On a macro level, 2020 was an unbelievable year for a lot of people due to a lot of loss, change, frustration, and etc. On a personal level, 2020 was one of my strongest years. I was able to identify what fulfills me and I was able to start walking in my purpose. Walking in my purpose made it a bit easier to block out some of the outside noise and focus on the mission at hand. With that in mind, I decided to do a recap of 2020 because I put in a lot of work this year and I wanted to share my story.
Family and Religion will always be my number 1 priority. None of this data and analytics stuff matters to me if home is out of alignment. I believe in divine order and structure and without it everything can get real crazy and misaligned. Shoutout to my wife for supporting me this year and letting me reach for the stars. I really enjoyed the slower pace that the pandemic brought on and I’ll always have fond memories of our Uno and Movie nights. We also welcomed our princess at the end of the year and I couldn’t be happier! I’m really excited about the next chapter in our life.
I’m blessed to work for Ryder and I have to give a major shoutout to my coworker/friend Ed Pearson for telling me about Ryder back in 2019. This pandemic caused a lot of companies to endure some pain and Ryder wasn’t any different. Ryder has taken care of their employees during the pandemic and they really believe in solving problems with data driven solutions. I’m constantly trying to solve new problems at work and that keeps me fulfilled. I really believe 2021 will be a huge year for our analytics team, and we are always looking for talent so if you are in the job market let me know!!!
As I became more confident in my skills, I knew I wanted to start giving back to others. I come from a family of educators so teaching was always something that I saw growing up. I’ve learned a lot in my career so I knew this would be a good time to start teaching some of the skills that I have acquired. Mary Van Valkenburg has been amazing to work with and she is doing amazing things with this school. Nashville Software School was the first place to allow me to teach BOTH Power BI and Tableau. They allowed me to create content (which made me better) and deliver it to their students. This was definitely one of the most rewarding things I accomplished in 2020 and I’ll forever be grateful for the opportunity.
There has always been a gap when it comes to diversity and inclusion within the data and analytics field. I always wanted to use my God given abilities to help bridge that gap, but I didn’t know how. I heard about Pivot Technology School and I knew I had to be apart of it. I was able to teach classes on Power BI and Tableau and I met some fantastic students. Joshua Munday, Quawn Clark and Isaac Addae are on a mission to expose as many adults as possible to coding and data analytics. Big things are coming in 2021 for Pivot Technology and I’m glad to be apart of it.
The Tableau #datafam community was amazing in 2020. This was definitely the most involved I’ve ever been with a community and I was able to meet soooooo many great people. I’m really looking forward to connecting with people in person, but until then I’ll keep virtually networking. Shoutout to Chantilly Jaggernauth, Jasent Walker, Candra McCrae, Sedale McCall, Teneika Askew, Adam Mico, Spencer Baucke, Allen Hillery, Priya Padham, Joshua Smith, Sam Parsons, Sarah Barlett, Dzifa Amexo, Ghafar Shah, Zach Bowers, Lindsay Betzendahl, Mark Bradbourne, Jeff Plattner, Jim Dehner, Emily Kund, Ken Flerlage, Kevin Flerlage, Judit Bekker, Seffana Mohamed, Michelle Frayman, Tamas Varga, Thi Ho, Vinodh Kumar, Eric Balash, Kate Brown, and Jason Scharf . You all have been great to connect with and are such a smart and talented group.
Tableau also has some great people leading their community initiatives. I believe that this product will continue to grow because the people that are trying to make change are genuine. Special shoutout to Amanda Boyle, Andrew Grinaker, Renee MacLeod, Candice Vu, Lelia Williams, and Jordan Scott. Keep killing it out here!
Below is a list of tableau events that I was apart of in 2020, and I might come back and make a viz out of this (who knows).
| Month | Tableau Event | Link |
| May | Tableau Public Featured Author | https://public.tableau.com/en-us/s/authors#!/ |
| June | VizConnect – Tableau Public Feature Author Panel | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4OFInnlHnQ |
| July | Viz of The Day – Historically Black Colleges and Universities | https://public.tableau.com/en-us/gallery/hbcus-america-today |
| August | Information Lab – What does it take to be a Tableau Featured Author | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwZvBL3ySG0&trk=organization-update-content_share-video-embed_share-article_title |
| September | Tableau Community Equity Task Force | https://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2020/9/introducing-tableau-community-equity-task-force |
| September | Data + Diversity Series (Featuring Kimberly Bryant, CEO & Founder, Black Girls CODE!) | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaBoLtBLhwE |
| October | Mentoring Meetup (Jason Scott) | http://www.mentoringmeetup.com/ |
I have experience in several different #dataviz tools (Power BI, Tableau, Amazon Quicksight, Google Data Studio, Looker, Yellowfin, and Qlik). This year I focused on staying current with Power BI and Tableau. Ryder is a Power BI shop so I’ve had the opportunity to work full time in Power BI. I’ve always tried to stay current with Power BI, even if I wasn’t working full time with the product at that point in time in my career. This is the first time in my career where I’ve had a full year to really focus on Power BI and I learned so much about this tool. The Microsoft Power BI community is cool and this year there was a lot of opportunity for virtual networking. Shoutout to Spencer Baucke, Alex Powers , Matt Cushing, David Eldersveld, Will Thompson, and Shannon Lindsay. You all have been awesome to interact with this year!
There is still a big gap for minority representation in the Power BI community and like I stated above, I want to use my talent to help bridge the gap. I’m still trying to figure out how I can make a bigger impact in this community and that is something I hope to figure out in 2021. Shoutout to my mentors/big bros Patric Leblanc, Jonathan Stewart, and Ryan Wade for setting the tone in the community and for always being a listening ear whenever I have a question/idea.
Earlier this year, Will Harvey and Michael McKinley asked if I wanted to help co lead the Nashville Modern Excel and Power BI User Group with them. I was honored that they asked me, but I was hesitant because of how much I had on my plate. I’m REALLY glad I accepted because I really love working with these guys. They are so smart and the speakers we have had have all been amazing. I’ve learned something new from each session and everyone has been extremely nice. I also wanted to co-lead because representation matters and I want the up-and-coming data analysts to see someone that looks like them in a leadership capacity. It’s all about bringing the next person up and helping them succeed.
2021 is going to be BIG for our user group and we have some great things planned. I can’t wait to look back and see what all we accomplished at the end of the year. You can join our virtual meetup group (https://www.meetup.com/Nashville-Modern-Excel-User-Group/) and our next meeting will be 1-21-2021 at 11:30am (https://www.meetup.com/Nashville-Modern-Excel-User-Group/events/275086741/). I’m claiming that we are about to have one of the best user groups in Nashville and in the entire state of Tennessee.
I pushed my limits a lot this year and I have no idea if I’ll be able to keep up the pace. I do know that I’m going to stay active in both Tableau and Power BI communities and that I’m going to keep doing it for the right reasons. I honestly only care about bringing up the people behind me, enhancing my skillset, and making everyone around me better. If I gain recognition from either community then that’s just a bonus 😀 .
In the words of the great philosopher and poet Big Sean –
“Until you push your f*****g limits, you don’t even know what’s capable“
Happy New Year Everyone!!!!