Community Q&A Session with Dean Stoecker - Share your questions here!

The community team is kicking off the summer season with a chance to bring your questions straight to the man at the top, Dean Stoecker! This is an exciting opportunity to have your questions be heard by the captain of the ship, and I'm very excited to share the details with you.

On July 15th, we'll be hosting a live Q&A session with Dean for the community. The focus of this session is altering your mindset and the future role that analytics will play on the global stage (think in the workplace, in solving complex social and environmental issues, global politics and relations, etc).

Anyone is welcome to attend, but there's a kicker: the questions will be both sourced and prioritized directly by you, our community members! Here's how it's going to work. This thread is open from now until the event, and will act as a collector, so post your questions for Dean here. Try to keep questions in line with the theme we'll be using, and try not to get too in the weeds. We want this session to be enjoyable for everyone, from those just starting their analytics journey to seasoned data scientists.

We also need your help selecting the questions that are going to be included in the live event (which means that periodically checking in on this thread is a great idea). We want you all to vote with your likes on the best questions. Since we'll only have an hour, we won't be able to address every question live, but we'll use the most-liked questions to help prioritize which questions Dean addresses during the session. If your question isn't chosen, however, don't fret! We'll still be following up after the live event with a blog that will go through the remaining questions from the community and make sure everyone gets answers.

I hope that you're all as excited about this as I am. Not every CEO appreciates community members like Dean does, and this is a great opportunity to make your voices heard! If you have any questions about the format or process, feel free to ask them in the thread below as well. Now start thinking about what you'd like to learn, and ask away!

Registration for the live session is now open and can be accessed HERE. Register today and we'll see you at the event in a few short weeks!

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MarqueeCrew

@WillM & @dstoecker1 ,

Are there rules to the questions about the future role of analytics on the global stage? If your'e counting likes, I might need to post each idea separately. I'll leave room for others and consolidate this round of questions here.

Folks don't know how Alteryx has a part to play in the following challenges: the opioid crisis, veteran suicides, Middle-East peace, Equality and Covid-19. How does AlteryxForGood mobilize the internal and community resources to lend a hand? How can community members make themselves available to help?
What have you recently read or recommend for reading that helps to frame your vision of the future?
Forget complex, how do we as data analysts an scientists overcome inertia and start contributing?
Is there any music that you'd recommend that we have on our playlists that could inspire us to act?
How do you overcome a "no" response?
How do you consume the Alteryx Community?
Besides me, who in the Alteryx Community inspires you?

dean and mark.jpg

Okay, that's a start. Let's put this to the Alteryx Community and see what other questions we can ask.

Cheers,

Mark

dataMack

Dean- since you’ve been a leader in the analytics software space for 20+ years I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of trends come and go as the space evolved.

Thinking of current trends influencing the space, would like to get your take on 2 things:

1. what’s one trend you are excited about or think will continue to be an important driver going forward

2. what currently hot trend do you see as something that will fade over time?

meprice

Thanks for giving us an opportunity to ask questions.

With Data Analytics on the business and technology roadmap for the foreseeable future, what practices are being put in place today to assure that as we begin to use this current curated data tomorrow or in 5 years, it will be reliable, it will have integrity and that we can actually trust it?

Thank you,

Michelle Price

Cairi

Thankyou for hosting this opportunity.

As to the future of analytics on the global stage: Access for small business.

Currently there is talk of discontinuing Desktop Automation. The only way to schedule workflows would then be: to upgrade to Alteryx server which would be pricing most if not all smaller businesses out of the market for alteryx.

What is the official position on discontinuing this product functionality?

Regards,

C. Duncan

StephV

Hi @WillM,

thanks for this great opportunity!

I have a question posted in the French Community from @carlosteixeira : "In a scenario of globalisation, how does Alteryx see the European market as a whole?

We know that the Alteryx platform is developing a lot here, what are Alteryx's projects for the French region and also for the European community, for example Portugal, Spain, Italy?"

Thank you very much and have a great day!

mbarone

Do you see the current trend of piecing out products (from a pricing standpoint) continuing?

StephV

Hi @WillM,

I have a question posted in the German Community from @grossal:

1) Tableau and many others are currently holding their planned conferences online. Is Alteryx also planning a virtual Inspire/Analyticon?

2) What's next? After statistical, geographic and predictive analytics - what's the next big analytics topic?

Thanks again, this is a great opportunity to ask @dstoecker1 questions directly.

aggprachi

Can we also get some updates about job opportunity for Data Analytics?

meprice

Especially opportunities for Analytics using Alteryx.

Sntrada

I think this is a great event that you guys have planned!

I've been using Alteryx as part of the Adapt program since late May, and I absolutely love it!

Here is a bit of background before I get into my question. My family runs a greenhouse farm back in Nigeria, and Alteryx would be a gamechanger for our analytics endeavors. However, being a small family-owned business in a developing country, we do not have the finances to get an Alteryx license. We do not qualify for Alteryx for Good since we are a for-profit business. I am also using Alteyx for an independent stock market predictive algorithm project, and I do not have the financial backing of a firm.

