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# Highlights From The Visual Organization Book Tour
- URL: https://www.philsimon.com/highlights-visual-organization-book-tour/
- Published: 2014-04-03T22:44:54.000Z
- Updated: 2025-07-05T01:35:48.000Z
- Description: Thoughts on four days of talking about the book.
- Author: Phil Simon
- Tags: Big Data, Dataviz, Rush, Startups, The Visual Organization

I'm sitting in [SFO](https://www.flysfo.com/?ref=philsimon.com) with a few hours to kill. A little while ago, I concluded the last gig on my San Francisco [tour](https://bit.ly/1btRSyq?ref=philsimon.com) for *The Visual Organization*. By all accounts, it was a very successful four days. All in all, I gave nine talks at the following places:

1. **Autodesk** \- I saw my first 3D printer in person and generally speaking geeked out on the second floor. What amazing designs!
2. **Netflix** \- Two words: [Tech Emmy](https://emmyonline.com/tech?ref=philsimon.com). See selfie in slideshow below. The hosts also gave me some very cool swag.
3. **Tableau** \- Right before speaking, I received without question the best news of the tour: Tableau purchased quite a few books. It was the second largest order of books of my writing career. Bulk sales rule.
4. **eBay** \- Before going on, I was able to speak to some folks making the magic happen at eBay. Theory is fine, but being able to learn from people putting ideas into practice never disappoints.
5. **CMU Silicon Valley Campus** \- Fantastic campus and very smart cookies. I like to say that if you're the smartest one in the room, you're in the wrong room.
6. **CollabWorks** \- By this point, I was really warmed up. This might have been my best talk of the tour. I finally met CMU alumni Terri Griffith and Andrew Karpie in person.
7. **Trifacta** \- Excellent new digs. We set some type of record for number of Apple doohickeys required to make a presentation work.
8. **Platfora** \- Fantastic Q&A and a slew of copies of the book to sign. Very hip workplace with amazing data visualizations on the walls. While most startups sport the obligatory ping pong table, Platfora one-ups them with an actual gong.

## Data

Here are a few numbers from the tour:

- **Total events:** 9
- **Lectures:** 7
- **Interviews:** 2
- **Books signed:** 132
- **Number of talks in which I mentioned *Breaking Bad*:** 7
- **Tomatoes thrown:** 0 (always a good sign)

## Misc.

I also got to meet up with [Datahero](https://www.datahero.com/?ref=philsimon.com) founder Chris Neumann for drinks and an interesting talk about, well, data stuff. Finally, my hotel sported a #Rush door sign (see slideshow). I, er, *borrowed* that for home.

Here are some pics:

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/8f/b5/8fb5e321-49a6-4cf5-8a28-c6f6d5417e54/content/images/2025/05/netflix-6.jpg)

To watch the Netflix talk, click below:

This was an unexpected highlight:

![](https://i.imgur.com/4DaTBfT.jpg)

Click image to embiggen it.

  
Finally, thank you to all of the companies and people who helped make the tour happen.