Podcasts about vlookup

Level up your skills with powerful lookup formulas.Quick Tech TalkWith Steve YossCPE TodayFor professionals wrestling with massive datasets, finding specific information in Excel can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. Whether it's a customer ID, transaction number, or check number, pinpointing related details like totals, names, or dates can be daunting without the right tools. Enter Excel's powerful lookup formulas.MORE STEVE YOSSMORE TECHExclusively for PRO Members. Log in here or upgrade to PRO today.Among the trio of essential lookup functions—VLOOKUP, INDEX-MATCH, and the modern XLOOKUP—the latter emerges as the star. While VLOOKUP and INDEX-MATCH have long been staples for data retrieval, XLOOKUP combines their strengths with enhanced features, offering users a faster, more versatile solution.

Welcome to another insightful episode of Oh for Foods Sake. Today, we're tackling the multifaceted nature of creativity in the food industry, inspired by Arne Dietrich's quadrant model. Lucy introduces the model featuring four types: deliberate-cognitive, deliberate-emotional, spontaneous-cognitive, and spontaneous-emotional creativity.Amy explains that creativity is not limited to artists and musicians but can also be expressed through methodical problem-solving, like using a VLOOKUP in Excel. We illustrate deliberate-cognitive creativity through the example of developing a health-focused food product called "Supernatural's." This type of creativity builds on existing knowledge and carefully iterates towards innovative solutions.Moving on to deliberate-emotional creativity, we discuss how major events like COVID-19 shifted consumer behaviour and drove the creation of nostalgic products. We emphasise the importance of emotional engagement and empathy in developing products that resonate with consumers.Spontaneous-cognitive creativity, known for its "Eureka" moments, is exemplified through stories like the invention of the microwave. Despite appearing serendipitous, these discoveries often rest on a solid foundation of existing knowledge that allows for sudden, innovative connections.Finally, we cover spontaneous-emotional creativity, the type most associated with artists and chefs. We share techniques to unlock this creativity, such as engaging in art or dance classes, and highlight the importance of allowing mental space for ideas to emerge organically.Throughout the episode, we emphasise that everyone has the potential to be creative in their unique way and we encourage listeners to tap into their inherent creativity by exploring different approaches and giving themselves the space and permission to innovate.Timestamps:0:00 – Introduction to the Episode1:19 – Explanation of Arne Dietrich's Quadrant Model2:08 – Deliberate and Cognitive Creativity3:30 – Example: Developing "Supernatural's"5:01 – The Importance of Iteration in Creativity6:37 – Using Data and Gap Analysis in Creativity7:23 – Deliberate and Emotional Creativity8:01 – Consumer Behaviour Changes During COVID-199:00 – Spontaneous and Cognitive Creativity10:11 – Example: The Invention of the Microwave12:12 – Spontaneous and Emotional Creativity13:17 – Unlocking Creativity Through Extracurricular Activities14:10 – The Neuroscience of Creativity15:30 – Methods to Foster Creativity in Teams16:20 – The Value of Diverse Thinking in Problem-Solving17:30 – Conclusion: Embracing Different Types of CreativityLinks and Resources:Website Link: https://ohforfoodssake.co.uk/FB Link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ohforfoodsakeLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/oh-for-food-s-sake/You can follow us here on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oh_forfoodssake/For industry consulting from Lucy, connect with her on Instagram or LinkedIn.Find her on Instagram or LinkedIn for further support with industry coaching and facilitation from Amy.See you next time!

“I love Excel. It's helped me save so much time over the years, and when I began thinking about Excel more like an employee that I can delegate stuff to, it helped me save an incredible amount of time.” – Jeff LenningThe finer details of this episode:• Strategies for leveraging Excel to improve efficiency• Continuous learning and development in Excel• Common pitfalls and challenges in Excel usage• Mindset shift from "if" to "how" in using Excel• Role of AI in enhancing Excel skills• Structure and offerings of Excel University• Key Excel functions and features for accountants• Real-world applications and case studies using Excel• Importance of presentation skills in Excel reportingEpisode resources:● Summit Virtual CFO by Anders website: https://www.summitcpa.net/● If you have questions or would like to be a guest on the show, email us at mcpasuccessshow@anderscpa.com● Check out the Virtual CFO Playbook Course: https://vcfoplaybook.summitcpa.net/● Connect with Jeff here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefflenning/● Check out Excel University here: https://www.excel-university.com/tipsTimestamps:Introduction to the Episode (00:00:00)Overview of the podcast's mission to provide insights on innovative tools and strategies in accounting.Guest Introduction (00:00:22)Tom introduces Jeff, a Microsoft MVP and founder of Excel University, highlighting his career background.Why Excel University? (00:01:18)Jeff explains his passion for Excel and how it transformed his workflow efficiency.Continuous Improvement in Excel (00:02:27)Discussion on the iterative process of optimizing Excel workbooks for efficiency and accuracy.The "Last Year" Trap (00:04:06)Jeff addresses how accountants often stick to familiar methods without seeking improvements.Mindset Shift in Excel Usage (00:05:53)Jeff shares his approach of asking "how" instead of "if" when automating tasks in Excel.Learning with AI Tools (00:07:00)Jeff discusses the benefits of using AI to enhance Excel skills and troubleshoot formulas.Excel University Experience (00:09:02)Overview of the structured learning approach at Excel University, focusing on sequential knowledge building.Continuing Education Credits (00:11:44)Information on CPE credits offered through Excel University's programs.Focus on Presentation Skills (00:12:11)Discussion on improving both functionality and presentation of Excel reports for better client communication.Charting in Excel (00:14:16)Tom and Jeff discuss the challenges of formatting charts in Excel for effective presentations.Key Excel Functions for Accountants (00:15:25)Jeff highlights essential Excel functions that every accountant should master.Power Query's Benefits (00:16:59)Jeff explains how Power Query automates data processing, saving time and improving efficiency.Real-Time Data Refresh (00:18:07)Benefits of using Excel for live updates during client meetings, enhancing responsiveness.The Impact of Spreadsheets (00:19:01)Discussion on the historical significance of spreadsheets in making personal computers indispensable.Microsoft's Ongoing Investment in Excel (00:19:51)Discussion on Microsoft's continuous updates and new features in Excel.Learning Excel Functions (00:20:17)Importance of learning new Excel functions beyond the basics through courses and online resources.YouTube Channel Promotion (00:20:38)Jeff shares his YouTube channel for quick Excel tips and updates.Searching for Excel Functions (00:21:06)Common issue of not knowing advanced functions like Power Query and XLOOKUP.Benefits of XLOOKUP (00:22:00)Explanation of XLOOKUP as a more resilient alternative to VLOOKUP.Excel University Audience (00:22:28)Overview of diverse student demographics, including CPAs and accounting professors.Student Confidence Boost (00:23:49)Feedback on how Excel training increases students' confidence in interviews.Underestimating Excel's Importance (00:24:33)Discussion on college students' misconceptions about Excel's relevance in their careers.Using Excel for Client Projects (00:25:35)Example of using Excel to model client scenarios and decision-making.Introverts and Problem Solving (00:25:48)Jeff shares his enjoyment of solving problems with Excel as an introvert.Google Sheets vs. Excel (00:26:27)Comparison of Google Sheets and Excel for collaborative work.Sharing Documents in Google Sheets (00:27:39)Discussion on the ease of sharing documents in Google Sheets compared to Excel.Gateway Computers Experience (00:28:25)Jeff reminisces about working at Gateway Computers and its rapid growth.Gateway's Growth Challenges (00:29:28)Stories of Gateway's ongoing expansion and the challenges faced.Excel Training at Gateway (00:31:08)Jeff's initial experience teaching Excel at Gateway's training centers.Role of Excel in Career Progression (00:32:53)Discussion on how various roles contributed to Jeff's Excel expertise.Daily Excel Usage (00:34:38)Jeff explains his daily engagement with Excel and content development.Office Hours Collaboration (00:35:34)The supportive environment of office hours where students share and learn from each other.Learning from Peer Demonstrations (00:36:08)Reflections on how sharing simple Excel techniques can lead to broader learning.Pivot Tables' Impact (00:37:09)Discussion on the transformative power of pivot tables in Excel.Pivot Tables and Formatting (00:38:07)Discussion on the importance of pivot tables and their time-saving formatting features.Power Query Feature (00:38:32)Jeff highlights Power Query as the most impressive Excel feature in the last two decades.Using Tables for Efficiency (00:38:44)Tables help eliminate errors and automatically adjust ranges in Excel functions.Indirect Function Discovery (00:39:12)Tom shares how the INDIRECT function simplified his work with changing templates from multiple countries.Time-Saving with INDIRECT (00:39:52)Tom explains how the INDIRECT function dramatically reduced turnaround time for presenting data.Learning from Excel University (00:40:46)Tom expresses motivation to improve Excel skills and acknowledges the value of Excel University.Time Efficiency Gains (00:41:11)Jeff mentions the significant time efficiency benefits experienced by his students.

Good day, everybody! Brian here from quantlabs.net. In today's episode, we're diving into an often overlooked tool for financial analysis: Microsoft Excel. While many focus on programming and high-frequency trading, Excel provides a powerful platform for non-programmers to conduct financial research and analysis. Get your trading tech books here books2 - QUANTLABS.NET We'll explore various uses of Excel, such as data gathering and cleaning, trend analysis, and fundamental analysis. Learn about essential Excel functions like XNPV, IRR, VLOOKUP, and HLOOKUP, and discover how to leverage Excel's powerful features like Power Query, macros, and add-ins for advanced financial modeling.   Powering Your Research: Using Excel for Financial Analysis - QUANTLABS.NET If you're interested in enhancing your financial analysis skills with Excel, this episode is for you. Plus, don't forget to check out our free trading books and stay updated on our upcoming website changes by joining our email list at quantlabs.net/books. Thanks for tuning in, and have a great day!

On this episode of Industrial Talk, we're onsite at Accruent Insights and chatting with Leonella Bass and Edward Bass about Data Analytics - Solutions to identify and access valuable operational data.  Here are the key takeaways: Industrial IoT security with Palo Alto Networks. 0:00 Palo Alto Networks Industrial IoT Security report analyzes improved ROI and reduced complexity. Leonella provides background on herself and her business, discussing her experience in Venezuela and her love for sequel products. Data standardization and migration. 3:42 Edward describes their experience working in maintenance connection and SQL reporting, and how they helped clients with data standardization and migrations. Edward explains their company's unique approach to mapping fields and assessing asset condition, risk, and maintenance connections. Data analysis and normalization for various systems. 7:38 Stakeholders want to validate data usage and identify areas for improvement in their systems. Leonella: Standardize data from different systems to create a unified view for reporting and decision-making. Leonella: Ensure data accuracy and security by normalizing data from legacy systems and spreadsheets. Improving data accuracy in CMMS with SQL. 12:15 Edward highlights the importance of standardization and reporting in CMMS to identify untrustworthy data and improve accuracy. Edward and Scott MacKenzie discuss the need for a team effort to ensure quality data, involving stakeholders and end users in the process. Leonella discusses data cleaning, mentioning the importance of mapping and standardizing data, as well as the time it takes to complete the process (5 hours). Edward agrees that data cleaning is heavy lifting, but notes that SQL allows for running loops to make the process more efficient. Data efficiency solutions with Team Data Efficiency Solutions. 18:41 Leonella provides geeky insights on data QC and Excel use, with a focus on primary keys and VLOOKUP. Scott MacKenzie thanks listeners for tuning in and invites them to reach out to Leonella and Edward vas for data analytics services. Also, get your exclusive free access to the Industrial Academy and a series on “Why You Need To Podcast” for Greater Success in 2023. All links designed for keeping you current in this rapidly changing Industrial Market. Learn! Grow! Enjoy! LEONELLA BASS' CONTACT INFORMATION: Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leonella-bass-crl-13633aa9/ EDWARD BASS' CONTACT INFORMATION: Personal LinkedIn: 

What's up everyone, today we have the pleasure of chatting with the profoundly eloquent Juan Mendoza.Summary: Juan unpacks the unique journey of OpenAI, underscoring the importance of distinguishing between tech hype and real value. As AI intertwines with our lives, Juan highlights the delicate dance of harnessing its efficiency while preserving human creativity. He calls for a critical balance in using AI as a creative aid without stunting our own creative prowess. Amid the benefits, Juan also raises crucial questions about trust and privacy, advocating for marketers to use AI responsibly. Ultimately, this episode reaffirms the need to thoughtfully navigate AI's limitless potential while upholding our fundamental human values and ethics.About Juan Juan is based in Melbourne, Australia where he got his start in various roles including startup marketing, martech strategy and conversion rate optimization.   He spent 4 years at The Lumery, a premier Martech consulting shop where he worked on customer centric strategies across various channels. In 2020, he started the Martech Weekly, a newsletter covering where the industry is going and why. He's also the host of the Making Sense of Martech podcast, an extension of his newsletter One podcast and a newsletter isn't enough for Juan though, in 2022 he teamed up with Scott Brinker and started the Big Martech show covering big news and big ideas in Martech 4 months after launching a premium subscription and growing his newsletter to thousands of martech pros over 65 countries, Juan decided to go full-time on TMW  Recently he announced TMW 100 – a global Martech awards event ranking the most innovative marketing technology companies from 1st to 100th place The OpenAI Approach: Laser-Focus and High-Quality Language ModelsJuan underscored the significance of OpenAI's niche focus and dedication to developing large-scale language models. Unlike big tech giants—Google, Amazon, Meta and others—who spread their resources and attention over various types of AI technologies, OpenAI chose a distinct path. They concentrated all their efforts on building transformative generative models like GPT-3 and GPT-4, which set the groundwork for the success of ChatGPT.Juan suggested that OpenAI's edge lies in their extreme focus, patience, and funding. Established as a Silicon Valley tech company, OpenAI was backed by tech tycoons like Elon Musk and Microsoft, as well as some of the world's largest venture capital firms. However, OpenAI's goal differed. They weren't trying to distribute AI across various services and products. Instead, they strived to create something unique and powerful—a tool that could manipulate language with an unprecedented level of precision.Juan further highlighted how OpenAI's technology feels “magical” compared to competitors. For instance, Google's BERT, although an impressive model, doesn't meet the same level of accuracy as ChatGPT. Moreover, it ‘hallucinates'—generates incorrect or nonsensical outputs—significantly more often than ChatGPT.Juan also reminded us of the chatbot craze of 2016, which, despite the hype, resulted in less-than-stellar customer experiences. Fast forward to today, the launch of GPT-based models has reinvigorated the chatbot space, breathing new life into the industry. The key difference? An AI agent that can actually provide intelligent, useful responses.Takeaway: OpenAI's specific concentration on creating large, high-quality language models, backed by extreme patience and funding, was pivotal in their success story. Their dedication to a niche allowed them to develop an AI that is more accurate and less likely to hallucinate than its competitors. This focus transformed the realm of chat interfaces, redefining the future of AI agents and encouraging a fresh wave of startups to build on this advanced technology.The Adoption Race: Comparing ChatGPT and Snapchat's AI Tools Juan's analysis of the rapid spread of ChatGPT brought fascinating insights. He cited how ChatGPT became one of the fastest-growing apps globally, reaching a million users in merely five days. This impressive rate outpaced even Instagram and TikTok's growth, both of which took weeks to months to reach the same number of users. He attributed this meteoric rise to the simple yet brilliant user experience, which only required users to create an account and start chatting.However, Juan posed an interesting counter-argument, comparing ChatGPT's growth with the newly launched AI tool by Snapchat—Snap AI. Despite being on the market for only two months, Snap AI already boasts 125 million users and over 10 billion messages sent. It reached 100 million users faster than ChatGPT, achieving the feat in just two months compared to ChatGPT's four to five months.Juan speculated on the factors driving Snap AI's rapid growth, posing two possibilities. One might be the timing—Snap AI could be riding the wave of excitement and acceptance generated by GPT-based technology. Another potential factor could be a generational shift, with younger users flocking to the more AI-enhanced environments provided by platforms like Snapchat.Takeaway: While ChatGPT has been a massive success, becoming one of the fastest-growing apps globally, other AI tools, like Snap AI, are rising quickly in the adoption race. The rapid growth of these platforms may be due to a combination of riding the AI hype cycle and a generational shift towards AI-enhanced environments. It is a reminder that, in the ever-evolving AI space, being first to market doesn't always mean you'll be the fastest-growing or most widely adopted solution.The Metaverse, AI and the Hype Cycle: A Critical AnalysisJuan expressed his concerns about the hype cycle surrounding emerging technologies like AI, the metaverse, and web 3.0. He opined that such hype cycles often lead to exhaustion, especially among senior individuals who are tired of constant pitches for the “next big thing.”Juan cited an example where he was at a conference and representatives from Meta and an advertising agency were zealously promoting the metaverse. According to him, they were pushing marketers to prepare for the metaverse, without critically analyzing why it should be included in their marketing strategies in the first place.Juan also expressed disappointment in certain consultancy companies for their uncritical acceptance of Mark Zuckerberg's vision for the metaverse. McKinsey, Accenture, and Bloomberg were among those criticized by Juan for their generous predictions of the metaverse's economic impact, without rigorous analysis of the feasibility and practical implementation of this new trend.Contrasting this with the iPhone, Juan pointed out that it took five years for the iPhone to reach mass consumer market penetration, despite it being recognized as one of the most significant shifts in consumer experiences, software development, and mobile technology. Thus, according to Juan, hype without actual products often leads to a dead end.Juan drew parallels between the hype cycle and trading Pokemon cards phenomenon among young people, explaining that interest in such things peaks feverishly for a short period and then fizzles out (but sometimes comes back years later haha). However, Juan's outlook on generative AI (Gen AI) was different. Unlike other trends, Gen AI is not just a promise or a dream; it's a functional product with tangible utility that people can use today. Takeaway: Hype cycles are a common phenomenon in the technology sector. However, it's crucial to differentiate between hype and genuine transformative potential. According to Juan, while many trends emerge and fade without substantial product backing, generative AI stands out as a functional, usable reality today, differentiating it from the likes of the metaverse and web 3.0.Discerning the Transformative from the Hype in MartechIn the midst of all the noise and hype in the world of marketing technology, Juan offered a profound perspective. The tech landscape is indeed inundated with individuals and companies promoting their courses or products. However, Juan emphasized the importance of dissecting the hype to understand the genuinely transformative impact of a new technology or trend.He compared the situation to a car accident on the highway. Humans are innately curious, and if something interesting is happening, it's in our nature to slow down and look. That's exactly how hype works. It's easy to get sucked into the fervor, especially if everyone else seems to be focusing on it. However, he cautioned listeners to critically analyze these situations, despite the allure.Juan discussed two key elements that usually indicate whether a trend is worth paying attention to or not: Platform Shift: He noted that many impactful trends have a device shift or platform shift inherent in them. From mainframes to personal computers, fiber optic cables to the internet, and smartphones to wearables, these shifts serve as a cornerstone of the transformative power of technology. The same can be said for marketing, where tangible devices intermediate most of what we do. Growth and Adoption: The next factor Juan emphasized is the significance of hard growth numbers. True adoption by the masses is a reliable testament to a technology's potential for lasting influence. To illustrate this, he mentioned ChatGPT that despite its speedy growth, its real value can be witnessed when it's used by the broadest spectrum of users, including those who are not necessarily tech-savvy. Juan also warned against misinterpreting growth based on financial speculation as an indicator of actual usage and value. Drawing an example from Web 3.0, he pointed out that many companies that showed impressive growth were primarily fuelled by financial speculation, rather than real utility.To conclude, Juan suggested a simple yet effective question for those caught in the hype of a new trend: does it genuinely help people? If a technology makes lives better, alleviates suffering, or creates real and tangible economic opportunity, it has the potential to be truly transformative. It is this ethos of creating value that distinguishes the lasting impact of the internet and similar technology.Takeaway: It's important to dissect the hype surrounding new tech trends and critically analyze their underlying value. Remember to consider if there's a significant platform shift and whether the growth numbers reflect genuine mass adoption. Above all, consider if the trend genuinely helps people, offering real and tangible value. Juan's message is clear – think critically and don't merely jump on the hype train.Dehumanization: Balancing AI's Efficiency Gains with Retaining Human ElementsJuan examined the dichotomy of Gen AI—its propensity to both simplify our lives and, ironically, dehumanize them. Juan tackled a hard-hitting question about the balance between maximizing the efficiency gains from AI while retaining human elements in work and society.Juan started by acknowledging the fear many have about AI, what he termed “AI Doomerism.” As he pointed out, the fear that AI will somehow bring about the end of the world is nothing new, and has been leveraged as a potent marketing tool by companies developing AI technologies. In an era where fear is already high, tapping into existing societal apprehensions is a highly effective means of gaining attention and traction. Juan then dove into the question of dehumanization—a term that, historically, has been associated with severe societal injustices and atrocities. He reminded us that extreme forms of dehumanization have led to horrors such as those witnessed in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union's early days. In those instances, people were reduced to mere labor, devalued, or even treated as less than human. While the application of AI in today's world is nowhere near these atrocities, Juan urged us to consider a new form of dehumanization brought about by Gen AI. He highlighted that, increasingly, we are interacting with AI that can mimic human conversation so convincingly that it feels like we're talking with a person. This phenomenon is already being monetized by influencers who create AI models of themselves and sell subscriptions to these digital replicas. In a twist of irony, they are willingly dehumanizing themselves for financial gain.The key danger, as Juan pointed out, is that we are on the cusp of dehumanizing ourselves. We risk automating away the elements that make us distinctly human—our creativity, our ingenuity, and our spirit. From writing to creating images, videos, and music, to engaging in meaningful conversations and lifelong learning, these activities enrich our lives. The more we delegate these tasks to AI, the more we strip away the human element.Juan's insight was a sobering reminder of the dangers of uncritical acceptance of AI's supposed benefits. In the rush to embrace AI's efficiency and potential cost savings, we must not lose sight of what makes us human and what truly matters in our lives.Takeaway: The balance between leveraging AI for efficiency gains and preserving human elements in our work and society is a delicate one. As we embrace AI's potential, we must remain mindful of the inherent value of human creativity, spirit, and ingenuity, and guard against dehumanizing ourselves in the process.Does AI Enhance Our Creativity, Or Does It Make Us Impotent? Juan entered the topic with a touch of nostalgia for days gone by when human skills, now rendered less crucial by technology, were at the forefront. He humorously noted how handwriting skills have plummeted with the advent of digital typing. But he was driving towards a larger point: the shifting balance of skills and how it pertains to AI and creativity.Juan pointed out that technology frequently makes certain human abilities redundant while fostering the development of others. For instance, the transformation of cityscapes, influenced by the advent of automobiles, didn't come from a philosophical or political place, but rather, a technological one.This perspective provides a unique lens through which to examine the impact of AI on creativity. Juan highlighted that while AI tools such as Owler and MidJourney can assist in creativity, they also pose a risk of making certain skills “impotent”. He asked, “Does it enhance our creativity, or does it make us impotent?”A trip to Barcelona had him reflect on the dichotomy between the old and new sections of the city. The old city, built for people, contrasted sharply with the newer, car-focused areas. Drawing a parallel with how AI is reshaping creativity, he sees the possibility of two groups of creatives emerging. One group would fully embrace AI to scale their work, while the other would insist on maintaining human authenticity in their creative process.Juan made it clear that the debate surrounding AI and creativity is not about replacement but transformation. He expressed a word of caution, suggesting that while AI could create amazing things, the danger lies in becoming overly reliant on these tools and potentially losing the ability to create original ideas. As an example, he mentioned the current split in opinion among creative agencies, with some embracing AI, while others strictly oppose it.Wrapping up his reflections, Juan emphasized that, while AI can provide tools to assist creativity, it can't replace the human-led creative process that births unique ideas. He underscored this point with his personal experience collaborating with an illustrator for the TMW 100 poster, where through the iterative process, a unique and resonating idea was born.Takeaway: The question isn't whether AI will replace human creativity, but rather, how will it augment or detract from it? Juan underscores the importance of not losing sight of the unique, human-led creative process, even while taking advantage of AI tools. There's a delicate balance to be found between using AI to enhance our creativity and avoiding becoming “impotent” in our creative skills due to over-reliance on these tools.The Choices We Make With AI, Privacy and Ethical ConcernsWhen considering how AI can impact our daily professional lives, especially in a marketing context, Juan raises thought-provoking points on privacy and ethical considerations, highlighting some subtle shifts that AI-driven tools bring to job creation. To use these tools effectively, he argues, we must strike a balance.Juan asserts that the first and foremost consideration is privacy. He warns about the potential pitfalls of entrusting trade secrets or sensitive data to AI, such as GPT. He advises careful discretion when using AI in our day-to-day tasks, always being mindful of the information being shared.As an example, Juan recounts his experience using AI to retrieve the syntax for a VLOOKUP operation in Excel, which he had forgotten. He emphasized that he didn't use real data to retrieve this information but rather employed dummy data to protect the integrity and privacy of his actual work. Juan reminds us that these AI tools can, in many ways, collect more data than a Google search, thus demanding vigilant privacy measures.Beyond privacy, Juan speaks about the potential for generative AI to automate “boring stuff” – tasks that are tedious and repetitive. He mentions the work of a startup which automates the process of adjusting the demographic presentation in digital images, a task that can be repetitive and time-consuming.While acknowledging AI's potential for exponential outcomes and creative insight, Juan clarifies that AI tools should not be used to replace authentic, human creativity. For example, while he sees value in using AI to identify blind spots or rephrase headlines, he believes that the act of crafting an essay should remain a human task, given its demand for authenticity and originality.Takeaway: AI can provide valuable assistance in performing mundane tasks and offering fresh perspectives. However, it's crucial to strike a balance between taking advantage of these benefits and preserving human creativity and authenticity. Furthermore, we must always remain cautious about privacy, ensuring we never unintentionally compromise sensitive data.The Profound Impact of AI on Trust and Transparency in MarketingIn the face of burgeoning AI technology, marketing, at its heart, remains a conversation with customers. It's not simply a matter of analyzing data and predicting trends; instead, it's about understanding the dreams, needs, and fears of customers. When AI begins to replace this human connection, we risk losing the essence of marketing.Juan referenced a thought-provoking quote from Yuval Noah Harari, saying, “if I'm having a conversation with someone, and I cannot tell whether it is a human or an AI, that's the end of democracy.” This statement resonates deeply in our era of increasingly sophisticated AI. As AI becomes more prevalent, discerning between human and artificial interactions becomes more challenging.This dehumanization brings a new level of complexity to ethical issues in marketing, such as respect for customer privacy, autonomy, and genuine engagement. It begs the question of whether industries should consider implementing a ‘right to know' rule, forcing companies to disclose if content was generated or curated by AI.Juan foresees a significant challenge in maintaining trust in an environment increasingly infiltrated by AI. The rise of deepfakes, convincingly realistic AI-generated images, and photorealistic games contribute to an online reality where trust becomes elusive. As Juan explained, if you can't trust what you're seeing online or the websites you visit, the internet becomes fundamentally unusable.This crisis of trust extends beyond the realm of marketing, leading Juan to foresee a potential broader societal breakdown. He likened the current situation to the advent of the printing press, which, despite its revolutionary impact, also instigated 200 years of religious wars. With the power of generative AI now in our hands, Juan warned of the potential for a similar period of global unrest and uncertainty.Takeaway: The profound impact of AI on trust and transparency in marketing and beyond. While AI presents opportunities for innovation, its implications for societal trust could be far-reaching and detrimental. The use of these tools by marketers, therefore, must be approached with thoughtfulness and caution.Building Authentic Relationships in an Age of AI Content OverloadOn the potential influx of AI-generated content, Juan suggests that the key to discerning genuine human work from machine-generated content lies in the power of relationships. Juan asserts, and rightly so, that the strength of social media lies in its social aspect, its ability to create and nurture relationships. It's through these relationships that trust is built and maintained, shaping how we consume and perceive content.Juan shares his personal experience, reminiscing about how relationships fostered on social media platforms have evolved into meaningful, real-world connections. These bonds, Juan insists, matter more than we often realize, especially when it comes to consuming content or seeking product advice.In the grand scheme of things, according to Juan, we're better off trusting the views and feedback of our connections than the ceaseless churn of the content mill. As an illustration, Juan talks about how he prefers seeking referrals and real-life feedback rather than resorting to automated platforms.In essence, human advice from real people—preferably in person—becomes the beacon that navigates us through the content noise generated by AI. Even when dealing with innovative technologies like ChatGPT, having a conversation with real people, sharing ideas and seeking advice is invaluable.Interestingly, Juan points out that amidst all the technological advancements, there is a treasure trove of wisdom to be gained from our parents and grandparents. Their insights and life experiences offer timeless advice, which remains relevant even in our rapidly changing world.Takeaway: As we potentially head towards an explosion of AI-generated content, Juan emphasizes that our salvation lies in strengthening and valuing our human relationships. In this digital era, trust and authenticity have become increasingly significant, and it's through these personal connections that we can navigate the sea of AI content with confidence.The Power of Passion: Achieving Balance in a Busy LifeIn a world that's always rushing, finding a balance between professional and personal life can feel like an uphill battle. When we asked Juan how he navigates this delicate dance, the answer was simple and powerful – passion. Juan draws inspiration from an unlikely source, the late Australian wildlife conservationist, Steve Irwin.Irwin, renowned globally for his love for wildlife and vibrant personality, was driven by an unparalleled mission to conserve wildlife and raise awareness about nature. This mission was not merely a job; it was his life. He demonstrated his passion vividly, wrestling crocodiles and creating engaging content about wildlife. Much like Steve Irwin, Juan considers his work more than just a job. His mission is to make sense of the complexities of modern technology and its impact on marketing, business, and society. He's thrilled to guide people through this labyrinth of challenges and opportunities. It's this mission that fuels him, keeps him writing into the late hours of the night, and makes his work a joy rather than a chore. In a world where people often hop from one job to another in search of greener pastures, Juan warns against viewing work solely as a means to earn money. That approach can lead to burnout. Instead, he suggests finding a burning passion for your work, something that ignites a vision for your life and your industry. Having a clear vision can act as a kryptonite to burnout. It provides the motivation that keeps you moving forward, despite the challenges that may arise.Beyond the passion for work, Juan emphasizes the importance of taking care of one's health. Regular exercise, a balanced diet, and adequate sleep form the bedrock of a healthy life. He also highlights the importance of nurturing personal relationships and creating a support network that can help navigate both personal and professional challenges.Takeaway: Passion is the antidote to burnout. When you align your professional life with a mission that fuels your passion, work becomes a joy and not a job. This approach, coupled with a healthy lifestyle and robust personal relationships, can help you achieve a balance between your professional and personal life. Be more like Steve Irwin – be driven by a cause that fuels your passion.Unveiling the TMW 100: Illuminating the Path of Innovation in MartechDuring the interview, Juan enthusiastically highlighted his latest project – the TMW 100. This is an initiative intended to shine a light on the most innovative companies changing the landscape of marketing technology. The project offers an exciting, interactive ranking of the top 100 Martech companies globally, meticulously judged by an international panel of 12 experts.For these judges, their mission is to assess which companies are not only innovating but genuinely disrupting their sectors with new products, superior customer service, and novel business models. Once they've provided their rankings, the baton is passed to the public. Here, the marketing technology community has the chance to cast their vote and influence the final rankings from first to one hundredth place.The top three companies don't just earn bragging rights. They're also rewarded with a fully paid trip to MOPsAPALOOZA, where they'll receive significant recognition and exposure.Towards the end of the year, Juan and his team plan to collate all this data into a comprehensive report. The company ranking first will even get to grace the cover of this document, asserting their position as a trailblazer in the world of Martech.Juan cordially invites everyone to join in the journey of the TMW 100. Whether you're a marketer, tech enthusiast, or someone working in a Martech company, your voice and your vote are welcome. The project isn't just about rankings; it's a community effort to identify and celebrate game-changers.For those looking to delve deeper into the world of Martech, the Martech Weekly website is an excellent resource. It offers a subscription to a regular Sunday newsletter packed with insights and trends. Plus, subscribers also get the chance to join the TMW community Slack channel, an active forum for Martech enthusiasts to discuss and dissect the industry's latest developments.Episode RecapIn this thought-provoking conversation, we dove deep into the heart of the AI revolution, guided by the astute insights of Juan. At its core, we unravelled the story of OpenAI's tenacity and dedication to forging a refined AI model – a testament to the transformative power of patient investment and niche-focus in technology. It's not about chasing every emerging trend; rather, it's about discerning the difference between fleeting hype and authentic, tangible value. Juan suggests we approach new tech trends with a critical eye, peeling back layers of hype to assess their real value and potential for mass adoption.As AI continues to weave itself into the fabric of our lives, a delicate dance unfolds – one where we balance the efficiency gains of AI with the preservation of our quintessential human creativity and spirit. While AI may present a tantalizing tool to augment our creative processes, the risk lies in succumbing to overreliance, thereby stifling the human-led creativity that sets us apart.Despite its benefits, AI raises critical questions about privacy and trust in our increasingly connected society. As marketers, we need to tread this fine line with responsibility and caution, fully aware of the far-reaching implications of AI on trust and transparency. This rich and compelling dialogue serves as a timely reminder of our need to balance the limitless potential of AI with our fundamental human values and ethics. It's not just about what AI can do for us, but how we, as conscious creators, can shape AI for the betterment of society.Tune in, learn, and gear up for the thrilling ride ahead.

