My Fifty Most Recent #Alteryx Articles

My 50 Most Recent Alteryx Articles

A Short #Tableau Data Story – #3 (Circa 1996) - Determining how to characterize vehicle performance has been a life-long passion of mine, even if I didn't realize it until the second half of my working career. I have multiple examples of long-lasting data collection activities that point me in a certain direction. You must read the story to find out what that is.
My Fifty Most Recent #Alteryx Articles - This article will always have my 50 most recent Alteryx articles. It uses a Wordpress technique known as shortcodes to produce a list of articles. I have been wanting a capability like this for a long time!
Data Science: Why Data Comes Before Science - Doing data science work means a lot of different things to different people. Many techniques exist for accomplishing the tasks that are needed to solve data science problems. Getting the data right, however, is important in all projects and Alteryx allows us to accomplish that goal.
How to Add Geographies to Lat/Long Data for Better #Tableau Mapping - This article shows how it is possible to add larger scale geographical information to your data when all you have are latitudes and longitudes.
Lessons Learned From a Decade of Using #Tableau - Ten years have passed and my Tableau passion has not subsided. How can this be, I wonder? How can Tableau continue to be such an important and profound part of my working life? To find the answers, I took a few minutes to think about what Tableau means to me and what I have learned over these 10 years. These are my insights and I believe them to be true.
The Finer Things in @Alteryx - This article contains a document that I am building to hold a series of Alteryx techniques that are useful for advanced problem solving. The techniques span a wide range of topics that originate from the weekly challenges published on the Alteryx community site. Eventually, this document will be better organized and will grow into a more thorough reference guide.
Techniques for Efficiently Handling Big Data in @Alteryx and @Tableau - When data comes flying at you at nearly the speed of light, you have to have fast processing capabilities for using the data to make effective decisions and predictions. In this article, I present some techniques I use to process large data sets in Alteryx and Tableau to be able to see the truth of what lies within the data.
The Magic That Happens When It All Comes Together - I can call it many things, but when the right technologies are coupled with seemingly insurmountable challenges, greatness can happen. Over the past couple of months I have been able to achieve some remarkable insights by using Alteryx and Tableau on some really fun project work.
Lessons Learned From My Participation in a Hackathon - Yesterday, I participated in my first Hackathon. I learned a lot about the event and gleaned some interesting insights into the benefit of participating in this type of activity. I think this article is worth reading if you have any interest in emerging technologies.
Lessons Learned From Top Coder Competitions - Fear can make you collapse, or fear can be a great motivator. Placing yourself into a position where you feel vulnerable can help you find out whether you can fight through adversity and compete, or whether you will succumb to the pressure of the moment. Today was a day filled with fear and I had to reach deep inside to do a job that I thought couldn't be done.
Three Aces Talk About The 2017 @Alteryx Inspire Conference - Three Alteryx Aces spent some time together talking about their Inspire 2017 conference experiences. This article has a link to that dicussion.
A Useful USA County Shapefile For #Tableau and #Alteryx - I constructed a USA county shapefile by blending two files together to create a more useful item for Tableau and Alteryx. You can download the source files and the final product, as well as a Tableau 10.4 file that holds the information.
A Useful USA Zip Code Shapefile For #Tableau and #Alteryx - I constructed a zip code shapefile by blending two files together to create a more useful item for Tableau and Alteryx. You can download the source files and the final product, as well as a Tableau 10.4 file that holds the information.
How To Do Trend Modeling In #Alteryx - This is the second of a three part series showing how Tableau, Alteryx and Power BI can be used to perform trend modeling of data. In this article, Alteryx is used to perform the work.
How To Do Trend Modeling In #Tableau - This is the first of a three part series showing how Tableau, Alteryx and Power BI can be used to perform trend modeling of data. After these three demonstrations are complete, a competition using worldwide data will be completed to see which software platform performs the best on completing this type of work.
From @Alteryx Inspire 2017: How Joe Mako is an Analytics Virtuoso - Writing articles about really talented people is easy to do. My buddy Joe Mako is seriously talented and I show why this is the case in this article.
