Thursday, July 18, our Digital Skills Youth Academy Students were excited to visit Tableau Software in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. We gathered in a meeting room where employees treated us to beverages, and then presented us with a brief overview of Tableau software products and how they work. Then an impressive panel of women employees shared their personal stories about how they came to be there and described their individual jobs. The students were visibly inspired and motivated by their stories. It was obvious that Tableau works to create an environment that inspires collaboration, innovation, diversity, and fun.
It quickly became clear that Tableau is no ordinary data company; they have made data analysis easy to understand and use; someone said it’s like American Sign Language for data analysis and visualization. It was designed for humans looking to understand information. It takes its queries and puts them into a visual form, which then translates back to either Tableau’s in-memory storage or the original source. It’s an astonishing product!
We also learned that Tableau runs a foundation whose mission is to “Encourage the use of facts and analytical reasoning to solve the world’s problems.” They work with both local and international nonprofits and also support Tableau employees in their individual giving and volunteer activities.
The students were impressed by how honest, open, and encouraging the employees were who spoke with us. We all appreciated their hospitality, genuine interest, time, and the information they shared. At the end of the presentation they took us upstairs to their rooftop deck for refreshments and a lovely view of the ship canal between Puget Sound and Lake Washington.
Many thanks to Ashley Monson at Tableau for organizing our visit, and to all of the terrific Tableau employees who took time or of their day to speak with us.