In the latest episode of Eyeway Conversations, George Abraham speaks with Mahesh Narasimhan, a senior consultant at Ernst and Young and a gold medalist from the Faculty of Management Studies. The conversation covers Mahesh's professional journey, including his expertise in advanced Excel tools, his ability to build strong professional relationships despite his visual impairment, and his experience with the inclusive environment he experienced during his education and professional domain. From his early days as a consultant in Ernst and Young's transfer pricing practice to his current role directly working with top leaders, Mahesh shares valuable insights into his profile. He reveals how he mastered advanced Excel tools like VLOOKUP and pivot tables, which became the building blocks of his career. Mahesh's exceptional ability to build strong professional relationships helped him break barriers associated with his visual impairment. He also reflects on his experience pursuing MBA from the Faculty of Management Studies and the challenges he faced during the admissions process. Through determination and the support of his family, mentors, and the school community, he digs deep into how he overcame multiple obstacles to achieve his goals. Additionally, we also explore Mahesh's passion for gardening, which he developed through his mother's expertise in botany. The episode promises to be inspiring and motivational, encouraging listeners to embrace their passions, overcome challenges, and forge meaningful connections in the professional world. To access the podcast transcript, click on the link: https://otter.ai/u/jJfoM8uCqWVIN3znOuXycDH7ea0?utm_source=copy_url This podcast is brought to you by Score Foundation. To support our work, kindly visit the link: ⁠https://scorefoundation.org.in/get-involved/

Do you love Excel or avoid it? If conditional formatting, VLOOKUP, freezing panes, formulas and filtering send you into a spin. Look no further! In this week's show, we're discussing Excel. Ginny Bootman, a SENCO across 4 schools, joins Dale for ‘We need to talk about Excel'. You may have listened to Ginny's other podcast (Paperless SENCO) and know that she is currently on a technology journey. Excel saves SENCOs time by automating data management, analysis, and reporting processes, allowing them to focus on making informed decisions and providing effective support for students with special educational needs. Listen to hear how and why Ginny started using Excel, and the top tips and tricks you need to make your life easier. If you have avoided Excel thus far, after listening to this episode you will be inspired to give it a go and see how it will save you time! Dale's Excel Tips and Tricks Dale has put together this guide to help you feel more confident using Excel and covers all the features he discussed in the podcast. Download the guide below: https://www.thesendcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Excel-Tips-and-Tricks.pdf Live online training session Ginny is joining us again on Tuesday 25th April to host ‘Making meetings work for children, parents, SENCOs and schools'. SENCOs spend a lot of time in meetings. But how can you ensure this is time well spent? Ginny shares simple, tried and tested ways to make your meetings more collaborative and more effective. Register now for just £10 for your whole school! About Ginny Bootman Ginny has been a teacher longer than she hasn't, as a Headteacher, Senior Manager and Class Teacher and now as a SENCO of 4 Primary schools in Northamptonshire. Her passion lies within all things concerned with empathy and the role which empathy plays in ensuring that all of those in school settings feel valued and listened to. Ginny is an Associate of Undiscovered Country a team who help individuals manage change.  Contact Ginny Website – www.ginnybootman.com Email – ginnybootman10@gmail.com  Twitter - @sencogirl  Instagram – @ginnybootman   B Squared Website – www.bsquared.co.uk Meeting with Dale to find out about B Squared - https://calendly.com/b-squared-team/overview-of-b-squared-sendcast Email Dale – dale@bsquared.co.uk Subscribe to the SENDcast - https://www.thesendcast.com/subscribe

Hi there! We are using LOOKUP functions in Google Sheets and Excel this week! We're focused on the XLOOKUP in the pod, but all are explained in the video linked below

About ChrisChris is a mostly-backend mostly-engineer at Remix Labs, working on visual app development. He has been in software startups for ten years, but his first and unrequited love was particle physics.  Before joining Remix Labs, he wrote numerical simulation and analysis tools for the Large Hadron Collider, then co-founded Roobiq, a clean and powerful mobile client for Salesforce back when the official ones were neither.Links Referenced: Remix Labs: https://remixlabs.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrisvermilion TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Tailscale SSH is a new, and arguably better way to SSH. Once you've enabled Tailscale SSH on your server and user devices, Tailscale takes care of the rest. So you don't need to manage, rotate, or distribute new SSH keys every time someone on your team leaves. Pretty cool, right? Tailscale gives each device in your network a node key to connect to your VPN, and uses that same key for SSH authorization and encryption. So basically you're SSHing the same way that you're already managing your network. So what's the benefit? Well, built-in key rotation, the ability to manage permissions as code, connectivity between any two devices, and reduced latency. You can even ask users to re-authenticate SSH connections for that extra bit of security to keep the compliance folks happy. Try Tailscale now - it's free forever for personal use.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Logicworks. Getting to the cloud is challenging enough for many places, especially maintaining security, resiliency, cost control, agility, etc, etc, etc. Things break, configurations drift, technology advances, and organizations, frankly, need to evolve. How can you get to the cloud faster and ensure you have the right team in place to maintain success over time? Day 2 matters. Work with a partner who gets it - Logicworks combines the cloud expertise and platform automation to customize solutions to meet your unique requirements. Get started by chatting with a cloud specialist today at snark.cloud/logicworks. That's snark.cloud/logicworksCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. When I was nine years old, one of the worst tragedies that can ever befall a boy happened to me. That's right, my parents moved me to Maine. And I spent the next ten years desperately trying to get out of the state.Once I succeeded and moved to California, I found myself in a position where almost nothing can drag me back there. One of the exceptions—basically, the only exception—is Monktoberfest, a conference put on every year by the fine folks at RedMonk. It is unquestionably the best conference that I have ever been to, and it continually amazes me every time I go. The last time I was out there, I met today's guest. Chris Vermilion is a Senior Software Developer at Remix Labs. Chris, now that I finished insulting the state that you call home, how are you?Chris: I'm great. I'm happy to be in a state that's not California.Corey: I hear you. It's, uh—I talk a lot of smack about Maine. But to be perfectly direct, my problem with it is that I grew up there and that was a difficult time in my life because I, really I guess, never finished growing up according to most people. And all right, we'll accept it. No one can hate a place in the same way that you can hate it if you grew up there and didn't enjoy the experience.So, it's not Maine that's the problem; it's me. I feel like I should clarify that I'm going to get letters and people in Maine will write those letters and then have to ride their horses to Massachusetts to mail them. But we know how that works.Chris: [laugh].Corey: So, what is Remix Labs? Let's start there. Because Remix sounds like… well, it sounds like a term that is overused. I see it everywhere in the business space. I know there was a Remix thing that recently got sold to I think it was at Shopify or Spotify; I keep getting those two confused. And—Chris: One of the two, yeah.Corey: Yeah, exactly one of them plays music and one of them sells me things except now I think they both do both, and everything has gone wonky and confusing. But what do you folks do over there?Chris: So, we work on visual app development for everybody. So, the goal is to have kind of a spreadsheet-on-steroids-like development environment where you can build interactively, you have live coding, you have a responsive experience in building interactive apps, websites, mobile apps, a little bit of everything, and providing an experience where you can build systems of engagement. So tools, mobile apps, that kind of work with whatever back-end resources you're trying to do, you can collaborate across different people, pass things around, and you can do that all with a nice kind of visual app developer, where you can sort of drop nodes around and wire them together and built in a way that's it's hopefully accessible to non-developers, to project managers, to domain experts, to you know, whatever stakeholders are interested in modifying that final product.Corey: I would say that I count as one of those. I use something similar to build the tool that assembles my newsletter every week, and that was solving a difficult problem for me. I can write back-ends reasonably well, using my primary tool, which is sheer brute force. I am not much of a developer, but it turns out that with enough enthusiasm, you can overcome most limitations. And that's great, but I know nothing about front end; it does not make sense to me, it does not click in the way that other things have clicked.So, I was fourth and inches from just retaining a contractor to build out a barely serviceable internal app. And I discovered, oh, use this low-code tool to drag and drop things and that basically was Visual Basic for internal apps. And that was awesome, but they're still positioned squarely in the space of internal apps only. There's no mobile app story, there's—and it works well enough for what I do, but I have other projects, I want to wind up getting out the door that are not strictly for internal use that would benefit from being able to have a serviceable interface slapped onto. It doesn't need to be gorgeous, it doesn't need to win awards, it just needs to be, “Cool, it can display the output of a table in a variety of different ways. It has a button and when I click a button, it does a thing, generally represented as an API call to something.”And doesn't take much, but being able to have something like that, even for an internal app, has been absolutely transformative just for workflow stuff internally, for making things accessible to people that are not otherwise going to be able to do those sorts of things, by which I mean me.Chris: Yeah. I mean, exactly, I think that is the kind of use case that we are aiming for is making this accessible to everybody, building tools that work for people that aren't necessarily software developers, they don't want to dive into code—although they can if they want, it's extensible in that way—that aren't necessarily front-end developers or designers, although it's accessible to designers and if you want to start from that end, you can do it. And it's amenable to collaboration, so you can have somebody that understands the problem build something that works, you can have somebody that understands design build something that works well and looks nice, and you can have somebody that understands the code or is more of a back-end developer, then go back in and maybe fine-tune the API calls because they realize that you're doing the same thing over and over again and so there's a better way to structure the lower parts of things. But you can pass around that experience between all these different stakeholders and you can construct something that everybody can modify to sort of suit their own needs and desires.Corey: Many years ago, Bill Clinton wound up coining the phrase, ‘The Digital Divide' to talk about people who had basically internet access and who didn't—those who got it or did not—and I feel like we have a modern form of that, the technology haves and have nots. Easy example of this for a different part of my workflow here: this podcast, as anyone listening to it is probably aware by now, is sponsored by awesome folks who wind up wanting to tell you about the exciting services or tools or products that they are building. And sometimes some of those sponsors will say things like, “Okay, here's the URL I want you to read into the microphone during the ad read,” and my response is a polite form of, “Are you serious?” It's seven different subdirectories on the web server, followed by a UTM series of tracking codes that, yeah, I promise, none of you are going to type that in. I'm not even going to wind up reading into the microphone because my attention span trips out a third of the way through.So, I needed a URL shortener. So, I set up snark.cloud for this. For a long time, that was relatively straightforward because I just used an S3 bucket with redirect objects inside of it. But then you have sort of the problem being a victim of your own success, to some extent, and I was at a point where, oh, I can have people control some of these things that aren't me; I don't need to be the person that sets up the link redirection work.Yeah, the challenge is now that you have a business user who is extraordinarily good at what he does, but he's also not someone who has deep experience in writing code, and trying to sit here and explain to him, here's how to set up a redirect object in an S3 bucket, like, why didn't I save time and tell him to go screw himself? It's awful. So, I've looked for a lot of different answers for this, and the one that I found lurking on GitHub—and I've talked about it a couple of times, now—runs on Google Cloud Run, and the front-end for that of the business user—which sounds ridiculous, but it's also kind of clever, is a Google Sheet. Because every business user knows how to work a Google Sheet. There's one column labeled ‘slug' and the other one labeled ‘URL' that it points to.And every time someone visits a snark.cloud slash whatever the hell the slug happens to be, it automatically does a redirect. And it's glorious. But I shouldn't have to go digging into the depths of GitHub to find stuff like that. This feels like a perfect use case for a no-code, low-code tool.Chris: Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, that's a cool use case. And I… as always, our competitor is Google Sheets. I think everybody in software development in enterprise software's only real competitor is the spreadsheet.Corey: Oh, God, yes, I wind up fixing AWS bills for a living and my biggest competitor is always Microsoft Excel. It's, “Yeah, we're going to do it ourselves internally,” is what most people do. It seems like no matter what business line I've worked in, I've companies that did Robo-advising for retirement planning; yeah, some people do it themselves in Microsoft Excel. I worked for an expense reporting company; everyone does that in Microsoft Excel. And so, on and so forth.There are really very few verticals where that's not an option. It's like, but what about a dating site? Oh, there are certain people who absolutely will use Microsoft Excel for that. Personally, I think it's a bad idea to hook up where you VLOOKUP but what do I know?Chris: [laugh]. Right, right.Corey: Before you wound up going into the wide world of low-code development over at Remix, you—well, a lot of people have different backstories when I talk to them on this show. Yours is definitely one of the more esoteric because the common case and most people talk about is oh, “I went to Stanford and then became a software engineer.” “Great. What did you study?” “Computer Science,” or something like it. Alternately, they drop out of school and go do things in their backyard. You have a PhD in particle physics, is it?Chris: That's right. Yeah.Corey: Which first, is wild in his own right, but we'll get back to that. How did you get here from there?Chris: Ah. Well, it's kind of the age-old story of academia. So, I started in electrical engineering and ended up double majoring in physics because that you had to take a lot of physics to be an engineer, and I said, you know, this is more fun. This is interesting. Building things is great, but sitting around reading papers is really where my heart's at.And ended up going to graduate school, which is about the best gig you can ever get. You get paid to sit in an office and read and write papers, and occasionally go out drinking with other grad students, and that's really about it.Corey: I only just now for the first time in my life, realized how much some aspects of my career resemble being a [laugh] grad student. Please, continue.Chris: It doesn't pay very well is the catch, you know? It's very hard to support a lifestyle that exists outside of your office, or, you know, involves a family and children, which is certainly one downside. But it's a lot of fun and it's very low stress, as long as you are, let's say, not trying to get a job afterward. Because where this all breaks down is that, you know, as I recall, the time I was a graduate student, there were roughly as many people graduating as graduate students every year as there were professors total in the field of physics, at least in the United States. That was something like the scale of the relationship.And so, if you do the math, and unfortunately, we were relatively good at doing math, you could see, you know, most of us were not going to go on, you know? This was the path to becoming a professor, but—Corey: You look at number of students and the number of professorships available in the industry, I guess we'll call it, and yeah, it's hmm, basic arithmetic does not seem like something that anyone in that department is not capable of doing.Chris: Exactly. So, you're right, we were all I think, more or less qualified to be an academic professor, certainly at research institutions, where the only qualification, really, is to be good at doing research and you have to tolerate teaching students sometimes. But there tends to be very little training on how to do that, or a meaningful evaluation of whether you're doing it well.Corey: I want to dive into that a bit because I think that's something we see a lot in this industry, where there's no training on how to do a lot of different things. Teaching is one very clear example, another one is interviewing people for jobs, so people are making it up as they go along, despite there being decades and decades of longitudinal studies of people figuring out what works and what doesn't, tech his always loved to just sort of throw it all out and start over. It's odd to me that academia would follow in similar patterns around not having a clear structure for, “Oh, so you're a grad student. You're going to be teaching a class. Here's how to be reasonably effective at it.” Given that higher education was not the place for me, I have very little insight into this. Is that how it plays out?Chris: I don't want to be too unfair to academia as a whole, and actually, I was quite lucky, I was a student at the University of Washington and we had a really great physics education group, so we did actually spend a fair amount of time thinking about effective ways to teach undergraduates and doing this great tutorial system they had there. But my sense was in the field as a whole, for people on the track to become professors at research institutions, there was typically not much in the way of training as a teacher, there was not really a lot of thought about pedagogy or the mechanics of delivering lectures. You know, you're sort of given a box full of chalk and a classroom and said, you know, “You have freshman physics this quarter. The last teacher used this textbook and it seems to be okay,” tended to be the sort of preparation that you would get. You know, and I think it varies institution to institution what kind of support you get, you know, the level of graduate students helping you out, but I think in lots of places in academia, the role of professors as teachers was the second thought, you know, if it was indeed thought at all.And similarly, the role of professors as mentors to graduate students, which, you know, if anything, is sort of their primary job is guiding graduate students through their early career. And again, I mean, much like in software, that was all very ad hoc. You know, and I think there are some similarities in terms of how academics and how tech workers think of themselves as sort of inventing the universe, we're at the forefront, the bleeding edge of human knowledge, and therefore because I'm being innovative in this one particular aspect, I can justify being innovative in all of them. I mean, that's the disruptive thing to do, right?Corey: And it's a shame that you're such a nice person because you would be phenomenal at basically being the most condescending person in all of tech if you wanted to. Because think about this, you have people saying, “Oh, what do you do?” “I'm a full-stack engineer.” And then some of the worst people in the world, of which I admit I used to be one, are, “Oh, full-stack. Really? When's the last time you wrote a device driver?”And you can keep on going at that. You work in particle physics, so you're all, “That's adorable. Hold my tea. When's the last time you created matter from energy?” And yeah, and then it becomes this the—it's very hard to wind up beating you in that particular game of [who'd 00:15:07] wore it better.Chris: Right. One of my fond memories of being a student is back when I got to spend more time thinking about these things and actually still remembered them, you know, in my electoral engineering days and physics days, I really had studied all the way down from the particle physics to semiconductor physics to how to lay out silicon chips and, you know, how to build ALUs and CPUs and whatnot from basic transistor gates. Yeah, and then all the way up to, you know, writing compilers and programming languages. And it really did seem like you could understand all those parts. I couldn't tell you how any of those things work anymore. Sadly, that part of my brain has now taken up with Go's lexical scoping rules and borrow checker fights with Rust. But there was a time when I was a smart person and knew those things.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Strata. Are you struggling to keep up with the demands of managing and securing identity in your distributed enterprise IT environment? You're not alone, but you shouldn't let that hold you back. With Strata's Identity Orchestration Platform, you can secure all your apps on any cloud with any IDP, so your IT teams will never have to refactor for identity again. Imagine modernizing app identity in minutes instead of months, deploying passwordless on any tricky old app, and achieving business resilience with always-on identity, all from one lightweight and flexible platform.Want to see it in action? Share your identity challenge with them on a discovery call and they'll hook you up with a complimentary pair of AirPods Pro. Don't miss out, visit Strata.io/ScreamingCloud. That's Strata dot io slash ScreamingCloud.Corey: I want to go back to what sounded like a throwaway joke at the start of the episode. In seriousness, one of the reasons—at least that I told myself at the time—that I left Maine was that it was pretty clear that there was no significant, lasting opportunity in industry when I was in Maine. In fact, the girl that I was dating at the time in college graduated college, and the paper of record for the state, The Maine Sunday Telegram, which during the week is called The Portland Press Herald, did a front-page story on her about how she went to school on a pulp and paper scholarship, she was valedictorian in her chemical engineering class at the University of Maine and had to leave the state to get a job. And every year they would roll out the governor, whoever that happened to be, to the University of Maine to give a commencement speech that's, “Don't leave Maine, don't leave Maine, don't leave Maine,” but without any real answer to, “Well, for what jobs?”Now, that Covid has been this plague o'er the land that has been devastating society for a while, work-from-home has become much more of a cohesive thing. And an awful lot of companies are fully embracing it. How have you seen Maine change based upon that for one, and for another, how have you found that community has been developed in the local sense because there was none of that in Maine when I was there? Even the brief time where I was visiting for a conference for a week, I saw definite signs of a strong local community in the tech space. What happened? I love it.Chris: It's great. Yeah, so I moved to Maine eight years ago, in 2014. And yeah, I was lucky enough to pretty early on, meet up with a few of the local nerds, and we have a long-running Slack group that I just saw was about to turn nine, so I guess I was there in the early days, called Computers Anonymous. It was a spinoff, I think, from a project somebody else had started in a few other cities. The joke was it was a sort of a confessional group of, you know, we're here to commiserate over our relationships with technology, which all of us have our complaints.Corey: Honestly, tech community is more of a support group than most other areas, I think.Chris: Absolutely. All you have to do is just have name and technology and somebody will pipe up. “Okay, you know, I've a horror story about that one.” But it has over the years turned into, you know, a very active Slack group of people that meet up once a month for beers and chats with each other, and you know, we all know each other's kids. And when the pandemic hit, it was absolutely a lifeline that we were all sort of still talking to each other every day and passing tips of, you know, which restaurants were doing takeout, and you know which ones were doing takeout and takeout booze, and all kinds of local knowledge was being spread around that way.So, it was a lucky thing to have when that hit, we had this community. Because it existed already as this community of, you know, people that were remote workers. And I think over the time that I've been here, I've really seen a growth in people coming here to work somewhere else because it's a lovely place to live, it's a much cheaper place to live than almost anywhere else I've ever been, you know, I think it's pretty attractive to the folks come up from Boston or New York or Connecticut for the summer, and they say, “Ah, you know, this doesn't seem so bad to live.” And then they come here for a winter, and then they think, “Well, okay, maybe I was wrong,” and go back. But I've really enjoyed my time here, and the tools for communicating and working remotely, have really taken off.You know, a decade ago, my first startup—actually, you know, in kind of a similar situation, similar story, we were starting a company in Louisville, Kentucky. It was where we happen to live. We had a tech community there that were asking those same questions. “Why is anybody leaving? Why is everybody leaving?”And we started this company, and we did an accelerator in San Francisco, and every single person we talked to—and this is 2012—said, you have to bring the company to San Francisco. It's the only way you'll ever hire anybody, it's the only way you'll ever raise any money, this is the only place in the world that you could ever possibly run a tech company. And you know, we tried and failed.Corey: Oh, we're one of those innovative industries in the world. We've taken a job that can be done from literally anywhere that has internet access and created a land crunch on eight square miles, located in an earthquake zone.Chris: Exactly. We're going to take a ton of VC money and where to spend 90% of it on rent in the Bay Area. The rent paid back to the LPs of our VC funds, and the circle of life continues.Corey: Oh, yeah. When I started this place as an independent consultant six years ago, I looked around, okay, should I rent space in an office so I have a place where I go and work? And I saw how much it costs to sublet even, like, a closed-door office in an existing tech startup's office space, saw the price tag, laughed myself silly, and nope, nope, nope. Instead installed a door on my home office and got this place set up as a—in my spare room now is transformed into my home office slash recording studio. And yeah, “Well, wasn't it expensive to do that kind of stuff?” Not compared to the first three days of rent in a place like that it wasn't. I feel like that's what's driving a lot of the return to office stories is the sort of, I guess, an expression of the sunk cost fallacy.Chris: Exactly. And it's a variation of nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM, you know? Nobody ever got fired for saying we should work in the office. It's the way we've always done things, people are used to it, and there really are difficulties to collaborating effectively remotely, you know? You do lose something with the lack of day-to-day contact, a lack of in-person contact, people really do get kind of burned out on interacting over screens. But I think there are ways around that and the benefits, in my mind, my experience, you know, working remotely for the last ten years or so, tend to outweigh the costs.Corey: Oh, yeah. If I were 20 years younger, I would absolutely have been much more amenable to staying in the state. There's a lot of things that recommend it. I mean, I don't want people listening to this to think I actually hate Maine. It's become a running joke, but it's also, there was remarkably little opportunity in tech back when I lived there.And now globally, I think we're seeing the rise of opportunity. And that is a line I heard in a talk once that stuck with me that talent is evenly distributed, but opportunity isn't. And there are paths forward now for folks who—I'm told—somehow don't live in that same eight-square miles of the world, where they too can build tech companies and do interesting things and work intelligently with other folks. I mean, the thing that always struck me as so odd before the pandemic was this insistence on, “Oh, we don't allow remote work.” It's, “Well, hang on a minute. Aren't we all telecommuting in from wherever offices happen to be to AWS?” Because I've checked thoroughly, they will not let you work from us-east-1. In fact, they're very strict on that rule.Chris: [laugh]. Yeah. And it's remarkable how long I think the attitude persisted that we can solve any problem except how to work somewhere other than SoMa.Corey: Part of the problem too in the startup space, and one of the things I'm so excited about seeing what you're doing over at Remix Labs, is so many of the tech startups for a long time felt like they were built almost entirely around problems that young, usually single men had in their 20s when they worked in tech and didn't want to deal with the inconveniences of having to take care of themselves. Think food delivery, think laundry services, think dating apps, et cetera, et cetera. It feels like now we're getting into an era where there's a lot of development and focus and funding being aimed at things that are a lot more substantial, like how would we make it possible for someone to build an app internally or externally without making them go to through a trial-by-fire hazing ritual of going to a boot camp for a year first?Chris: Yeah. No, I think that's right. I think there's been an evolution toward building tools for broader problems, for building tools that work for everybody. I think there was a definite startup ouroboros in the, kind of, early days of this past tech boom of so much money being thrown at early-stage startups with a couple of young people building them, and they solved a zillion of their own problems. And there was so much money being thrown at them that they were happy to spend lots of money on the problems that they had, and so it looked like there was this huge market for startups to solve those problems.And I think we'll probably see that dry up a little bit. So, it's nice to get back to what are the problems that the rest of us have. You know, or maybe the rest of you. I can't pretend that I'm not one of those startup people that wants on-demand laundry. But.Corey: Yet you wake up one day and realize, oh, yeah. That does change things a bit. Honestly, one of the weirdest things for me about moving to California from Maine was just the sheer level of convenience in different areas.Chris: Yes.Corey: And part of it is city living, true, but Maine is one those places where if you're traveling somewhere, you're taking a car, full stop. And living in a number of cities like San Francisco, it's, oh great, if I want to order food, there's not, “The restaurant that delivers,” it's, I can have basically anything that I want showing up here within the hour. Just that alone was a weird, transformative moment. I know, I still feel like 20 years in, that I'm “Country Boy Discovers City for the First Time; Loses Goddamn Mind.” Like, that is where I still am. It's still magic. I became an urban creature just by not being one for my formative years.Chris: Yeah. No, I mean, absolutely. I grew up in Ann Arbor, which is sort of a smallish college town, and certainly more urban than the areas around it, but visiting the big city of Detroit or Lansing, it was exciting. And, you know, I got older, I really sort of thought of myself as a city person. And I lived in San Francisco for a while and loved it, and Seattle for a while and loved it.Portland has been a great balance of, there's city; it's a five minute drive from my house that has amazing restaurants and concerts and a great art scene and places to eat and roughly 8000 microbreweries, but it's still a relatively small community. I know a lot of the people here. I sort of drive across town from one end to the other in 20 minutes, pick up my kids from school pretty easily. So, it makes for a nice balance here.Corey: I am very enthused on, well, the idea of growing community in localized places. One thing that I think we did lose a bit during the pandemic was, every conference became online, so therefore, every conference becomes the same and it's all the same crappy Zoom-esque experience. It's oh, it's like work with a slightly different topic, and for once the people on this call can't fire me… directly. So, it's one of those areas of just there's not enough differentiation.I didn't realize until I went back to Monktoberfest a month or so ago at the time at this call recording just how much I'd missed that sense of local community.Chris: Yeah.Corey: Because before that, the only conferences I'd been to since the pandemic hit were big corporate affairs, and yeah, you find community there, but it also is very different element to it, it has a different feeling. It's impossible to describe unless you've been to some of these community conferences, I think.Chris: Yeah. I mean, I think a smallish conference like that where you see a lot of the same people every year—credit to Steven, the whole RedMonk team for Monktoberfest—that they put on such a great show that every year, you see lots and lots of faces that you've seen the last several because everybody knows it's such a great conference, they come right back. And so, it becomes kind of a community. As I've gotten older a year between meetings doesn't seem like that long time anymore, so these are the friends I see from time to time, and you know, we have a Slack who chat from time to time. So, finding those ways to sort of cultivate small groups that are in regular contact and have that kind of specific environment and culture to them within the broader industry, I think has been super valuable, I think. To me, certainly.Corey: I really enjoyed so much of what has come out of the pandemic in some ways, which sounds like a weird thing to say, but I'm trying to find the silver linings where I can. I recently met someone who'd worked here with me for a year-and-a-half that I'd never met in person. Other people that I'd spoken to at length for the last few years in various capacity, I finally meet them in person and, “Huh. Somehow it never came up in conversation that they're six foot eight.” Like, “Yeah, okay/ that definitely is one of those things that you notice about them in person.” Ah, but here we are.I really want to thank you for spending as much time as you have to talk about what you're up to, what your experiences have been like. If people want to learn more, where's the best place for them to find you? And please don't say Maine.Chris: [laugh]. Well, as of this recording, you can find me on Twitter at @chrisvermilion, V-E-R-M-I-L-I-O-N. That's probably easiest.Corey: And we will, of course, put links to that in the [show notes 00:28:53]. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. I appreciate it.Chris: No, thanks for having me on. This was fun.Corey: Chris Vermilion, Senior Software Developer at Remix Labs. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry comment, and since you're presumably from Maine when writing that comment, be sure to ask a grown-up to help you with the more difficult spellings of some of the words.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

