all good stuff, though. I'm doing some spatial mapping training. I'm excited for that. 

BRIAN: 22:06 

Cool. So who have you met so far? Have you met anybody cool? 

TESSA: 22:10 

Who have I met that's cool? Everybody. 

BRIAN: 22:13 

Everybody [laughter]? 

TESSA: 22:13 

Everybody who uses Alteryx is cool [laughter]. 

BRIAN: 22:16 

We are pretty cool. It is pretty cool in here. 

TESSA: 22:18 

Yeah. No, every person I've talked to so far has been cool. 

BRIAN: 22:21 

Great. 

TESSA: 22:22 

Even the people working at the hotel [laughter]. 

BRIAN: 22:25 

Yeah [laughter]. Well, awesome. All right. Well, hey, thanks for being on the show. We will see you around. And enjoy the rest of Inspire. 

TESSA: 22:32 

Thank you. Thank you for having me. 

BRIAN: 22:33 

All right. Take care. 

 

[music] 

BRIAN: 22:39 

Okay. So we're back with Mister Marky Crew himself, Mark Frisch. Hey, Mark. 

MARK: 22:43 

Hey, Brian. Thanks for having me. 

BRIAN: 22:45 

Welcome back. Yeah, welcome back to Alter Everything. 

MARK: 22:47 

Yeah, I've been-- it's here, finally. I can't wait. 

BRIAN: 22:51 

Awesome. So I think most people know who you are. So we don't need to cover that. But I do want to talk about what just took place about 10 minutes ago on the stage here tonight. Tell us about that. What happened? 

MARK: 23:02 

Well, I was asked to come by. They're having an ambassador Alteryx for Good presentation-- 

BRIAN: 23:10 

We lied, basically. [This year?] was the deal. 

TESSA: 23:11 

They lied. Yeah, yeah. So I thought I was coming to pick up some swag, and I was honored to be selected as one of the many people that are doing good with Alteryx for the company as being a recipient for an Alteryx for Good award. 

BRIAN: 23:31 

Yeah. 

MARK: 23:31 

And so-- 

BRIAN: 23:32 

That's great. 

MARK: 23:33 

--I'm the champion. 

BRIAN: 23:34 

You are a champion [laughter]. So for everybody that can't see this, we're looking at a nice piece of crystal that says, "Alteryx for Good. Mark Frisch Champion" on it. And, Mark, we can't thank you enough for what you do for Alteryx for Good. 

MARK: 23:45 

Well, it's a pleasure. I mean, I've described it as an award for liking ice cream [laughter]. 

BRIAN: 23:52 

That's great. So tell us a little bit about-- what did you do to win this award? What did you do for Alteryx for Good? 

MARK: 23:56 

Well, I started with the Grand Rapids user group, partnering with Kids Food Basket and did some work with them to build lunches. And right now, we're going to go do a replay with them where we're actually coloring lunch bags, and now we're going to stuff them with food and a [inaudible] Inspire. 

BRIAN: 24:14 

Oh, nice. Okay. 

MARK: 24:16 

And then I was invited by a Goldman Sachs to come and talk to the group and to help initiate an Alteryx for Good group in India. 

BRIAN: 24:27 

Okay. 

MARK: 24:27 

So I got a trip to India with-- I was already in Europe for business. So I just made the little side trip to India. 

BRIAN: 24:36 

Little side trip. Just a little-- you just kind of stepped over there, no big deal. 

MARK: 24:40 

And worked with wonderful people who are trying to join and actually drum up the Alteryx for Good group and got to go to a children's hospital. It's an orphanage home for kids with cancer-- or, I'm sorry, cancer. Back it up, it's a children's hospital/orphanage for kids with AIDS. 

BRIAN: 25:06 

Okay. 

MARK: 25:06 

And the kids were just wonderful. And we were trying to go and help them to be able to go and keep their nutrition levels up and be able to monitor their nutrition and grades and performance over time. So we're taking data that's written in ledgers, and we're putting that into electronic formats so that we can now go and actually go and predict or try to intervene and make sure that the kids stay healthy. 

BRIAN: 25:34 

Wow. 

MARK: 25:35 

So I was just part of a catalyst group, trying to go and grow the Alteryx for Good in India. There are dozens of people that are there now doing work on a daily basis. And so this really goes to them for their constant work. And I was just given the opportunity, "Hey, Mark, do you think you can come out here and help drum up support?" 

BRIAN: 26:00 

Right. Awesome. Well, for anybody out there, if you want to know more about Alteryx for Good, go to alteryx.com/forgood, and you can get involved or you get some licenses if you're a charitable organization or a student. A lot of great stuff there. 

MARK: 26:15 

I'm going to go-- have a go-back. I forgot one thing. 

BRIAN: 26:18 

Yeah, yeah [laughter]. Hit me with it. 

MARK: 26:21 

Hit me with it. Last year, I was invited to be part of the ACE Contingent at the Opioid Codeathon. So we were trying to come up with ways to go and use Alteryx to dig into the data to be on the prevention track. And what we discovered when we were looking at the data is that there were roughly a dozen congressional districts that existed that had zero-- not one but zero treatment centers available for them. And that in those treatment centers in the past year-and-a-half, 8,000 lives were lost. So Alteryx didn't prevent those deaths, but Alteryx can help identify those areas that are deserts for treatment centers and try to go and bring light and help to go and get political leaders to go and do something to go and help the people that are in need. 

BRIAN: 27:21 

Very cool. Well, hey, it's always good to see you. Thank you so much for everything you've done. Congratulations on your award. And we will see you around. 

MARK: 27:28 

Thank you again. 

BRIAN: 27:29 

All right. Take care, Mark. 

MARK: 27:30 

Bye. 

BRIAN: 27:30 

Bye-bye. 

 

[music] 

 

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