Learning Excel By Building

Learning Excel By Building

Every day someone new is thrown into a data-driven/Excel situation and they don't know where to start. So, they flail, panic, curse, pray and beg, and either figure it out or they don't figure it out. I wondered, "what might a better introduction look like?" Teaching...

read more
More Excel Videos in 2016

More Excel Videos in 2016

As we move forward in 2016 you will see a lot more video from me and fewer long-form blogposts.  As 2015 closed there was a stretch where I'd uploaded 5 videos over 2 weeks. That level of production has never happened over the 5-ish years of this blog. One thing that...

read more
Beware the Octopus Spreadsheet

Beware the Octopus Spreadsheet

So many spreadsheets require basic math, but poor layout makes a spreadsheet unnecessarily complicated and brittle. They don't need sophisticated dashboards, forecasts, statistical analysis, or connections to a database. They just need to perform basic tasks like:...

read more
Mo & the Bull Named Gnarly Data

Mo & the Bull Named Gnarly Data

My friend Mo works in the areas of branding and marketing. He text messaged me over the weekend, but I didn't see it until about 5 hours after he'd sent the message. He was asking if I had a second to go over some Excel stuff with him. By the time we did talk on the...

read more
30 Years of Excel

30 Years of Excel

This week Microsoft Excel celebrates its 30th birthday and there's a lot going on. Over at the Contextures blog, Excel MVP Debra Dalgleish sent out a general call for people to submit their early memories of Excel. This week she will be posting the stories. So, put...

read more