About MattMatt is the head of community at Lawtrades, a legal tech startup that connects busy in-house legal departments with flexible on-demand legal talent. Prior to this role, Matt was the director of legal and risk management at a private equity group down in Miami, Florida. Links Referenced: Lawtrades: https://www.lawtrades.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsmattslaw/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@itsmattslaw Twitter: https://twitter.com/ItsMattsLaw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/flattorney/ duckbillgroup.com: https://duckbillgroup.com TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: If you asked me to rank which cloud provider has the best developer experience, I'd be hard-pressed to choose a platform that isn't Google Cloud. Their developer experience is unparalleled and, in the early stages of building something great, that translates directly into velocity. Try it yourself with the Google for Startups Cloud Program over at cloud.google.com/startup. It'll give you up to $100k a year for each of the first two years in Google Cloud credits for companies that range from bootstrapped all the way on up to Series A. Go build something, and then tell me about it. My thanks to Google Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous podcast.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Logicworks. Getting to the cloud is challenging enough for many places, especially maintaining security, resiliency, cost control, agility, etc, etc, etc. Things break, configurations drift, technology advances, and organizations, frankly, need to evolve. How can you get to the cloud faster and ensure you have the right team in place to maintain success over time? Day 2 matters. Work with a partner who gets it - Logicworks combines the cloud expertise and platform automation to customize solutions to meet your unique requirements. Get started by chatting with a cloud specialist today at snark.cloud/logicworks. That's snark.cloud/logicworksCorey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Something that I've learned in my career as a borderline full-time shitposter is that as the audience grows, people tend to lose sight of the fact that no, no, the reason that I have a career is because I'm actually good at one or two specific things, and that empowers the rest of the shitposting, gives me a basis from which to stand. Today's guest is Matt Margolis, Head of Community at Lawtrades. And I would say he is also a superior shitposter, but instead of working in the cloud space, he works in the legal field. Matt, thank you for joining me.Matt: That was the nicest intro I've ever received in my entire career.Corey: Well, yes, usually because people realize it's you and slam the door in your face, I assume, just based upon some of your TikToks. My God. Which is—I should point out—where I first encountered you.Matt: You found me on TikTok?Corey: I believe so. It sends me down these really weird rabbit holes, and at first, I was highly suspicious of the entire experience. Like, it's showing ADHD videos all the time, and as far as advertisements go, and it's, “Oh, my God, they're doing this really weird tracking,” and like, no, no, they just realize I'm on TikTok. It's that dopamine hit that works out super well. For a while, it drifted me into lesbian TikTok—which is great—because apparently, I follow a lot of creators who are not men, but I also don't go for the whole thirst trap things. Like, who does that? That's right. Must be lesbians. Which, great, I'm in good company. And it really doesn't know what to make of me. But you show up on my feed with fairly consistent frequency. Good work.Matt: That is fac—I appreciate that. I don't know if that's a compliment, though. But I [laugh]—no, I appreciate it. You know, for me, I get… not to plug a friend but I get—Alex Su's TikToks are probably like, one in two and then the other person is—maybe I'm also on lesbian TikTok as well. I think maybe we have earned the similar vote here.Corey: In fact, there's cohorts that they slot people into and I feel like we're right there together. Though Ales Su, who has been on the show as well, talk about source of frustration. I mentioned in passing that I was going to be chatting with him to my wife, who's an attorney. And she lit up. Like, “Oh, my God, you know him? My girlfriends and I talk about him all the time.”And I was sitting there going, well, there better damn well be a subculture out there that talks about me and those glowing terms because he's funny, yes, but he's not that funny. My God. And don't tell him that. It'll go to his head.Matt: I say the same thing. I got a good one for you. I was once in the sales call, and I remember speaking with—I was like, “You know, I'm like, pretty decent on Twitter. I'm pretty decent on LinkedIn”—which I don't think anyone brags about that, but I do—“And I'm okay on, like, Instagram and TikTok.” And he goes, “That's cool. That's really cool. So, are you kind of like Alex? Like, Alex Su?” And I go? “Uh, yeah,” he goes, “Yeah, because he's really funny. He's probably the best lawyer out there that, you know, shitposts and post funny things on the internet.” And I just sat there—and I love Alex; he's a good friend—I just sat there, and I'm like, “All right. All right. This is a conversation about Alex. This isn't a conversation about Matt.” And I took him to stride. I called Alex immediately after. I'm like, “Hey, you want to hear something funny.” And he got a kick out of it. He certainly got a kick out of it.Corey: It's always odd to me, just watching my own reputation come back to me filtered through other people's perceptions whenever I wind up encountering people in the wild, and they say, oh, you're Corey Quinn at—which is usually my clue to look at them very carefully with my full attention because if their next words are, “I work at Amazon,” that's my cue to duck before I get punched in the face. Whereas in other cases, they're like, “Oh, yeah, you're hilarious on the Twitters.” Or, “I saw you give a conference talk years ago,” or whatever it is. But no one ever says the stuff that's actually intellectually rigorous. No one ever says, “Yeah, I read some of your work on AWS contract negotiation,” or, “In-depth bill analysis as mapped to architecture.” Yeah, yeah. That is not the stuff that sticks in people's head. It's, “No, no, the funny guy with his mouth wide open on the internet.” It's, “Yep, that's me. The human flytrap.”Matt: Yeah, I feel that. I've been described, I think, is a party clown. That comes up from time to time. And to your point, Corey, like, I get that all the time where someone will say, “Matt I really enjoyed that meme you posted, the TikTok, the funny humor.” And then every so often, I'll post, gosh, like, an article about something we're doing, maybe a white paper on commercial contracting, or some sort of topic that really fits into my wheelhouse, and people were like, “That's… I guess that's cool. I just thought you were a party clown.” And you know, I make the balloon animals but… not all the time.Corey: That's the weirdest part to me of all of this is just this weird experience where we become the party clowns and that is what people view us as, but peeling away the humor and the jokes and the things we do for engagement, as we're like, we're sitting here each trying to figure out the best way to light ourselves on fire and survive the experience because the views would be enormous, you do have a legal background. You are an attorney yourself—still are, if I understand the process properly. Personally have an eighth-grade education, so basically, what I know of bars is a little bit of a different context.Matt: I also know those bars. I'm definitely a fan of those bars as well. I am still an attorney. I was in private practice, I worked in the government. I then went in-house in private equity down in Miami, Florida. And now, though I am shitposter, you are right, I am still a licensed attorney in the state of Florida. Could not take a bar exam anywhere else because I probably would light myself on fire. But yeah, I am. I am still an attorney.Corey: It's wild to me just to see how much of this world winds up continuing to, I guess, just evolve in strange and different ways. Because you take a look at the legal profession, it's—what is it, the world's second oldest profession? Because they say that the oldest profession was prostitution and then immediately someone, of course, had a problem with this, so they needed to have someone to defend them and hence, lawyers; the second oldest profession. And it seems like it's a field steeped in traditionalism, and with the bar, yes, a bit of gatekeeping. And now it's trying to deal with a highly dynamic, extraordinarily irreverent society.And it feels like an awful lot of, shall we say, more buttoned-down attorney types tend to not be reacting to any of that super well. I mean, most of my interaction with lawyers in a professional context when it comes to content takes a lot more of the form of a cease and desist than it does conversations like this. Thanks for not sending one of those, by the way, so far. It's appreciated.Matt: [laugh]. No worries, no worries. The day is not over yet. First off, Corey, I'm going to do a thing that attorneys love doing is I'm going to steal what you just said and I'm going to use it later because that was stellar.Corey: They're going to license it, remember?Matt: License it.Corey: That's how this works.Matt: Copy and paste it. I'm going to re—its precedent now. I agree with you wholeheartedly. I see it online, I see it on Link—LinkedIn is probably the best example of it; I sometimes see it on Twitter—older attorneys, attorneys that are part of that old guard, see what we're doing, what we're saying, the jokes we're making—because behind every joke is a real issue a real thing, right? The reason why we laugh, at least for some of these jokes, is we commiserate over it. We're like, “That's funny because it hurts.”And a lot of these old-guard attorneys hate it. Do not want to talk about it. They've been living good for years. They've been living under this regime for years and they don't want to deal with it. And attorneys like myself who are making these jokes, who are shitposting, who are bringing light to these kinds of things are really, I would say dis—I hate to call myself a disrupter, but are disrupting the traditional buttoned-up attorney lifestyle and world.Corey: It's wild to me, just to see how much of this winds up echoing my own experiences in dealing with, shall we say, some of the more I don't use legacy, which is a condescending engineering term for ‘it makes money,' but some of the older enterprise companies that had the temerity to found themselves before five years ago in somewhere that wasn't San Francisco and build things on computers that weren't rented by the gigabyte-month from various folks in Seattle. It's odd talking to some of those folks, and I've heard from a number of people, incidentally, that they considered working with my company, but decided not to because I seem a little too lighthearted and that's not how they tend to approach things. One of the nice things about being a boutique consultant is that you get to build things like this to let the clients that are not likely to be a good fit self-select out of working with you.Matt: It's identical to law.Corey: Yeah. “Aren't you worried you're losing business?” Like, “Oh, don't worry. It's not business I would want.”Matt: I'm okay with it. I'll survive. Yeah, like, the clients that are great clients, you're right, will be attracted to it. The clients that you never wanted to approach, they probably were never going to approach you anyways, are not [laugh] going to approach you. So, I agree wholeheartedly. I was always told lawyers are not funny. I've been told that jobs, conferences, events—Corey: Who are you hanging out with doctors?Matt: [laugh]. Dentists. The funniest of doctors. And I've been told that just lawyers aren't funny, right? So, lawyers shouldn't be funny; that's not how they should present themselves.You're never going to attract clients. You're ever going to engage in business development. And then I did. And then I did because people are attracted by funny. People like the personality. Just like you Corey, people enjoy you, enjoy your company, enjoy what you have to do because they enjoy being around you and they want to continue via, you know, like, business relationship.Corey: That's part of the weird thing from where I sit, where it's this—no matter what you do or where you sit, people remain people. And one of the big eye-openers for me that happened, fortunately early in my career, was discovering that a number of execs at name brand, publicly traded companies—not all of them, but a good number; the ones you'd want to spend time with—are in fact, human beings. I know, it sounds wild to admit that, but it's true. And they laugh, they tell stories themselves, they enjoy ridiculous levels of nonsense that tends to come out every second time I opened my mouth. But there's so much that I think people lose sight of. “Oh, they're executives. They only do boring and their love language is PowerPoint.” Mmm, not really. Not all of them.Matt: It's true. Their love language sometimes is Excel. So, I agree [laugh].Corey: That's my business partner.Matt: I'm not good at Excel, I'll tell you that. But I hear that as well. I hear that in my own business. So, I'm currently at a place called Lawtrades, and for the listeners out there, if you don't know who Lawtrades is, this is the—I'm not a salesperson, but this is my sales spiel.Corey: It's a dating site for lawyers, as best I can tell.Matt: [laugh]. It is. Well, I guess close. I mean, we are a marketplace. If you're a company and you need an attorney on a fractional basis, right—five hours, ten hours, 15 hours, 20 hours, 40 hours—I don't care, you connect.And what we're doing is we're empowering these freelance attorneys and legal professionals to kind of live their life, right, away from the old guard, having to work at these big firms to work at big clients. So, that's what we do. And when I'm in these conversations with general counsels, deputy general counsels, heads of legal at these companies, they don't want to talk like you're describing, this boring, nonsense conversation. We commiserate, we talk about the practice, we talk about stories, war stories, funny things about the practice that we enjoy. It's not a conversation about business; it's a conversation about being a human being in the legal space. It's always a good time, and it always results in a long-lasting relationship that I personally appreciate more than—probably more than they do. But [laugh].Corey: It really comes down to finding the watering holes where your humor works. I mean, I made the interesting choice one year to go and attend a conference for CFOs and the big selling point of this conference was that it counts as continuing professional education, which as you're well aware, in regulated professions, you need to attend a certain number of those every so often, or you lose your registration slash license slash whatever it is. My jokes did not work there. Let's put it that way.Matt: [laugh]. That's unfortunate because I'm having trouble keeping a straight face as we do this podcast.Corey: It was definitely odd. I'm like, “Oh, so what do you do?” Like, “Oh, I'm an accountant.” “Well, that's good. I mean, assume you don't bring your work home with you and vice versa. I mean, it's never a good idea to hook up where you VLOOKUP.”And instead of laughing—because I thought as Excel jokes go, that one's not half bad—instead, they just stared at me and then walked away. All right. Sorry, buddy, I didn't mean to accidentally tell a joke in your presence.Matt: [laugh]. You're setting up all of my content for Twitter. I like that one, too. That was really good.Corey: No, no, it comes down to just being a human being. And one of the nice things about doing what I've done—I'm curious to get your take on this, is that for the first time in my career doing what I do now, I feel like I get to bring my whole self to work. That is not what it means that a lot of ways it's commonly used. It doesn't mean I get to be problematic and make people feel bad as individuals. That's just being an asshole; that's not bringing your whole self to work.But it also means I feel like I don't have to hide, I can bring my personality with me, front and center. And people are always amazed by how much like my Twitter personality I am in real life. And yeah because I can't do a bit for this long. I don't have that kind of attention span for one. But the other side of that, too, is does exaggerate certain elements and it's always my highs, never my lows.I'm curious to know how you wind up viewing how you present online with who you are as a person.Matt: That is a really good question. Similar. Very similar. I do some sort of exaggeration. The character I like to play is ‘Bad Associate.' It's, like, one of my favorite characters to play where it's like, if I was the worst version of myself, in practice, what would I look like?And those jokes to me always make me laugh because I always—you know, you have a lot of anxiety when you practice. That's just an aspect of the law. So, for me, I get to make jokes about things that I thought I was going to do or sound like or be like, so it honestly makes me feel a little better. But for the humor itself and how I present online, especially on Twitter, my boss, one of my co-founders, put it perfectly. And we had met for a conference, and—first time in person—and he goes, “You're no different than Twitter, are you?” I go, “Nope.” And he goes, “That's great.”And he really appreciated that. And you're right. I felt like I presented my whole personality, my whole self, where in the legal profession, in private practice, it was not the case. Definitely not the case.Corey: Yeah, and sometimes I talk in sentences that are more than 280 characters, which is, you know, a bad habit.Matt: Sometimes. I have a habit from private practice that I can't get rid of, and I ask very aggressive depo questions like I'm deposing somebody. If you're listening in, can you write me on Twitter and tell me if you're a litigator and you do the same thing? Because, like, I will talk to folks, and they're like, “This isn't an interview or like a deposition.” I'm like, “Why? Why isn't it?” And it [laugh] gets really awkward really quickly. But I'm trying to break that habit.Corey: I married a litigator. That pattern tracks, let's be clear. Not that she doesn't so much, but her litigator friends, if litigators could be said to have friends, yeah, absolutely.Matt: My wife is a former litigator. Transactional attorney.Corey: Yes. Much the same. She's grown out of the habit, thankfully.Matt: Oh, yeah. But when we were in the thick of litigation, we were actually at competing law firms. It was very much so, you come home, and it's hard to take—right, it's hard to not take your work home, so there was definitely occasions where we would talk to each other and I thought the judge had to weigh in, right, because there were some objections thrown, some of the questions were leading, a little bit of compound questions. So, all right, that's my lawyer joke of the day. I'm sorry, Corey. I won't continue on the schtick.Corey: It works, though. It's badgering the witness, witnessing the badger, et cetera. Like, all kinds of ridiculous nonsense and getting it wrong, just to be, I guess, intentionally obtuse, works out well. Something you said a minute ago does tie into what you do professionally, where you mentioned that your wife was a litigator and now is a transactional attorney. One thing they never tell you when you start a business is how many lawyers you're going to be working with.And that's assuming everything goes well. I mean, we haven't been involved in litigation, so that's a whole subset of lawyer we haven't had to deal with yet. But we've worked with approximately six—if memory serves—so far, not because we're doing anything egregious, just because—rather because so many different aspects of the business require different areas of specialty. We also, to my understanding—and I'm sure my business partner will correct me slash slit my throat if I'm wrong—I've not had to deal with criminal attorneys in any interesting ways. Sorry, criminal defense attorneys, criminal attorneys is a separate setup for a separate story.But once I understood that, realizing, oh, yeah, Lawtrades. You can find specialist attorneys to augment your existing staff. That is basically how I view that. Is that directionally accurate?Matt: Yeah. So like, common issue I run into, right is, like, a general counsel, is a corporate attorney, right? That's their background. And they're very aware that they're not an employment attorney. They're not a privacy attorney. Maybe they're not an IP attorney or a patent attorney.And because they realize that, because they're not like that old school attorney that thinks they can do everything and solve everyone's problems, they come to Lawtrades and they say, “Look, I don't need an employment attorney for 40 hours a week. I just need ten hours. That's all I need, right? That's the amount of work that I have.” Or, “I don't have the budget for an attorney for 40 hours, but I need somebody. I need somebody here because that's not my specialty.”And that happens all the time where all of a sudden, a solo general counsel becomes a five or six-attorney legal department, right, because you're right, attorneys add up very quickly. We're like rabbits. So, that's where Lawtrades comes in to help out these folks, and help out freelance attorneys, right, that also are like, “Hey, listen, I know employment law. I can help.”Corey: Do you find that the vast slash entire constituency of your customers pretend to be attorneys themselves, or is this one of those areas where, “I'm a business owner. I don't know how these law things work. I had a firm handshake and now they're not paying as agreed. What do I do?” Do you wind up providing, effectively, introduction services—since I do view you as, you know, match.com for dating with slightly fewer STDs—do you wind up then effectively acting as an—[unintelligible 00:18:47] go to talk to find a lawyer in general? Or does it presuppose that I know which end of a brief is up?Matt: There's so many parts of what you just said I want to take as well. I also liked that you didn't just say no STDs. That was very lawyerly of you. It's always, like, likely, right?Corey: Oh, yes. So, the answer to any particular level of seniority and every aspect of being an attorney is, “It depends.”Matt: That's right. That's right. It triggers me for you to say it. Ugh. So, our client base, generally speaking, our companies ranging from, like, an A round company that has a solo GC all the way up to a publicly traded company that has super robust legal department that maybe needs a bunch of paralegals, bunch of legal operations professionals, contract managers, attorneys for very niche topics, niche issues, that they're just, that is not what they want to do.So, generally speaking, that's who we service. We used to be in the SMB space. There was a very public story—my founders are really cool because they built in public and we almost went broke, actually in that space. Which, Corey, I'm happy to share that article with you. I think you'll get a kick out of it.Corey: I would absolutely look forward to seeing that article. In fact, if you send me the link, we will definitely make it a point to throw it into the [show notes 00:19:58].Matt: Awesome. Happy to do it. Happy to do it. But it's cool. The clients, I tell you what, when I was in private practice when I was in-house, I would always deal with an adverse attorney. That was always what I was dealing with.No one was ever—or a business person internally that maybe wasn't thrilled to be on the phone. I tell you what, now, when I get to talk to some of these folks, they're happy to talk to me; it's a good conversation. It really has changed my mentality from being a very adverse litigator attorney to—I mean it kind of lends itself to a shitposter, to a mean guy, to a party clown. It's a lot of fun.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Uptycs, because they believe that many of you are looking to bolster your security posture with CNAPP and XDR solutions. They offer both cloud and endpoint security in a single UI and data model. Listeners can get Uptycs for up to 1,000 assets through the end of 2023 (that is next year) for $1. But this offer is only available for a limited time on UptycsSecretMenu.com. That's U-P-T-Y-C-S Secret Menu dot com.Corey: One area that I think is going to be a point of commonality between us is in what the in-and-out of our day jobs look like. Because looking at it from a very naive perspective, why on earth does what is effectively an attorney referral service—yes, which may or may not run afoul of how you describe yourselves; I know, lawyers are very particular about wording—Matt: Staffing [laugh].Corey: Exactly. Legal staffing. There we are. It doesn't seem to lend itself to having a, “Head of Community,” quote-unquote, which really translates into, “I shitpost on the internet.” The same story could be said to apply to someone who fixes AWS bills because in my part of the industry, obviously, there is a significant problem with people who have large surprise bills from their cloud provider, but they generally don't talk about them in public as soon as they become an even slightly serious company.You don't find someone at a Fortune 500 complaining on Twitter about how big their AWS bill is because that does horrifying things to their stock price as well as them personally, once the SEC gets involved. So, for me, it was always I'm going to be loud and noisy and have fun in the space so that people hear about me, and then when they have this problem, in the come. Is that your approach to this, or is it more or less the retconning story that I just told, and it really had its origins in, “I'm just going to shitpost. I feel like good things will happen.”Matt: Funnily enough, it's both. That's how it started. So, when I was in private practice, I was posting like crazy on—I'm going to say LinkedIn for the third time—and again, I hope somebody sends a nasty message to me about how bad LinkedIn is, which I don't think it's that bad. I think it's okay—so I was shitposting on LinkedIn before probably many folks were shitposting on LinkedIn, again like Alex, and I was doing it just because I was tired of attorneys being what we described, this old guard, buttoned up, just obnoxiously perfect version of themselves. And it eventually led itself into this career. The whole journey was wild, how I got here. Best way to describe it was a crazy trip.Corey: It really is. You also have a very different audience in some ways. I mean, for example, when you work in the legal field, to my understanding from the—or being near to it, but not within it, where you go to school is absolutely one of those things that people still bring up as a credential decades later; it's the first thing people scroll to on LinkedIn. And in tech, we have nothing like that at all. I mean, just ask anyone of the random engineers who talk about where they used to work in their Twitter bio: ex-Google, ex-Uber, et cetera.Not quite as bad as the VC space where it's, “Oh, early investor in,” like, they list their companies, which of course to my mind, just translates directly into, the most interesting thing about you is that once upon a time, you wrote a check. Which yeah, and with some VCs that definitely tracks.Matt: That's right. That's a hundred percent right. It's still like that. I actually saw a Twitter post, not necessarily about education, but about big law, about working in big law where folks were saying, “Hey, I've heard a rumor that you cannot go in-house at a company unless you worked in big law.” And I immediately—I have such a chip on my shoulder because I am not a big law attorney—I immediately jumped to it to say, “Listen, I talk to in-house attorneys all the time. I'm a former in-house attorney. You don't have to work with big law. You don't have to go to a T-14 law school.” I didn't. I went to Florida State University in Tallahassee.But I hear that to this day. And you're right, it drives me nuts because that is a hallmark of the legal industry, bragging about credentials, bragging about where I came from. Because it also goes back to that old guard of, “Oh, I came from Harvard, and I did this, and I did that,” because we love to show how great and special we are not by our actual merits, but where we came from.Corey: When someone introduces themselves to me at a party—which has happened to me before—and in their introduction, they mention where they went to law school, I make it a point to ask them about it and screw it up as many times in the rest of the evening as I can work in to. It's like they went to Harvard. Like so, “Tell me about your time at Yale.” “Oh, sorry. I must have forgotten about that.” Or, “What was the worst part about living in DC when you went to law school?” “Oh, I'm sorry. I missed that. You went to Harvard. How silly of me.”Matt: There's a law school at Dartmouth [laugh]?Corey: I know. I'm as surprised as anyone to discover these things. Yeah. I mean, again, on the one hand, it does make people feel a little off and that's not really what I like doing. But on the other, ideally, it's a little bit of a judgment nudge as far as this may not sound the way that you think it sounds when you introduce yourself to people that way.Matt: All the time. I hear that all the time. Every so often, I'll have someone—and I think a lot of the industry, maybe just the industry where I'm in, it's not brought up anymore. I usually will ask, right? “Hey, where do you come from?” Just as a conversation starter, “What firm did you practice at? Did you practice in big law? Small law?”Someone once called it insignificant law to me, which hurts because I'm part of insignificant law. I get those and it's just to start a conversation, but when it's presented to me initially, “Hey, yeah, I was at Harvard,” unprompted. Or, “I went to Yale,” or went to whatever in the T-14, you're right, it's very off-putting. At least it's off-putting to me. Maybe if someone wants to tell me otherwise, online if you went to Harvard, and someone said, “Hey, I went to Harvard,” and that's how they started the conversation, and you enjoy it, then… so be it. But I'll tell you, it's a bit off-putting to me, Corey.Corey: It definitely seems it. I guess, on some level, I think it's probably rooted in some form of insecurity. Hmm, it's easy to think, “Oh, they're just completely full of themselves,” but that stuff doesn't spring fully formed from nowhere, like the forehead of some God. That stuff gets built into people. Like, the constant pressure of you are not good enough.Or if you've managed to go to one of those schools and graduate from it, great. The constant, like, “Not everyone can go here. You should feel honored.” It becomes, like, a cornerstone of their personality. For better or worse. Like, it made me more interesting adult if it made my 20s challenging. I don't have any big-name companies on my resume. Well, I do now because I make fun of one, but that's a separate problem entirely. It just isn't something I ever got to leverage, so I didn't.Matt: I feel that completely. I come from—again, someone once told me I worked in insignificant law. And if I ever write a book, that's what I'm going to call it is Insignificant Law. But I worked the small law firms, regional law firms, and these in Tallahassee and I worked in South Florida and nothing that anyone would probably recognize in conversation, right? So, it never became something I bring up.I just say, “I'm an attorney. I do these things,” if you ask me what I do. So, I think honestly, my personality, and probably the shitposting sprung out of that as well, where I just had a different thing to talk about. I didn't talk about the prestige. I talked about the practice, I talked about what I didn't like about the practice, I didn't talk about being on Wall Street doing these crazy deals, I talked about getting my ass kicked in Ponce, Florida, up in the panhandle. For me, I've got a chip on my shoulder, but a different kind of chip.Corey: It's amazing to me how many—well, let's calls this what we are: shitposters—I talk to where their brand and the way that they talk about their space is, I don't want to say rooted in trauma, but definitely built from a place of having some very specific chips on their shoulder. I mean, when I was running DevOps teams and as an engineer myself, I wound up continually tripping over the AWS bill of, “Ha, ha. Now, you get to pay your tax for not reading this voluminous documentation, and the fine print, and with all of the appendices, and the bibliography, and tracked down those references. Doesn't it suck to be you? Da da.” And finally, it was all right, I snapped. Okay. You want to play? Let's play.Matt: That's exactly right. There's, like, a meme going around. I think it actually saw from the accounting meme account, TB4—which is stellar—and it was like, “Ha, I'm laughing because it hurts.” And it's true. That's why we all laugh at the jokes, right?I'll make jokes about origination credit, which is always an issue in the legal industry. I make jokes about the toxic work environment, the partner saying, “Please fix,” at three o'clock in the morning. And we make fun of it because everyone's had to deal with it. Everyone's had to deal with it. And I will say that making fun of it brings light to it and hopefully changes the industry because we all can see how ridiculous it is. But at least at the very beginning, we all look at it and we say, “That's funny because it hurts.”Corey: There's an esprit de corps of shared suffering that I think emerges from folks who are in the trenches, and I think that the rise of—I mean some places called the micro-influencers, but that makes me want to just spit a rat when I hear it; I hate the term—but the rise of these niche personalities are because there are a bunch of in-jokes that you don't have to be very far in to appreciate and enjoy, but if you aren't in the space at all, they just make zero sense. Like when I go to family reunions and start ranting about EC2 instance pricing, I don't get to talk to too many people anymore because oh my God, I've become the drunk uncle I always wanted to be. Goal achieved.Matt: [laugh].Corey: You have to find the right audience.Matt: That's right. There is a term, I think coin—I think it was coined by Taylor Lorenz at Washington Post and it's called a nimcel, which is, like, a niche micro-influencer. It's the worst term I've ever heard in my entire life. The nimcel [laugh]. Sorry, Taylor, it's terrible.But so I don't want to call myself a nimcel. I guess I have a group of people that enjoy the content, but you are so right that the group of people, once you get it, you get it. And if you don't get it, you may think some parts of it—like, you can kind of piece things together, but it's not as funny. But there's plenty of litigation jokes I'll make—like, where I'm talking to the judge. It's always these hypothetical scenarios—and you can maybe find it funny.But if you're a litigator who's gotten their ass kicked by a judge in a state court that just does not like you, you are not a local, they don't like the way you're presenting yourself, they don't like your argument, and they just dig you into the ground, you laugh. You laugh because you're, like, I've been there. I've had—or on the flip, you're the attorney that watched your opposing counsel go through it, you're like, “I remember that.” And you're right, it really you get such a great reaction from these folks, such great feedback, and they love it. They absolutely love it. But you're right, if you're outside, you're like, “Eh, it's kind of funny, but I don't really get all of it.”Corey: My mother approaches it this way whenever she talks to me like I have no idea what you're talking about, but you seem to really know what you're talking about, so I'm proud of you. It's like, “No, Mom, that is, like, the worst combination of everything.” It's like, “Well, are you any good at this thing?” “No. But I'm a white man, so I'm going to assume yes and the world will agree with me until proven otherwise.” So yeah, maybe nuclear physics ain't for you in that scenario.But yeah, the idea of finding your people, finding your audience, before the rise of the internet, none of this stuff would have worked just because you live in a town; how many attorneys are really going to be within the sound of your voice, hearing these stories? Not to mention the fact that everyone knows everyone's business in some of those places, and oh, you can't really subtweet the one person because they're also in the room. The world changes.Matt: The world changes. I've never had this happen. So, when I really started to get aggressive on, like, Twitter, I had already left private practice; I was in-house at that point. And I've always envisioned, I've always, I always want to, like, go back to private practice for one case: to go into a courtroom in, like, Miami, Florida, and sit there and commiserate and tell the stories of people again like I used to do—just like what you're saying—and see what everyone says. Say, “Hey, I saw you on Twitter. Hey, I saw this story on Twitter.”But in the same breath, like, you can't talk like you talk online in person, to some degree, right? Like, I can't make fun of opposing counsel because the judge is right there and opposing counsel was right there, and I'm honestly, knowing my luck, I'm about to get my ass kicked by opposing counsel. So, I probably should watch myself in that courtroom.Corey: But I'm going to revise the shit out of this history when it comes time to do my tweet after the fact. “And then everybody clapped.”Matt: [laugh]. I found five dollars outside the courtroom.Corey: Exactly. I really want to thank you for spending so much time chatting with me. If people want to learn more and follow your amazing shitpost antics on the internet, where's the best place for them to do it?Matt: Corey it's been an absolute pleasure. Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn. For everything but LinkedIn: @ItsMattsLaw. LinkedIn, just find me by my name: Matt Margolis.Corey: And we will put links to all of it in the [show notes 00:33:04]. Thank you so much for being so generous with your time. It's appreciated.Matt: I have not laughed as hard in a very, very long time. Corey, thank you so much.Corey: Matt Margolis, Head of Community at Lawtrades. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an angry, insulting comment that you've drafted the first time realized, oh wait, you're not literate, and then hired someone off of Lawtrades to help you write in an articulate fashion.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

