When we released Tableau Public to the world over three years ago, our goal was to help people share publicly available data on the web. Well, people have been doing just that, and now we’d like to take a moment to celebrate their work.

Heck, instead of just a moment, we’ll make it a full week. We’re declaring this week the “Week of the Author”.

Here’s what we have teed up for this week, and how you can get involved:

If you’re already an author, update your own profile by following the simple instructions included in the slideshare at the bottom of this blog post. It should be pretty self-explanatory, but we put together the slides just in case you would prefer a guided tour. Tweet a link to your profile including “#MyTableauPublic” and we’ll choose 5 impressive author profiles to showcase to the world this coming Friday (and to send an awesome Tableau t-shirt!) Participate in our latest contest by visualizing social media data and enter to win a trip to TCC13 “See more by this author”: Author bylines are now turned on so you can click the link at the bottom of every published visualization and see that author’s best work Visit our blog this week to read about amazing authors from around the world, starting with a six-pack of interviews with an award-winning group

I'm excited about this week for a couple reasons. As an author myself, I've always appreciated what I've been able to learn from other authors. This week I'll learn even more as we feature the work of talented individuals from around the world. As a member of the team here at Tableau, I'm excited that we're beginning a new phase in the life of Tableau Public; a phase in which exploring the world of data visualization becomes much easier.

As we begin this new phase, I'd like to reiterate a few key points about how we have designed the controls for the first iteration of author profiles:

You can personalize your profile header , including adding an image via Gravatar, adding information about you and links to your sites

, including adding an image via Gravatar, adding information about you and links to your sites You can decide to hide or show any workbook in your profile

in your profile You can decide to hide or show the byline for any visualization

for any visualization For new workbooks you publish going forward, you can change the default to hide the thumbnail from your profile until you go in and elect to show it

Your profile belongs to you, so we want to give you as much control over how it looks as possible. Our goal is to enable you to shine a spotlight on your best work.

Here's how you can do that:

We’d love to know what you think, and if you have a suggestion about how we can make author profiles even better, leave a suggestion in our Ideas section. We have more features planned, so your input will help us prioritize our development efforts going forward.

Thanks for reading, and a huge thanks to all Tableau Public authors out there who have pushed the data visualization movement forward with their great work.

Ben