A number of times I’ve been paid the compliment of being told that I am worthy of the Tableau Zen Master title. It’s an amazing compliment, but sometimes I don’t feel worthy of such compliment. Here’s why:

It’s the season for nominating individuals who a title that recognizes individuals for their contributions to the Tableau community. This recognition combines community contributions plus mind-blowing, forward-looking Tableau skills. It’s individuals who are supreme experts in visual design, storytelling, and analysis.

It’s important to emphasise these individuals give so much to the community over the course of a year. And here is my first admission: I’ve taken far more than I’ve given in 2018 from the community. You might suggest that I joined the Workout Wednesday team for 2018. This was purely coincidental. When I found out that Zen Master Rody Zakovich was taking over duties this year I hastily asked if he wanted help once-and-awhile. He then coaxed me into joining the team. Any contributions are solely due to his influence.

My second admission: that I’ve mined the community for top talent for our fledging boutique consulting company called Tessellation. Our entire team is made of people directly tied to analytics communities. So if it wasn’t for the community I the company wouldn’t be what it is today.

My third, and much more revealing, admission (and one I’ve been thinking a lot about lately): It has to how I am personally motivated. For years–basically my entire adulthood–I have been motivated by off semi-tangible and perceived-as-tangible slights of my knowledge, skills, abilities, mindset, or whatever. I was all-in on having a chip on my shoulder. I made mental lists and then sought out to disprove perceptions. That’s how I’ve always been motivated. It’s allowed me to be very successful. But a “chip-on-the-shoulder” mentality is also one filled with latent negativity. Something you can become–something I don’t want to become. And it’s a mentality is the counter to the motivations of the community.

Good news, this year, I’ve been trying hard to change. I certainly have lapses, but since the birth of my daughter I’ve worked hard to stay focused on changing the way I’m motivated. While it may sound crazy, someday I will thank my daughter for those nearly three sleepless months. Those late nights lead to lots of scrolling through Tableau Twitter and lots of meditation. It’s helped redirect  my career, my energy in the community, and Workout Wednesday.

During that time I realized Workout Wednesday is the perfect tool facilitate the growth of individuals but to also find the next set of Tableau Zen Masters. Think about it: Workout Wednesday requires individuals to recreate sometimes–ahem, often–difficult challenges in Tableau Desktop. The premise of Workout Wednesday is to not provide a lot of hints or direction on how to solve because: 1) the knowledge is the reward; but also 2) when you post the solution to your Tableau Public it’s a true badge of your skill and your mettle. Also: Along the way–every week and without fail–members of the community share via blog posts, youtube videos, and social media share how to solve these challenges. And this a great thing because those are the individuals who are truly contributing to the Tableau Community–and thus are the individuals who should be recognized with the title of Zen Master.

All that long-winded context is to say here’s the people who are worth of nominating. I’ll start with the obvious:

Rosario Guana

If you haven’t ever had the opportunity to interact or chat with Rosario then you are missing out. She’s extremely humble. She does not seek recognition or titles. She just wants to share her experiences. Many know she started a blog this year to share solutions to Workout Wednesday and other challenges she’s run into. It’s been featured by many individuals in the community too. Here’s the first crazy thing: she writes the posts in both spanish and english. But here’s the crazier thing: Rosario is a native spanish speaker!

Curtis Harris

No one has put his skills out there this year as much as Curtis Harris. Each week he posts a video on how to solve Workout Wednesdays. For an hour each week Curtis does a live build of the solution and posts this to YouTube, In addition to his videos, Curtis has shared a number of challenges with the community. Curtis has been blogging, and–of course–he’s a former IronViz Global winner. Apparently I also missed that he’s and Ambassador, too.

Rajeev Pandey

Rajveev is located in India and hosts the website TableauLearners. Rajeev regularly posts the solutions to Workout Wednesday and Makeover Monday.

Michel Mokwinski

Michel is a near regular with Workout Wednesday. He’s also an avid participant in Makeover Monday and regularly creates new content. He regularly writes blogposts on all kinds of things (in Polish) and shares his knowledge on social media. He’s also the leader of the Warsaw, Poland Tableau User Group and a chapter leader of Viz for Social Good. I’ve also been told he’s got the 5th most favorites on Tableau Public.

Lorna Eden

Lorna has been a major participant in Workout Wednesday this year. She’s also going to be a regular challenge contributor in 2019. This year she also co-led the #NationalDayProject with Corey Jones doing ––––. She been blogging all year and, of course, she and Ann Jackson are the undisputed Speed Tipping Champions of the World.