On today's episode, we sit down with educator, researcher, and all-around information guru Simon Peyton Jones to learn all about programming languages and their impact on hardware, software, and research/development. Simon also brings some professional insight into Excel as a programing language. Oddly enough, around the time Rob met Simon, Rob began to think of Excel as a programming language. In order to be a language, the formulas have to deal with both space and time, so Excel formula language absolutely fits the bill. Just be careful how you code. On older systems, if you perform a VLOOKUP at the same time as a nested IF, it might disrupt the space-time continuum and bring about the blue screen of death! As an engineering fellow at Epic Games, a researcher for Microsoft Research Cambridge, and a professor at Glasgow University, Simon also brings a unique perspective on changing the educational system to include base learning on computer science as part of general education. Not only did Simon step up and suggest change, but he also followed through and created a coalition to guide the program and ensure future expansion as needed. When Simon talks about research, people listen! As always, if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform to help others find the Raw Data by P3 Adaptive Podcast Also in this episode: Simon Peyton Jones's bookmarks! Alonzo Church – Lambda Calculus Touring machine Automata Theory LAMBDA: The Ultimate Excel worksheet function. (Andy Gordon, Simon Peyton Jones) LISP functional language Microsoft Research – Cambridge Arthur Norman – functional programming John Backus Turing Award Setting up for Success w/David McKinnis Declarative Programing Immutability Changes Everything Computing at School – CAS Scratch - Computer Programming Logo - Apple Estimating the value of Pi using Monte Carlo Code.org Tesla One-Way Valve Turing Tumble Robo Rally Board Game Unreal Engine Joe Duffy on Transactional Memory Haskell Language

アプリ作る社長: プログラミング初心者講座です。 iPhoneアプリの作り方やRaspberry Piのリモートサーバー構築方法などIT関連ニュースの情報発信をいたします。 YouTubeでiOS APPの作り方やMacとラズベリーパイを連携してリモートサービスを作る方法を解説しております。たまにIT関連ニュースの配信もあり。これからの求められるアプリのニーズや世界で販売するためのマーケティング戦略なども時々お話しします。 Twitterで「アプリ作る社長」と検索してください。 ホームページ https://catch-questions.com ↑「Catch Questions」とGoogle検索すると？ ↓「Catch Questions」でAmazon Kindle検索すると？ 書籍１ プログラミング初心者がゼロからiPhoneアプリ開発に挑戦するにはどうする？ 書籍２ 独学で Swift × Python 初心者が覚えるべき最低限の基本コードのまとめ 書籍３ プログラミング的に学ぶ英語勉強方法 書籍４ 【Raspberry Pi4でWordPress】自宅サーバーの基本操作とセキュリティ 書籍５ 【Raspberry Pi4でPython プログラミング】Web APIを利用したBotサービスの作り方 書籍６ 【Raspberry PiでLinux コマンド】初心者向けシェルスクリプトの超基本操作 書籍７ 【PancakeSwap APR自動解析】パンケーキスワップの年利情報を取得するアプリを自作する方法 書籍８ 【ITエンジニアの転職マニュアル】ブラック企業を脱出しホワイト企業へ入社するためのノウハウ

#Array in #excel 2019 | #msexcel 2019 | #BPAEducators #Excel is vast having many features, Array function is one such function that allows you to work with a number of #values. It can be used with other functions like #Vlookup. BPA Educators has been established with a vision to aid #students and #professionals in achieving their goals. We at BPA Educators understand the aspirations of young students and professionals. Our sole aim is to reduce the hassle that one can encounter while choosing the right career option. We have striven hard for the past 10 years and trained over 1000+ students to date. Our team of counselors is qualified and experienced, consisting of CA's, CMA's, CS, LLB, and MBA's who have exposure to practical training with hands-on experience in the industry, having experience of 10 to 15 years and growing strong with a commitment to transform the career of students with better opportunities amongst various age groups. We provide the best training and counseling for students from Class XI till MBA. BPA Educators offers Basic and advanced courses in Microsoft Excel, which helps you to keep the data of numbers and analyze them properly, according to the requirements and needs. Course Offered:- 1) PAP 2) PAP + 3) MIS 4) GST Practical Training and E-filling 5) Direct Tax Practical Training and E-Filling 6) MS Office Basic and Advance 7) IELTS 8) BCOM Coaching 9) CA,CS,CMA Coaching 10) 11th and 12th Coaching 11) Tally.ERP 9 Basic and Advanced 12) Spoken English 13) Communication 14) And Many More KEY FEATURES 1) Excelled in the Job Oriented Training 2) 10+ years experience and qualified trainers (CA/CMA/CS/MBA) 3) Fully practical approach with best grades in exams 4) Training on Latest Accounting Software 5) The updated and relevant study material 6) Real-life projects & On the job training 7) Job for lifetime facility 8) 1000 + satisfied and placed students 9) Strong placement network 10) Connect with 500+ Employers 11) Monthly 200+ openings 12) Workshops, Guest Lecture, and various other activities for industry and student interaction 13) Special rebate scheme for special and weaker section students 14) Fully Equipped Infrastructure For expert advice Address: F-17 / 175-176 Basement, Sector-8, Rohini, Delhi-110085. Call: +91-8882196405 Email: info@bpaeducators.com Private Facebook group: BPA mastery To get more updates join VIP COMMUNITY OF BPA EDUCATORS- https://www.facebook.com/groups/bpamastery/ Website: www.bpaeducators.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bpaeducator/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bpaeducator Twitter: https://twitter.com/EducatorsBpa Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/y9nb27xc Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bpa-educators/

Once you learn the VLOOKUP formula, your world opens up in terms of being able to analyze and manipulate data. There are hundreds if not thousands of tutorials on how to use the VLOOKUP formula since it’s such a powerful formula for finding the data you need in a long list. Comparable formulas include the […] The post How to do a VLOOKUP with multiple conditions or criteria (3 methods) appeared first on .

#Vlookup & #Hlookup in #Excel 2019 | #BPAEducators | #MSExcel 2019 Vlookup:- The VLOOKUP function performs a #vertical #lookup by #searching for a value in the first #column of a #table and returning the value in the same row in the index_number position. The VLOOKUP function is a built-in function in #Excel that is #categorized as a #Lookup/ #Reference #Function. Hlookup:- HLOOKUP stands for #Horizontal Lookup and can be used to retrieve information from a table by searching a row for the #matching #data and outputting from the corresponding column. While VLOOKUP searches for the value in a column, HLOOKUP searches for the value in a row. BPA Educators has been established with a vision to aid #students and #professionals in achieving their goals. We at BPA Educators understand the aspirations of young students and professionals. Our sole aim is to reduce the hassle that one can encounter while choosing the right career option. We have striven hard for the past 10 years and trained over 1000+ students to date. Our team of counselors is qualified and experienced, consisting of CA's, CMA's, CS, LLB, and MBA's who have exposure to practical training with hands-on experience in the industry, having experience of 10 to 15 years and growing strong with a commitment to transform the career of students with better opportunities amongst various age groups. We provide the best training and counseling for students from Class XI till MBA. BPA Educators offers Basic and advanced courses in Microsoft Excel, which helps you to keep the data of numbers and analyze them properly, according to the requirements and needs. Course Offered:- 1) PAP 2) PAP + 3) MIS 4) GST Practical Training and E-filling 5) Direct Tax Practical Training and E-Filling 6) MS Office Basic and Advance 7) IELTS 8) BCOM Coaching 9) CA,CS,CMA Coaching 10) 11th and 12th Coaching 11) Tally.ERP 9 Basic and Advanced 12) Spoken English 13) Communication 14) And Many More KEY FEATURES 1) Excelled in the Job Oriented Training 2) 10+ years experience and qualified trainers (CA/CMA/CS/MBA) 3) Fully practical approach with best grades in exams 4) Training on Latest Accounting Software 5) The updated and relevant study material 6) Real-life projects & On the job training 7) Job for lifetime facility 8) 1000 + satisfied and placed students 9) Strong placement network 10) Connect with 500+ Employers 11) Monthly 200+ openings 12) Workshops, Guest Lecture, and various other activities for industry and student interaction 13) Special rebate scheme for special and weaker section students 14) Fully Equipped Infrastructure For expert advice Address: F-17 / 175-176 Basement, Sector-8, Rohini, Delhi-110085. Call: +91-8882196405 Email: info@bpaeducators.com Private Facebook group: BPA mastery To get more updates join VIP COMMUNITY OF BPA EDUCATORS- https://www.facebook.com/groups/bpamastery/ Website: www.bpaeducators.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bpaeducator/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bpaeducator Twitter: https://twitter.com/EducatorsBpa Youtube: https://tinyurl.com/y9nb27xc Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bpa-educators/

S5 E5 - The fifth episode of our fifth season is our annual fantasy football preview show. This year we each focused on three players we really like, or don't like, at their current ADP, discussed how to go about drafting tight ends this year, and covered a lot of fantasy football rules we hate as well as a couple that we like. Follow us on Twitter @Sportsballers18, @evan_ash13, @CoryPuffett, and @QuagMeyer67 and email us at thesportsballers@gmail.com to enter our 2022 NFL picks contest!

Excel is ubiquitous in the accounting and financial professionals' workplace, but some of the best functions and features for accounting and financial professionals are unknown or underutilized. Leverage Tables, shortcuts, and best practices to increase efficiency. Master the functions such as VLOOKUP, INDEX & MATCH, Dynamic Array Formulas. As well as Formulas and uses such as Depreciation, Amortization, Interest, Payment, and more. In this course, we will even take you deeper into statistical analysis with formulas for everything from median, most, and standard deviation and regression analysis.   Are you a CPA?? Are you a Financial Professional?? Earn CPE Credits for Today's Podcast. Check out https://cpe.cx/EESA6/. Take a quick 5 question quiz and get your certificate today. Super Easy!  Presented by Stephen M. Yoss, CPA, MS (https://yoss.io) Produced by Alicia Yoss & Alanna Regalbuto Graphics By Flaticon.com and iStock Music by Bensound.com Education and Compliance By K2 Enterprises (https://k2e.com) Copyright. All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. The use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Educational Use Only. The information presented in this presentation is for educational use only. The presenter will make specific recommendations, but the participant is highly recommended to do their own due diligence before making any investment decision.

Excel is ubiquitous in the accounting and financial professionals' workplace, but some of the best functions and features for accounting and financial professionals are unknown or underutilized. Leverage Tables, shortcuts, and best practices to increase efficiency. Master the functions such as VLOOKUP, INDEX & MATCH, Dynamic Array Formulas. As well as Formulas and uses such as Depreciation, Amortization, Interest, Payment, and more. In this course, we will even take you deeper into statistical analysis with formulas for everything from median, most, and standard deviation and regression analysis.   Are you a CPA?? Are you a Financial Professional?? Earn CPE Credits for Today's Podcast. Check out https://cpe.cx/EESA6/. Take a quick 5 question quiz and get your certificate today. Super Easy!  Presented by Stephen M. Yoss, CPA, MS (https://yoss.io) Produced by Alicia Yoss & Alanna Regalbuto Graphics By Flaticon.com and iStock Music by Bensound.com Education and Compliance By K2 Enterprises (https://k2e.com) Copyright. All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. The use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Educational Use Only. The information presented in this presentation is for educational use only. The presenter will make specific recommendations, but the participant is highly recommended to do their own due diligence before making any investment decision.

Excel is ubiquitous in the accounting and financial professionals' workplace, but some of the best functions and features for accounting and financial professionals are unknown or underutilized. Leverage Tables, shortcuts, and best practices to increase efficiency. Master the functions such as VLOOKUP, INDEX & MATCH, Dynamic Array Formulas. As well as Formulas and uses such as Depreciation, Amortization, Interest, Payment, and more. In this course, we will even take you deeper into statistical analysis with formulas for everything from median, most, and standard deviation and regression analysis.   Are you a CPA?? Are you a Financial Professional?? Earn CPE Credits for Today's Podcast. Check out https://cpe.cx/EESA5/. Take a quick 5 question quiz and get your certificate today. Super Easy!  Presented by Stephen M. Yoss, CPA, MS (https://yoss.io) Produced by Alicia Yoss & Alanna Regalbuto Graphics By Flaticon.com and iStock Music by Bensound.com Education and Compliance By K2 Enterprises (https://k2e.com) Copyright. All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. The use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Educational Use Only. The information presented in this presentation is for educational use only. The presenter will make specific recommendations, but the participant is highly recommended to do their own due diligence before making any investment decision.

xcel is ubiquitous in the accounting and financial professionals' workplace, but some of the best functions and features for accounting and financial professionals are unknown or underutilized. Leverage Tables, shortcuts, and best practices to increase efficiency. Master the functions such as VLOOKUP, INDEX & MATCH, Dynamic Array Formulas. As well as Formulas and uses such as Depreciation, Amortization, Interest, Payment, and more. In this course, we will even take you deeper into statistical analysis with formulas for everything from median, most, and standard deviation and regression analysis.   Are you a CPA?? Are you a Financial Professional?? Earn CPE Credits for Today's Podcast. Check out https://cpe.cx/EESA4/. Take a quick 5 question quiz and get your certificate today. Super Easy!  Presented by Stephen M. Yoss, CPA, MS (https://yoss.io) Produced by Alicia Yoss & Alanna Regalbuto Graphics By Flaticon.com and iStock Music by Bensound.com Education and Compliance By K2 Enterprises (https://k2e.com) Copyright. All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. The use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Educational Use Only. The information presented in this presentation is for educational use only. The presenter will make specific recommendations, but the participant is highly recommended to do their own due diligence before making any investment decision.

Excel is ubiquitous in the accounting and financial professionals' workplace, but some of the best functions and features for accounting and financial professionals are unknown or underutilized. Leverage Tables, shortcuts, and best practices to increase efficiency. Master the functions such as VLOOKUP, INDEX & MATCH, Dynamic Array Formulas. As well as Formulas and uses such as Depreciation, Amortization, Interest, Payment, and more. In this course, we will even take you deeper into statistical analysis with formulas for everything from median, most, and standard deviation and regression analysis.   Are you a CPA?? Are you a Financial Professional?? Earn CPE Credits for Today's Podcast. Check out https://cpe.cx/EESA3/. Take a quick 5 question quiz and get your certificate today. Super Easy!  Presented by Stephen M. Yoss, CPA, MS (https://yoss.io) Produced by Alicia Yoss & Alanna Regalbuto Graphics By Flaticon.com and iStock Music by Bensound.com Education and Compliance By K2 Enterprises (https://k2e.com) Copyright. All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. The use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Educational Use Only. The information presented in this presentation is for educational use only. The presenter will make specific recommendations, but the participant is highly recommended to do their own due diligence before making any investment decision.

Excel is ubiquitous in the accounting and financial professionals' workplace, but some of the best functions and features for accounting and financial professionals are unknown or underutilized. Leverage Tables, shortcuts, and best practices to increase efficiency. Master the functions such as VLOOKUP, INDEX & MATCH, Dynamic Array Formulas. As well as Formulas and uses such as Depreciation, Amortization, Interest, Payment, and more. In this course, we will even take you deeper into statistical analysis with formulas for everything from median, most, and standard deviation and regression analysis.   Are you a CPA?? Are you a Financial Professional?? Earn CPE Credits for Today's Podcast. Check out https://cpe.cx/eesa2/. Take a quick 5 question quiz and get your certificate today. Super Easy!  Presented by Stephen M. Yoss, CPA, MS (https://yoss.io) Produced by Alicia Yoss & Alanna Regalbuto Graphics By Flaticon.com and iStock Music by Bensound.com Education and Compliance By K2 Enterprises (https://k2e.com) Copyright. All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. The use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Educational Use Only. The information presented in this presentation is for educational use only. The presenter will make specific recommendations, but the participant is highly recommended to do their own due diligence before making any investment decision.

Excel is ubiquitous in the accounting and financial professionals' workplace, but some of the best functions and features for accounting and financial professionals are unknown or underutilized. Leverage Tables, shortcuts, and best practices to increase efficiency. Master the functions such as VLOOKUP, INDEX & MATCH, Dynamic Array Formulas. As well as Formulas and uses such as Depreciation, Amortization, Interest, Payment, and more. In this course, we will even take you deeper into statistical analysis with formulas for everything from median, most, and standard deviation and regression analysis.   Are you a CPA?? Are you a Financial Professional?? Earn CPE Credits for Today's Podcast. Check out https://cpe.cx/eesa1/. Take a quick 5 question quiz and get your certificate today. Super Easy!  Presented by Stephen M. Yoss, CPA, MS (https://yoss.io) Produced by Alicia Yoss & Alanna Regalbuto Graphics By Flaticon.com and iStock Music by Bensound.com Education and Compliance By K2 Enterprises (https://k2e.com) Copyright. All product names, logos, and brands are the property of their respective owners. All company, product, and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. The use of these names, logos, and brands does not imply endorsement. Educational Use Only. The information presented in this presentation is for educational use only. The presenter will make specific recommendations, but the participant is highly recommended to do their own due diligence before making any investment decision.

In this episode of the Move to Value Podcast we have a conversation about quality and its importance as a driver of success in value-based care with Derrick Stiller, Senior Director of Value Based Contract Operations at https://www.chesshealthsolutions.com/ (CHESS Health Solutions), where he leads the Contract Operations and Clinical Documentation Integrity departments as well as Quality Services. Today we want to talk about quality and its importance as a driver of success in value-based care. Can you share with us what goes into Quality performance monitoring, data collection, and reporting? Definitely. Quality is very important in value-based health care. It's how you get started in the game. Organization can't move to more advanced contracts without performing well in quality. And then you also won't have dollars to reinvest in the infrastructure it takes to move on to the more advanced contracts that include more nurse positions that cost more, advanced data that's required to bend the cost curve. So, it's very important. You need the quality dollars. You need to perform well. And then of course quality is designed to have better care for the patient. So that's ultimately what we're in for. It's also great because for the most part it is very easy to measure and track over time. Very objective. There are patients who qualify for a measure, that's your denominator. Patients that are compliant for the measure, that's your numerator. I went to public school but even I can figure out numerator divided by denominator equals performance. So that's a very objective measure that people can kind of really grasp. You can see what levers make changes. Payors are good about sending quality summaries that show current performance compared to target and patient level detail. This is important because you want to identify the non-compliant members. Then you need to come up with a strategy. One thing we've helped, found helpful, is adding gaps to target. Some payors provide that, some don't. But it's great and you can do a simple, VLOOKUP formula, or some formulas to provide information to figure out what that gaps to target is. And then, that allows you to really focus and find the patients that are going to move the needle for you. Traditional Medicare ACOs are a little different though. It's definitely a different animal. You have to have the infrastructure to be able to produce these reports yourself. So, most of the time, when I'm talking today, a lot of, it's going to rely on contracts that are in the MA space versus traditional Medicare ACOs. But of course, we do have traditional Medicare ACOs at CHESS, and we do produce quality data. But it is a little harder than just relying on the payors. So then, you know, the question becomes what do we do with this information once we have it. So, you need to develop a process that will ensure non-compliant patients become compliant. This starts way upstream. You want to audit templates, such as the annual wellness visit template, that is used for patients. You want to standardize it across the board. You don't want 30 providers having 10 different templates that they use. You want to make sure quality measures are presented to the provider at the point of care. You want to make sure that data is captured in discrete data fields. What is that, right? That's some jargon. But that's just the, think, yes no; integer 1 to 10. Not free text. So, it's not a, when you're filling out a form online, there's text, there's fields that you can just type in. They're pretty rare these days because you want, the data folks want to be able to pull the information and compare it and not have, they don't want to have to have a computer and AI to analyze what's typed in the field. So discrete data is very important. So, this ensures great performance, and allows you to really take advantage of automated processes that are offered to reduce the manual work. Then you have to design processes to capture

Office 365 adds new feature without notifying you. You could be missing out. Here is a list of features:Clipboard, Analyze Data, Recommended Pivot Tables YT:  https://youtu.be/rFM7R4g78soData types, Geography, StocksFlash Fill - inplace of using Text to column and concatenate function. Article: https://azsolutions.com.au/manipulating-data-excel/#Flash-Fill-And-Remove-DuplicatesQuick AnalysisForecast SheetComments and NotesPower QueryXlookup V's Vlookup function in Excel YT: https://youtu.be/II3XXd2uNZ8

Si vous vous intéressez un tant soit peu aux sujets liés à la data, il est très probable que vous ayez déjà entendu parler de Business Intelligence - de BI. Mais avez-vous déjà passé une tête dans les coulisses ? Vu l'envers du décor ? Savez-vous ce qu'est un cube multidimensionnel ou comment modéliser les données en étoile ? Perso, je n'en avais aucune idée ; mais avec Abdelkader j'ai appris énormément de chose sur le sujet (et en plus, on s'est bien marré !) L'information brute, la ligne elle-même, ne nous intéresse pas. C'est la donnée dans son contexte qui a de la valeur. Eiffage est une entreprise d'une certaine taille. Disons qu'elle est un peu plus grosse qu'une PME, avec ses 70 mille collaborateurs. Tout ce beau monde produit une quantité pharamineuse de données métier. Ces données ont une valeur inestimable pour l'entreprise, à condition de pouvoir les exploiter. Et quand les volumes à traiter, à analyser, son si important, une bonne architecture de Business Intelligence est essentielle. Si votre fichier Excel rame pour faire un VLOOKUP alors que vous avez à peine quelques milliers de lignes, imaginez ce que c'est quand il s'agi de consolider des milliards de données, tirées de milliers de bases de données, pour produire des centaines de rapports métiers... en temps réel ? C'est un vrai savoir faire que nous partage Abdelkader dans cet épisode où se côtoient "modèles en étoile" et "cubes multidimensionnels". Parce que l'information brute, mesure, est au centre du système et que toutes les informations qui en définissent le contexte tournent autour. Passionnant. La finalité : offrir plus de liberté aux métiers en leur donnant accès à une seule source d'information, une seule "source de vérité". Découvrez l'univers de la Business Intelligence, l'art de raffiner les données pour les transformer en or.