Buckled Roads and Melting Permafrost in Bethel, Alaska - A climate skeptic recently wrote a snide article that sent me into action. This article is a rebuttal to his work and explains why roads can be buckling in Bethel, AK.
My Work on Quora - It is very easy to get lost in time as you read questions and answers in the site called Quora. Over time, I find myself reading more content on this site because it has a uniqueness that I haven't found anywhere else.
How To Use Hadoop With #Tableau and #Alteryx - We recently made a discovery that allows us to use Alteryx and Tableau with the IBM BigInsights Hadoop platform. This article describes how that happens.
Temperature Changes Over the Past 50 Years: A Visual Tour Country by Country - Three years have come down to this article. I now feel that I have a good grasp on the spatial and temporal changes in temperature over the past 50 years. I feel like I have now achieved one of my goals in doing this work.
Global Climate Data Set 2 – Monthly and Decade Average Temperatures - In this article, I give links to monthly aggregated temperatures, as well as decade aggregated results. These files are much smaller than the daily data files and should be easier for most people to render in Tableau or their favorite graphics package.
Global Climate Data Set 1 – Daily Temperatures - This is the first article of a series that will give download links to the processed global climate data sets I have developed. This article contains daily temperatures from monitoring stations around the world.
My #Alteryx17 Climate Change Presentation - June 6, 2017 was a great day for me. I was able to discuss three years of work with a room full of people at the Alteryx 2017 Inspire Conference. It was dream come true.
How To Achieve Better Data Comprehension, Part 3 - It has taken me eight months to finish this series on achieving data comprehension. This is the third and final installment that explains how I have learned to be a data exploiter. You will need to read the article to find out what that means.
How I Use #Alteryx and #Tableau to Comprehend Climate Change - I presented this talk on May 4, 2017 in Austin, TX, at the Tableau customer summit. I want to say thanks to Brenda Akers for asking me to do this because it gave me a chance to share my work from the past few years.
A Nightmare on Excel Street - One night after getting frustrated with helping my son complete some Excel homework, my dreaming brain made me watch a movie called "A Nightmare on Excel Street". You have to read the article to understand what that means.
Using #Alteryx and #Tableau to Visualize and Understand Population Density - Sometimes real work leads to auxillary work that is needed for another purpose. That was the case in this article in which I took a deep dive into computing and visualizing population densities across the US. The results were fascinating and made a good case to share in this blog.
A Descriptive and Predictive Study of North American Air Temperature Changes Using #Alteryx and #Tableau - In my continuing series of understanding air temperature changes over time, I go deep to develop predictive models of air temperature changes at over 3200 monitoring stations. Alteryx and Tableau simply were outstanding in allowing me to perform this work in a couple of nights.
Tableau vs Power BI – Summary to Date - This is a summary article that contains links to the Tableau vs Power BI series I have been working on. I also include some impressions about using the software tools in real-world situations.
How I Use #Tableau As A Search Engine - The vision formed 2 years ago. Many months of experimentation and testing went into completing the vision. You need to read the article to understand what I mean.
Test 5 of Tableau Vs Power BI: Pure Computational Speed - This is test 5 of a series that compares Tableau to Power BI. The purpose of this test is to see which program has a faster computational engine.
How #Alteryx And #Tableau Can Produce Word Clouds - It has taken me nearly 4 years and writing over 300,000 words to create a word cloud. The data processing behind this word cloud is pretty cool, too.
How to Draw Simulated Topographic Contours in #Tableau - This article presents a couple of techniques for drawing contour lines in Tableau. These are not simply connected polylines, but rather are simulated topographic lines represented by a series of points extracted from the mathematical surfaces used to represent topography.
Visualizing Warming and Cooling Patterns in North America, Compliments of #Alteryx and #Tableau - I take a detailed look at maximum air temperature changes over North America. I wanted to see what has happened over my lifetime, or over the past 5 decades. The results are very interesting, at least to me.
