Our Monthly Event Debriefs summarize our involvement in data and IT events that take place all over the world.

2018 is full-steam ahead! Before we tell you about the exciting events we are gearing up for this year, let’s reflect on how InterWorks made our events better each step of the way. Looking back, we saw a dramatic increase in the number and types of events we did, but that’s not the goal. As Global Marketing Manager Jenny Parnell put it, “Our events are not about reaching higher numbers. They are more about connecting with the communities of people we care about helping.” With that in mind, here’s an overview demonstrating why 2017 was our best year yet.

Above: InterWorks’ booth at TC17. 

Big Data, Big Events

Our data-specific events took us all over the country in the form of several conferences and targeted workshops. We saw new sides of the growing data community and even got to share some fun swag along the way.

Alteryx Inspire 2017

In June, we had great representation at Alteryx Inspire 2017. Several of our account executives attended for the first time, and Alteryx Practice Lead Michael Treadwell presented on how to scrape web data with Alteryx. For our consultants, it’s all about helping people succeed and enjoying the experience along the way.

“Events like these are great for InterWorks because we’re in front of a room of people as the experts on the topic.”

– Michael Treadwell, Alteryx Practice Lead

The Brewalytics Series

We often team up with Tableau to collaborate on a number of events. One of our most popular event series last year revolved around happy hour. Our consultants spoke about embedded analytics at breweries in Nashville, Boston and Brooklyn. The Brewalytics series allowed us to educate Tableau users on how solutions like Portals for Tableau (our version of embedded analytics) can help them gain more insight and increase user adoption.

We held additional embedded analytics events in Minneapolis, Buffalo, Rochester and many other cities, with the number of attendees ranging from 40 to over 100. It’s exciting to see the community grow at such a rapid pace all over the country, and it’s even more exciting to be part of that growth.

“These events were unique because they were less general about us as a company and more focused towards a targeted audience or product.”

– Dustin Thompson, Senior Account Executive 

The 2017 Tableau Conference

The annual Tableau Conference is always a massively valuable event for InterWorks as a whole. TC17 was no different. As one of the top sponsors, we brought dozens of our people to share in the fun and connect with the community. We were particularly pleased that our data-themed socks were such a hit with the crowd.

To say that TC17 is our most anticipated event of the year is an understatement. According to U.S Tableau Training Lead Katie Wagner, her favorite part of the week is being able to meet some of the familiar faces in person rather than only knowing them virtually. 

“I met Sarah Bartlett at TC17, though we’d only communicated through Twitter. She gave me a fun Tableau bracelet, and we chatted about partnering together for next year’s custom swag. That is a relationship I’m doubtful I’d have if we hadn’t met up in person.”

– Katie Wagner, U.S. Tableau Training Lead

The Tableau Conference is the largest gathering of Tableau users in the world, so it allows us to establish a greater community network and broaden our reach as one of Tableau’s top partners. Analytics Consultant Alex Gutstein elaborated, “As a market leader, it’s an opportunity to network and learn more about the possibilities with Tableau through successful case studies.”

More than anything, the Tableau Conference inspires us to keep pushing our skills and solutions to enhance the experience people have with data in their organization.

Above: Our socks disappeared quickly at TC17.

The EGG2017 Data Science Conference

According to Analytics Practice Lead Ben Bausili, InterWorks spent a lot of time at TC17 with Dataiku’s team. Naturally, we decided to spend a little more time with them weeks later at the EGG2017 Data Science Conference. Dataiku is a data workbench that creates enhanced analysis and analytic tools. It provides a single-team environment for bringing data together, cleaning it, analyzing it and deploying it to Tableau datasets as well as interactive web apps. Sponsored by InterWorks, this conference provided technical workshops as well as in-depth presentations on becoming data-driven organizations.