Vlookup:- The VLOOKUP function performs a vertical lookup by searching for a value in the first column of a table and returning the value in the same row in the index_number position. The VLOOKUP function is a built-in function in Excel that is categorized as a Lookup/Reference Function. Hlookup:- HLOOKUP stands for Horizontal Lookup and can be used to retrieve information from a table by searching a row for the matching data and outputting from the corresponding column. While VLOOKUP searches for the value in a column, HLOOKUP searches for the value in a row. BPA Educators has been established with a vision to aid students and professionals in achieving their goals. We at BPA Educators understand the aspirations of young students and professionals. Our sole aim is to reduce the hassle that one can encounter while choosing the right career option. We have striven hard for the past 10 years and trained over 1000+ students to date. Our team of counsellors is qualified and experienced, consisting of CA's, CMA's, CS, LLB, and MBA's who have exposure to practical training with hands-on experience in the industry, having experience of 10 to 15 years and growing strong with a commitment to transform the career of students with better opportunities amongst various age groups. We provide the best training and counseling for students from Class XI till MBA. BPA Educators offers Basic and advance courses in Microsoft Excel, which helps you to keep the data of number and analyze them properly, according to the requirements and needs. Course Offered:- 1) PAP 2) PAP + 3) MIS 4) GST Practical Training and E-filling 5) Direct Tax Practical Training and E-Filling 6) MS Office Basic and Advance 7) IELTS 8) BCOM Coaching 9) CA,CS,CMA Coaching 10) 11th and 12th Coaching 11) Tally. ERP 9 Basic and Advance 12) Spoken English 13) Communication 14) And Many More KEY FEATURES 1) Excelled in the Job Oriented Training 2) 10+ years' experience and qualified trainers (CA/CMA/CS/MBA) 3) Fully practical approach with best grades in exams 4) Training on Latest Accounting Software 5) The updated and relevant study material 6) Real-life projects & On the job training 7) Job for lifetime facility 8) 1000 + satisfied and placed students 9) Strong placement network 10) Connect with 500+ Employers 11) Monthly 200+ openings 12) Workshops, Guest Lecture, and various other activities for industry and student interaction 13) Special rebate scheme for special and weaker section students 14) Fully Equipped Infrastructure For expert advice Address: C-8/13, Sector-7, Rohini, Delhi-110085 Call: +91-8882196405 Email: info@bpaeducators.com Private Facebook group: BPA mastery To get more updates join VIP COMMUNITY OF BPA EDUCATORS- https://www.facebook.com/groups/bpamastery/ Website: www.bpaeducators.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bpaeducator/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bpaeducator Twitter: https://twitter.com/EducatorsBpa YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/y9nb27xc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bpa-educators/

Preston Babb graduated with Full-time Data Analytics Cohort 4. My experience in sales protecting data for customers exposed me to all sorts of business data and analytics. Building relationships and telling stories has been a large part of my success, which moved me to expanding my skills in data analytics to help write and tell data stories and to solve complex problems leveraging the following: Tableau, PowerBI, SQL (PostgreSQL, JOINS), Excel (Pivot Tables, VLOOKUP, PowerPivot), Python (pandas).

Beyonce, Prince, Madonna...Like so many of these iconic one word name celebrities in the music world, Chandoo is as unique and talented as they come in the data world!  His story is quite inspiring, his heart and soul are warm, and his brain is brimming with great ideas! All Things Chandoo: Chandoo.Org Chandoo's Youtube Power BI Playdate Budget VS Actual Articles Some Creators and Channels that inspire Chandoo: ElectroBoom Weezy Waiter Hybrid Calisthenics Ali Abdaal  References in this episode: Mike Miskell Tribute To The Wolf Episode Timeline: 4:40 - Chandoo's introduction to Excel was born from necessity (like many of us!), The birth of Chandoo.org (often imitated, never duplicated), and the uniqueness of Chandoo that makes him a huge success 31:50 - Chandoo's Excel Dashboarding is exquisite, his transition to Power BI, and what really matters in one's career 54:10 - Chandoo the Excel celebrity and the Power BI celebrity, Lambda functions, and a curveball question for Chandoo about working for Microsoft 1:06:25 - Chandoo and Rob cross paths, Chandoo's iconic hair, the Game-Changing features of Power BI, and some Power BI hacks 1:33:45 - What's next for Chandoo? Episode Transcript: Rob Collie (00:00:00): Hello friends. Think for a moment about the people that you're aware of, who only go by a single word name. They're usually musicians, Prince, Madonna, Cher, Beyonce. There are a couple of non-musician examples that come to mind like Oprah, for instance. These tend to be celebrities on the world stage. Well, today's guest is the rare exception that pulls that off within the Excel, Power BI, and data community. And I'm talking, of course, about Chandoo. Chandoo is one of the completely original early stage MVP-type celebrities within our community. He blazed a path that now hundreds, if not thousands of people have followed. And sometimes with things like this, it's really that first-mover advantage that really sets someone apart and he did, in fact, have that kind of first-mover advantage. But he is still, to this day, so incredibly unique that I challenge anyone to actually truly duplicate him. Rob Collie (00:01:06): He is legitimately one of a kind. And for me, he's been there literally since the beginning, even physically, since the beginning. He and his family came to live near us in the United States for a summer. That first summer after which I had formed P3 as a company. With someone as gifted as Chandoo, it's always easy and tempting to sort of assume that they've always been doing what they're doing. And he is very gifted, but it's not like those gifts, where always from the beginning, oriented towards something like Excel. Just like many of us, he had to have his collides with moment, the moment where you bounce off of Excel or you stick to it and obviously, he's stuck. So, of course, we go back to and explore that origin story. And also, like many professionals in this space, Chandoo has, over the years, branched out from Excel into Power BI, creating such wonderful offerings like the Power BI Play Date, which we talk about a little bit. Rob Collie (00:02:07): So, we talk about that, what it's like coming from the Excel background and digging into Power BI. He had some unexpected observations there that once I heard them, I was just nodding. "Yep. Yep. That's right." And that conversation also then led to a familiar conclusion that again, I wouldn't have expected from Chandoo, but of course, I should have. And another part of the conversation, we also talked about where he looked for inspiration, where he looked for stimulation and new ideas. It was great to catch up with an old friend, who was also just a wise and dynamic soul. So, without further preamble, let's get into it. Announcer (00:02:48): This is the Raw Data by P3 Adaptive podcast, with your host, Rob Collie and your cohost, Thomas LaRock. Find out what the experts at P3 Adaptive can do for your business. Just go to p3adaptive.com. Raw Data by P3 Adaptive is data with the human element. Rob Collie (00:03:12): Welcome to the show, the one and only Chandoo, how are you? Chandoo (00:03:17): I am doing good, Rob. How are you? Rob Collie (00:03:19): Fantastic. Been looking forward to this for a while. We've been trying to schedule this for probably three or four months now. And here we are like a power reserve. We saved a Chandoo interview very carefully for that six months over the podcast. Actually, how many months are we in now, Luke? Is this our 10th month? Luke (00:03:37): Start on October, early October. Rob Collie (00:03:40): We're potentially in our 10th month. That's what we do. We lose track of time. You're one of the sort of original internet celebrity instructors, often imitated. There's a lot of people who I've seen, sort of explicitly trying to follow in your footsteps and to varying degrees of success. You're not a formula that really others can follow because there really is, and this is awesome to say this. There really is only one you. I've learned that when we actually met. I didn't know that over the internet. How'd you get started on Excel? That was the beginning, right? Chandoo (00:04:22): It's a long story, but that's what we're here for, anyway. Rob Collie (00:04:25): That's right. Chandoo (00:04:26): So, I first remember using Excel all the way back in 2000. There were times before that I used it, but 2003 is the first real moment in my life when I actually used Excel for something. And this is not even to do anything with what I'm doing nowadays with Excel or Power BI. So, the reason why I use it at that point in life is I was preparing for some computer exams. So, I just finished my graduate studies in computer science, and I started working, but simultaneously, I was preparing for some MBA exams. And in India, there is a lot of competition when it comes to getting into a good college for doing your masters. So, they have all these highly competitive exams where sometimes, upwards of 200,000 people will take the exam and just about 500, 600 people will actually be admitted into the college. Rob Collie (00:05:20): Wow. As like a 0.1% acceptance rate. Chandoo (00:05:25): Yeah. You look at the Ivy League and other top university acceptance rates and then, take it to India. Then, it is nowhere near, like you'd be amazed at the craziness that goes on with some of these places. There are a couple of reasons like India has billion people, right? Obviously, there's lots of competition. On top, there were fewer universities at that point of time. The government has added many more now, but still, with our number of people, it is very less compared. So, there is all these factors for that reason. The competition is very high. As part of preparation strategy, everybody would go and take a lot of extra lessons outside just to learn how to prepare for the exam. And then, they'll take these mock examinations sometimes upwards of 25 or 50 in a year just to prepare for the real thing. And there's only one real thing that's a physical thing at that time. Chandoo (00:06:19): So, you can't really make mistakes when the real exam happens, but you have all the luxury of making mistakes in this mock-up stage or that you can learn. And because there is a lot of data coming in from all these exams, right? When I take an exam, there's like 200 questions or 150 questions and I would attempt some. I'll get some right, some wrong. I could use Excel to just keep track of what I'm doing in these exams, what mistakes I'm making, and if I spot a pattern like this automatic question, I'm making the same mistake again and again, then I will change my study of course to plan and address that particular gap or try to change my strategy, so that I won't attempt that area of questions and instead, focus my time on other things. Chandoo (00:07:01): So, that's really when I used Excel and I made this massive spreadsheet just to keep track of what I was doing in those exams. And it kind of really helped me finally get a good grade in that and get into college for my masters. But obviously, you can say Excel is built for anything and everything. So, that was one of the use cases, but I was not really using any of the formulas or none of the power of Excel. And I didn't even know what it is capable of, but that was the one vivid memory of Excel early on. Rob Collie (00:07:35): Do you still have a copy of that spreadsheet somewhere? Chandoo (00:07:38): Many people ask me this. This is simply because back in 2003, 2004, internet is still kind of very nascent in India. It started off as a Yahoo Group. I don't know if you remember, like Yahoo Groups. It's like a collaboration. Rob Collie (00:07:52): I do. Chandoo (00:07:53): But then later on, the forums were a big thing. So, 2003 was the time when in India, we have these preparatory forums where many of us who are all over the country would log in there once in a while, share our stories of how we are preparing, what we are doing, what is going on right, what is going on wrong. So, we could all learn from each other and collaborate, and win this exam. So, I posted a story of how I prepared when I finished the exam and the spreadsheet was part of that story. And then, many people asked us, "Can we get a copy of this?" But in those days, I didn't even have internet at my home. I would go to my workplace to submit something to this forum. So, the spreadsheet was in my home computer and I think I lost it. I don't think I have it anywhere, or it's probably still in my Yahoo Mail. The password of which I no longer remember, or even use. It's gone. Rob Collie (00:08:46): So much of things like that from that era, for me, even though I had great internet at the time, so many of those things are lost because we didn't really have the cloud file storage yet. Today, anything that I ever think is even remotely, possibly valuable, immediately gets saved to Dropbox. I've got terabytes of Dropbox space that I'm never going to ever use in my life. So, everything is saved past a certain point. But before that, it's kind of almost like in geology, it's below this certain rock layer where the earth just kind of ground, everything's gone. So, it makes sense that it's gone. Do you remember how many columns were in that spreadsheet? Roughly, was it question number and right or wrong answer, that kind of thing? Was that what it was? Chandoo (00:09:33): It's not exactly like that. It was not even structured that way because I didn't even know how to use Excel at that point. I think I started off putting stuff in a notepad file or something. And then, I thought, "Man, this sucks because there is no way to visually see or identify things here." So just, I opened an Excel spreadsheet and started putting it there. This is not a podcast on that exam, but that exam used to have like four or five different sections. It is all quite random. You wouldn't believe, there is no set pattern or anything. The number of questions, number of sections, everything could change at any point. Chandoo (00:10:07): There is no official director that these are the things that you would be tested, but the general outline is you would have questions on English, you'd have questions on mathematics. And then, the mathematics itself is split into couple of areas. So, one is arithmetic and then the other is it's called logical reasoning. And then, sometimes, they would further split that into understanding data and graphs and making business decisions from it. So, three or four sections, essentially. So, there's, I think, four big columns. Some of them had further split into multiple columns based on what the heck I was doing. If I think, "Oh, maybe I should keep track of this." Then, I would just put something there and fill some color in there just to remind me what it is. Rob Collie (00:10:51): My daughter is, right now, in the middle of taking the college entrance exams, SAT and ACT here in the United States, and it would never occur to me to spreadsheet. And she's trying to get her scores to a particular level to get to a particular college, right? It takes some effort. It would still never have occurred to me. And now, I'm wondering if it should have. Never have occurred to me to make a spreadsheet, where she's performing well and where some opportunity to raise score. Chandoo (00:11:18): They probably have access to better tools and apps and stuff like that these days. But yeah, a spreadsheet is the original app, I think. Rob Collie (00:11:27): Yeah, it is. It is. I think that necessity is so often the spark. The Olympics just wrapped up. You watch these events where everyone looks like they're doing exactly the same thing. They're using exactly the same form. And then, it's like a couple of millimeters or something that separates the gold medalist from the fifth place. The expert watching says, "Oh, see right here where this person's little toe kind of flaps the wrong way. That was a big mistake." That's what costs them. And it kind of seems like that when there's 200,000 people competing for a few hundred spots. It's like that, right? Like one question is going to drop your rank by potentially thousands of people. Chandoo (00:12:12): Yeah, totally right. Rob Collie (00:12:13): The pressure. Chandoo (00:12:14): There is a lot of pressure and I think, it is probably one of those formative things in my life, too, that having been through that journey. So the exam, I took it during my final year of college because I thought I know why go and work for some time. I might just finish my graduation and then, just go for post-grad. But I didn't get anywhere near the required cutoff to actually go in and make it for the colleges. So, and I felt really bad because I thought all this was like something that I would easily get. Chandoo (00:12:44): I used to have this self-perception that, "Yes, I'm awesome." In college, you are in a bubble, right? You're not really aware of this wider world out there where there's another 195,000 people who are also writing this. So, that was the wakening call for me. And then I thought, "Oh man, I need to actually sit and strategize this and prepare for it." Like I'm attacking this rather than just wake up and go and right. So, that's preparation became a real thing and I prioritize that, set aside time for it every day. And then, we'll track the shit out of it every day, really. Rob Collie (00:13:20): Yeah. Like I've told this story on this podcast before, but it's metaphorical. I go out to a field day, almost like miniature Olympics for a middle school. I was probably like in eighth grade, and I was going to run this race. It's one lap around the track, which to me seems like a distance race. Your kids can be a fast jog and that starting gun went off and I come out in the fast jog and the other guys are all sprinting from the very beginning. And there's this moment of realization like, "Oh, it's going to be like that." Next thing you know, I'm sprinting. I think I've experienced multiple junctures in my life that are like this. You think you're just going to go and do your thing and just be yourself and be excellent and just be your own self-image that you've very carefully curated for yourself without realizing it. And then, the real world goes, "Oh no, uh-uh (negative). That's not going to cut it." It's a real shock, isn't it? Chandoo (00:14:22): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:14:22): I've had many of those. Chandoo (00:14:24): And I think, that is necessary, especially, probably if you get that kind of a shock too late in your life, you might be too set in your ways to change anything. But when you are becoming an adult, when you are still forming your opinions and ideas about the world, having as much of these experiences as needed is very much necessary, I feel. I mean, even today, I would welcome that kind of things. But growing up, I look back and I think, "Ah, man, that was really what made me who I am today." Rob Collie (00:14:54): Microsoft was a big moment like that for me. That was a moment that lasted years. That was a bad one. I still have all kinds of relatively civil disagreements with my ex-wife about raising our teens. And I'm always of the opinion that like, "Oh no, no, no. The earlier they can experience failure, the better because the consequences are lower. The amortized benefit over time is greater." She's of the opposite. She's there to catch them and prevent any sort of failure, very proactively avoiding failure for them. And I'm like, "Oh no, no, no, no, let them fall. It's it's good for them." Chandoo (00:15:38): I feel like maybe, I have lucked out. I mean, obviously, every parent is so protective of their child, but early on, I think when I was in fifth class, which is like year five in school, I was sent to a boarding school and I never really went back home. I just bumped it from one boarding school to boarding college, to uni, which is also not my place. So, I was never really around my parents for them to kind of catch me if I make stupid choices. It was all like, "You figure it out." And this is all in late '90s, early 2000s when there is no internet, no mobile phone. I still remember, if I ran out of the money, I would have to write a letter, post it, and this would take minimum of three days unless I do some sort of an express mailing, which obviously costs more. Chandoo (00:16:27): So, I'd go for the cheapest thing, postcard. And then, I'll go to my home three days later and they would have to money order the money. There's no bank account concept also. So, they'll have to send it through a postal money order. So, there's actually a lag of like seven or sometimes upwards of 10 days time. And sometimes, they may not even have the money. They might say, Oh wait, we'll send it to you after the first week of the month or whatever." It's all like, yeah. You figure it out, really. Rob Collie (00:16:56): Yeah. There's a week of maybe not eating. Chandoo (00:17:01): You'll have to figure it out. That's pretty much it. Rob Collie (00:17:04): That's it, yeah. All right. So, that was your first brush with it, like for real. But then, obviously, later, your Twitter handle, is it still r1c1? Chandoo (00:17:15): Yes, it is. I wouldn't let go of that. Rob Collie (00:17:18): No, that is an awesome one. I mean, even people who use Excel a lot don't always know about R1C1 notation. So, you end up in a very different strata of Excel skill. At some point later, you ended up in a number of other countries at one point, right? Like you were moving around the world, working for, was a consulting firm. Chandoo (00:17:40): Yeah. I think the real shift to Excel began a little later, especially after I finished my post-graduation. I started working as a consultant with one of the biggest technology companies in India and they basically go around the world, help other companies do their IT better. And it's a very large company. And I was working within the finance and insurance vertical of that company. Obviously, I am not really there to develop software because my role there is to understand what the clients want, translate that into technical terms, so that the software developers, designers, and testers can do their job. So, essentially, I'm a business analyst and it's a fancy word of saying that you would be using PowerPoint and Excel every day. That's pretty much what I was doing. I was building a lot of models, making presentations, taking complex concepts, and simplifying them into Word or Excel, so developers can take that and do their job better. Chandoo (00:18:39): So, early on, I realized, "Man, if I don't know Excel, I'm going to just stay behind in this job." And that's not something that they teach in college. The college is all about, how do you prepare marketing strategy for the fortune, 500 company? And here I am, just sitting in the cubicle, figuring out, "Oh, how do I analyze this? And how do I figure out what's going on with these bunch of projects so that we could improve something?" So, Excel became the real world application that I would use six to eight hours every day. And there were all these colleagues right next to me who do all these amazing models in Excel to figure out the costing for a project or all sorts of things. And I would know nothing about that and I felt really bad. Chandoo (00:19:21): But early on in that job, I was not really doing anything worthwhile. I was just kind of like an apprentice. So, I would only do odd jobs. So, I had a lot of, you could say free time, but I would think that as learning time. So, all I would do is I'd open up Excel. I'd click on random buttons to see, "Oh, what this does. Oh, indirect function, what this would do." So, that got me really curious and I started building some silly things for my personal life, like I'll bill a budget in Excel just to understand how things work, how to make it better. And at one point, I thought, I steadily bumped into something that looks so interesting. And I thought nobody in the world would know about this. I felt like, and I discovered something and they already had my chandoo.org website by then because I am always fascinated by tech. Chandoo (00:20:08): So, I had website created couple of years before, really just as a personal project and I put all my personal life stories there. So, I thought, "Oh, maybe I should just put it on my blog and talk about this new thing that I discovered in Excel." And I put it there. Obviously, it's not a discovery. It's something that people have been doing for ages. It's just that in my own silo, I thought this was new. But when I put there, I got a random comment from somebody in a different part of the world. And that was a weird experience because up until that time, the only people who read the blog are my friends or people who I personally know. I'll tell them, "Hey, I have this blog," and they'll go and read it and they'll comment. But then, I got this comment from a strange dude all over in a different part of the world saying, "You know what, you could also do this to improve the chart." Chandoo (00:20:57): And that kind of blew me like, "Oh, there is actually a community of Excel users who are collaborating and sharing information." And I started slowly doing that over time. And one thing led to another and it kind of blew really out of proportion that at some point, I was actually doing two jobs, right? This consulting job, as well as maintaining the blog in the weekends and nights, just keeping up with the traffic, as well as sharing information, collaborating with people in the comments and email. It became too much. But I also thought, maybe I could go and launch a product here to see if this could become a business. And again, none of this was intentional. It was simply, I would write an article and people will say, "Hey, if you put a template around this, we would buy it." Chandoo (00:21:43): And then, I thought, "Oh, really? You'd pay for this? Okay. Let's just see this." So, that's how things really happen. So, this all began in 2006, but around 2009, after three years of doing that, I left my job so that I could just do this full time. And by then, I had a bunch of not really products. I had two products, main products. So, one is an online Excel class, and the other is a set of project management templates built in Excel. And that's pretty much where it kind of really went from a blog website to a business and a life thing for me. Rob Collie (00:22:20): There are some echoes of some other people's stories in that. There's a little bit of parallel for me. I started my blog after you started yours. I started mine in 2009, long before I really knew what sort of business opportunities would come out of it. I kind of knew that there was a consulting company to be created around this new stuff, but the world wasn't ready for that. I wasn't ready for that. So, the blog existed for a long time before we became a company. It sounds a little bit like Bill Jelen story. It sounds a little bit like Adam Saxton, Guy in a Cube, right? Like it's almost always this side thing. That's just like a passion thing that eventually morphs into something more. Chandoo (00:23:08): You could kind of say that the formula, but again, there are many people who might either give up halfway through the journey simply because life got in the way, or they'd never really got to a point where it could become a self-sustaining thing. And also, some other people might be so lucky as today. From day one, they vision it as a business. But for many of us in this particular group, I think it all happened almost like a series of accidents really, rather than... Looking back, you might think, "Oh, that was a genius strategy to have a blog and this and that." And there's nothing really deliberate there. Rob Collie (00:23:48): Oh, I completely agree. It's like the same thing people tell me about the books that I wrote. "Oh, it's such genius that you wrote it in that informal non-tech book tone, Rob." And I go, "Well, it turned out though," but at the time, it was just a survival strategy. I couldn't get through writing that thing in the other voice. Chandoo (00:24:09): Yeah, I wouldn't have imagine. I think that's the thing, right? It is always good to look back and try to figure out or maybe there's a picture that we draw with all these random dots on the paper. There were other dots... Rob Collie (00:24:24): Or just let other people draw it for you. It's usually more flattering, than what you would draw for yourself, looking back. One of the things that we do on this show is we compliment our guests. We almost like attempt to make you uncomfortable with praise, but it's authentic, right? We don't go out of our way to manufacture things. So, again, I've seen multiple people, almost like explicitly try to copy the Chandoo formula. They've looked in from the outside and gone, "Wow, look at that," right? And go and try to copy it. And it's easier said than done because it turns out that the person behind the Chandoo formula is a little bit unique, like your personality and creativity and humanity. Rob Collie (00:25:14): You integrate that into this technical stuff in a way that you either have that or you don't. You can coach it up in yourself to a certain extent, but to go with all the hard work, there are some innate characteristics that we all look into them or don't look into them and that creativity and that sense of fun and whimsy, it's easy to tell when someone's forcing it. If people have very, very, very good radar for that, you're just so dang quirky in a such a good way. I mean that completely, as a compliment, I call some of my best friends freak shows. It's so cool and to have gotten to know you personally, we haven't necessarily kept in the closest touch, but we definitely got to know each other personally back in the day, and that was awesome. Chandoo (00:26:13): It is awesome. Talking about that formula, you could say it's a formula, but I would say it's one of the proven ways of growing your online brand and making it into a sustainable business. And it's nothing new that I invented. I think you could say, maybe I had lucked out by starting early because around 2003, 2004, that's pretty much when the ecosystem of these blogs and in personal branding was kind of like picking up in a more rapid fashion, just because there's more people with internet, there is more... For example, back in '90s, if you have to create a website, you wouldn't really know where to begin. But 2000s was slightly different because there's software like WordPress or BlogSpot and other stuff, which makes it easy for anybody to get them and then, put their... Chandoo (00:27:03): Which makes it easy for anybody to get on and then put their story out in the front of millions of people. Of course, people may or may not read it, but it was easy for me to put it out. And I think what I did early on is I would read a lot of blogs about growing an online business and an online brand. And this was also not deliberate, it so happened that those were the guys who were loudest in the blogosphere. So if for every 10 articles that are out there, five and six of them would be about the small business or teaching stuff or selling stuff. There's a lot of that, and I would read that and I would think, "Oh, this is a good idea, maybe I should include it in what I'm doing. And this is a good idea, maybe I should do it." But there is also some things that you are gifted with, not really gifted, but those are the things that were a part of your personality even before you jumped into this business world. Chandoo (00:27:54): You either grew up as an introvert or an extrovert, you either have flair for technology or you don't, and you either have good understanding of the language or you don't, and all of those things. So that's really our personality mix. So there is a strange combination of all of these weird things that really helped me reach the audience and say things. And also, keep it fun. I look back and I think, "Oh man, I put a joke in here without even trying." I think that's because I really enjoy... That's the way I liked to say things. My kids are now quite old and they're at a point where they're getting annoyed with all the jokes that I put, but they also appreciate that Dad probably is not going to ever be serious about... I mean, I am serious, I think about everything, but it's just that he's not going to be a strict dad, he's going to be a fun dad. That's really the kind of thing that they say. Chandoo (00:28:53): So that's really me. And I think that was part of the thing. But people can go and take the formula, which is really what I did. When I launched my first online course, I had no clue what to do. So I read this article, they were already doing some online courses in a different field, and one of the suggestions they gave is, you don't have to record the whole thing to sell it. Up until that point, I was thinking I had to create this 20 hour course before I could actually go and sell it. But they said, "Maybe make one or two modules first and then go and start marketing, go and start selling, because there may not be a market for what you're offering, so go and do it." Chandoo (00:29:33): So that's really what I did. I was working in Sweden at that time, and Nishant and Nakshatra were just born, and Jo was with them in India. Because of my consulting job, I'd go to all these places. So I was in Denmark and Sweden that time. And I launched this course, I said that, "Hey, there is Excel School now, please go and sign up." and I created only one module, one or two modules. Then I sold it, and I thought maybe five or 10 will buy it, it's about 60 to $100, the course. In my mind, that was a lot of money. Even today, it is a lot of money, but I felt like at that point, that is big bucks. And I think around 100 people bought it. And that really