Leading a Networking TUG Across Six Time Zones
Photo by Maxime Doré on Unsplash
In the virtual world, we can glean a lot of benefits from not having to do everything face to face. For starters, time that we previously spent commuting to work can now be spent on any number of self-care tasks - exercise, more time with family, etc. The drawback to this new virtual world is the daily social contact that was so integrated into our lives before the pandemic. It now seems a little far away but this is the current state of the Tableau Community—the DataFam. We have been separated for far too long and we would really love to get together with old (and new) friends far and wide. Canada is particularly susceptible to this given the vast size of the country and multiple time zones.
For the second virtual Tableau Conference, the Canadian Tableau User Group leaders got together to try to bridge that gap just a little.
In advance of the conference, we started planning a Cross Canada TUG with a call reaching out to everyone with an active group and asking what the interest would be. The leaders joined from Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto (Toronto Public Sector as well), and Montreal. We even reconnected with Paul in the Yukon who is hoping to restart that User Group. Everyone seemed keen to take part and so we made some preliminary targets to get the process moving.
Tableau has been very supportive with resources over the pandemic so most of the details worked out similarly to running a normal meeting. We created one Splash page for the event (insert Lord of the Rings ‘ring’ joke here) and Kelly at Tableau was able to add all the local hubs to the same invitation so the #DataFam in each area was notified. We added one question to the standard form to offer a breakout room in French but otherwise business as usual. The Zoom call was also added to the Splash invite like a normal event.
We had many leaders and since everyone was keen, it was easy for the work to be divided among us. We had 2 Kahoot games, a short presentation on what sessions not to miss at Tableau Conference, and then broke out into rooms to meet new friends.
For those who have not done breakout rooms before, it is actually quite easy. Based on the people registered as of the day before the event, we were able to pre-assign people to rooms using the area code as a proxy for the location. We aimed to mix up the rooms so hopefully everyone was meeting someone from a different group.
As for lessons learned from this experience, it would be helpful to have one person in charge of assigning rooms in the meeting. This person puts people into rooms who registered since the rooms were assigned and makes sure everyone gets into their assigned rooms without trouble. This leader can also set a timer for the breakout rooms and send a message when it is time to rejoin the main room. This would be in addition to a moderator per room, to help break the ice and keep the conversation flowing.
Many hands make light work. Often, we are used to working in smaller teams but there are lots of people to help when combining groups and everyone has their own strengths (e.g. Kahoot polls)
Kahoot polls are fun and get the conversation rolling. Whether you are having a fun quiz or trying to get feedback, during an open meeting this can spark lots of conversation. ‘That question was hard’, ‘Look who is leading now’, and other comments help participants feel comfortable adding their two cents in a low-risk manner. In this case, we did one ‘Tableau’ poll and one with Canadian trivia. Kahoot polls can also be informative for the leaders looking to curate content for future meetings. If you want to gauge experience - ‘What was the first version of Tableau you used?’, or if you want to gauge interest in topics ‘What is your favourite feature of Tableau?’, etc.
Overall, this was a fun experience, and we would like to do it again. There are definitely some broad topics that apply to more than just one locality and it is always nice to meet new people. Onward to 2022!