Ben Bausili was one of the attendees and said of the event, “Most people there were just getting started with data science, so it was a good opportunity to talk with people about their challenges and the different ideas they were excited about.” We look forward to seeing what’s in store for Dataiku and InterWorks in 2018. 

The IT Crowd

2017 wasn’t just packed full of data-focused events; the IT side of our business also held several events throughout the year, including a new event that kicked off in March.

InnoTech Oklahoma 2017

InnoTech is a central part of our involvement in Oklahoma’s IT community. Account Executive Matt Clark explained that our presence at InnoTech is less about the quantity of connections we make and more about the ability to establish and grow quality partnerships.

Above: Team InterWorks at InnoTech 2017. 

Spring Series Lunch and Learns

We kicked off a new lunch-and-learn event series in Oklahoma City and Tulsa last year entitled our “Spring Series.” These were three consecutive events that built upon information taught at the previous event. As the content ramped up, so did the swag. Because the information is expanded upon during each lunch, it encourages clients to attend and find value at all three events. 

“These lunches allowed me to learn who our clients are and put faces to names. As an event coordinator who typically doesn’t get the opportunity to connect with clients, this was invaluable to me.”

– Brittany Dunn, Events Coordinator

“Star Wars: The Last Jedi” with Dell EMC

Our movie events are always popular with attendees and team members alike. This year, we held an exclusive showing of “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” in May and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” in December. We even gave away InterWorks-branded lightsabers for the latter so attendees could feel the power of the Force while watching the movie. Along with the exclusive premieres, guests got a first-hand look at Dell EMC’s Integrated Data Protection Appliance.

European Adventures

While our U.S. team was busy making a splash with our events this year, the InterWorks Europe team were also adding to the quality of our face to face outings.

“We recognize that digital marketing has a time and a place, but it will never fully replace the value of great face-to-face connections. InterWorks is about more than digital exchanges. With in-person events, we get the opportunity to really assess our clients’ needs and guide them through their data journey at a more personal level.”

– Vicky Lockett, Communications Manager

Tableau Conference on Tour: London and Berlin

As sponsors of the Social Media Hub and bar at Tableau Conference on Tour (TCOT), in London and Berlin, the InterWorks Europe team had the perfect opportunity to meet a lot of new faces and interact with a few TCOT veterans. They received encouraging responses from those who stopped by to chat and learn more about what we do. A highlight for us personally was watching Senior Analytics Consultant David Pires bring home the winning viz at the inaugural European Iron Viz contest in London.

InterWorks Data Discovery Days

What makes Tableau a revolutionary product and platform? What are the benefits of using Tableau? That’s exactly what we show attendees during these workshops – not in a talk, but in a free, data discovery workshop. These hands-on sessions show how to improve data analysis and data visualization within an organization.

Above: A recent Data Discovery Workshop in London. 

Be on the lookout for more of these events in 2018, in which our trainers will guide you through several examples and show you the core functionality of the software. You’ll be able to learn how to use Tableau to build your own dashboards in no time. Another benefit is that you get to take a free trial of Tableau back to your office where you can immediately apply what you’ve learned by accessing your own data.

D+I+Y Events

InterWorks’ D+I+Y (Data, Insight, You) event series was launched last year, and we intend to continue it well into 2018. Each D+I+Y event is a slightly different opportunity to learn best practices, tips, tricks and more. You can expect to hear inspiring stories from some of the leading figures in the data community that will help you on your journey to deliver successful analytics.

Above: David Pires speaking at the first D+I+Y event. 

What’s Next for 2018?

2017 was a whirlwind of a year, and we cannot wait to see what 2018 has in store for our us and the communities we serve. We always try to emphasize our goal of putting our best foot forward in serving the tech community with every event we plan. InterWorks gives the Events team and those we work with the freedom to achieve that in a fun and impactful way. Stay tuned for our January Event Debrief to catch a glimpse of 2018 events already in the books. You can also head to our Events page, which is updated regularly, to see upcoming events in your area.