scared the shit out of me because when you take 100 times 100, that's almost $10,000 really. Chandoo (00:30:22): And $10,000 was sitting in my PayPal account, close to that. And $10,000 is close to my salary if I'm working in India, that's my annual salary at that point in life. But because I was working in Sweden, I would get overseas payments, so it was almost $50,000, that's how much I was making at that time. But I was thinking in my Indian mindset, "I'm making all my annual salary by selling this one course, which is not even ready." So it scared me. And I thought, "Man, I need to do it right by these people. They paid for it, they bought it, I need to deliver it to them, I only made two modules." So I left my job, went back to India, finished recording the rest of it and launched the course. So that's how I learned, and that's the formula that I show in my blog and sharing my personal stories, because I want others to take these ideas as well. But I think the key thing people might miss out is putting their personality into it. Chandoo (00:31:19): If you just want to fake it all the way, then it might be hard, but if you bring yourself in your perspective and your life and your values into it, that will make it your own, and you're no longer cloning anything you're taking the best of what is working for others and mashing it up. Rob Collie (00:31:35): Now, at some point on this journey, not to narrow you in too much, you were running Excel School, it's general purpose. One of the things I think you became known for as an outlier, even within that space was the dashboarding that you would do in Excel. Now that's where we saw the Mozart in Chandoo. I mean, holy cow, people would look at the stuff that you would build in Excel, and it's gorgeous, it's just so beautiful. And everyone... Not everyone, but a lot of people that I knew, very wise, people knew that the quality of their work was going to be judged by the visual impact that their spreadsheets would have. And people would go to your site, and again, they would go to your site for many reasons, but the one that I disproportionately encountered was people saying, "Yeah, we go get the slick Excel visuals from Chandoo." And this is particularly relevant as the world is experiencing the onset of Power BI. And I know you've diversified, you're not just the Excel guy anymore. I mean, heck you did a Power Pivot class for that, in what, 2012, 2013. Rob Collie (00:33:07): I honestly haven't kept close tabs on what you've been doing with Power BI. And that is a real shame because if, and again, I haven't looked, maybe I haven't looked because I don't want to feel inadequate, but as rich of a canvas as Excel is for dashboard creation, oh my gosh, Power BI has really hit critical mass on the things you can do in their report canvas. I feel like now I need to have a Christmas morning moment where I go open up a bunch of Chandoo-approved Power BI reports and go, "Oh my God." Does it speak to you? How's that transition been? Chandoo (00:33:51): Yeah, it's been very good, but also there were a couple of things that stopped me from really going full on when the Power BI way was going up. The number one thing is, between 2015 and 2016, that's when Power BI was gaining that initial momentum, I have been blogging and talking about Power BI as well, but we also chose to move from India to New Zealand. So that was a big move, you are taking all your life that you have been rooting in one country and then now suddenly you uplift and you go to a different part of the world. It is both physically and emotionally very hard experience to go set yourself up in a different place, make new friends and start your life all over again. And also around 2015, you could say, I reached a point where, and I'm not trying to brag or anything, it's just the fact of the matter is, I reached a point where there is no financial incentive that would motivate me to do things. Chandoo (00:34:54): I am very happy with what I have in my life. I have a very good family, enough money to sustain whatever I want to do for the rest of my life, and everything was there. So there is really no carrot in front of me that will chase me to go and get it. I mean, I would only have to do it if I am enjoying this. So for me, the enjoyment started shifting slowly from running a website to other things, like maybe becoming a better cyclist or being around the kids with their life or playing with Lego or doing video games or doing other fun craft things. Because one of the challenges of being creative in any field, I guess, you can't be creative all the while if you're just doing it not for fun reasons, but for something else. I thought, "Maybe I had my day, I'm enjoying things. I don't need to push myself harder." So that's when I turned a blind eye to Power BI, not just to Power, to Excel also. And I would only blog once or twice a month, and that's pretty much it. Chandoo (00:35:57): I would still produce good quality content that I'm enjoying, but I got myself into a place where there are so many other things and balls juggling in the air that I thought, "Okay, this is enough." But after settling down in New Zealand and after things calmed down a bit, that's when I started thinking, "Okay, I need to figure out what I'm doing with my time. You're not really doing it for money or anything, but there is also, you have time." I try to rekindle that passion for data and for helping people become good in their lives. So naturally I reassessed like, "Okay, what are the things that we have available today? So there's Excel, there is obviously Power BI and then there is other tools coming in." Simultaneously, I would do some consulting work for the local government here in New Zealand. So I'd get into situations where the data or the challenges were different than the ones that I have experienced previously. So I'm learning a lot, and I thought, "Okay." Again, my go-to point when I learn something new is, put it out on the blog so other people can also learn. Chandoo (00:37:00): So I created a course on Power BI, it's called Power BI Play Date. I teach dashboards and stuff like that in there. I tried to replicate some of that Xcel crafting and that sort of dashboard mindset, which tries to tell a compelling story and provide a good narrative to the end user rather than just use things for the heck of using it within Power BI. Now, Power BI is a different platform altogether. So it has its own rules and it has its own canvas and things like that, where there are set limitations imposed by the nature of things. Like in Excel, you may have to explain 10 things, but within Power BI, because of the interactions, you don't have to explain 10 things, you have to let your audience know that there are 10 things there, but only bring the important bits out and let them figure out the rest. Chandoo (00:37:50): So I do this and I enjoy it. I run the course and I do more around Power BI these days than I do on Excel. I run corporate trainings and stuff like that as well. It is a different platform and I enjoy building stuff on Power BI. What I do find a little bit lacking though, and I think it's just still evolving, it's too early for us to go and put judgment on Power BI on this space, which is the visuals, sometimes they are not up to the mark and not everything that you want to achieve to get the correct and accurate representation of the information, are straightforward within Power BI. There's probably custom visuals AND heavy customization you could do, but one of my core principles when I build anything with any software is, that we humans should be lazy. But if I am ending up clicking 300 times to format a bar chart, then I'm like, "What the heck? This should be simple." Rob Collie (00:38:46): Yeah. It is very clicky with the formatting. Chandoo (00:38:53): Yeah. I mean, there is Format Painter, but I feel like even after all the formatting, it will not get you nowhere near as good as a visual that you could produce in R or Excel, or any other tool for that matter. This is simply because I think they went in a different direction, maybe deliberately to enable that sort of interact to things. So everything needs to interact, or hence not everything that you could do in other tools is possible. But it's a visual software, the whole output of whatever you create in Power BI. You might build an amazing model and beautiful measures, but nothing is visible until you put a visual there. So the visuals need to be the hero of that platform, but I feel like the focus has been heavily on the data and modeling side of things. You need those, I guess, but now that they're stable, I wish Microsoft would put in more effort into the visual space and try to make them right and make them easy for the audience to build and work on them. Rob Collie (00:39:53): If you're interested in providing feedback, I can certainly connect you with the people that would like to hear it. Chandoo (00:40:00): I think. Rob Collie (00:40:02): It is very difficult. So, it's funny, the job that you worked at the consulting firm, you're the business analyst, that's exactly the job I had at Microsoft, which is trying to absorb what the customers need. And what they want and what they need aren't necessarily the same thing. Try to absorb all of that and then translate it to the tech crew to implement, while at the same time trying to simplify everything. That's exactly...So you were doing that for custom line of business software projects, probably, for the consulting firm, and I was doing it for things like Excel, but it's the same job. Chandoo (00:40:34): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:40:34): And for the people at Microsoft who have this job, doing that for Power BI, it's actually really hard sometimes to see the forest for the trees. You're so down in the details, it is a gift for someone in that role to be given any sort of thoughtful, structured feedback, or thoughtful, structured advice. Like on the visual layer, I would not be one that you would want to take that kind of structured advice, it's not really my forte, different beast, the Chandoo. Rob Collie (00:41:10): Okay. I was going to make this joke, which is that you're doing it wrong. If you have that kind of perspective where you reached the tipping point where the financial incentive isn't the primary driver, in my experience, from watching a bunch of Microsoft executives anyway, that's when you need to tell yourself that it isn't enough. And you need to just pick a taller hill and go climb that, and never be complete, never be fulfilled. And there are so many people like that. I haven't reached that point in my life that you're describing. That's something I strive for. I think that I'll be more like you and less like some of the people that I saw at Microsoft, who had everything, and still wrecked themselves after having everything. And it was really sad to watch it. I think a lot of celebrities in business are driven by this perpetual insecurity, that you fortunately, you're not driven by that. Chandoo (00:42:07): Yeah. I think, again, it's not portraying myself as I have no insecurities or I don't feel inadequate in any which way, it's just that at least I am aware from time to time, and I take a point... Like if I feel anxious for some reason and feel myself like I'm running towards this or that from time to time, I try to at least pull myself back and take a stop and at least try to admire what is already there, what is available and what we have achieved. And that lets me calm down a bit. Obviously there is no value in running for itself, but you don't want to be standing still and just admire the beauty. Also, there is some amount of effort you need to put in because that will make you feel fulfilled, having some fulfillment in your day, but it need not be just the amount of money that you are generating on an ongoing basis alone. Chandoo (00:43:00): At least that's my value. They might derive satisfaction just by running and chasing more money, and that's what makes them happy, they can do it. So you remember the time when you were not there or you were there, but we all went to Chicago from Cleveland when I was in US? And Jocelyn and I, we were driving in one car. So we rented this car, and I think you were driving in another car or something. And we went to, was it Jocelyn's sister or was it- Rob Collie (00:43:26): Yeah. Chandoo (00:43:26): ... your sister? Okay. Yeah. So we were driving in the car and Jocelyn was telling me all about her life story and how she met you and all of that, how both of you met each other while working at Microsoft and some of the hard times that she had and all of that, it was a very deep talk because Chicago is not nearby. So it was like a good four or five hours drive if I remember correctly. The topic turned into money topic as well. And Jocelyn was saying about few different things and this and that. And the topic turned on me, and I remember canvasing to her that I find it really hard to spend money because I grew up in a very poor family. I mean, it's not probably the poorest family by Indian standards, but it is still poor family. And there were times when I was growing up, when we would not know exactly where our next meal would come or how we are going to pay for school fees. Chandoo (00:44:17): And there were points of time where I had to pull out of school because we couldn't afford school fees and all sorts of that. There was a lot of hardship. As a kid I never really thought of that as hardship, it was just the experience. So you're growing up, but there was a lot of uncertainty, and that makes you who you are. As I grew up and as I started making money, that insecurity that if I don't have money, then I will struggle. Not only me, but whoever is dependent on me will also struggle. So that made me an obsessive saver where I will try to save everything for tomorrow rather than be in the moment and enjoy what I have today. And even when I have big money and I have lots more to spend, I would be always like, "I don't need anything. I'm happy with what I have. I'll just put it off for tomorrow." Chandoo (00:45:07): So I was telling Jocelyn that I find it really hard to spend money with the amount of money that I make. I still try to just spend maybe 10 or 20% of what I earn and everything else is going towards the saving or investment or whatever. So you could say maybe I'm chasing that instead of chasing money, I'm trying to chase for some better tomorrow. I mean, I do realize that there is no better tomorrow, today's as good as it gets. So you need to take a moment, chill out and enjoy. But I think having that awareness is more important than just chasing. If you know why you are chasing something, then you will enjoy it. Rob Collie (00:45:42): Agreed. The other part of that story also resonated with me, which is you had a little time to recharge your batteries, pursue some other things. And then you come back around and you say, "Hey, this Power BI thing, that is a worthy thing to explore, that is a worthy development path for myself." It's almost like the opportunity to, like your favorite movie, you would love to be able to watch it again for the first time, experience it a new. Now, Power BI isn't like Excel, it's not the same thing, it's similar in some ways, but it's the closest you're ever going to get to being able to climb the Excel hill again, is to climb the Power BI hill. And in the end, you end up with this same sort of polished, interactive output, a symphony being played over some data. And for whatever reason, sickos like me and you, that speaks to us. Chandoo (00:46:43): Yeah, we enjoy it. And it is a very good challenging environment for you to learn and master and talk about it. It's a different experience altogether to do things in Power BI, because despite all it's visual, that's what the software is for. Unlike Excel, there is no area where you're building the calculations, everything is in this black box. Well, technically not a black box, you can still see the measures and all that, but a lot goes behind scenes than what is out there. So explaining that, and because I try to view everything from the explanation I write, because my job, I feel like is to do something and then also explain it. So every time I build something, I'm like, "Okay, how am I going to explain this?" Because I don't want people to be like, "Ta- da, this is showing up now." So it needs to be having that steps as well. So I try to think in that direction, and that is an interesting challenge in itself to take something like that and make it more reachable to the audience, I guess. Rob Collie (00:47:44): Just thinking about that, I think about you're going through that and doing that, you're creating videos, right? Chandoo (00:47:49): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:47:50): So I've got to thank you, you taught me Camtasia. Chandoo (00:47:55): Oh, well. Rob Collie (00:47:55): Yeah. And not just like, "Oh, here are where the buttons are," you taught a bit of the art of it. Chandoo (00:48:02): Oh, well, I really appreciate it. And I think, I feel like I have learned more Camtasia in the last year than all of my life together. This might surprise you lik, "What the heck are you talking? You are using Camtasia all the way back in 2013 as well." This is because about a year and half ago, I decided to switch from blog first to YouTube first. So now all my content is primarily produced for YouTube. And if needed, I will put a blog article, but sometimes I'll just link to an older article because there is a lot of content already. And I feel like there is no extra value in writing another article just for the sake of maintaining a YouTube video. So primarily all the content that I'm creating is for YouTube. And the YouTube presents a different challenge. If I'm creating a course, people are hooked on it, they paid for it, they logged in, they're setting time to learn, so they will watch me go through all the steps for 15 minutes to understand. Chandoo (00:48:57): But on YouTube, it's a different game altogether. The audience have many other distractions. There is also the aspect of how much time they can set aside in their day. Many times people are not really deliberately sitting down, "Okay, I'm going to have a YouTube sesh now." Instead they're doing something, and then suddenly they'll go onto YouTube to see quickly how to do certain things, or maybe they're having their tea break or lunch and they just want to watch a video. So that time span is very limited, and we want to address something valuable, provide good content and share something fun with them. So the videos need to be shorter, but they still need to be just as useful, fun and engaging. So I'm learning more on Camtasia in the last one year, like how do you combine various things, how do you add more effects, how do you present your story, how do you view this together. But yeah, it's good. Rob Collie (00:49:52): Tom's not here today, but one of his pet peeves is the cliche you hear over and over again, "There's more data created in the last year than in the entire human history before that." Well, here's another example of that, "Chandoo has learned more about Camtasia in the last year than he has in all of human history before." And when you said that you've learned more in the last year about Camtasia, my jaw did in fact drop. I'm like, "Oh my God, I need to come see this." Basically, everything I know about video editing in Camtasia, I learned from you, and in a very short period of time, so I need another bootcamp. Chandoo (00:50:29): You might have taken those and you might have gone really well past that point. Obviously that's really what happens with technology tools, the software evolves, we use it day in, day out. Then we realize, "Oh, we could do this. We could do that". Yeah, maybe watch some of my YouTube videos and let me know how that is, if you enjoy not just the video, but also the editing. Rob Collie (00:50:51): When you're watching something that's well done, you don't really notice. Chandoo (00:50:55): Yeah, obviously that's the whole point, right? Rob Collie (00:50:58): Right, the techniques. But then it was different essentially sitting at the editing console with you and you going, "Okay, so here I would probably do something like this." And then I'm like, "Oh, I would have never thought to do that. That's that's awesome." Certain pieces of software, certain tool sets are ones that I tend to evolve my skills over time on my own. I'm not really making videos these days. Maybe I'll be evolving otherwise. I would say that my Camtasia skills are basically frozen in 2013 where you taught me. Chandoo (00:51:30): Well, that's a nice compliment. And yeah, I think if you're not making videos, there's almost no value in learning the skills, because it just keeps changing and they have newer version now coming up every year. So sometimes you learn something, and the next year, boom, there's another way of doing it. And then we're like, "Why did they even bother learning this in the first place?" Rob Collie (00:51:53): The people at our company that play in our fantasy football league, and who've been subjected to my fantasy football gloating videos, they owe the production quality of those to you. I can't credit you for the singing quality, the vocals in those videos are terrible. And there's nothing you could do, even Chandoo couldn't correct my singing. And no, those videos are not available for public consumption. We are not going to- Chandoo (00:52:19): Maybe you should probably- Rob Collie (00:52:19): ... unlisted for a reason Chandoo (00:52:20): ... do that as the next episode of Raw Data, we're all singing. Rob Collie (00:52:25): On the previous episode, we talked about rewriting an AC/DC song, Dirty Reads Done Dirt Cheap. AC/DC really lends itself to alternate vocals. It wouldn't be the first time I've rewritten an AC/DC song, but then someone's got to get on the mic, things get ugly. Well, I'm one of those artists, when I write the alternate lyrics, I can't let someone else sing it for me. I've got to go do it myself, and again, it's sad. It's kind of neat. I mean, on one hand you could say that you were early to the internet. I'm going to use the word celebrity because I don't think really, any other word is better, and celebrity is not the perfect word, but one of the early adopters, one of the first movers in that space. Of course at the same time, that's years later than Bill Jelen. Chandoo (00:53:13): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:53:14): Which is crazy, right? I mean, it's like... Chandoo (00:53:17): I mean, imagine how much vision or... I don't want to say random and [inaudible 00:53:23] all his effort. It's completely his vision to have that started and even have a publishing company and all of that empire built. Rob Collie (00:53:32): Amazing, yeah. And as you say, he's been on the show and he has, absolutely it was not deliberate, it was still not a called shot. Chandoo (00:53:42): Yeah, but even if it's not deliberate, I think the biggest quality with some of these people like Bill, they have is, they listen, they see what's happening, they get the feedback, they tap into their emotions, they take a deliberate action from time to time. He could have started MrExcel forum and left it there, but he realized, "Okay, people are getting help from this. I need to... Chandoo (00:54:03): And left it there. But he realized, okay, people are getting help from this, I need to work on this, improve it better for them and people are buying these over priced Excel books that are sometimes way too detailed or way too complicated. I need to change the market. So, those are deliberate actions. You couldn't say one day he woke up and suddenly found a printing press in his house or anything. Rob Collie (00:54:21): Yeah. Agreed. So, what has it been like, having been early to the Excel internet celebrity phenomenon, but then joining the Power BI game... Not late, but very much in progress. Just like me, when I was first blogging about Power Pivot, I basically didn't have competition. I was the only weirdo obsessed with this stuff and writing about it like violently almost. I couldn't help myself. Whereas if I started that today, I would be joining a field that is very crowded by comparison. How has that been different? And I know that it's a different point in your life. So of course, it's going to be different anyway, but what have you noticed that's different about those two different journeys? Chandoo (00:55:10): I didn't really notice any difference, this is because the audience that I have been cultivating over time, they have also gone to a point in life where they are naturally migrating to Power BI and they already trust me, they know me, they have joined the courses or they have learned from me previously. So for them, it's easy to relate to the content that I produce because, it's like same teacher is teaching you 101 and then 102 class kind of thing. So, it's easy for them to relate. So, I had the ready audience either by luck or by that... Rob Collie (00:55:47): Cultivation. Chandoo (00:55:48): Yeah. So, it wasn't really like a fresh start. Like I would go and put, learnpowerbi.com as a website and put there. I'm already putting it on my website, so it's easy for people to connect the dots. But what I did notice is that audience, especially because Power BI is like an evolving platform and people have been using it way before even I started writing or we making videos about it, some of the people have already shifted away to those channels or those platforms to learn more. So, they are kind of tuning me out for Power BI because they're thinking Chandoo will teach us Excel, these other people will teach me about Power BI. So, the engagement or the feedback that I would get on Power BI related stuff is significantly lower than the Excel stuff that I would produce. So, I could clearly see that happening both on the YouTube channel as well as on my website. This is the reason why I got into self-doubt at some point thinking, should I even bother making a course about it, because it's a big investment of time on my side. Chandoo (00:56:55): And if I'm not benefiting a lot of people, then it would be just a futile exercise of me recording videos, producing everything, marketing it, and just simply annoying people if they're not ready to buy or whatever. But then when I launched the course, to my surprise, people were willing to pay and join. And that was the good, positive feedback for me. So, I went and I did that a few more times. So, it is good experience for me. All in all, I'd say it's a very positive experience. Last month on my YouTube channel, what I've been doing is, last Friday of every month, I do a live stream. So, Power BI is one of the most requested topics for live stream and the live stream that I did on Power BI, which was in June, was a massive success. Like we had quite a few people show up and go through the thing. And even on replay... This is a live stream, right? We are talking. There is lots of valuable content, but there is also a lot of content. I'm not going to call it. Rob Collie (00:57:52): There's valuable content and then there's content. Chandoo (00:57:55): So, there's a lot of stuff where I would just randomly read comments and flash them on the screen to say what people are asking or muse about things and all of that. And even on replays, people are watching all of that. So, this is good indicator that now there is more. And every time I ask a question on my community like, "What do you want to see next?" Power BI was the highest asked item. So, there's more people asking for that and I believe this is simply because people explain, they like my style, define me to be their teacher. So, they want me to teach it. And I think that is a good indicator for me. I will be creating more Power BI focused videos in the rest of this year and get more into Power BI. Not to say I'll ditch Excel. I'll keep using Excel because, Excel has continued to be the big platform that is used by millions of people all over the world. And I would love to be of help to them. Rob Collie (00:58:49): I think Excel is also experiencing a sort of Renaissance. Chandoo (00:58:53): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:58:54): The re-imagining what all it is that can happen in Excel. Some of the fundamentals of Excel are not being changed. They're being expanded in ways that we really haven't seen, maybe ever. There's a lot of fresh opportunity, a lot of fresh topics to talk about in Excel. A lot of things to dive into. Chandoo (00:59:14): Exactly. Especially the way they are expanding the formal language into more dynamic world and probably the terrible name, but the Lambda functions and all of that. Rob Collie (00:59:27): On the podcast with Brian Jones of Excel, I told him multiple times, "You're going to rename this at some point. You're going to rename it." Chandoo (00:59:38): The moment you see Lambda, you'll be like, "This is like another bot text." Nobody's going to even type that into Excel. Like, "What is Lambda?" Rob Collie (00:59:49): Yeah. I told him my favorite thing about the Lambda functions is that you hear the name and you immediately know what they do. Chandoo (00:59:56): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:59:58): So, are you getting into Lambda functions? Chandoo (01:00:00): I don't want to use the beta version. This is just by choice. I don't have access to Lambda function yet. I'm itching to play. I could just enable it with a click. I know that, but I don't want to make them. Simply because I don't want to ruin my Excel by changing the user experience from time to time. And I don't have to compete with them. I couldn't be really bothered to do that. But I know what they're capable of. I watch other people do it on YouTube and I did help play with them on my personal laptop the other day. It is a very good addition. I feel like this is not to again, go and say negative things about the amazing work this Excel team is doing. There is a lot of energy put into the more abstract way of doing things. I would say Lambda and Map and Reduce are at a very high level. Chandoo (01:00:46): And even I have done a lot of programming and I believe you may have already done some programming too. Even for us, it would be a hard concept to understand such a very generic version of things. And then actually capitalize on that raw power that you are getting now. But what would really help end users is, at least the way I hear when I talk to people or trying them is, some of the more things that should be done readily. Just to give one simple example, the other day I was training some people in Australia and they were asking, "How do I remove the spaces within the text?" So you have two words, but there's some extra spaces in the middle. And then I said, "Oh, you could use trim." And then they're like, "Trim? What is that?" Because when you hear the word trim, unless you have a very good background in the language or the history of computers, you wouldn't really guess that- Rob Collie (01:01:39): Right. Chandoo (01:01:39): ... this is the one that removes spaces. And then she immediately said, "Why doesn't it say remove spaces?" Rob Collie (01:01:46): Yeah. Chandoo (01:01:46): This is the usability that I'm talking about. We could add more synonym functions or if you go on internet and search, one of the common things that people ask with VLOOKUP is, "How do I VLOOKUP the second value or how do I get to everything with VLOOKUP?" And Excel still doesn't have a function. And they say, "Oh, you can use filter", or you can use this or that, but why not take the VLOOKUP and make, when now there is XLOOKUP also, but they had the opportunity to take the XLOOKUP and also make it more like XLOOKUP filter. So, I feel like some of that energy also needs to go into these mainstream things. Might sound like ranting here. But... Rob Collie (01:02:26): No. This is important. I share these beliefs. I think you're a bit more sophisticated in your beliefs all along these lines, where I'm a bit more intuitive, emotional about them. You can refine them to very specific points very quickly and effortlessly. I'm going to ask you a wild question out of the blue. If Microsoft came to you one day and offered you a job, let's ignore the money for a moment. How much they were paying you, whatever and you didn't have to move. Would you accept job on the Microsoft product teams? Chandoo (01:02:58): I might accept. In fact, this is not something that I told many people, but a while ago I did actually put my hand up for a job, because I saw one in the MVP group, we get some emails from product managers. The email content was, they're looking for a person who is at the intersection of Excel, Power BI and the data visualization. I said, "Yeah. I'm not really looking for a job or anything. I don't really have the energy to do a full-time job. But if you are happy to take somebody remote and if you're willing to take someone part-time for a couple of days a week, I might be willing to do this, because I believe I can contribute in this space." But I think they were actually looking for a specific role within a specific city in US. So, it didn't happen. Chandoo (01:03:45): I also questioned like, it's easy for an outsider to make noise and complain and bitch about things. But when you are there, you will then suddenly come across these 75 constraints on every little thing that I want to do and there's a lot of internal drama and politics and whatnot goes on in these organizations, right? So, there might be genuinely people trying hard, but get just pushed aside, because there're other priorities or paying customers are asking you to do this or that. So, I wouldn't really know for sure. Rob Collie (01:04:16): Well, I do. I've had that job and you are correct that very often, some of the things that seem very frustrating on the outside. Why the hell? But on the inside, there's a really good reason. Chandoo (01:04:31): Yeah. Rob Collie (01:04:31): It wouldn't even help the world to hear it really. It's too mundane, it's really boring. So, you're never going to hear that reason on the outside. But the thing is, it's also that clarity is very hard to come by. When you're in that job, almost by definitio