Visualizing Observed Worldwide Air Temperature Changes - The more I work with this data set, the more I want to know about how our climate is changing. There are so many questions I have and in this article, I have been able to answer a few of them.
Uncovering Surprising Global Temperature Changes Via #Alteryx and #Tableau - I had an idea about global climate changes that I wanted to investigate. When the analysis was finished, the results surprised me and have helped me begin to understand the air temperature changes that are occurring around the world.
Using #Alteryx and #Tableau to Investigate Global Climate Change - I am on a quest to learn about global climate changes. I am using the power of Alteryx and Tableau to analyze various types of climactic data from around the world.
#Alteryx + #Tableau = Creativity and Passion - This article is part 5 of the 3danim8 Blogging Experimental analysis, although I didn't intend it to be. It just happened. A good life can be made a great life if you understand the role of creativity in your life. In this article, I have come full-circle in understanding something that has eluded me for my whole lifetime. This something is called Big Magic.
How to Convert Shapefiles to #Tableau Polygons - This article gives some technical approaches to converting shapefiles to polygons that can be drawn in Tableau. Two methods are reviewed.
DATA is to Life, as Math is to Science - I can't even begin to express how deep this article is. It spans decades and it exploded from deep within my brain one day. My life and a long-term study of life is featured in this article. The story is big, deep and more bloated than I wanted it to be, but sometimes that just happens. I tried but I was not able to cut it down to size without losing meaning. I think if you read it, it will be a thoughtful experience.
Test 2 of Tableau Vs Power BI: Visualizing Surface Water Flow - This is test #2 of Tableau vs Power BI using real-world data. The goal in this test was to see how each package could visualize flowing water as it moves across the 3D topographic surface of the Livingstone District.
Medical Knowledge and Very Powerful Analytics - It was the best time of my professional career. The potential good that could come from this work is monumental. Unfortunately, I don't do this type of work anymore. Such is life.
Test 1 of Tableau Vs Power BI: Topographic Mapping - This is test #1 of Tableau vs Power BI using real-world data. The goal in this test was to see how each package could visualize high-resolution topographic data.
Impressions From Our First Month Of Using #PowerBI - After a bit of cooperation between friends, I decided to continue the Power BI analysis. We want to document how Power BI stacks-up against the Alteryx + Tableau combination that is so successful at producing great data comprehension and visualizations. This series should be interesting over the next few months as we try to document what it is like to learn Power BI when you are a Power Alteryx and Tableau users.
How Microsoft Could Put Real Power Into Power BI - I have a dream that could be brought to fruition by Microsoft. If you want to know what it is, read the article.
Investigating India With Tableau 10 Custom Regions - Working on charitable endeavors has its advantages. Sometimes you get to work with data that is so unexpectedly beautiful that it takes your breath away. This happened to me the other day, so I thought I'd share a new Tableau 10 feature called custom regions to show how powerful this feature can be.
How To Achieve Better Data Comprehension, Part 1 - Some articles form quickly, some take a long time to gel. Twenty, thirty, forty drafts of this one have not been enough. I don't know how I can possibly explain to people who might be interested in learning how to become better workers with data, but I have tried to do it with this writing. I have tried to explain what has taken me 30 years to realize. This work is borderline philosophical but it is based in experience and backed by my observations on what works and what does not work when it comes to achieving better data comprehension.
Impressions From My First Day Of Using #PowerBI - Life is a funny thing. One day you are up, the next day you are down. The only question remaining is this: Will Power BI be able to recover from today's disaster enough to change my opinion of its value?
Who Is More Important To Your Blog: A Hare or A Tortoise? - This is part 3 of 3danim8's blogging experimental analysis. This article investigates how important speed-burner articles are compared to slow-burners. I can create speed burner articles by writing about Rich Roll, shown above. In contrast to his ultra-endurance performance, these articles fade quickly.
How To Effectively Use Tableau 10 Highlighting In Big Data Sets - Tableau 10 highlighting can be very useful for big data sets. In this example, I show how highlighting quickly reveals differences in consumer behavior by state. Some of the behavioral difference are caused by the geographical settings the consumers live within.