We have an opportunity to lead.  A lot of people who know me know that I love leadership.  Not just the formal kind (I’ll call that management in this article), but the anyone, everyday kind of leadership.  Here’s what I’m talking about. 

Now I know there’s been a lot of discussion about diversity and inclusion in the Tableau Public space and Iron Viz, specifically.  I’ve contributed to that conversation.  I have two thoughts on this.  

1. We need to understand why more women aren’t winning the feeder contests and making it to the big stage. I think Anya (in 2014?) was the last woman to be on the big stage.  
2. We need to increase the number of women participating.  More women participating means more   opportunity to be selected.  

These thoughts are on the opposite ends of the iron viz spectrum.  With respect to thought one, Tableau has done an experiment where community members judged entries to see if there is bias in iron viz judging. I think this is great because it will be either a validation or a discovery and then it can be addressed.  I haven’t really thought about bias in judging before.  I guess it’s because Ben sets a tone that is supportive of diversity and inclusion which I’ll take to mean, that they want to the best, no matter the gender or race, to win.  Certainly Tableau is ensuring a fair judging process.  However, before we say that the judging is biased, let’s make sure we have the data to back that up.  
So it could be the judging or it could be that because only 26% of the entries are from women, there’s just not enough opportunity to be selected (though the “due” theory would hopefully show up soon).  So why aren’t women entering?  From some twitter threads I’ve seen it’s fear of the big stage, not enough time, and being introverted.  It’s hard to determine how significant these factors are.   I think I saw from a tweet from Ken Flerage that about one-third of Tableau Public authors are women.  So we would expect a similar percentage of women participants in feeder contests.  
So why aren’t women participating in the Iron Viz feeders…if you’re not of the male persuasion, complete this survey. I’ll aggregate the results.  I will be open and honest with you all. I do not enter for two major reasons:

• Time. 
• My vizzes aren’t complex or compelling. ​

For those who are interested in participating, but haven’t participated, we can figure out why they haven’t and then start to address it.
For example, if the data shows that they haven’t participated in Iron Viz because of time, then we can make a suggestion to increase the amount of time to do the visualization.
Or, if the data shows that women are afraid to make it to the big stage, then maybe there’s an opportunity to do some confidence coaching/cheerleading and practice in highly visible situations.
And that’s where some everyday leadership comes in.
There’s an opportunity to mentor, to coach, or lead the way for change. I am more than happy to play the role of someone’s cheerleader or to organize some #vizheats for practice.
While this post has been about women in iron viz, it’s because it’s easier to slice off one piece of the bigger topic of diversity and inclusion. There is so much work that’s being done and that needs to be done in this space and not just in Iron Viz of Tableau Public. Diversity in the workplace is a significant issue. So here are my questions to you:
What are you going to do about it? Are you willing to be a lone nut?

Tiny actions, like sharing your knowledge with women and minorities makes a difference. Take a minute to list out ten tiny things you can do to support women and minorities.  

If you heard me speak at the data plus women panel at the Tableau Conference, you know I have a phrase that I say.

Let’s make sure women and minorities get the skills so that that they are confident in those skills.  It takes the “token” out of the conversation. 
Show up.  Whether it’s in feeder contests or applying to speak, go for it.  I almost didn’t speak at conference if it hadn’t been for two things, 1) the support of Matt Francis who told me to apply anyway (after I told him that I reviewed the criteria and I didn’t think I met the qualifications) and 2) (with respect to the data plus women panel), I thought: the worst they can do is say no.  This is a hard mindset to adopt…I still struggle with it, but I’m getting better (and if you need someone to help you say yes to the opportunity, let me know). 
Go up.  Having the skills and showing up provides the basis for promotions. If you’re in a decision-making position, make sure that you know your biases and adjust accordingly, so that any person who has the skills and who shows up, can go up. In this case, goes up on the big stage and has the time of their life creating a compelling visualization for thousands of people to enjoy.  

So, my challenge to me and to you is:

How are you going to demonstrate leadership and make a difference in diversity? 

The Tableau conference is a magical time of year when nerds come together for some informative fun.  It's a great conference to build networks (in person and the graph varieties).  Attendees seem to have a buzz about them and are super excited about what they're going to do post-conference, after listening to the amazing speakers from the week.  And I'm no different.  Instead of a conference recap, I'm looking forward to some viz goals.  

To provide some context, here's what my life looks like right now:

• Fully employed in a non-data viz job
• Momma to two awesome kiddos
• Fitness competitor
• Pretty Strong Smart Founder 
• Mrs. Maryland US Continental
• Junior League Member/Volunteer
• Tableau Fringe Festival Founder
• Tableau Wannabe Podcast co-host
• GovTUG Advisor
• DC Data+Women Co-organizer
  • Data analytics workshop presenter/organizer

Based on my table's discussion at Fanalytics17, there was less emphasis on the author and more focus on the content when we were perusing the Tableau Public profiles. To that end, our discussion focused more on ensuring we have a pipeline of diverse authors.  We discussed ways to accomplish that, but what really popped out to me is that we need one place to go to in order to find diversity resources.  Our time is valuable and if there are presentations or solutions that are being implementing, we should have those available to us.  To that end, I'm looking at the ways I can best curate these resources so that community members can go into their local areas and get a diverse group of students interested.  Stay tuned as I build this out (or facilitate it). Depending on how robust the solution is, I would like to have the initial resources available by the end of October (year-end at latest).  

If you know me, you know that I love leadership and mentorship.  Not only do I love it, but I have a keen interest in helping establish and support a culture of leadership in tech and dataviz.   I need to put some additional thought around what this looks like so that it's more of a SMART goal.  With respect to mentoring, my mentor match viz is available to help facilitate mentorship.  However, I would like to refresh it so that it's a meaningful resource for members of the Tableau community.  For the next couple of months, I'll be thinking through what changes to make to the mentor match viz eco-system, with changes being implemented in 2018. 

The information I gleaned from this conference on women (or lack thereof) showing up for Iron Viz resonated with me.  Why?  Because I have this guiding principle to get the skills, show up, go up.  Women are not showing up for Iron Viz (and therefore, not being selected). That assertion is based on my recollection of the data presented by Brit and Chloe during the data+women meet-up at conference on Monday afternoon.  I believe they indicated that 45 women entered.  That number feels low  Regardless though, we know that there are quite a few very talented women in the Tableau community and I believe (though I'm going from memory), that there has been one woman make it to the stage...Anya A'Hearn. So, while I put on my thinking cap about how I can support others, I also had a gut punch moment.  I am not showing up.  I intended to show up this year and enter, but I didn't have a lot of time and didn't immediately have a story I wanted to tell with the subjects.  Intentions though, are not showing up.  So my goal is to enter the Iron Viz feeder contests.  Because if women en masse show up, there is an opportunity to be selected. 

What goals do you have after attending the Tableau conference?  Let me know! There's a community of support waiting to help you achieve your goals!