At the recent Tableau Customer Conference (more on this later) one of the many excellent sessions I sat in on was Tips and Tricks From The Wild.

Last up was the Tableau jedi, Joe Mako (@joemako or on Google+). Within the Tableau community Joe is famed and respected for his ability to see straight to the heart of a problem and work out the shortest route to it. When, at the very end of his session someone (I think it was Tom Brown – @_tombrown_ also on Google+) asked him how did he this I was intrigued to hear what Joe would say.

When I tweeted Joe’s great answer, Noah Iliinsky (@noahi) was kind enough to contribute saying he would add ‘know your audience’ to the list. I couldn’t agree more.

So here you have it. If you want to be quick and effective at delivering meaningful, accessible and above all relevant data for people just follow these four pointers.

• know your data structure
• know what you want to achieve
• know how to use Tableau
• know your audience