An Open Letter to Public Data

How I love that you’re available to me, that in theory, I can answer the questions to life, the universe, and everything with some smart Google searches.  But, Public Data, you may need to sit down for this…

You see, in the days of yore, we’d get this data, make one chart, pop it in a PowerPoint deck and be done with the deal.  Maybe we did this for work, or (rarely) for our own curiosity.  Maybe it was college or some project that required proving a case.  But, for whatever reason, we’d go and pull down the segments of data.

Public Data, I’d like you to meet Tableau Public.  You don’t have to try to do it alone anymore.  There’s help.  And it works.

When the world was small and Excel was limited to a few 32,676 rows, we did some pretty awful things: split sheets, multiple files, what-have-you just to ship it.  It’s new world out there, Public Data: even Excel got the memo.

You can let go of your data ferrets, and wizards, and what have you.  No, Public Data, I’m ready for the messiness of it.  You don’t need to put on a front just for me.