Learn more about Ellie's experience, from the time she applied to The Data School, to her career as a Tableau Enablement Manager at John Lewis Partnership. Ellie was part of Cohort 11 of The Data School London, which took place from October 2018 to February 2021.
Interviewed by Mel Niere | Edited by Collin Smith
Before The Data School
Q: What brought you to The Data School?
A: I originally worked in market research, so I was used to using data to answer clients’ questions and updating trackers on a PowerPoint slide. I worked with surveys, writing different questions, gathering from a few sources and entering that data manually into a slide deck; which got incredibly old, very quickly. Whilst I loved looking into the customer behaviour but I got frustrated with the manual reporting. My friend worked at Tableau and he stumbled upon The Information Lab/ The Data School’s stall and he thought it would be a great fit for me. I looked into it further and thought “Yeah, this sounds amazing.” I hadn't used Tableau at that point, so I worked out what I had to do, played around with Tableau Public and loved it. The Data School is a paid graduate-scheme (apprenticeship) which did feel a little bit too good to be true so I also went to a Meet and Greet evening. I spoke to current data schoolers, members of TIL UK and found out more information and came away thinking “Yes, this is great, & the kind of industry and work environment I want to be around” and I knew I wanted to be in the next Data School cohort.
During The Data School
Q: What was your training experience like?
A: There are four months of in-person training, five days a week, so the face to face contact time is high. This was great because we bonded as a cohort and with the trainers as well. Andy Kriebel and Carl Allchin were our main trainers and it was amazing to be taught by Tableau Visionaries. The experience they had with everything from vizzing to client stories was really inspiring, and learning tips and tricks directly from experts in the industry was an incredible opportunity. It was very fast paces so to be in person meant leveraging their & other TIL employee’s expertise if we got stuck.
During training, we also had client projects. Client projects were an effective way to slowly and softly introduce real use cases of Tableau and data-specific project work. Client projects were beneficial to have the experience of what a work placement would be like. During the week of client projects, timelines are quite condensed with the first couple of projects being practice ones which is great for a slow intro to the pressure and you learn a lot from that.
I think what’s also so good at The Information Lab is that with the flat structure of the hierarchy & the community feel to the work culture you can talk to anyone - from having lunch, sitting with the CEO Tom Brown, or chatting to members of the sales team to get different perspectives. I think that the training at The Information Lab does an excellent job showing us the importance of building your brand beyond just the dashboards you build or data sources you curate. They support you in branding yourself, from writing blogs to building a portfolio, to helping you network and connect to the wider Tableau community through Tableau User groups. Which is vital for career life after TIL.
Q: What was your experience during placement?
A: I think the variety across my placements has really helped my career because I had three placements in completely different industries and doing different roles. Whilst they helped me learn what I want to do, they also helped figure out which elements I wasn’t as keen on. During the training program I made sure to speak to Dan Raines who, at the time, organised placements for Data Schoolers. Talking to him about what was available, the kind of things I wanted to get involved with and what he thought would be a good fit was a great regular check-in style conversation to have throughout placements too.
My first placement was with National Trust, and there I was using community-building initiatives and setting up the training programs for Tableau and Alteryx. It was great to be on-site a couple of days a week to work directly with the teams. Next I was at PwC using Alteryx & PowerBI to build apps & solutions - a very different experience but I loved the variety. My last placement (3rd & 4th rolled into one due to Covid) was with Telereal Trillium, which is a property management company. This is where I went on to get my first job after The Data School. My role here focused on report building initially, but turned into building out the reporting team, community, training & enablement of Tableau.
Q: What support did you receive from The Data School?
A: One of the best things post training is having that back-to-school week in between each placement. It is important, I think, in terms of reconnecting with your cohort, re-learning things but also finding out what they've done in their placements. This way you can learn from each other and maybe pick up different skills. I also had my mentor whilst at TIL - when you join you get assigned a mentor and a pod at the Data School UK and that's really great. The pod was fun - they’re structured almost vertically in the organisation so you have people from different areas like recruitment, sales, support, consultant, data schoolers. Is a great intro to TIL & the socials help integrate yourself into the organisation. My mentor was Luke, who does recruitment for The Data School & every other month we would meet up for a coffee and it was great to have that personal direct touch point at the Data School, a great sounding board. Another way for support is also making use of that network that you have access to via Convo & the community at TIL; everyone is so friendly and happy to be approached.
After The Data School
Q: How did The Data School and The Information Lab serve as a launching pad for your data analytics career?
A: Very much so, The Data School serves as a massive launching pad. I've got names on my CV I wouldn't have had without The Information Lab & The Data School, such as PwC and the National Trust. These companies are not only recognisable but also span different industries. PwC is a consultancy and National Trust is in the charity sector. I am personally a bit industry agnostic, I think that having had many experiences means that I've been free to explore my curiosity more with the organisations data culture & innovations vs. topic.
On top of the different placements as a launch pad, is the access to the user groups TIL encourages you to network within. The culture at The Information Lab of curiosity and giving back to the community which has been fundamental to my career. They support that side of your personal development and actively encourage you to go to conferences. And that's really helpful. It really means that they care about your development. That's something that I've tried to continue with the people that I work with, encouraging them to get involved. For instance, I am one of Data + Women London’s co-leads and have been since 2020 and helping to run a user group is not only giving back but a great experience & additional network to connect with.
Q: Tell me more about your current role.
A: My current role is the Tableau Enablement Manager at John Lewis Partnership. For the last year and a half since I joined, I’ve been cultivating the Tableau community here and really driving enablement through various initiatives while project managing analysts in the Financial Services space. This new enablement role I’ve started focuses solely on building and maintaining the training program & community for the entire Partnership. I think The Data School really set me up for that because my first placement was at the National Trust and that was where I learned the foundation of what made a good community and I could test out initiatives with ideas from the Data School and see if they work. I think that The Information Lab focuses on how to use community to leverage success and I think that really helps in the current role I'm in.
Advice About The Data School
Q: What advice would you give to individuals considering applying to The Data School?
A: Firstly, it's an incredible opportunity to learn in a fast paced environment so absolutely apply. Secondly, when applying too many people focus on what is “meaningful data” or topics that they think other people are interested in, which is fine. But projects I've seen people excel in the most are data that they themselves are interested in. To a certain extent when applying the data subject is less important than the Tableau visualisation & understanding of said dataset. So therefore, if you're interested in the data, you're going to put an extra effort into it and will want to improve it. For example, for me my Tableau Public visualisations that have gone on to win Tableau’s Viz of the Day are the ones that I’ve been personally invested in & cared most about. I think that if it's interesting to you, you're going to put more of yourself into it and shine a light on your unique spin on the data. So, find the data set that you're interested in, and you can find the story & depth rather than just a bunch of observations, however pretty it may be. And lastly, don’t be afraid of feedback! How you interact with people giving you feedback & actioning that to focus on iteration and improvement of your viz is an often misunderstood part of the first stage. A viz is never really finished so ask your friends, the data community, anyone for feedback and iterate on your initial visualisation!