Ivett Kovacs

Ivett is a Workout Wednesday regular. She’s also everywhere in the community. She’s a chapter leader for Viz for Social Good and regularly blogs. She’s also made some very impactful visualizations this year!

Mafooj Khan

Mafooj is everywhere! He has completed almost all Workout Wednesdays today. And that’s okay because he’s also in the top 10 in the Tableau forums for the rolling 12 months!

Donna Coles

Donna has completed all of the Workout Wednesdays to date. ALL OF THEM. She’s also a Tableau Forums Ambassador. And I’m sure I’m missing a ton of accolades because she’s an amazingly humble individual.

Klaus Schulte

The Professor Doctor is involved everywhere. He won IronViz Europe. He completes #WorkoutWednesday, #SportsVizSunday, and is constantly updating his blog. 

Of course, not everyone in the community contributes also does Workout Wednesday so I wanted to also highlight a few of the people that deserve the recognition:

Chantilly Jaggernauth

A Tour De Force. She’s authored numerous Tableau Public visualizations this year. All extremely impactful. The big thing: she founded Millennials and Data a program that prepares students for real world by teaching them analytics skills (along with Tableau). Chantilly rolled the program out at Howard University this year, but the demand for the program has already reached the West Coast of the United States

Sarah Bartlett

Sarah is involved with every project across the community. She participates in every one: Makeover Monday, Viz For Social Good, SWD Challenge, all of them. She was also an IronViz Europe finalist and regularly blogs about the community. She’s also a co-leader of the prolific London Tableau User Group. She also holds the fourteen spot for most favorited visualizations on Tableau Public–demonstrating her commitment to the community.

Merlijn Buit

Do you remember when you found out you could play Mario inside Tableau? We’ll that was created by Merlijn. Merlijn is a Tableau Extension guru. If you look further at the things he’s doing you’ll see he’s more than deserving. In case you are wondering Merlijn is located in the Netherlands!

Emily Kund

Emily and I have never chatted before, but I know that she’s more than deserving. She’s the founder of the Tableau Fringe Festival. TFF started out a small event and has now grown to four fringe festivals each year, The best part: these are hosted virtually but are focused by geographic region. Just recently she helped launch a fully spanish-speaking conference! She also a co-host of the Tableau Wannabe Podcast and a Tableau Social Media Ambassador.

Lindsey Poulter

Lindsey has been blogging and sharing ideas with the community for a long time. But with the release of Tableau Desktop 2018.3, Lindsey has become the defacto champion of all things set actions.

Ben Jones

Ben is a former Technical Evangelist at Tableau. He also lead the Tableau Public team. But he’s been a huge contributor to the community. He’s blogged all year, he helps with the Tapestry conference, and he’s a regular contributor to the Tableau community, But he’s trying connect Tableau developers to the larger data visualization community (and yes, the Tableau community is isolated from other data visualization communities). He’s also started a new company focused on evangelizing data literacy. While he might be ineligible this year (maybe?) he’s a force in the community.

Jacob Olfuska

All Jacob does is build visualizations in Tableau that transcend the community. He visualizations combine the perfect combination of design, storytelling and, analysis. His work has landed him on the IronViz stage, but he’s the only person in the Tableau community who has made  back-to-back Information Is Beautiful Shortlists. He also build an amazing visualization showcasing color palettes (and is probably the 2nd best resource on Tableau Public behind Andy Kriebel’s take on the Visual Vocabulary.  He holds the #5 spot for most favorited visualizations on Tableau Public.

Here’s some other people I’m watching:

John Emery

If you haven’t been paying attention to John’s work, you should! He recreated Napoleon’s March inside of Tableau! He’s also completed the majority of Workout Wednesdays and his thought leadership is on the Tessellation blog.

Lorena M. Vazquez

Do you need some solid server advice? Then Lorena’s got it for you. She’s also got a great blog!

David Sánchez Martín

Rosario isn’t the only Spanish-speaking individual in the community with a blog. David, a Data Schooler, also has a blog and has competed every single Workout Wednesday!

Sebastian Soto Vera

Sebastian is located in Chile. He’s completed all Makeover Mondays and built the most epic analysis of Makeover Monday this year! Many of the visualizations on his Tableau Public profile show the possibilities of the tool.

Spencer Baucke

He’s had about a half-dozen Viz of the Days and his Tableau Public is filled with great examples. His visualizations are a mix of Sports related things for #SportsVizSunday but also a number of social justice visualizations that are–gasp–done just because it’s an important topic.

And this list could continue on and on with people who REALLY know the tool, are amazing storytellers, designer, and creatives, and contribute to the community.