I was thinking that it could be mutually beneficial if Alteryx offered a pay-per-tool subscription plan. This would allow for smaller businesses to access Alteryx powerhouse analytics services while sticking to a budget they can afford. Alteryx would gain more customers with this as well. I don't believe market cannibalization would be much of an issue, as bigger corporations would probably use numerous tools, and it might be more expensive for them to go for a pay-per-tool model.

So my question is, will Alteryx consider providing a pay-per-tool subscription model in the future?

The relevance to the current theme is that access to cutting edge software such as Alteryx will help those in analytics solve social problems, such as food insecurity. Reducing financial barriers for all kinds of businesses helps.

Thanks!

jsenk

I am excited to participate in this event!

I am looking for guidance on the next best steps to potentially pursue a career with data and data analytics. I am currently enrolled in the ADAPT Program, and I am about to start the Capstone Project. What would you recommend for someone like me who is just beginning their journey?

NaiLo

Thanks for this opportunity! I'm curious to know what Dean thinks of the current competitive landscape and how it might take shape in the future. I think it's easy for analysts on the front lines to see the value add of Alteryx because they have direct experience with the day to day work that goes into ETL processes. However, upper management doesn't always see the back end work and they're often juggling other considerations (e.g. cost, company infrastructure) in making their decisions on what software to invest in. How do you see the strategic direction of Alteryx taking shape over the next few years to convince key stakeholders of the added value? Is capturing greater market share part of that vision?

AliAS2020

Thanks @WillM & @dstoecker1 for giving as this opportunity to discuss and see the world data from you point of view.

As a learner and a person interested in education and the influence of technology and data on the global education systems I am wondering how in your opinion the big data and data analytics will help the post-pandemic education module which I believe it's heading to be a hybrid on-campus / online module?

Here I asking about the education from KG to universities. How big the role of data analytics will be to shape this system?

Thanks again for the opportunity.

AliAS

jhayes

First, thank you for offering the ADAPT program. It has been very valuable to me.

Is Alteryx considering a longer-term program, like ADAPT, that would support on-going skill development, and most importantly, a Designer license, for those of us who don’t have the “luxury” of a organization-provided license? And, what might that program look like?

Thank you!

jovia

Hi,

When I started my self-place learning journey with the videos on each tool, it was difficult to memorize things even though I took notes along the way. However, after I finished the Academy Summer Camp where I had the opportunity to see how certain tools applied in solving business questions and get my questions answered through live Q&A, I feel I suddenly understand and remember the tools better.

My question is : there are enormous learning resources in the community, would you make them more alive, more relevant, more meaningful and more actionable to the beginners? This is a low-hanging fruit that can increase your user market.

For example, there are different Alteryx starter kits. Would you hold a series of guided learning webinars on those starter kits? I would be inspired even if I am not in that specific sector.

How about learning series on how to install and use popular tools from the Alteryx Gallery or community-support macros?

Thank you

JohnJPS

Very cool, and I'm kinda late but FWIW... my question is how do you stay ahead of Open Source. It seems that our data science community wants to be right on top of things: they want packages from GitHub that aren't even in PyPi or CRAN yet... they want features that even the most cutting edge vendor cannot possibly have until months after the fact. I'm interested in your thoughts on this... it seems that hooking into that at some formal level, with guard rails, is needed.

Also, how soon before our ML engines spot our problems before we even ask them too?

NicoleJohnson

Looking forward to tomorrow's Q&A session!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on balancing the "latest & greatest" with the "tried and true" - when it comes to Alteryx's strategy as a company and leader in the analytics space, as well as for us users, as we try to balance the battle between maintenance vs. creation. How do you personally balance the two? When you are faced with choices about investing in new technology/solutions, or putting resources into improving the "core" functionality, how do you juggle & make choices? How does this translate to the analyst or data scientist - i.e. what are some things to keep in mind when I am trying to decide whether to spend time refining an existing workflow or process, or diving into learning new tools & solutions? I think this is a major decision factor for a lot of folks who WANT to learn the cool, new, flashy features... but they also need to make sure the things they've built in the past are maintained and continuously streamlined & improved. How do you encourage people/teams to not lose sight of taking care of the foundation, even if not's quite as exciting as all the icing on the top layers of the cake??

Another topic I think is really interesting in today's current environment is how to make sure you are using data responsibly. We are SO inundated with facts and figures and charts and graphs and numbers that used to look really big and scary but now are, in many cases, becoming desensitized... how do you make sure that you are not only providing the right information, but the right AMOUNT of information, so that the consumers of data are not overwhelmed by the numbers to the point where they cease to have the same meaning?

Love having the opportunity to have these honest and transparent conversations with you and the Alteryx family, Dean - thank you for being open to sharing your views!!