It's not every day that you can hear a great conversation with the Head of Product of Excel. Brian Jones sits down with us and talks about the past, present, and very promising future of Excel. Rob and Brian go way back, and the stories and laughs abound!   Check out this cool World Orca Day Excel template for kids!   Episode Timeline: 4:00 - Brian's lofty title is Head of Product at Excel, The importance and magic of Excel, and people's a-ha moments with Excel 20:25 - The difficulty of not seeing your projects' impact on the world and how the heck does Bluetooth fit into the story?!, Rob and Brian reminisce with some funny conference stories 32:00 - The XML file format and some very neat XML tricks that everyone should know about 51:25 - The birth of the Excel Web App and Rob can't believe some of the things that Brian's team has done with Excel 1:05:00 - How to onboard the Excel, VLOOKUP, and Pivot crowd into data modeling and Power BI, and the future of Excel most certainly includes the Lambda function (maybe!) Episode Transcript: Rob Collie (00:00:00): Hello, friends. Today's guest, Brian Jones, head of product for this thing you might've heard of called Microsoft Excel. Brian and I go back a long way. We were both youngsters at Microsoft at the same time, and we both worked on some early features of Office apps, and we're friends. Really, really have sincerely warm feelings about this guy, as you often do with people that you essentially grew up with. And that's what we did. When Brian and I first worked together, he was working on Word and I was working on Excel. But even though Brian was on Word at the time, he was already working on what we would today call citizen developer type of functionality in the Word application. So even though we were essentially on different sides of the aisle within the Office organization, we were already finding ourselves able to connect over this affinity for the citizen developer. Rob Collie (00:00:55): Now we have some laughs during this conversation about how in hindsight, the things he and I were working on at the time didn't turn out to be as significant as we thought they were in the moment. But those experiences were very valuable in shaping both of us for the initiatives that came later. Rob Collie (00:01:11): Like almost everyone at Microsoft, Brian has moved around a bit. He's worked on file formats for the entire Office suite, which ended up enabling Power Pivot version one to actually function the way that it should. He's worked on Office-wide extensibility and programmability, back to that citizen developer thing again. And in that light, it's only natural that Excel's gravity reeled him in. And in that light, it's only natural that someone like that, someone like Brian, found his way to Excel, and it really is a match made in heaven. And if you permit me the Excel joke, that turned out to be a great match. Rob Collie (00:01:50): We took the obligatory and entertaining, I hope, walk down memory lane. We spent a lot more time than I expected talking about file format. And the reason why is that file formats are actually a fascinating topic when you really get into it. Lot of history there, a lot of very interesting history and challenges we walked through. And of course, we do get around to talking about Excel, its current state, where it's headed, and also the amazing revelation for me that monthly releases actually mean a longer attention span for a product and how we ended up getting functionality now as a result of the monthly release cycle that would have never fit into the old multi-year release cycle. We were super grateful to have him on the show. And as usual, we learned things. I learned things. I have a different view of the world after having this conversation than I did before it, which is a huge gift. And I hope that you get the same sort of thing out of it. So let's get into it. Announcer (00:02:56): Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please? Announcer (00:03:03): This is the Raw Data by P3 Adaptive podcast, with your host Rob Collie and your cohost Thomas Larock. Find out what the experts at P3 Adaptive can do for your business. Just go to p3adaptive.com. Raw Data by P3 Adaptive is data with the human element. Rob Collie (00:03:26): Welcome to the show. Brian Jones, how are you, sir? Brian Jones (00:03:30): I am fantastic. Thank you for having me, Rob. I'm excited. Rob Collie (00:03:33): So let's start here today. Well, you and I go way back, but today, what's your job title and what are your responsibilities? Brian Jones (00:03:42): So today, my job is I'm the head of product for the Excel team. So I lead the team of product managers that are tasked with or given the honor of deciding the future of Excel, where we go with Excel, what are the set of things that we go and build Rob Collie (00:03:59): Head of product. That's a title that we didn't have back when I was still at Microsoft. We did at one point have something called a product unit manager. Is it similar to that? How does that relate? Brian Jones (00:04:11): That's a good question. So we're continuing to evolve the way that we use titles internally. So internally, we have titles that still for most folks externally don't make any sense, like program manager, group program manager, program manager manager, director of program manager. And so for externally, whenever I'm on LinkedIn or if I do PR interviews, things like that, I use the term head of product. Internally, we don't have the term head of product. Rob Collie (00:04:37): Okay. All right. So that's a translation for us. Brian Jones (00:04:40): Yes, exactly. Trying to translate the Microsoft internal org chart to something that makes more sense to folks. Rob Collie (00:04:49): Yeah. So things like, if we use the word orthogonal, what we're really saying is that's not relevant. Brian Jones (00:04:53): Exactly. Rob Collie (00:04:54): That kind of decoder ring. Brian Jones (00:04:57): I didn't realize orthogonal [inaudible 00:04:59] until you said it and I'm like, " Oh yeah, no. Of course, that is completely a ridiculous term to use." Rob Collie (00:05:03): Or I don't know if they still do this, but an old joke that Dave [Gayner 00:05:07] and I used to have, it was all his joke at the time. It was big bet. Do we still talk about big bet? We're going to place a big bet. Brian Jones (00:05:14): Yep. Big bet or big rocks. Big rocks. You know the- Rob Collie (00:05:17): Big rocks. Whoa. Brian Jones (00:05:18): Yeah. It's kind of an analogy. You've got a jar and you want to fill it with the big rocks first, and then you let the sand fill in the rest of the space. So what are the big rocks? Rob Collie (00:05:26): Okay. Yeah. But big bet was one that we used to always make fun of. Brian Jones (00:05:31): Especially when there'd be, "Here are the big bets," and there's 20 of them. Rob Collie (00:05:34): Yeah. The joke I think we used to make was we would call something a big bet when we really didn't have any good reason for doing what we were doing. Anyway, all right. So you're head of product for Excel. That is a pretty heady job. That's pretty awesome. Brian Jones (00:05:52): It's a pretty fun job. Absolutely. Rob Collie (00:05:54): I mean, you're not lacking for eyeballs in that business, are you? We're all friends here. We're all on the same side of this story. I mean, it is the lingua franca of business, Excel. It is the business programming tool. People don't necessarily think of it as programming, but formulas are a programming language. To be head of product for the platform, you could call it an application, but really it's probably more accurate to call it a platform that is, I think, is the single most critical platform to business in the world. That's pretty amazing. Brian Jones (00:06:30): Absolutely. And that's usually the way that we talk about it internally. It depends on who your audience is externally when you're talking about it. But yeah, Excel is a programming language. I remember even before, back when I was on the Word team, but I would go and meet with PJ, who ran program manager for Office all up. And he'd always referred to Excel more as an IDE. And that didn't totally resonate with me at the time because to me, Excel was just a list app, an app for just tracking things. I didn't totally understand what he meant by that, but I'd nod cause he was super important and smart. And it wasn't really until I started working on the team that I was like, "Oh, I totally understand all these things that PJ used to reference." Rob Collie (00:07:06): This one of the things I had been dying to ask you is when you and I first met, I was working on the Excel team, but still had... Gosh, this was year 2000 maybe, maybe 2001. And even though I was nominally part of the Excel team at that point, I still didn't really know Excel, and you were working on Word. So the thing we both had in common at that point is that we didn't know Excel. So I wanted to get your perspective. I know that you've done some things other than Word, but we were already sort of teasing this. So let's just get into it. What's it like to come from "outside" Excel and how's that transition? How do you view Excel differently today versus what you did before? We already started talking about that. The list keeper. That's very common way for people to view it. Brian Jones (00:07:53): When I first started, yeah, I was on Word, although I was working on more kind of end user developer type of pieces of Word. That's how you and I first interacted because we were talking about XML. The first feature I owned was a feature called easy data binding to Excel. And the whole idea was when you could easily bring content from Excel into Word, but then create a link back so that the content in Word would stay live. And a lot of this stuff that I did while I was on Word was all about trying to make Word a little bit more of a structured tool so that people could actually program against it because Word is completely unstructured. It's just free-flowing text. So trying to write a solution against that is almost impossible because you can't predict anything. So we did a lot of work to add structure, whereas Excel out of the gate has all that structure. So it's just much easier to go and program. Brian Jones (00:08:39): If I had gone straight from Word to Excel, it would have been a little bit more of a shock, but I actually had about eight years in between where I was running our extensibility team. So a lot of the work we would do was revving the add-in model and extensibility for Excel. So I got some exposure there. When we did all of the file format stuff and the whole file format campaign, That was a couple of years where I was working really closely with a bunch of folks in Excel, like Dan [Badigan 00:09:06] and folks like that. So I had a bit of exposure, but I'll tell you when I first joined, I had a similar job, but it was for the Access team and we were building up some new tech. Brian Jones (00:09:17): Some of it still is there today. Office Forms came out of some of the investments that we were doing in Access. But when I showed up into Excel, I was very much in that mode of, "Why don't the Excel folks, get it? Everything should be a table with column headings." And like, "That's the model. And why do they stick with this grid? Clearly word of it is eventually going to go away from the printed page as the key medium. Excel's got to go away from the grid. And they've got to understand that this should just be all tables that can be related." And thankfully, I was responsible when I joined and didn't try and act like I knew everything. So I took some time to go and learn. Brian Jones (00:09:52): And it didn't take me long. We have some crazy financial modeling experts on the team and stuff like that, where I'd say it was maybe six months in that it clicked for me where I understood those two key pieces. The grid and formulas are really the soul and the IP of Excel. The fact that you can lay out information really easily on a grid, you have formulas that are your logic, and you can do this step-by-step set of processes where each cell is almost like another little debug point for you. [Cal captain sub 00:10:20] second, and it's the easiest way to go and learn logic and how to build logic. Brian Jones (00:10:25): I didn't get any of that at that time, but you pick it up pretty quickly when you start to look at all the solutions that people are building. And now, obviously, I've been on the team now for five years, so I'm super sold around it. But I'd say it took me a little while and I'm still learning. It takes a while to learn the whole thing. Rob Collie (00:10:41): Yeah. It's funny. Like you said, Word's completely unstructured. You're looking in from the outside and you're like, "Well, Excel is completely structured." Then you get close to it. You're like, "Oh no. And it's not, really." Brian Jones (00:10:52): No. Not at all. Rob Collie (00:10:53): I mean, it's got the cells. Rows and columns. You can't avoid those. But within that landscape, is it kind of deliberately wild west? You can do whatever you need to. You're right. Okay. So tables, yes. Tables are still very important. But you've got these parameters and assumptions and inputs. And what do you do with those? I mean, they're not make a table for those. Brian Jones (00:11:19): Yep. Absolutely. I think that the thing that I started to get really quickly was the beauty of that. Like you said, it's unstructured. You have nice reference points. So if you're trying to build logic, formulas, you can reference things. But there's no rule about whether or not things go horizontally, vertically, diagonally, whatever. You can take whatever's in your mind that you're trying to make a decision around and use that flexible grid to lay it out. It's like a mind map. If you think about the beauty, the flexibility of a mind map, that's what the grid is. You can go and lay out all the information however it makes the most sense to you. Brian Jones (00:11:53): Really, that's what makes Excel still so relevant today. If you think about the way business is evolving, people are getting more and more data, change is just more constant, business processes are changing all the time. So there are certain processes where people can say, "This thing is always going to work the same way." And so you can go and get a vertical railed solution. That's why we use the term rail. That's kind of like if I always know I'm going to take this cargo from LA to San Francisco, I can go and build some rails, and I got a train, it'll always go there and do the same thing. But if business is constantly changing, those rails are quickly going to break and you're going to have to go off the rails. Excel is more like a car than a train. You can go anywhere with it. And so as the business processes change, the people who are using Excel are the same people who are the ones changing those business processes. Those are the business folks. And so they can go and evolve and adapt it and they don't have to go and find another ISV to go and build them another solution based on that new process that's probably going to change again in six months. Thomas Larock (00:12:52): So Brian's been in charge for five years of Excel, and he's sitting there telling us how there's still more to learn. And two weeks ago, we all got renewed as MVPs. And so I was on the MVP website, and I'm going through all the DLs I can join because that's all a manual process these days. I'm like, "Oh, there's the Excel MVP DL. I don't know why I haven't joined this yet." So I click. I'm immediately flooded with 100 emails a day. 100 emails a day. Now, I don't believe I am a novice when it comes to Excel. I don't. I know I'm not on you all's level at all when it comes to it. You build and work and live the product. But I know my way around enough that I can explain things to others when they say, "I'm trying to do this thing." "Oh, I think it's possible." Thomas Larock (00:13:40): But I read these passionate MVPs that you have and the stuff that they highlight, and it's not complex stuff. It's like, "Hey, this title bar seems to be wider in this." And I'm like, I might not even notice this stuff. And I see these features that aren't a complex feature, but I'm like, "I didn't even know that was there. I didn't even know you could do that. Oh, you can do that too." There's so much. And like you said, it's a programming language. It's an IDE. It's all these things. As [Sinopski 00:14:10] said, "It's the killer app for Windows." To have the head of product say that, there's just so much. He really means it. There is a lot to it. And it is something that is malleable and usable by hundreds of millions of people a day. Brian Jones (00:14:25): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:14:26): My old joke is, if you want to know how good someone is at Excel, just ask them, "How good are you at Excel?" And then take their answer and invert it. Brian Jones (00:14:37): That's absolutely true. Rob Collie (00:14:38): If someone says, "Yeah, I'm really good at it," You know they don't have any clue because they haven't glimpsed the depth of that particular mine shaft. And once someone has been to the show, they know better than to oversell their knowledge because they know they can't know everything. Rob Collie (00:14:54): You say you're good at Excel. And then the very next question is one that you're not going to be able to answer. So you got to be careful. [inaudible 00:15:00] person views Excel as Word with a grid. And that's not obviously what it is, but that's the oversimplification for... I don't know... maybe 80% of humanity. Brian Jones (00:15:10): Yeah. And the thing is, there's a lot more that we're doing in the app now to try and make it, one, more approachable, because there's a set of folks that just find it really intimidating, for sure. You open it up and it's this huge, dense grid. Like, "Hey, where do I start? What should I go and do? I've never even heard of this thing before." In the past, a lot of stuff that we would do, we never really thought about those first steps of using the app because we were always like, "Well, everybody knows our app. We're going to go and do the things for everybody that knows our app." And I think we're doing a better job now trying to think, "Well, there's a bunch of people who don't know about our app. Let's go and figure out what the experience should be like for them." Brian Jones (00:15:43): But we've done a lot with AI where we're trying to get a little bit better about... We look at your data. Recommend things to you. So we'll say, "If you've got a table of data, hey, here's a pivot table." You may not have even heard of the pivot table before. So really more like, "Hey, here's a summary of your data." You want to go and insert that. Brian Jones (00:16:00): In fact, those tests are always fun because then we get to work with people who've really haven't ever used a pivot table. So it's always fun to hear the words that they use to describe what a pivot table is. It's like, "Oh wow, you grouped my data for me." Or stuff like that like, "Wow. That's a nice name for it too." So we're trying to do more of that to expose people to really those higher-end things. But those things where for those of us that use it, once you discover that stuff, you're even more hooked on the product. You're like, man, that first experience of somebody built a pivot table for you and you realize, "Oh my God, I didn't know I could do this with my data. Look how much easier it is for me to see what's going on," and trying to get more people to experience that kind of magical moment. Thomas Larock (00:16:39): Now imagine being me and only knowing pivot through T-SQL and that magical day when you meet Rob and he's like, "You just pivot table [inaudible 00:16:49]." And you're like, "How many hours have I wasted? Why didn't someone tell me?" Brian Jones (00:16:56): Yeah. We get that a lot when we'll go and show stuff. Oftentimes, the reaction is more frustration. "I can't believe I didn't know about this for the past five years." Rob Collie (00:17:05): We get that all the time now with Power Pivot and Power Query and Power BI in general. The target audience for that stuff hasn't been really effectively addressed by Microsoft marketing. But even back, just regular pivot tables, such a powerful tool, and so poorly named. You weren't around on the Excel team, Brian, when I waged a six-month campaign to try to rename pivot table to summary table. Brian Jones (00:17:31): Oh really? Rob Collie (00:17:31): Yeah. Brian Jones (00:17:31): How long ago was that? Rob Collie (00:17:33): Oh, well, it was a long time ago. I mean [crosstalk 00:17:35]- Brian Jones (00:17:36): Pivot tables had already been out for quite a while. Rob Collie (00:17:37): Oh God. Yeah. I mean, they were long established. They were in the product. I didn't even know what they did. Believe it or not, I worked on the Excel team for probably about a year before I actually figured what pivot tables could do. People would just throw it around all the time on the team like, "Well, once you have the data, then you can chart it. You can pivot it," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so I would fit in- Brian Jones (00:17:58): You would nod? Rob Collie (00:17:59): I would fit in... I would also author sentences like that, that had the word pivot in it. It was a pretty safe thing to do. There was no downside to it. But believe it or not, the time that I discovered what pivot tables are for... you'll love this... I was trying to figure out how to skill balance the four different fantasy football leagues that I had organized within the Excel and Access team. I wanted to spread it out. Levels of experience. I've got this table of data with the person's name and their level of experience and my tentative league assignment. And just this light bulb went on. I'm like, "Oh my God, I bet this is what pivot tables are for." Total expertise by league. Like, "Oh, look at that. It's totally it." That was a big change for me. That was during the release, Brian, where you and I were working together. Brian Jones (00:18:54): I think I played on one of those fantasy football leagues. Rob Collie (00:18:56): You might have. Brian Jones (00:18:57): I was one of the people with zero experience. I remember going into the draft not knowing... I knew football, but I didn't know anything about fantasy football. Rob Collie (00:19:03): That's right. We did loop you in. So let's do that way back machine for a moment. That release when you and I met was the first release on Excel. I was the lead at that point. It was my first time being a lead. It was the first time I was in charge of a feature set, and it was really my baby, this XML thing we were doing. And the reason for that was because no one was paying any attention. That was this weird release. For a whole release, Office went and tried to do cloud services without having any idea what that really was going to mean. And so we stripped all of the applications down to skeleton crews. And this is really the only reason why on the Excel side, some youngster like me was allowed to be a lead and come up with a feature, because no one cared. No one was paying any attention. There was no one minding the store. Rob Collie (00:19:48): I remember being so wild-eyed enthusiastic about how much this was going to change the world, this XML import export future. And I mean, you might as well just take it out. I can't imagine it's being used hardly at all today. I bet Power View is used more often than the XML import export feature. You all have done a pretty good job of hiding it. So kudos. But it was a good thing to cut my teeth on. I learned a lot of valuable lessons on that release. Rob Collie (00:20:24): How do you feel about the XML structure document work that you were doing in Word at the time? Do you kind of have the same feeling looking back at it that I do? Brian Jones (00:20:33): It was a similar thing. In fact, we did rip it out a couple of years later. I think that when you and I would talk about it, we would talk about these scenarios that were super righteous and great. And then we just start geeking out on tech. And then we would get way too excited about the tech and we kind of forget about those initial scenarios. We wouldn't stop and think, "Wait a minute. These users we're talking about, are they actually going to go and create XML files?" Because you need one of those to start with before any of this stuff makes sense. And no, of course, they're not. But for me, a lot of it started from that. Like I said, one of my first features was that easy data binding to Excel feature. And we thought, "Hey, maybe XML would be a good tech for us to use as a way of having Word and Excel talk to each other," because clearly they have different views on what formatting is and how to present information, but the underlying semantic information, that could be shared. Brian Jones (00:21:20): And so I could have a set of products show up in Excel as a table. And when they come into Word, they look more like a catalog of products. That totally makes sense. And we just did a lot of assumptions that people would make, do all the glue that was really necessary. And of course, they didn't. So I had the exact same experience. The other big thing that was different back then for us was we would plan something, meet with customers for six months, but then it'd take three years to go and build it. We had no way of validating that stuff with customers because we couldn't get them any of the builds. And then even after we shipped it, they weren't actually going to deploy it for another three-plus years. And so the reality is from when you had the idea to where you actually can see that it's actually not working and people aren't using it is probably about six years. So you've probably moved on to something else by then. Brian Jones (00:22:04): The only way you really as a PM got validation that your feature was great was whether or not leadership and maybe press got excited about your thing, but you didn't get a whole lot of signal from actual customers whether or not the thing was working, which is obviously completely different now, thank goodness. Rob Collie (00:22:18): Yeah. That Is true. It took some of the fun out of being done too, now looking back at it, like the day of the ship party, when we were done with the three-year release. "Okay, fine." We'd dunk each other in fountains and there'd be hijinks and stuff. But the world did not experience us being done. That was purely just us feeling done. And then it was like you take a week off maybe, and then the next week, you're right back to the grind at the very beginning. You never got the payoff. Even if you built something really good, by the time the world discovered it and it was actually really helping people at any significant scale, you're no longer even working on that product. Brian Jones (00:22:57): Yeah. You're doing something completely different. Rob Collie (00:22:59): You might be in a different division, both finding out the things in real time that Rob Collie (00:23:03): [inaudible 00:23:00] Both finding out the things, sort of in real time, that aren't working. That's the obvious advantage, right? But there's also this other emotional thing. Like you never got the satisfaction when you actually did succeed. Brian Jones (00:23:11): Right. You didn't see it actually get picked up, adopted. Millions and millions of people using it, which is what the team gets now. We no longer pick a project and say, "Okay, how many people and how long is this going to take?" You really just try and figure out what's critical mass for that project. And then you just let them run. And you'd be really clear around what are the goals and outcomes they're trying to drive. And they just keep going until they actually achieve that. Or we realized that we were wrong, right? And we say, "Hey, we thought people are going to be excited about this. It's not even an implementation thing. We were just wrong. We misread what people really were trying to do. Let's stop. Let's kind of figure out a way of moving off of that and go and figure out what the next thing is we should go and do." Rob Collie (00:23:50): That era that we're talking about right now. The 2003 release of Office. I was still very much a computer science graduate and amateur human. That's exactly backwards, it turns out, if you're trying to design a tool that's going to be used by humanity. Brian Jones (00:24:08): Well, it's what leads you to get really Excited about XML? Rob Collie (00:24:12): That's right. Yeah. That's right. Tech used to have such a power in my life. I'm exactly the opposite now. Every time I hear about some new tech, I'm like, "Yeah, prove it." I am not going to believe in this new radical thing until it actually changes the world around me. I'm not going to be trying to catch that wave. But XML did that to me. It was almost a threat. If we don't take this seriously, we're going to get outflanked. It got really egregious. Rob Collie (00:24:42): I had a coworker one time in that same release in the middle of one of my presentations asked me. This guy wasn't particularly, in the final analysis, looking back, not one of the stronger members of the team, but he had a lot of sibling rivalry essentially in his DNA. And he'd asked me in front of his crowded room, "Well, what are you going to do about Bluetooth?" And, we didn't know what Bluetooth was yet, right? It was like, unless I had an answer for what we were going to do about Bluetooth and Excel, right? Then I was not up on things. You know, the thing that we use to connect our headphones. At the time, Bluetooth was one of those things that might just disrupt everything. Brian Jones (00:25:29): It was funny. It was at that same time, I was asked to give a presentation to the Word team about Bluetooth. We were all assigned things to go and research as part of planning and that was one of the ones I was asked. And I gave a presentation that was just very factual. Here's what it is. And I was given really bad feedback that like, "Hey, I wasn't actually talking about it strategically and how it was going to affect Word. I was just being very factual." And I was like, "I don't understand. I don't understand what success looks like in this task." Right. Rob Collie (00:25:59): I remember going, a couple of years later, going into an offsite, those offsite big, I don't know if you all still do those things, big offsite, blue sky brainstorming sessions. There was this really senior development lead that was there with me. And he and I were kind of buddies. At one point, halfway through the day, he just leans over to me and says, "Hey, I'm going to the restroom and I'm not coming back." And I looked at him in horror, almost like "Thou dost dishonor the offsite!?" And he's like, "Yeah, you know, I've never really believed that much in this particular phase of the product cycle. It's never really meant anything to me. It's all just BS." It was just devastating. I just knew it was right. He was... Brian Jones (00:26:46): But you didn't want to, you didn't want to believe that. Rob Collie (00:26:52): I mean, I felt so special. I was invited to the offsite, the big wigs and everything. Brian Jones (00:26:57): They have nice catering too, Rob Collie (00:26:59): Yeah and he was totally right to leave. Brian Jones (00:27:04): I always remember getting super nervous to present stuff for those. Once it was actually, it was one of our XML ones where I was trying to convince, it was my attempt to get us to create an XML file format, which actually ended up, obviously, happening. But I got an engineer to go to work with and we had Word through an add-in, start to write to XML. And it was just a basic XML format. And then I built all of these... it was like asp.net tools that would go and then create an HTML version of the Word doc that was editable. And it also even created, I think it was called WHAP, I don't remember, like a tech for phones. It was back when you didn't have the rich feature phones, but these basic ones. Brian Jones (00:27:41): And so I created this thing that was almost like a SharePoint site. So you could take all your Word docs, go through this add-in, and then you could actually get an HTML view of them to edit it and a phone view of them to go and edit it. Brian Jones (00:27:51): I think it was probably 2002 or 2001, but I was so excited to go and show that at the offsite because I was like, "Okay, this is where I make it, man. Everybody's going to be so excited about me." But I don't know. I think everybody was excited about Bluetooth at that point or something. Yeah. Rob Collie (00:28:05): Oh yeah Bluetooth, WHAP was so 15 minutes ago. So there's a few, irresistibly funny or interesting things I want to zero in on from that era before we come back to present, and we're definitely going to come back to present, for sure. Rob Collie (00:28:21): First of all, we went to a conference like some W3C sponsor. I don't think it was necessarily W3C affiliated, but it was the XML conference. Brian Jones (00:28:31): The one in Baltimore? Rob Collie (00:28:32): Yes. Rob Collie (00:28:33): Okay. Now two very, very, very memorable things happened at that conference. I bet you already know one of them. But the other one was, and we're just going to make this all this anonymous person's fault. Okay. We're not going to abdicate any responsibility. And we're just going to talk about our one coworker from Eastern Europe who brought his wife and they had vodka in their hotel fridge, or freezer, or something like that. And every day I would wake up and say, "I am not going to get suckered into that again." Rob Collie (00:29:12): And then the next day I would wake up and say the same thing. That was a tough trip. Brian Jones (00:29:16): I definitely remember that. Rob Collie (00:29:18): Even on my young, relatively young, body at the time that... Trying to keep up with that, that was difficult. But the single most outstanding memory from that conference, and we will also leave this person anonymous. But there was an executive at Microsoft who was hotter on XML than either you or I, which is hard to believe, right. And we ended up with the sponsored after hours session at this conference. You remember this? You see... Brian Jones (00:29:45): I do. Rob Collie (00:29:46): You know where we're going. Okay. So this was a 30 minute sponsored by Dell or something. Right. It was a 30 minute session, at 5:00 PM, at the end of a conference day where everyone's trying to go back and get to the bars or whatever, right.? But, it's a Microsoft executive, it's Dell sponsored, we'll show up. And the plan was at the end of this 30 minute talk given by this executive, he was going to bring all of us up on the stage to show everyone the team that had done all of this, right? Great plan. Except it was the worst presentation in history. I remember it running for two hours. It was so bad that we started off with 200 people in the room and at the end of it, and I'm just like an agony the whole time cause like I'm associated with this, right? Rob Collie (00:30:31): At the end of these two hours, or what felt like two hours anyway, it was easily 90 minutes. There's five people left in this room of 200 and it's not like the presentation is adapted to the fact that it's a smaller audience. It's just continued to drone on exactly as if everyone was there, right? And I'm sitting here thinking, "Okay, he's not going to call us all up on this stage. There's been more people on the stage than in the audience. If he does this, he's clearly not going to do that." And then he did and we all had to parade up there and stand there like the biggest dodos. I've never been more professionally embarrassed I don't think, than that moment. Rob Collie (00:31:14): And we're all looking at each other as we get up out of our seats like, "Oh my god." Brian Jones (00:31:19): I definitely remember this. Rob Collie (00:31:22): I don't see how you could have forgotten. Brian Jones (00:31:23): Well, yeah. And the person that we're talking about is actually one of my favorite people on the planet. I totally... I love this guy. I view him as like a mentor and everything, but... Which makes me remember it even more. Brian Jones (00:31:34): I think it was just, there was so much excitement. There'd been so much build up to this and this was like a kind of crescendo right? Of bringing this stuff. We probably should have had it a little bit shorter. Rob Collie (00:31:46): I mean when it reaches the point where clueless, mid twenties, Rob Collie is going, "Oh no, this is not the emotional, this not the move." You don't do it. Brian Jones (00:31:58): I'm no longer excited about being called up. Rob Collie (00:32:04): So from my perspective, you kind of parlayed that experience of the XML and all that kind of stuff. I think you did a really fantastic job of everything you guys did on that product. Again, it was the relevance that ultimately fell flat for both of us right. I guess in the end, the excitement with XML wasn't really all that appreciably different from the excitement about Bluetooth. I mean, it's everywhere, right? XML is everywhere. Bluetooth is everywhere and neither one of them really changed things in terms of what Excel or Word should be doing. It seemed like you played that into this file format second act. And I think very, very, very effectively, actually there was a little bit of controversy. Rob Collie (00:32:43): Let's set the stage for people. This was the 2007 release of Office where all the file formats got radically overhauled. This is when the extra X appeared on the end of all the file names, right? Brian Jones (00:32:58): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:32:58): There was a controversy internally. Kind of starting with Bill actually. That we shouldn't make well-documented transparent file format specs, right. There was this belief that the opaque file formats of the previous decades was in some sense, some big moat against competition. And of course, a lot of our competitors agreed. Tailor out in the public saying, "Yes, this is a barrier to competition. It's a monopolistic, blah, blah, blah." We, Microsoft had just gotten its ass kicked in the Anna Truss case. So it was really interesting. I credit Brian, your crew, with really advocating this very effectively. That's a difficult ship to turn. First of all, you got all these teams to buy into all this extra work, which no one wants to do. But when it's not even clear whether you have top level executive support, in fact, you might actually have C-suite antagonism towards an idea. To get it done. That's a career making achievement. I'm sure you remember all of that. Right. But what are your reactions to that controversy? Do you remember being in the midst of that? Brian Jones (00:34:12): I do. It was definitely a long running project. It evolved over quite a number of years. The beginning of it was, in that previous release, the XML stuff you and I were talking about was more about what we called "Custom XML". Right? So people would go and create for themselves. But in that same release, we had Word, we outputted an XML format that was our definition, which we called "Word ML" and Excel did a similar thing. Words' we try to make full fidelity. So you could save any word document in the XML format. Excel's was kind of a tailored down, it was less about formatting, it was more, "Hey, here's like..." It's almost like, "Here's a better version of CSV, right. But we're going to do it as XML." And so we already had a little bit of that. Brian Jones (00:34:53): And the whole reason we were looking at that was, on the Word side, for instance, a lot of the customer issues that we'd get where people would have corrupt files, they were corrupt because they there'd be some add-in that they had running or some third party app that was reading and writing word files. The files were fairly brittle and complex. The binary format... The binary format was written back in the days of floppy disks, right? So the top priority was how quickly can you write to a floppy disk and read from a floppy disc, right? It wasn't about, how easy is this for other people to go and read and write? Not because it was on purpose, make it hard. It was just the primary bid is let's get this thing so it's really easy to read and write from floppy, right? Brian Jones (00:35:31): And so in Word, we were like, "Wow, I think that there's a bigger opportunity here for an ecosystem around Word if we make it easy for people to read and write Word docs and build solutions around them." And so then the next release, the Excel team was looking at doing some big changes around a lot of the limitations, like how many rows you could have in columns, right. Lengths of like formulas and things like that. Right. And so there was this thing where the Excel team was like, "We are going to need to create a new file format." And on the word side, we thought this XML thing was great. We want to move to that as our new format. Brian Jones (00:36:01): And so everything kind of came together and it was clear. Hey, this is going to be the release that we are going to go and rev our file format, which we hadn't done in a while. This is also the release of the ribbon. So there were two really big major changes in that product, right? It was the new file format and the ribbon. It's funny. I still refer to it as the new file format, even though it's 15 years old. Rob Collie (00:36:23): Yeah. It's the new file format it's still new, yeah. Brian Jones (00:36:25): I still call it that, which is kind of nuts. But I think that the controversies you were talking about was really more of a... Boy, this is a really big deal for the product. We had changed file formats before in the past and not necessarily gotten it right. And there were a lot of challenges around compatibility and stuff. And so there was just a lot of worry of let's make sure you all have your stuff together here, right? Like let's make sure that this doesn't in any way break, stop people from wanting to upgrade to the new version. But it went really well. The whole goal of it was let's get something that we think third parties can go and read and write, and this is going to help build an ecosystem. And a new ecosystem run Office. Office already had big ecosystem with VBA and COMM add-ons and stuff like that, right.? But we won't have this new ecosystem around our file formats as a thing. That's why we chose... There's a packaging layer, which is all zip based. So if people haven't played around with it that XLSX, you can just put a .zip at the end and double click it. And it's just a zip file. And you can see a whole bunch of stuff inside of it. Right? Rob Collie (00:37:23): Yeah. If you're listening, you haven't done that go right now, run don't walk, grab an Excel file or a Word file, whatever. Go and rename the XLSX or BPTX, go ahead and rename it so that it ends in .zip and then open it up and you'll be blown away. Thomas Larock (00:37:38): PowerPoint is my favorite when I have to find some unknown setting that I need and I can just search through the whole thing. Yep. Rob Collie (00:37:45): Or all the images. You want to get all the images out of the PowerPoint file. It's just a zip file that has a bunch of images in it. Right. Brian Jones (00:37:50): So I also did this for backpack. It's the same thing. You can crack open the backpack by renaming a zip file... Thomas Larock (00:37:58): An actual physical backpack? What are we... what are we talking about here? Brian Jones (00:38:03): Ah yeah. Rob Collie (00:38:03): This is the digital acetate that is over the top of the entire physical world that you aren't aware of. Thomas Larock (00:38:08): Digital acetate, that's it? That's it. That's where the podcast peaks. Right? Those two words. We're all going home now. Brian Jones (00:38:19): Yeah. No. A SQL server, there's DAC pack, which is just the, say database schema. Then there's a backpack which has the data and the schema combined. But you can, if you rename them . zip, you can crack them open to see the XML that makes up those forms. So it's not just office products. Rob Collie (00:38:37): We ended up standardizing the entire thing, but that packaging format, it was called OPC, Open Packaging Convention, or something like that. It was something that we did in partnership with a Windows team. It's part of the final ISO standard for our file format. And then there were a lot of other folks that went and used that exact same standard. Because it's a really easy way of you have a zip package. You can have a whole bunch of pieces inside of it, which are XML. And then there's this convention for how you can do relationships between the different pieces. So I can have a slide. That's an XML and it can declare relationships to all the images that it uses. And that way it's really quick, easy to know, okay, here's all the content I need to grab if I want to move pieces of it outside of the file. Rob Collie (00:39:16): So the single coolest thing I've ever done with, we'll just call it your file format Brian. We'll just pretend that it was only you working on that. Brian Jones (00:39:23): Just me yeah, I was pretty busy, but yeah. Rob Collie (00:39:27): So the very, very first version of Power Pivot, first of all, your file format, the new file format made Power Pivot possible. We needed to go and add this gigantic binary stream of compressed data and everything, everything about Power Pivot needed to be saved in the file. At the beginning of the project, everyone was saying, "Oh, no, we're going to save it as two separate files." And I'm like, "Are you guys kidding?" The Pivot cache, for instance, is saved in the same file. You can't throw a multi file solution at people and expect it to... This was actually like Manhattan project, just to get that stream saved into the same file. It was pretty crazy. However, when it was done, there was something really awesome I wasn't aware of until the very end, which was, first of all, you could open up a zip file and just tunnel down and you would find a file in there called item one.data. Rob Collie (00:40:21): Okay. That was the Power Pivot blob. That was everything about the Power Pivot thing. And it was by far the biggest thing in the file, like it was like 99% of the file size was what was there. However, as this backup, someone had decided, I had nothing to do with this, to save all of the instructions. I think it's called XML for analysis XMLA. All of the instructions that would be required to rebuild exactly that file, but without any of the actual binary data in it. So it was a very, very small amount of XML. Okay. So here's what we would do because there were no good automation, no interfaces, no APIs. If we needed to add like 500 formulas to a Power Pivot file, you could go through the UI and write those 500 formulas, type, click, type, click, type, click. Rob Collie (00:41:08): Okay. So what we would do, and my first job outside of Microsoft, is we would go in there and we would edit that XML backup and add all the formulas we wanted in it. And by the way, I would use Excel to write these formulas. I would use string concatenation and all of that kind of stuff to write these things. It was very, very, very sensitive, one character out of place in the whole thing fails. So you make those changes. You save the file, reopen it, nothing happens because it's just the backup. Okay. So then you've got to go and you've got to create a zero byte item one.data file on your desktop and you copy it into the zip file and overwrite the real item one.data, therefore deliberately corrupting the primary copy. So when you reopen the file it triggers the backup process and it rehydrates with all of your stuff, it was awesome. Rob Collie (00:41:57): And then a couple of releases of Power Pivot later, suddenly that didn't work anymore and I was really pissed. But it just really shows you, it opens up so many opportunities that you never would have expected. And even a hack like that, that's not the kind that you'd be really looking for, but the fact that something like that even happens as a result of this is really indicative of what a success it was. Brian Jones (00:42:19): Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of those things where, I love building platforms, like that's my favorite part of the job. It's all those things that you see people do that you never would have predicted. Right? That's just so exciting. PowerPoint had this huge group of folks that would go and build things like doc assembly stuff, right. Where they go and automatically build PowerPoint decks on demand, right? Based on who you're going to go and present to cause they've just shredded the thing. In fact, when we did the ISO standardization, it was a 6,000 page doc that we had to go. And we built and reviewed with a standards body and we did it over about a year. Which sounds nuts, a 6,000 page doc in about a year. And the way that we were able to do that is there was never really a 6,000 page doc. There's a database where there's a row for every single element and attribute in this, in the whole schema, that would then have the column which is the description, which would just be the word XML. Brian Jones (00:43:09): And so we could, on demand, at any point, generate whatever view or part of the doc we wanted. So we'd say, "Hey, we're going to go in now, review everything that has to do with formatting across Word, Excel and PowerPoint." And so we just click a couple buttons and the database would spit out a Word doc that was just that part. Everybody could go and edit it cause we were using the structured elements we'd added to Word, which is called content controls, which was the next version of that XML stuff that we had to deprecate. And then the process, as soon as you'd finish editing that Word doc, we just submit it back. The process would go back and shred that Word doc again and put it all back in the database. And so we really used the file format to bootstrap documenting the file format. Rob Collie (00:43:48): And then when you dump a 6,000 page document on someone, they have no choice. But to just say, yep, it looks good to us. Brian Jones (00:43:55): Well, there was a pretty, incredibly thorough review still. It was just pretty impressive. The final vote that we had in Geneva, the process leading up to that, the amount of feedback that we got. Cause basically the ISO, you can kind of think of it like the UN, you go and show up and every country has a seat, right? I mean, not everybody participates, but anybody that wants to can. And so yeah, we had to respond to thousands of comments around different pieces, things that people wanted to see changed. Rob Collie (00:44:22): Yeah. I can imagine, right. Think about it. You just said at the final vote in Geneva. That's a heavy moment man. Thomas Larock (00:44:29): Yeah. That threw me off for a second. I thought, for sure, you were talking Switzerland, but now thinking that was just a code name. Rob Collie (00:44:38): No, I think, I think he was actually in Switzerland. Brian Jones (00:44:40): In Switzerland. Rob Collie (00:44:41): Have you seen the chamber where they do these votes? It looks just like the Senate from episode one of Star Wars. It's just like that. It's pretty heavy. Brian Jones (00:44:51): The little levitating... Rob Collie (00:44:53): The floating lift. Yeah. I think they call that digital acetate. I think that's what they call that. By the way on the Excel team, the way I came to look at the new file format and the open architecture of it, again, this this will show you how quickly I had turned into the more cynic side of things. Well, okay. We're going to be changing file formats. And we're doing that for our benefit because we didn't have enough bits allocated in the 1980s version of the file format that was saved to floppy disc, as you pointed out, right. Who could ever imagine having more than 64,000 rows, it's just inconceivable or 250 columns or whatever, right.? Because we hadn't allocated that. We'd made an engineering mistake, essentially, we hadn't future-proofed. So we need to make a file format change for our benefit, right. To undo one of our mistakes. And the way I looked at it was, "Ooh, all this open file format stuff, that'll be like the 'Look, squirrel!'" To distract people and to sort of justify, while we went and did this other thing, which, ultimately it actually went pretty well. The transition for the customers actually wasn't nearly as bad, because we actually Took it seriously. Rob Collie (00:46:03): The transition for the customers actually wasn't nearly as bad because we actually took it seriously. We didn't cut any corners. We did all the right things. Brian Jones (00:46:07): Well, there were several benefits too. We were talking about all the kind of ecosystem development benefits, but the fact that the file was zipped and compressed right, it meant that the thing was smaller. And that was all of a sudden, it was no longer about floppy discs. People are sharing files on networks. And so actually being able to go and have a file that's easier to share, send over network because it's smaller was a thing. Brian Jones (00:46:26): There were a couple of things that we were able to go and highlight. There's also a pretty nice thing where it was actually more robust because it was XML, and we split it into multiple pieces of XML. It meant that even if you had bit rot, you would only lose one little piece of the file, whereas with old the binary format, you had some bit rot and the whole thing is impossible to open up.There are a couple of things that were in user benefits too, which helped. Rob Collie (00:46:50): And ultimately, on the Excel side, the user got a million row spreadsheet format and the ability to use a hell of a lot more than like 14 colors that could be used in a single spreadsheet or something. It was .like a power of two minus two, so many bizarre things. Like Excel had more colors than that, but you couldn't use more than a certain subset in a- Brian Jones (00:47:10): At a time, yeah. Rob Collie (00:47:10): -In a single file. So yeah, there were a lot of benefits. They just weren't- Brian Jones (00:47:15): It's not like it's an explicit choice. It's just that at the time somebody is implementing something, you're right in a way, assuming, "Oh, this is fine. This is enough. I'll never have to worry with this issue." Rob Collie (00:47:25): Why waste the whole byte on that? When you can cram four different settings into a single byte. If you read the old stories about Gates and Allen programming up at Harvard, they had these vicious head-to-head competitions to see who could write the compiler or the section of basic in the fewest bytes possible. This was still very much hanging over Microsoft, even the vestiges of it were still kind of hanging over us even when I arrived. But certainly in the '80s when the Excel file format was being designed for that rev, it was still very much like, "Why waste all those bits in a byte?" "Let's cap it at four bits". Thomas Larock (00:48:05): In that blog series from Sinofsky, he talks a lot about that at the early start. And I'm at a point now where he's talking a lot about the code reuse because the Excel team, the Word team, I guess PowerPoint, but all these other teams, were all dealing with, say, text. And they were all doing their own code for how that text would be displayed and shown. And Bill would be the one being like, " This is ridiculous". "We should be able to reuse the code between these products". And to me, that would just be common sense. But these groups, Microsoft just grew so rapidly so quickly, they were off on their own, and they have to ship. I ain't got time to wait around for this, for somebody to build an API, things like that. I'll just write it myself. Brian Jones (00:48:50): It's a general thing that you get as you get larger where the person in charge that can oversee everything is like, "Well, these are all my resources", and, "Wow, I don't want three groups all building the same thing". But then when you get down, there's also a reality of we're just going to have a very different view on text and text layout than Excel. And Excel is not going to say, "I want all of that code that Word uses to lay out all of their content to be running for every single cell". Right? That's just suboptimal. And so it's always this fun conversation back and forth around where do you have shared code and reuse and where do you say it's okay for this specific app to have this more optimized thing that might look the same, but in reality, it's not really the same. Rob Collie (00:49:33): Brian, do you remember the ... I'm sure you do, but I don't remember what company they were from. But at one point in this file format effort, these really high priced consultants showed up and went around and interviewed us a couple of times. Do you remember that phase? It was like- Brian Jones (00:49:51): Was that towards the end? There was a couple summary stories that were pulled together just to talk about the overall processes. It was actually after the standardization. Rob Collie (00:49:58): I remember this being at the point in time where it was still kind of a question. whether we should do it. Brian Jones (00:50:02): I don't remember that. Rob Collie (00:50:04): The thing I remember really vividly is a statement that Chris Pratley would make over and over again, this encapsulated it for me. I came around to seeing it his way, which was the file format isn't the thing. That's not the moat. The thing that makes Office unique is the behaviors of the application. It's not the noun of the file format. It's the verb of what happens in the app. It's instructed to think that even if you took exactly the Excel team today, every single person that's already worked on it, and said, "Hey, you have to go rebuild Excel exactly". There's no way that version of Excel would be compatible with the one we have now. It would drift so much. Rob Collie (00:50:43): You could even have access to all the same specs. We would even cheat and say, "Look, you can have access to every single spec ever written". So? It was clearly someone had thought it was time to bring in like a McKinsey. They were all well dressed. They were all attractive. They were all a little too young to be the ones sort of making these decisions. It was just really weird to have them show up, three people in your office. Like, "Okay, I'll tell you what's going on". Brian Jones (00:51:11): I can totally imagine. It's funny I don't remember that. There were several rounds of analysis on how we were doing it, what we're doing and making sure we were doing it the right way. But yeah, Chris is spot on. I mean, your point about rebuilding it, that's essentially what we've been going through for the past five plus years around our web app. It's a lot of work. Unfortunately, we can't let it drift. The expectation from everybody is, "Hey, I learned the Wind 32 version. When I go to the web, I want it to feel the same. I don't want to feel like I'm now using some different app." Rob Collie (00:51:44): What an amazing, again, like a Manhattan project type of thing, this notion of rewriting Excel to run on the web and be compatible. Brian Jones (00:51:55): Yeah, with 30 years of innovation. Rob Collie (00:51:56): Yeah. That started in the 2007 release. Excel services, the first release of Excel services was 2007. And this whole thing about shared code, like what features, what functions of Excel, what pieces of it were going to be rewritten to be quote unquote "shared code"? And shared code meant it was actually server safe, which none of regular desktop Excel written in the early '80s, still carrying around assembly in certain places, assembly code of all things, right? Excel was not server safe. It was about as far from server safe as you could get. And so to rewrite this so ambitious without breaking anything. Oh my God. What a massive ... This dates back, gosh, more than 15 years. Brian Jones (00:52:45): Yeah. I'd say like the first goals around it were a bit different, right? It wasn't a web version of Excel. It was like BI scenarios and how can we have dashboards and Excel playing a role in dashboards. But yeah, I'd say since I joined, it was probably maybe a half a year or a year into when I joined, we just made the decision to shift a huge chunk of our funding to the web app. It was just clear that we need to make even more rapid progress. If you go, we have a site where you can go and see all the features that are rolling out there. It's incredible. And it's just because of the depth of the product. "Wow that's so many features you've done. You must be almost done". But then you look at everything else that's still isn't done yet. Brian Jones (00:53:23): Now thankfully, we're getting to the point where we can look at telemetry and say, "Hey, we've got most people covered." Most users, when we look at what they do in Windows, they could use the web app and shouldn't notice a difference. But there still is a set of things that we're going to keep churning through. So that'll continue to be a huge, huge investment for us. But yeah, the shared code strategy, we have an iPhone version, an iPad version an Android version. We've got Excel across all platforms. And because of the shared code, when we add new features, the feature crew that's working on that, they need to have a plan for how they're going to roll out across all those platforms, clearly levered shared code. But they also need to think through user experience and stuff like that too. Clearly a feature on a phone is going to behave differently than it's going to behave on a desktop. Rob Collie (00:54:05): Part of me, just like, kind of wants to just say, "I don't even believe that you've pulled that off, there's no way". It's kind of like, I've never looked at the Android version, and until I look at the Android version, I'm just going to assume it's not real. This is why it's one of the hardest things imaginable to have a single code base with all these different user experience, just fundamental paradigms of difference between these platforms. Like really? Come on. Brian Jones (00:54:34): It was a massively ambitious project. Mac shifted over maybe three years ago. And that's when, all of a sudden, in addition to a bunch of just features that people have been asking for that we'd never been able to get to, the massive one there was we were able to roll out the co-authoring multiplayer mode for Excel. Rob Collie (00:54:50): Multiplayer. Brian Jones (00:54:52): That's the term I like for co-authoring. It's more fun. Rob Collie (00:54:55): Yeah. It's like MMO for spreadsheets. Brian Jones (00:54:57): Yes. We were able to get that for the Mac. I mean, all of our platforms. One of us can be on an iPad, an iPhone, the web app, and we'll all see what we're doing in real time, making edits and all of that stuff. That alone, if you want to talk about massive projects, 30 years of features and innovation, basically that means we had to go and teach Excel how to communicate to another version of Excel and be very specific about, "This is what I did." "Here's the action I took." And that is massive. There are thousands and thousands of things you can do in the product. So getting it so that all of those versions are in sync the entire time, and so we're all seeing the exact same results of calc and all of that. That itself was a huge, massive project. Rob Collie (00:55:37): Take this as the highest form of praise when I say I don't buy it. I can't believe it. Brian Jones (00:55:44): I hope everybody's okay that we just talked for like an hour on just like listening to somebody at a high school reunion, I think, or something. Is this like me talking about how great I played in that one game? And you're like, "Yeah, that was a great basket". Rob Collie (00:55:54): Yeah. "Man, my jumper was on". the thing that's hard to appreciate, I think, is that you got to come back to the fact that we're talking about the tools that everyone in the world uses every day, that we rely on. And I think being gone from Microsoft for the last 12 years, I'm able to better appreciate that sense of wonder. This isn't just you and I catching up, I don't think. People enjoy, for good reason I think, hearing the stories of how these things came to be. People don't know by default how hard it was to get to a million rows in the file format. If you're like a robot, you're like, "I don't care how I got here. I just care what it is", then you're not listening to this show. We call it data with a human element. Robots can exit stage left. I think you should feel zero guilt. This isn't just self-indulgence. Brian Jones (00:56:55): Well, on the off chance everybody else ... I've listened to a lot of Rob's other podcasts, and they're awesome. So if you're bored with this one, it's okay. Go check out some of the other ones. They'r

