8 ms·

Every new hire gets to watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c) then we go through daily Excel

Every new hire gets to watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c) then we go through daily Excel tips and tricks until they're comfortable with it. I know Excel is not the right tool for everyone or everything, but the amount of useful work you can get done quickly IF you know a few basic Excel text manipulation functions is crazy. I even have an Excel spreadsheet that helps me solve Wordle.

cartoonfoxes 4y ago
>Every new hire In what industry?
- cgranier 4y ago
  At the time we were doing online video distribution, which went from ingesting content from traditional sources (betacam, film, etc), editing, preparing distribution-ready videos, create metadata, upload to various systems... all the way to social media campaigns, etc. Where/how does Excel knowledge factor into this? Well, we managed a lot of data, mostly (but not only) CSV files. It's very useful to learn a few text manipulation functions in Excel when creating CSV files with sequential and or repetitive content (think TV episodes, etc). Or creating several flavors of CSV for each platform. Yes, a database backend with smart exporting functions might work well, but sometimes fast beats perfect, especially for one-off jobs. Uploading thousands of videos into YouTube was much quicker with one or two CSV files. By learning some basic Excel, everyone was able to minimize errors and maximize output. What else could we do with Excel? We could export XML files of our video edits from Premiere/FinalCut Pro, run them through a script into Excel and immediately get a report showing all the editing errors that still needed fixing (we had to edit the videos in a very particular way). This alone saved sooooo much time. Interestingly enough, we were also able to identify individual editors by the mistakes they made (it seems each one had a particular quirk). I also ran the entire digitizing project in an Excel file, complete with burn charts and velocity calculations. Over the years, I've received calls from every one of my employees, now on with their lives in other jobs, and one thing they're always grateful for are the Excel lessons. And once you learn the logic behind building Excel functions and spreadsheets it opens your mind to other uses or more programming skills. It's much easier to teach someone the power of a few choice Excel functions than to teach them Python from scratch. Plus you can see their eyes light up immediately. Fun times.
rubslopes 4y ago
I once read somewhere, maybe here: "If I were to choose a single software to use for the rest of my life, it'd be Excel". I agree with that.
- hulitu 4y ago
  ... until all your numbers become dates.
  - aloisdg 4y ago
    ... or until all your molecules become dates.
    - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
      Why do I remember awk with that story?
  - dugmartin 4y ago
    Or all your zip codes with leading zeros get silently truncated.
    - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
      Or until all your 16 digit IDs get truncated...
  - SantalBlush 4y ago
    Or until your empty cells aren't truly empty, so you can't count the nonempty cells.
    - hef19898 4y ago
      That reminds of a jokester who replaced all empty cells in small spread sheet with a space. Good lick figuring out why your 5 row table all of a sudden was in the giga bytes of size (obvious exageration for dramatic reasons). Was a good practical joke so!
bachmeier 4y ago
Excel is great until it isn't. As one example, I've had grad students tell me about a surprising result they found when they did some simple descriptive statistics in Excel. When I ask them to show me, or to check something else, they can't replicate their finding. Then the inevitable "Oh, I grabbed the wrong column" or some such after ten minutes of playing around with it. The thing that makes Excel convenient but dangerous is the lack of guardrails.
- conductr 4y ago
  I know there are better ways but this can/should be seen as part of the learning curve with Excel. The guardrail was seeing "surprising results" they should have known to double check their steps, see if they could recreate it, etc. before showing it to you. Not sure how you handle this but some times it's a hard lesson to learn. Eg. I've seen people convince a public company executives to do strategy X based on analysis Y. Then when things aren't going as promised I get asked to review the strategy, I might find some elaborate model where somewhere deep in the layers of math/logic/lookups, someone divided instead of multiplied or something like that. They then have egg on their face, the strategy may have been implemented already, and I usually have the uncomfortable job of explaining to management why the projections were off and the strategy is probably doomed in terms of reaching the expected outcomes (basically throwing somebody else under the bus due to an innocent math error). I see this so much in my job, it's actually routine for me or my team to review any numbers the company management will see before they see it because of things like this.
  - TeMPOraL 4y ago
    > Eg. I've seen people convince a public company executives to do strategy X based on analysis Y. Then when things aren't going as promised I get asked to review the strategy, I might find some elaborate model where somewhere deep in the layers of math/logic/lookups, someone divided instead of multiplied or something like that. Is it Excel-specific though? I've made these kinds of errors with Excel (though not with stakes this high). I've also made them a lot when doing math on paper. And I've also made them in C++, Common Lisp, Matlab, Python, R and JavaScript. Now, with those other tools, it's easier to spot an error in a formula on review - but in Excel, it's easier to spot the intermediary results being off, so it's a wash. I think the thing to learn is to be more careful, to sanity-check intermediary calculations; these kinds of errors are about being momentarily confused, and will happen regardless of the tool you use.
somat 4y ago
I think of Excel as great at prototyping stuff. At some point it is better to move your project to a more formal system and leave the warts and limitations of Excel behind. if your project is data heavy this will be a relational database. if your project is logic heavy this will be a programing language.
- cgranier 4y ago
  Exactly. But it is crazy how far you can take Excel (and even Google Sheets) with the proper organization.

