 Okay, we're back, this is Dave Vellante with Jeff Kelly. This is Silicon Angles theCUBE. As you know theCUBE is a comfortable place. We drop into the events. It's a live mobile social media studio. We broadcast live on the web. Last year theCUBE did 27 events. This year we'll do about 35. So we're really getting a feel for and a flavor for the types of events across the spectrum, small, medium and large. We're here at the Tableau Customer Conference. I have to tell you, I've done personally many, many of these with my co-host John Furrier. This is one of the best events. And the way in which we measure the events, really the effectiveness, we try to listen to the messaging that comes out of the company, the host company, and then try to see how well that aligns with the customer base. So I would say that this is one of the top two conferences that we've been to in terms of the alignment of the messaging and the absorption by the customers. Alyssa Fink is here. She's the CMO of Tableau. We're going to talk about this event and other activities. Alyssa, welcome to the queue. Thanks, David. It's great to be here. Yeah, so I really mean that. I mean, we're very impressed with the enthusiasm of the customer base. The other one was ServiceNow, Knowledge Conference. We were talking to Christian before. He knows Frank Schlubin. Passionate, passionate, totally different business. But I've never seen two companies with as passionate a customer base. It's really fantastic. So congratulations on making it all happen. Well, thank you and we're so lucky. We love our customers. We listen to them. We love collaborating with them. So it's a mutual admiration society for sure. Yeah, that's cool. So this is an awesome event for you. Packed house, fire marshal full. People are lining up in the hallways. You've had some great keynotes. A lot of times, conferences like this, there'll be one blockbuster keynote. You've had a couple. We just heard Walter Isaacson. We had Nate Silver before. Your chief executive, Kristen Chavo, gave a great keynote yesterday. And then you also have a number of your developers up on the conference. They got great kudos, people clapping. So really a great job in putting this together. It's just kind of your baby and how do you feel? Well, I feel great. We have an incredible team of people that put this on it, takes a village, a huge village. The entire company is really involved in the conference from the content to the decisions as small as, what kind of, well, not a small decision. What kind of a party are we going to have? You know, what kind of food. We really get into every detail and it's people on my team that just do a spectacular job. Amy Schneider, Dana Paik, Elena Schuler. It's just, it goes on and on. And it's a thrill. It's really a thrill to be here. You guys are a detail-oriented company, we've noticed. By the way, you mentioned last night we're at the museum, which was awesome. If you haven't been to the museum, you know, come down to DC, take your kids. I mean, this is fantastic. So much to do down here. Really excellent. The customers loved it and it was packed. I mean, not a lot, we had to bust people there, but not a lot of people stayed behind. I mean, it was. We were very pleased to discover that. We were, you know, because it is, once you take people off property, it's really easy for them to drop out. But I think we have a good reputation for putting on a good party. So I think that got people on the bus. Now, how did it come about that the conference is here in the nation's capital? Well, we were looking for a great venue where we could host the size crowd that has turned out, but also keep it a little bit intimate. So we like the style of the Gaylord because it has a nice convention center, but also an attached hotel and several hotels in the nearby area so that when you're walking the halls, whether you're on your way to your room or you're in a restaurant, you're pretty sure the people you're encountering are with the conference and you can strike up conversations and connect with people. So we really look for a place, places that allow us to allow our customers to foster a sense of intimacy with us and with each other. You know, I love that. I mean, it's so easy to say, I would go into Vegas. That's what everybody does, right? But you're right, when you're out in Vegas, you don't know, you typically, they're not at the conference, right? It's somebody else. So that's a good joke. Initially, we thought, okay, maybe there's a lot of government agencies using your product and I'm sure there are, but that really is not what it's about, is it? No, not at all. I mean, we're delighted. We do have a nice representation of our government customers and we have a special track for them as well. So we're pleased to be here and be of service to them. But no, it wasn't about Washington, D.C. is where a key base of customers is located. It was about finding the right place, a fun place, the right time of year and the right space that gives us the opportunity to have the kind of events we like to have. Right. Alisa, speaking of customers, you've got so many great customers here and also so many great sessions that are customers telling their story. How do you go about making decisions about who's going to come in and what customers you're going to have present here? I mean, there's so many great customers who want to tell their story. I'm sure you had no shortage of people that would like to talk. How do you make those kind of decisions? We were very fortunate. We did have quite a few customers submit for, we do a speaker call and we had quite a few customers submit and it's very difficult and we take it very seriously when we're deciding. We don't, we look at the stories, we look at the impact, we