Why Vizioneer?

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Atlanta, Georgia, United States
The "Vizioneer" comes from mashing two words that have shaped my world for most of my adult life - Engineer and [data] Visualizations (or Vizes to those who know what's up). Graduating from first from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, followed by Georgia Tech with my Bachelors and Masters in Civil Engineering, all of which taught me to think through anything and everything - problem solving, "engineering" solutions, teaching to the "ah ha" moments - is what I love to do. In 2010 that investigative, engineering mindset intersected a job change and a plunge into the world of Data Analysis. In the search for the next great thing I stumbled on to a data visualization and dashboarding product called Tableau software and things just took off. So now I guess you could call me that engineer with the sweet data visualizations - or just "The Vizioneer" :)

In 2013, I joined the incredible team at Slalom, focusing on Tableau and it's been an amazing experience. Recently in 2014, I was honored and humbled to receive Tableau's highest recognition of being named a Tableau Zen Master. Follow along to see what happens next :)

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Who Really Won the "Big Game"?

Happy February Everybody!

 I have three cool, quick things to share with y'all today and I hope you guys enjoy.

The first thing is this super awesome fun viz I did on the Super Bowl "Big Game" commercials.  It's an idea I got in my head about a month ago and I love the way it turned out.  Knowing that each year the amount being paid for a 30 second ad is some crazy number, but when the scoreboard clock hits 00:00 at the end of the game, what did that total up to - no one seems to talk about that.  And it's a lot of money, as I'm sure you can see below.  Of course the fun part of the whole thing are these awesome commercials that are supposed to be the best of the best from the world of marketing, so you can actually watch every single one of them right here in the viz (even make them full screen if you want).

Check out the viz below! 
So here's the second fun thing - how do I make something like this?  This is all about how do I get an idea from my head to become a viz on the screen, and for me, I've learned a big important middle step - The Sketch.

 It takes about 10 minutes, and I always do it in pencil, but it really allows you to quickly take an idea and see it.  And when you can see, you can improve it (which is something I know you believe because you do data visualization).

 So here's the sketch I did for this viz.  It's cool to see the design work out this well in reality.  If you're not currently doing a little bit of pre-viz design, you should consider giving it a shot.  I've found that it actually makes the project take less total time on average, because you already have a vision of where you're heading.


The last thing (but first in my heart :) is a personal note that Baby Davis #2 was born a week and a half ago.  Mama and Baby are doing great and we are incredibly blessed with how smoothly everything went.

 I want to thank the Tableau Community who sent lovely congratulatory tweets from all across the world.  It was really cool and I was very touched.  And don't be surprised if you see a Baby Davis viz coming soon.

 If you have a comment, I'd love to hear it.  Thanks for checking it out!

 Nelson  

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