Meet the DataFam #9: Felicia Styer
Pre-Tableau Conference Series
I’m getting into the Conference Season spirit, and I am ready to celebrate the amazing Tableau community with some new Meet the DataFam guests!
Think of this forthcoming spate of posts as, like, speed networking. A bit shorter than in the past, with less of my commentary. (I mean, maybe. Sometimes I cannot help myself.) Read the archives here.
📊 DataFam, meet Felicia Styer!
🗺️ Where are you from originally?
St Louis! More specifically Soulard, the historic neighborhood near downtown that hosts Mardi Gras and Bastille Day celebrations.
A little trip over to Wikipedia paid off — Soulard’s history is fascinating. It’s also the home of the oldest farmer’s market west of the Mississippi.
📍Where do you live now?
Kansas City, MO
Where do you work?
I’m on the analytics solutions team of Playfair Data. If you need Tableau training or consulting we can help!
Do you have any pets?
This is Stella! She’s a 13-year-old Chow mix, and I’ve had her since graduating college. Her favorite nap spots include my office, the stairs, and the deck.
If you had to choose a different career path, what would it be? Why?
I enjoy consulting because of the novelty and complexity of projects. If I had to do something else, I think data journalism would share those factors.
What piece of career advice would you give to your younger self?
My first data job didn’t pay me a living wage — and it took me 3 years to start looking for a new role! You don’t owe loyalty to any organization that pays you less than market rate.
Team Table Calculations or LODs?
What is your favorite Quick Table Calculation and why?
INDEX()! It’s secretly the heart of every table calculation. If you get good at using INDEX(), the “Compute Using’” settings become a lot less confusing. I use it to build grids, filter views, count records, and troubleshoot table calculations.
Have you received any certifications, honors, or accolades you’d like to share or feel especially proud of?
I’m incredibly honored to be a 2024 Tableau Visionary!
Which community challenges do you regularly participate in? How do you interact with the DataFam?
I started using Tableau in 2016, and participating in Makeover Monday and #WorkoutWednesday were pillars of my Tableau education. In 2020, I started answering Tableau questions on Reddit and Twitter. This evolved into the Tableau Question of the Day in December 2022, and then Tableau 365 in 2023.
Right now I’m participating in the Data Visualization Society Mentorship program and I’m taking Binoculars to Binomials — a class about birding and JavaScript data visualization. This is eating up a lot of my free time, but you can always tag or DM me with your Tableau question and I’ll help if I can.
How can others find out more about your work?
You can find links to my portfolio and professional social media here.
I use the handle graph_hopper on most sites with this avatar.
