I've been quite surprised with Tableau Customer Conference 2012. Briefly speaking -- that was the best vendor BI event I've ever been to (and I've been to quite a few). It's not because it was very well organized and there were several very interesting invited key speakers -- that's not what we're expecting from a BI conference. But because it was very practical and very specific. These guys had hundreds (literally!) of laptops in classes and tens of hands-on experience sessions dedicated to various subjects, like "What's new in version 8", "Geomapping", "Embedding", "Advanced calculations", "Performance tuning", "Administration" etc. which seemed to be more like short training courses rather than yet another boring presentations. Besides that there were at least 20 or something case studies and presentation from real customers from various industries. And to make it even more practical they brought there 700 Tableau employees ready to answer questions from customers and partners. Even if right person wasn't nearby -- it was relatively easy to find him/her with the help of organizers, despite any ranks and titles. I had no need to have meeting with CEO of the company, but I'm sure it could have been arranged if requested.
Well done, Tableau team!
PS. I'm preparing Tableau vs QlikView review and will be publishing it soon.