get a sense of that person and their passion for their story and their success and what they're doing and what they're able to teach, what they're able to share because this is a learning event. We want our customers to come here because they say this was worth it. I learned something that I'm going to be better at what I do and what my organization does when I get back to the office. So those are all the factors that go into our decision and it takes quite a few of us. We do a lot of reviews. It takes several collaborative sessions where we're reading the reviews, we're interviewing our customers. We can't accommodate every one of them but we would love to if we could and so we find other ways to help them, to have them participate as well. So as Dave mentioned, after Christian's keynote, you brought on a lot of developers inside the company to kind of announce a lot of the new features. How do you, as a marketer, really, I guess both keep, obviously you've got to tell the larger story of Tableau but you've also clearly, you listen to your customers and you speak directly to them. How do you go about doing that in such a way that it's resonating so much with your customers? I'm sure, or CMOs out there watching would love to get the kind of response that you've gotten from your customers. How do you do it? Well, number one, we have a phenomenal product and a phenomenal group of developers and incredibly passionate customers and incredibly passionate employees. Really, when we interview for our employees, if you're great in every aspect of your job but you're not passionate about our mission, you're probably not going to be invited to join. So we're pretty careful about selection and what that does is drive everything else about that. So we get great developers who are on board with the mission that makes great products. Now, when you have a great product as a marketer, bringing it back to marketing, there's so many things that allow you to go faster, smoother, and just get things done because you're not dodging potholes because the product really isn't that great. Your customers really kind of are mad at you. So we're very lucky to have a great product. We do work really hard in the marketing team. You know, we're making a lot of things happen. Our sales team is amazing, but having all these things come together and firing on all cylinders is really part of the magic. Yeah. So I have to ask you, so I was showing your little crowd spotting tool before. So I want to run through something. So we're monitoring the crowd here at the hashtag TCC13 and other hashtags that people are sharing. I have to make you laugh. The cube was out trending Tableau as a hashtag, but it's not anymore. Tableau has overtaken the cube. And so, of course TCC13 is the dominant hashtag, but it's kind of fun. Some of the hashtags that people are sharing here, user ready, big data, Walter Isaacson, of course, because he just came off that great keynote, data love, I love that one. Data viz, you guys talk about the viz a lot, mobile BI, leadership, innovation. Get Silvered is another one. Let's see, Steve Jobs and Apple, of course, and every vertical of ours. So it's kind of some fun conversations going on out there. We have a creative and fun loving customer base. I mean, they're serious about their data and they're serious about their analytics, but they also understand the importance of having some fun and being lighthearted and collaborating. It's a lot more interesting and a lot more effective when you're collaborating with someone that you genuinely like and you genuinely can enjoy. And I think that's what you're seeing in some of those hashtags is people are having a good time while they're learning. Yeah, so I wonder if you could share with us your philosophy of marketing. So much of marketing today is pushing stuff out on email and trying to get people to click on a white paper. And we feel as though that business technology folks really want marketing to be a source of value to them. And it seems I'm inferring from this conference that you share that philosophy to a certain extent, but I wonder if you could talk about your philosophy, your company's philosophy about marketing. What are you essentially trying to accomplish there? Well, we're very focused in marketing and actually in every area of Tableau on our mission and that's to help people see and understand data. One of the key words in that sentence for marketing in particular is people. We really view ourselves as a people-centric brand. Certainly organizations by Tableau, but it's really the people at the organizations that are buying and using Tableau. So when we keep our eye on it's a person on the other end that we're trying to communicate and collaborate with, it just makes it more human, it makes it more real, and that boils down to the most important quality that we look for in our marketing, which is authenticity. So we're very much about, is this really the way that our brand should be expressed? Is this authentic to our customer base and what they're trying to accomplish with data? Those are the kind of things that we're always looking for. When you come to our website, we want you to feel like, hey, that made me smarter, make me smarter, make me better and then we get the reciprocal. If you make somebody smarter, they're likely to want to work with you. So we're very focused on the people aspects of what we do. So let's talk about some of the people. I mean, there's customers, there's developers, there's the super users, right? So we've heard from, we've seen all of those today. So this week, actually, yesterday you had up on stage the, let the developers speak and they did, they came up, they were funny, engaged, wearing cool hats, showing off some of their stuff. So talk