From Data Extraction to Business Insights with Dan Murray

I’m a long-time reader of the blogs at Interworks.com. One of those writers is Dan Murray, their Director of Strategic Innovation. I was fortunate to meet Dan at a Quantrix conference. During this conversation we talk data extraction, ETL strategies, data infrastructure, and Tableau.

The Big Ideas from Dan Murray

Who is Dan Murray?

• Former financial analyst, controller, CFO, CIO, and numerous other senior leadership positions
• Currently the Director of Strategic Innovation at Interworks
• Author
• Former Tableau Zen Master

Dan’s First Data and BI Project

• Believed data extraction and analysis was more critical than a new ERP solution
• Wanted to hire Stephen Few, but he recommended Tableau
• Dan did his first project using a trial version of the software

Tableau Wanted to Learn More about Dan’s Project

• Spoke at a Tableau conference when about 150 were in attendance (by 2019, that count swelled to more than 20,000)
• Met the Tableau founders
• Founders didn’t just want to know what Dan did, but why
• They listened for more than an hour
• Today, Dan knows this is a company going places – they had a brilliant idea and their innovations were far ahead of the market

Transitioning from Accounting and Finance to Data and BI Tools

Dan was already used to data extraction from accounting and various operation systems in his first jobs in the M&A and buyout spaces. While he held numerous management and senior leadership positions over a 24-year period, all of his roles had a strong data bent.

The Tail That Wags the Dog

• When customers see Tableau they want it immediately
• Dan clarifies they need data that is accurate, complete, and fast – then the dashboarding comes next – this process takes effort
• A decade ago, this process was slower and more expensive
• From raw to cleansed data – a faster process at a far lower cost
• Big companies could always afford these implementations – now small and mid-sized businesses can afford these solutions

And Tableau is kind of the tail that wags the dog. It’s the end result that the C-level team says, ‘Oh, I want that,’ but then they don’t understand all the parts before it that you need to get in place to really do it effectively.

Dan Murray

The Snowflake IPO

• Dan was already hyping Snowflake well before the IPO
• Snowflake will become a household name similar to Amazon Cloud Services
• Unique pricing model – two parts – storage and compute time
• Snowflake data markets

… process improvement, which starts with good data – all good business decisions happen when you have better information to make them with. There’s some gut and instinct involved, but instincts are usually better when you have data.

Dan Murray

What about QliK?

• “Qlik is the is the new-old BI.”
• Qlik was an innovator in its day and it disrupted the market
• What Qlik did in the 90s was build a better way to do the old model with centralized control
• Qlik had a very good extract engine and it performed well in the pre-Tableau years
• But the Tableau model was different – you can connect to anything – and they make it fast and easy

What Happens After a Successful Implementation?

• Training
• Hotline availability
• Server health checks
• Continued engagement with buyers to ensure ROI is achieved and exceeded

Data Viz Literacy Training

• Stephen Few is a starting point of Perceptual Edge
• Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic
• Start with sprints with existing, easy-to-extract data

Dan’s Three Types of Data Analysis

1. Recurring analysis
2. Question-based analysis
3. Ad-hoc analysis which is the hardest, an art that even many data viz users are lacking

Influencers Dan Admires

1. Stephen Few
2. Steven Johnson (any book of his)
3. Ben Zander

Dan’s Booklist

Innovation / Creative Thinking / Learning / Trade

1. Where Good Ideas Come From, Stephen Johnson
2. The Ghost Map, Stephen Johnson
3. The Rational Optimist, Matt Ridley
4. How Innovation Works, Matt Ridley
5. More From Less, Andrew McAfee and Nature Rebounds by Jesse Ausubel
6. The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman
7. Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Daniel Dennett
8. The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday
9. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn
10. The Art of Possibility, Rosamund and Benjamin Zander
11. Orbiting the Giant Hairball, Gorden McKenzie

Fiction

1. Cryptonomicon, Zeal Stephenson
2. Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
3. The Martian, Andy Weir

Dan Murray’s E-Book and Reading Systems

1. Kindle and iBooks for reading
2. Readwise for highlights and notes capture (books are articles)
3. Pocket for article highlights
4. Notion for aggregating Readwise/book/articles along topical lines

Parting Words for Dan

Dan, keep writing, keep talking, and keep inspiring.

Image Attribution: All photos provided by Dan Murray and used with permission.