I loved this month's Data Chain theme-Christmas Music. I knew exactly what I wanted to do and I wanted to get the kids involved!

Because I spend so much in the car, I wanted to track the number of times we listened to Christmas music and who requested it.

We started tracking the week of December 6th and the same week, I went to a DC Data Community meetup with Catherine Madden as the speaker. She presented and showed off Paper by 53. I downloaded it immediately and started doodling. I also bought the pencil that goes with the free app (which you can learn more about here). The reason why I'm spending time discussing Paper because I saw a great use case for it. I could draw out concepts for my postcard vizzes. Here's some early iterations of December's concept. 

In terms of process, I use Tableau to explore the data and then come up with the postcard. I don't really try to recreate the postcard in Tableau but one inspires the other.

Check out the dashboard I created in Tableau. 

And here is the front and back of the postcard I sent to Emma. I'm not quite sure how I came up with the whole Hark the Herald... theme came from but I like it! 

​One challenge I need to overcome: writing less/being more concise in the how to read section. Maybe I'll try a template to be more concise!

Happy Holidays! 

I have to include this little clip of Pete Yorn's Life on a Chain, only because every time I think of the Data Chain, it reminds me of the song. 

Now that the song is stuck in your head, I wanted to go through my thoughts on this November's Data Chain. But first, what is the data chain? So glad you asked! It's a project organized by the awesome Brittany Fong and Sophie Sparks, which was influenced by the Dear Data projects. I thought it was a great way for me to be accountable for doing some vizzes and have some fund, so once I found out about it, I signed up!

November's theme was tracking ingredients! I immediately thought of tracking my macros.  I use My Fitness Pal to track what I eat on a regular basis, so this was a great project for me! I wanted to track what foods I ate more often in each category; carbs, fats, and proteins.  I had my data in excel for meal planning purposes, so I connected to that to explore the data in Tableau.  I did all of that, but for some reason, I lost the file (super sad face). I could try to recreate it, but I've got December's I need to move to onto (so maybe when I have some downtime.  

I made some rookie mistakes with my first postcard (it wasn't heavy enough and I feared it would tear), but all in all, I think it was a first good attempt.  Check it out! 

If you're like me (and most people), as we approach the end of the year, you take some time to reflect back and think ahead. I've thought a fair amount about this past year. A few of highlights for me: realizing that I need to be inspired to do a viz; being named a Tableau Social Ambassador; interviewing some big names in Tableau for the podcast; and actually being a guest on The Purpose Rockstar podcast (which you can listen to right here). More recently, I had my aha moment and figured out what I want to do in life and am figuring out how I make it happen to live my ideal day (a concept discussed in Jairek Robbins's book Live It!). At the same time, I've had some amazing conversations with members of the Tableau community.

In some of these great conversations, people have stated that they want to be a Tableau Zen Master (TZM). Someone asked me if I wanted to be a TZM. At first my answer was yes! I see it was a leadership role, providing the platform to help more people and being recognized as a resource would be awesome. I think so many of us have read/heard Jonathan Drummey's So You Want to be a (Tableau) Zen Master blog post. I love it (& you should definitely read it before continuing on...but please come back)! The challenge with it (as I see it) is that I'm pretty sure eeerrrrybody who reads it totally identifies with it and says, “Yeah, I'd keep doing what I'm doing even if I didn't get TZM.”

But I'd suggest to Let Go of the TZM goal (and don't mask it as wannabe jedi when you really mean for jedi to equal zen). 

I'd also submit that we should let go of goals, especially those that are externally driven. ​I started thinking ahead to next year's goals. I had a document written up with my goals and timeframes and was excited to implement. And then I scrapped it.

That was basically the question. Someone who takes great joy in challenging me, asked me “Why?” My answer couldn't be tied to some great objective. It was simply, "Because I want to get better and help people." So if I relate it back to the TZM conversations...Do I want to be all of those things that TZMs are known for? Pretty much. But TZM or other goals (in my case, being a thought leader) are tied to external decisions, which isn't within my control, so what I can do?

In a Yogi Berra type of comment, control the things I can control. The thing with goals like being a TZM or thought leader is that you have no control over it. You can write all the blogposts, hosts all the meet ups, record all the vlogs, have all the followers, and care deeply about it all you want. But it doesn't change the fact that you're not picking you as TZM or whatever the external goal is. And what a letdown it could be, to do all this work and not meet your goal (those who follow my fitness page know I've experienced this a few times this year). In addition to asking yourself why you really want to be a TZM, I'd offer this up.

The thing is, someone saw some value in them based on some criteria.  It doesn't mean they are the nicest or the smartest, or the kindest, or the best people in the world, it means that they excel based on criteria. And just to be clear, this isn't some kind of down with the man post, it's simply to reinforce the fact that one person's value is not tied to a title). As much as I enjoy data viz and Tableau, it is not the only thing in life.  

​I think at some point we've all played the 'Why is X a TZM?” Usually followed by a game of comparison. This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes. ​

Look, it's not like I'm sitting on some pedestal, pretending I'm so enlightened and that this is so easy. It's hard. I like goals.  I have a workout tank that says Goal Digger. My mom even says I'm never satisfied; I'm always trying to be and do better. But, I did something super uncomfortable and I scrapped my Tableau goals.

So, if I'm doing this whole 'control what I can control' thing. Then, I start thinking about what it is that I can do if I really want a goal.  I can control the number of vizzes I publish. Though I learned that the number of vizzes is a meaningless metric for me. I was telling one friend that I can't just do a viz for the sake of doing a viz. I need to be inspired. I've realized that trying to be technical is just not my cup of tea. Calculations will likely never be my jam. But color on the other hand, it's my cupcake. Being curious and having good conversation? That's like the coffee to my cupcake.  

But what if people don't like what I contribute? Find no use for it? I'm choosing to ignore those questions. Not everyone will like or appreciate what I write or say. Not everyone sees my value...or yours. And that's okay. I treat my blog as though it's a viz diary that I've let the world read. It makes me happy and that's why I do it. Over this past year, I've been trying to embrace the concepts in Strengths Finder. I'm trying to key in and refine those strengths. Maybe learning a little bit about myself helps shape what I do, goals or no goals.

​Woohoo! I have data!

​What the heck? That's not making my message pop. 

​Dang it, that didn't work either. Maybe if I pivot the view.