Cheers, and see you tomorrow!!

hsinom1

Hi Dean,

I introduced Alteryx to my team in Warner Bros as an alternative to SAS. We saved weeks of work into just an hour of a workflow.

The data size we were dealing with at that time was only about tens of millions of rows and it worked fine. But currently in large companies the data size is increasing every year and is literally exploding into tens of billions of rows. Alteryx is not able to process data at such high volumes. Alteryx designer's In-db tools seem to help a bit as it offloads the compute to the db. But it does have the following drawbacks:

1) In-db tools are limited in variety and capability compared to the suite of regular Designer tools. We can only do simple joins and transformations with in-db.

2) The in-db tools constructs a SQL query but is highly inefficient due to multiple nesting and subqueries. I find that the queries run well if I just write the SQL efficiently instead of using in-db designer tools.

As a result, when dealing with billions of rows of data, in-db leads to poor performance and limited functionality, while non-db regular workflows do not even complete.

I am a big fan of Alteryx and I don't think there is any product that has such mature features and flexibility like Alteryx. But, with growing data volume, even after your parallel processing updates, there needs to be a server offering that can process massive volumes of data.

Do you plan to re-design your compute engine with your Alteryx Server offering that can handle the kind of volume that is synonymous with Spark or massive cloud db computes?

While this is not a problem for most of your customers, with the growing data volume, this will inevitably become a bottleneck to using Alteryx at large organizations that produce massive data.

hsinom1

Hi Dean,

I introduced Alteryx to my team in Warner Bros as an alternative to SAS. We saved weeks of work into just an hour of a workflow.

1) In-db tools are limited in variety and capability compared to the suite of regular Designer tools. We can only do simple joins and transformations with in-db.

As a result, when dealing with billions of rows of data, in-db leads to poor performance and limited functionality, while non-db regular workflows do not even complete.

Do you plan to re-design your compute engine with your Alteryx Server offering that can handle the kind of volume that is synonymous with Spark or massive cloud db computes?

While this is not a problem for most of your customers, with the growing data volume, this will inevitably become a bottleneck to using Alteryx at large organizations that produce massive data.

T_Willins

I'd like to hear more about getting Alteryx into schools. I have a finance intern this summer and introducing him to Alteryx has changed his outlook on Data Science and what he will study his final university year. He was able to get onboarded and start his Alteryx journey before his internship started as he was able to get a student license. BIG THANK YOU to Alteryx for that program! My question is how is Alteryx expanding on and recruiting in the Alteryx Community for the Alteryx for Good Co-Lab program? I've talked to so many students who are learning and being certified in Excel but haven't seen Alteryx.

ggruccio

Looking forward to the webinar!

Here are my questions:

1. What one thing would you tell your younger self knowing what you know today?

2. What guiding principles did you start with that have served you well...that you still rely on today?

Thank you!

WillM

I want to thank all of you that could attend the live Q&A session this morning. The community really brought their A-Game when it came to the questions that were asked, and @dstoecker1 was incredibly engaging and thoughtful in his responses on the air. I had a blast hosting and facilitating, and it was such a good turnout, that we have plenty more questions that came through. We'll be working on some follow-up content over the next several days, so if we didn't get back to you on the air, know that it's coming (and so are the badges that you'll be getting for participating and attending the webinar)!

If you missed the live event, we'll be adding a video to the community soon so you can watch it and catch up! We also made an announcement that one lucky attendee would be getting a FREE pass to Analyticon in 2021, and through the magic of random number generators, we have our winner! Drumroll please... The winner of a pass to Analyticon next year is none other than our very own community member, @meprice!!! We'll be reaching out to you soon with details, but know that we're very excited to have a member of the community as our winner. I hope you all get a chance to congratulate our winner, and that you enjoyed this morning's event!

JanssenSarah

Thank you so much @dstoecker1 and @WillM for hosting this event! I loved the thoughtful answers and candid responses. My favorite quote from the event was:

"Either define the future or the future will define you" -Dean Stoecker

I have memorialized it in a sticky note on my monitor.

I loved the thoughtful question from @meprice about using the power of data for good and I would like to recommend a book to you about just that subject. I read it while completing my undergrad and it has really stuck with me. Its called Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O'Neil. In the book, she explores how algorithms can reinforce preexisting inequalities unintentionally.

Thank you again and I look forward to more community events!

meprice

Wait, What!!! OMG! This is too awesome!!!! @meprice is doing the happy dance right about now!!!! Analyticon 2021 HERE I COME.

AliAS2020

Congrats @meprice enjoy the event, and thanks @JanssenSarah for the read suggestion.

BTW @WillM where is our cool badges?

Have a great analyzing yall!

AliAS

FláviaB

Hey @T_Willins. Although this is a year old post, I just came across and made me wonder if you have heard about our brand new Education Program: SparkED! Besides, this is a really great story! I will make sure to get the @SparkED_Team know that you are (or at least were) looking for more information about how to get Alteryx into schools. I see a lot of opportunities here! 😎

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