I know we’re already a few days into the new year, but let me officially say: “Welcome to 2016 from InterWorks! THE FUTURE IS NOW!” Unfortunately, we didn’t get real hoverboards this past year like “Back to the Future Part II” prophesied (we got these instead), nor did my Cubbies win the World Series (though they came close to getting there), but 2015 was a great year all the same.

Of course, with every year’s beginning comes the inevitable flurry of New Year’s resolutions. Having reflected on the previous year, we all outline lofty goals for the coming year to improve our lives. Sure, some (if not most) of us have already broken these resolutions, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep striving towards them.

On that topic, we thought we would join in the spirit of the new year by asking some of our BI consultants what their “data resolutions” are for the coming year. Some of their resolutions are broad while others are very specific. Some involve strengthening specific skills while others involve outreach. Whatever they may be, we think that these goals are pretty solid across the board. And if you know our consultants, then you know that their commitment to achieving these goals will be pretty strong.

So, without further ado, here are some of our data resolutions for 2016:

“Get better at Tableau Server.” – Nicholas Laurenti

“Explore data from other industries.” – Katie Fontenot 

“Get more involved with Tableau user groups.” – Chris Sanders, Derrick Austin, Anthony Ball

“Get more into code-based web visualizations.” – Robert Rouse

“Start up a TUG for the Central Arkansas area. It is a Tableau-rich region but has little in the way of community groups or peer support.” – Tom McCullough

“Move more companies from just being consumers of data to truly collaborating and making decisions around their data.” – Ben Bausili

“Try to understand the why and the what more since I’ve spent a lot of time the past few years concentrating on the how.” – Ken McBride

“Coming up with plain language to better explain high-level concepts and goals. Thinking bigger in the realm of BI.” – Nayeem Ahmed 

“I’m going to try to post more regularly on @histogramsofinstagram.” – Zack Gorman

“Be more active posting to Tableau Public, doing so once a month.” – Mitch Bond

“Researching a way we can easily do weather vizzes and incorporate them into billable work for our clients.” – Cody Crouch

“I’m actively working on Python for data science, and a goal of mine is to soon be competitive in the Kaggle predictive modeling competitions. Also, I’m going to develop my first Android app this year, so I’m cranking out some serious programming learning in 2016. Additionally, I’m working through an ‘open data science’ master’s curriculum online. I’m an addict.” – Elliott Stam

My data resolution? To really dig deeper into Tableau and create some fun, informative vizzes along the way. I’m intrigued by data journalism and want to bring more of that to the InterWorks blog this year. Since I am but a humble marketer, I feel like this is a nice goal that will help me work towards understanding data better. 

What are your data resolutions for 2016? Let us know in the comments!