about how you engage your developers. Christian was saying you flew your entire development team out here to put them in front of your customer people. Talk about that a little bit. Sure, it's wonderful to have our developers on stage because it's an opportunity for them to shine and to show how what they're doing relates, again, authentically to the work that our customers are doing. So we love to have them here. We love seeing them, we love, they're almost like rock stars when they come. They come and they are able to talk to our customers, they're able to experience it firsthand. What that does when they get back to work is they really are able then to understand the impact of what they're doing, how that impact, what it is on a customer, on a person, on the other end. So we love to have our developers in front of our customers. And we celebrate our developers. It really does mean a lot to have a great software product to sell and market. And we love what our developers do for Tableau. This morning before Nate Silver's keynote, you also brought up the data ninjas. Yes, the Tableau Zenmasters. Tableau Zenmasters, right. So what is that all about? Who are they? How does one become a Zenmaster? You know, what do you got to do to achieve that? Sure, so Tableau Zenmasters is a program where we recognize some of our more ardent customers and partners who do three things. They participate heavily in the community. They contribute to the community. They are on a mission of education so that they're sharing their knowledge and they're not afraid to share it. And they're innovative. They're constantly challenging and expanding the uses of Tableau. So every year we look at that base of people who are out there communicating, being part of the community, a very skilled and willing to share their knowledge. And we hand select them actually with our development team, with Chris Stolte and a few folks from marketing. And we designate them as Tableau Zenmasters and during the next year, they get some special privileges. They, at conferences and user groups, they get treated specially. If they come to Seattle, they get a special inside look. We're very attentive to their questions and needs and comments when they're on the forums or when they call us. So it's a really wonderful way to connect with a very special group of people. And then the third leg of the people stool is the customers. They probably leave the best for last, I guess. And yesterday was kind of customer day in the cube. We interviewed a number of your customers. Many, if not most, were presenting at this event. So talk about that a little bit, how the customers participate, how they, you mentioned a little bit before, but tell us again, so how do they go about participating and submitting ideas and the like? So we do a lot of regular communication with our customers. Our sales people are in touch regularly. We try to stay in touch with marketing. We do user groups, we do road shows and seminars. And we get to know many of them. We put out a call for speakers and sometimes new people that we're not familiar with come out, we make personal calls to each of them to get them involved or to understand what their story is. And we want them to come, we want them to come share their story because their story is one of knowledge and experience. And we know that other customers listening to customers will have a better sense of what they can do, how they can apply Tableau, how they can make more from Tableau. So we love having them here. Every year, the sessions get bigger. We have more tracks of customers. I think this year we have three tracks of customer sessions, over 70 customer sessions participating in one way or another. And so we just, we love seeing them here. It's the best, some of the best content by far. So this is my last question, Jeff, may I have some others is, what can you tell us about what, you know, what to expect going forward? What's next for you guys? Maybe, you know, give us an advanced look. Well, you know, we're excited about the future. We recently went public, but we're focused on the mission. It's all about, again, back to that helping people see and understand data and being public has allowed us to have some additional visibility. But again, it's all about what our customers are doing, how we can help them advance, how we can enable them as they move from job to job or company to company. We want to be there with them making things happen. So we're just more of the same and keep building. And we just, we look forward to, to what the opportunities are for data-driven companies. Yeah, I would just add, you know, for Tableau users out there who want to get more involved, you know, meet more of their, you know, fellow Tableau users, what are some things they can do to get more involved in the community? Oh, absolutely, Jeff. Thank you for that question. They can get involved by getting involved in our forums and submitting ideas for improvements to the product. We have user groups. We've got more this year than we've ever had, more than double already, that meet on a regular basis. They can also participate in some of our seminars and road shows. And just get using Tableau, download our videos, watch our videos, reach out to your sales rep or even to us in marketing. We love to hear from our customers and we welcome them with open arms when they reach out. Fantastic. All right, Elisabeth, well, thanks very much for having us here. We really appreciate it. Well, thank you guys. It's been great to have you here. Really great guests and it's been awesome content. And thanks for coming to theCUBE. Thank you. All right, take care, everybody. We'll be right back after this word. Let's see, Susan Byer is up next and we'll be right back. This is theCUBE.