Shishir is as ahead of the technology curve as it gets, some of his ideas have revolutionized the way that tech giants like Microsoft, Google, and YouTube operate.  Now, he's innovating again as the founder and CEO of Coda-an amazing integrated system that centers around creating Docs that are as powerful and actionable as Apps. He's also one of the most down to Earth human beings we've ever had the pleasure of sitting down with! References in this episode: Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer SNL Skit Steven Sinofsky's book-Hardcore Software: Inside the Rise and Fall of the PC Revolution Coda Doc-No Code, Just a Coda Doc: How Squared Away Saves a Thousand Hours and $100K a Year Coda Doc-Rituals for Hypergrowth: An Inside Look at How Youtube Scaled   Episode Timeline: 2:20 - Shishir's data path intersects with Rob's and the stories abound, Shishir passes on working for Google before it was Google 15:25 - Shishir has a random idea about advertising that eventually forms into some common advertising practices, Google woos Shishir back, and he ends up running YouTube! 27:25 - The value of a Computer Science degree is....debatable, an interesting definition and example of AI, and Nouns VS Verbs in naming products and features 41:00 - How Coda was formed and the amazing innovation that Coda is-it makes a doc as powerful as an app, and the importance of integration Episode Transcript: Rob Collie (00:00:00): Hello, friends. Today's guest is Shishir Mehrotra, and let me tell you, Shishir is a ringer of a guest. We met back at Microsoft in the 2000s where he was already entrusted with some pretty amazing responsibilities and was doing very, very well in those roles. About the same time that I left Microsoft to start P3, Shishir left Microsoft to go ... Oh, that's right ... Run YouTube. And he was at the helm of YouTube during what he calls the hyper-growth years where YouTube really exploded and became the thing that we know it is today. During this conversation, I discovered that it certainly sounds like he invented something about YouTube that we absolutely take for granted today and has been seen by billions, used probably billions of times per day. That wasn't enough for him, so he left YouTube after a number of years and started a new company called Coda. Rob Collie (00:00:55): And Coda is an incredibly ambitious product. You could say that in some sense, it's aimed at being a Microsoft Office replacement, but even that isn't quite right. It's in a little bit different niche than that. And, of course, we explored that in our conversation. We talk about his billion dollar mistake, quite possibly, literally, billion dollar mistake, not many people can make those. I was thrilled to discover that he and I have basically exactly the same philosophy about nouns and verbs in software. We talk about the antiquated notion that a computer science degree is somehow super important in product management roles, even at software companies. And just, in general, I couldn't get enough of it. He was super gracious to give us his time for this show, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. So, let's get into it. Announcer (00:01:42): Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. Announcer (00:01:48): This is the Raw Data by P3 Adaptive podcast with your host Rob Collie and your cohost Thomas Larock. Find out what the experts at P3 Adaptive can do for your business. Just go to p3adaptive.com. Raw Data by P3 Adaptive is data with the human element. Rob Collie (00:02:11): Welcome to the show. Shishir Mehrotra, how are you today? Shishir Mehrotra (00:02:15): Oh, I'm great. Rob Collie (00:02:16): Are you coming to us from Silicon Valley? Shishir Mehrotra (00:02:17): I am. Well, south of California. Been in my house and in this spot for about the last year. Rob Collie (00:02:23): When did we meet? Shishir Mehrotra (00:02:24): You were working on Excel and I think at the time I was working on WinFS, the early days of Microsoft. Rob Collie (00:02:31): Oh, WinFS. Just completely unexpected sidelight. It was like 1998 or maybe 1999, we're in a review with Jim [Allchin 00:02:42] and all of his lieutenants. And the whole point of this meeting is to assassinate the technology I was working on. This was an arranged hit on MSI ... Shishir Mehrotra (00:02:54): [crosstalk 00:02:54]. On MSI. Rob Collie (00:02:55): ... On the Windows Installer, right? Shishir Mehrotra (00:02:56): Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Rob Collie (00:02:57): And there are factions in this room that have had their knives, they've been sharpening them and they've arranged this moment so they can kill us. And, at one point, one of the complaints about us was our heavy use of the registry. Just poisoning the registry. Do you remember a guy named Rob [Short 00:03:15]? Shishir Mehrotra (00:03:15): Yeah, of course. Rob Collie (00:03:16): I really liked Rob Short. I thought he was awesome. He was a tough guy, but also really fair and funny and friendly at the same time. And he's been sitting in this meeting for hours because he has to, and he's just totally tuned out. Of course he would be, right? It's not about him. And then, this mention of the registry as an attack on us comes up and Jim Allchin immediately whirls around to Rob and goes, "Now you see, this is what I'm talking about. Our storage system is such a piece of shit." And he starts ripping it to Rob and Rob's having to wake up from his trance. It's like suddenly the guns can swing so fast in those meetings. Shishir Mehrotra (00:03:55): I mean, that was a use case that Bill and Jim and so on all tried to push on WinFS, but it was one we actively resisted. It's a hard one. Rob Collie (00:04:02): It is. The worst thing in the world is to have state stored in multiple places that have to go together with each other. Right? That just turns out to be one of the hardest problems. Shishir Mehrotra (00:04:11): It's such a critical element of the operating system. And you end up with all sorts of other issues of what can run on what and ... Rob Collie (00:04:17): And it's funny. The registry was basically my introduction to the entire Win32 platform. When I was running the installer, that's all I knew about. I knew about the type library registrations and the registry. I knew it in class IDs. And I could follow those things. I could follow that rabbit's trail from one place to another without ever really understanding what a class ID was. Right? It was just the registration of an object, right? Shishir Mehrotra (00:04:40): Right. Rob Collie (00:04:40): I didn't learn that until years later. So funny. But then we crossed paths again. Right? Shishir Mehrotra (00:04:45): SQL. Rob Collie (00:04:46): I remember how it happened. Ariel [Nets 00:04:49] came into my office and said, "Hey, there's someone important who's going to need some information from you." And I go, "Okay." And he said something like, "He's a real rising star here, so make sure you give him everything he needs." And I'm like, "Okay." Shishir Mehrotra (00:05:05): I don't think I know this half of the story. Okay. Rob Collie (00:05:09): And I think you were somehow involved with the potential acquisition that was going on at the time. Is that true? Shishir Mehrotra (00:05:14): You talking about in-memory BI? Rob Collie (00:05:16): Yeah. Shishir Mehrotra (00:05:16): Yeah. I was at the time ... Maybe for your listeners. So, my history, after WinFS folded and collapsed, and you can talk about that if you'd like, I ended up being unexpectedly merged into the SQL Server division. I ended up running what Microsoft called the program management team or SQL Server. And it was super interesting for me because I was never really a database guy. Everything I had worked on to that point was fairly end user-centered, infrastructure in the background. And I was surrounded by these people that really love databases. Actually, as a side note, I fell in love with databases because of Paul Flessner. Paul was on his way out. He was retiring that year and he had one last ... At the time we used to call them strategy days so that Bill and Steve and so on would post this annual review. Shishir Mehrotra (00:06:01): And Paul Flessner, he decided this was going to be his last hurrah strategy, "I'm going to tell these people exactly what I think." He's in the middle of preparing for this and WinFS is folding up and he says, "While you're figuring out what you're going to do next, why don't you come help me write the strategy days presentation?" And he was really drawn to the idea of someone that actually wasn't in his organization doing it because I could speak my mind about whatever and I had no bias walking into it. And probably from his perspective, I would write whatever the hell he wanted and make it sound good. This guy, he's a database legend. He drove the Sybase acquisition that turned into SQL Server. And so, he had a list of ideas for how to think about the database market that many of which were pretty ascetical. Shishir Mehrotra (00:06:44): And he spoke in very plain language when he's ... Actually, interestingly, he's retired. [inaudible 00:06:48] his woodworking. That's his thing. He builds chairs and tables are amazing. You can go buy them. As opposed to many techie database guys, he speaks in very plain language. Rob Collie (00:06:55): I love that. Shishir Mehrotra (00:06:56): And you just walk through like, "Here's how to think about the different workloads and here's what's happening in the industry and here's what's happening in data warehousing." Which wasn't really a term at the time and data warehousing was just emerging. And then, at the end of that process, we had a pretty successful strategy days and he said, "Why don't you run the PM team and help my new guy?" Ted Kummert came in to go and run SQL Server after Paul. And that's how I ended up in that spot. And as part of that, I ended up covering a lot of ... One of Paul's last statement was, "Data warehousing is not the same thing. Go do something different." And that's where people like Ariel and Amir and so on, that whole division, Tom ... And there was a bunch of people running that at that time ... Came into play. Shishir Mehrotra (00:07:34): And then they had this idea that ... There's a lot of different things to know about SQL Server. SQL Server is not actually well-built for data warehouse and so most databases are not. And at the time, the raining wisdom was you needed a completely different architecture for business intelligence, which I guess we called OLAP back then. I don't know if that term is still used. Rob Collie (00:07:54): Yeah. Oh, we still do. We just hide it. It's a dirty word. Shishir Mehrotra (00:07:57): Yeah. For the geeky folks out there, and the key difference being that instead of storing things row by row, you store things column by column and you also precalculate aggregate. So, you have some sense of what, I guess, nowadays called the cube. These things are likely to be great for, "We're going to precalculate the sum of orders for customers by region or whatever it might be." And then, Ariel and his brother Amir had this idea and they said, "Hey, we've got this strategic advantage at Microsoft, which is we own the front end and the backend of this architecture. On the backend, we need to be able to scale better and we need to move to column storage and do all this fancy stuff with cubes. But if you ask anybody where all of their analysis actually gets done, what do they say? Shishir Mehrotra (00:08:38): There's 1,000 reporting tools out there but everybody lives in Excel. And so, they said, "What if we were to find a creative way to pull these together? And I think at the time you were running this part of the Excel platform. And so, I was sent in to go figure out how to make this pitch. I mean, these guys really wanted to do an acquisition space and so on. And I was sent in to try to make the pitch. And, actually, the insight there was interesting. Amir came up with this chart, which I'm not really sure where it came from but he basically went and looked at the size of cubes of OLAP instances across a wide set of customers, including all of Microsoft. He pulled all of these different ones and he figured out that the biggest cube at Microsoft was this thing called MS Sales. Shishir Mehrotra (00:09:20): It was all the customer data from Microsoft if you remember well. And he said, "If you compress this down with column storage, I'm going to get the numbers wrong." But it fit inside tens of megabytes of storage, which was previously much, much larger if you did as row storage. And he said, "This is so small that it can fit in memory on a client, which was unheard of. Usually, the whole idea behind these systems was you have to query a server. The server is really big. At that time, a lot of systems go up and scaled out. There's often very big hardware back there as well. And he said, "Hey, I bet we could move to a model where the primary way that people do this analysis actually happens in that place where they actually want to do their work in Excel. So, I think that's where the other half of that conversation from my side was coming from. Rob Collie (00:10:06): Yeah. So, like you said, with Paul Flessner bringing you into right part of the strategy days stuff, Amir was, at that point in time, still using me in the same way. I had come over from the Excel world and so he was trotting me out every time he wanted someone to talk about Excel in a way that he couldn't be criticized. I was just almost the unfrozen caveman lawyer from Saturday Night Live, this Forrest Gump figure, "Listen, I don't know much, but I do know Excel and I know the people." You know? Shishir Mehrotra (00:10:32): Yeah. Yeah. Rob Collie (00:10:33): Usually, because on the SQL side of the house, you couldn't argue with me about Excel. If I go back to the Excel world, they'd all argue with me but on the sequel side, I was unquestioned. So, Ariel was right, he said, "This guy is a mover and shaker. He's going places." And then, an eye blink later, you're at YouTube. When did you end up at YouTube? Shishir Mehrotra (00:10:53): So, there's a personal story arc that goes along with this. I started a company out of school called [Sintrata 00:10:58]. It was an early version of what became AWS, Azure, so on, to utility computing. There's a whole generation company that started back in that '99, 2000 period. All of us were seven to 10 years too early. There was no virtualization, no containers and none of the underlying technology that actually made the cloud take off existed yet. As that was wrapping up is how I got to Microsoft but in that period, Sintrata was funded by this famous venture firm called Kleiner Perkins. Shishir Mehrotra (00:11:23): My primary investor was a [inaudible 00:11:24]. [inaudible 00:11:25] as Sintrata was wrapping up, he had suggested, "Why don't you go join another client or company?" And I said, "Which one?" And he said, "Well, you can look at all of them but the one that's really hot right now is these two Stanford guys are creating this new search engines called Google. Might want to check it out." And so this is back in 2002. And so, went over and spent some time with Larry and Sergey. And at the time, they hadn't hired a single outside product manager. And so, they wanted me to come in and start the product management team there. And, interestingly, I turned them down. My wife likes to call my billion dollar mistake. And instead I got drawn to Microsoft. Shishir Mehrotra (00:12:01): As I got drawn to Microsoft, it's related to this story because I had an old boss of mine, I was an intern at Microsoft when I was in college, and he was starting this new thing called Gideon that was in the Office team actually. And the project would turn Office into a front end for business applications. So, it's had a lot of relevance to what ended up happening in that space. Rob Collie (00:12:18): