Seattle Tableau Conference 2014 - Day 3

John Medina keynote

The adage of you are only using 10% of your brain is completely false – it’s about 50-60%

The left-side or right-side personality is also false – “it takes two side to make a personality”

The human brain is designed to:

Solve problems, in unstable meterological conditions, outdoors, in motion – not an office!



John’s focus today is sleep

Sleep states are as important to the learning process as awake states. Although we still don’t know why it is useful. It’s not about energy – the brain is more active at night than during the day.

8 hours of unconsciousness is insane a few thousands of years ago

The bottom trunk of the brain is the generator – it powers the rest of the brain.

Gazelles sleep for 15 minutes because if they sleep for longer then they will be eaten. Humans start to wake up after 1 and a half hours and have REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. Sleep then deepens again for a similar period so you get four or five periods of REM sleep every night.

Circadian arousal system – increases throughout the day and left unchecked would cause bipolar disorder. The homeostatic sleep drive falls throughout the day. When it hits the bottom and you fall asleep. This keeps the Circadian arousal system in check. Both measures plateau at 1-4pm and it is officially when the brain wants to nap as it allows your brain to decide when it wants to sleep. You don’t have to fall asleep, just lay down horizontally. Experiments showed there is a 34% brain improvement strategy. The nap time needs to be 26 minutes at a minimum.

There are 20% of people who are more productive first thing in the morning and 20% are more productive in the evening. This is based in your genes so you can’t change this.





Around the World in 80 clicks – Craig Bloodworth and Allan Walker

Advanced mapping

Why Maps?

It’s as simple as answering where type question. 1 in 5 google searches result in map based results

By adding a map to a dashboard, you instantly get more involvement from the reader. You get past language barriers.

Covering:

Marks – Points, lines, polygons

Basemaps – Types (WMS & Tile), Tableau Map Source (TMS) and Map Providers

Toolkit – Geocoding your data and generating custom background maps

Demos – Crime in Salt Lake City, Great Britain Rail



Map in Tableau has three layers – Foreground layer, Background layer, background base. Controlling the background levels is where the fun bit starts

Foreground – important to think about how your data is spread

Background – WMS server, there are free ones and very easy to add to Tableau Desktop. You can bring a WMS server inside the network. You can then control the layers of that server. So you can create heatmap layers. Open Street Map – 600GB for worldwide mapping. You can be limited in the layering order

Tile mapping is very fast. Pre-cached. You can change the layers but normally have to pay. MapProxy.org can give you the best of both worlds

The TMS file – purposely put it in My Tableau Repository > MapSources so you can go and play with them. See Craig’s slide for the full breakdown.

After adding new TMS files, they just become part of your Tableau Map Options in the normal Map menu

Easy mapping – Alteryx gallery (creating polygons) or tableaumapping.bi

More difficult – is Geofabrik downloads (rail network) or Quantum GIS (free)

Overpass-turbo.eu (for particular shops in a location / country)

Mapbox – who have just released Mapbox Studio – very configurable




Hans Rosling keynote

The Tableau conference will be in Las Vegas 2015 from October 19-23.

There is a new TED talk from Hans

By 2100, >80% of the world’s population will live in Africa (4bn) and Asia (5bn). 10% will in Europe and North America (excl. Mexico) alone.

The projection of the number of children between now and 2100 is to stay steady at 2 billion.

“The problem with the future is that we have never been there” – great summary about prediction and forecasting

World population growth is now about death rates slowing, not high birth rates. Child mortality rates falling is the reason that once families’ feel comfortable their children will survive, they have less.

83% of the children of the world’s 1 year olds are being vaccinated against measles – proof that aid works

The breaking growth of human population growth is 75 years as that is life expectancy. The only two actions that could slow down is less longer lives with medical advances or people moving out of extreme poverty faster