cartoonfoxes 4y ago

>Every new hire In what industry?

cgranier 4y ago
At the time we were doing online video distribution, which went from ingesting content from traditional sources (betacam, film, etc), editing, preparing distribution-ready videos, create metadata, upload to various systems... all the way to social media campaigns, etc. Where/how does Excel knowledge factor into this? Well, we managed a lot of data, mostly (but not only) CSV files. It's very useful to learn a few text manipulation functions in Excel when creating CSV files with sequential and or repetitive content (think TV episodes, etc). Or creating several flavors of CSV for each platform. Yes, a database backend with smart exporting functions might work well, but sometimes fast beats perfect, especially for one-off jobs. Uploading thousands of videos into YouTube was much quicker with one or two CSV files. By learning some basic Excel, everyone was able to minimize errors and maximize output. What else could we do with Excel? We could export XML files of our video edits from Premiere/FinalCut Pro, run them through a script into Excel and immediately get a report showing all the editing errors that still needed fixing (we had to edit the videos in a very particular way). This alone saved sooooo much time. Interestingly enough, we were also able to identify individual editors by the mistakes they made (it seems each one had a particular quirk). I also ran the entire digitizing project in an Excel file, complete with burn charts and velocity calculations. Over the years, I've received calls from every one of my employees, now on with their lives in other jobs, and one thing they're always grateful for are the Excel lessons. And once you learn the logic behind building Excel functions and spreadsheets it opens your mind to other uses or more programming skills. It's much easier to teach someone the power of a few choice Excel functions than to teach them Python from scratch. Plus you can see their eyes light up immediately. Fun times.

rubslopes 4y ago

I once read somewhere, maybe here: "If I were to choose a single software to use for the rest of my life, it'd be Excel". I agree with that.

hulitu 4y ago
... until all your numbers become dates.
- aloisdg 4y ago
  ... or until all your molecules become dates.
  - 2Gkashmiri 4y ago
    Why do I remember awk with that story?
- dugmartin 4y ago
  Or all your zip codes with leading zeros get silently truncated.
  - disgruntledphd2 4y ago
    Or until all your 16 digit IDs get truncated...
- SantalBlush 4y ago
  Or until your empty cells aren't truly empty, so you can't count the nonempty cells.
  - hef19898 4y ago
    That reminds of a jokester who replaced all empty cells in small spread sheet with a space. Good lick figuring out why your 5 row table all of a sudden was in the giga bytes of size (obvious exageration for dramatic reasons). Was a good practical joke so!

bachmeier 4y ago

Excel is great until it isn't. As one example, I've had grad students tell me about a surprising result they found when they did some simple descriptive statistics in Excel. When I ask them to show me, or to check something else, they can't replicate their finding. Then the inevitable "Oh, I grabbed the wrong column" or some such after ten minutes of playing around with it. The thing that makes Excel convenient but dangerous is the lack of guardrails.

conductr 4y ago
I know there are better ways but this can/should be seen as part of the learning curve with Excel. The guardrail was seeing "surprising results" they should have known to double check their steps, see if they could recreate it, etc. before showing it to you. Not sure how you handle this but some times it's a hard lesson to learn. Eg. I've seen people convince a public company executives to do strategy X based on analysis Y. Then when things aren't going as promised I get asked to review the strategy, I might find some elaborate model where somewhere deep in the layers of math/logic/lookups, someone divided instead of multiplied or something like that. They then have egg on their face, the strategy may have been implemented already, and I usually have the uncomfortable job of explaining to management why the projections were off and the strategy is probably doomed in terms of reaching the expected outcomes (basically throwing somebody else under the bus due to an innocent math error). I see this so much in my job, it's actually routine for me or my team to review any numbers the company management will see before they see it because of things like this.
- TeMPOraL 4y ago
  > Eg. I've seen people convince a public company executives to do strategy X based on analysis Y. Then when things aren't going as promised I get asked to review the strategy, I might find some elaborate model where somewhere deep in the layers of math/logic/lookups, someone divided instead of multiplied or something like that. Is it Excel-specific though? I've made these kinds of errors with Excel (though not with stakes this high). I've also made them a lot when doing math on paper. And I've also made them in C++, Common Lisp, Matlab, Python, R and JavaScript. Now, with those other tools, it's easier to spot an error in a formula on review - but in Excel, it's easier to spot the intermediary results being off, so it's a wash. I think the thing to learn is to be more careful, to sanity-check intermediary calculations; these kinds of errors are about being momentarily confused, and will happen regardless of the tool you use.

somat 4y ago

I think of Excel as great at prototyping stuff. At some point it is better to move your project to a more formal system and leave the warts and limitations of Excel behind. if your project is data heavy this will be a relational database. if your project is logic heavy this will be a programing language.

cgranier 4y ago
Exactly. But it is crazy how far you can take Excel (and even Google Sheets) with the proper organization.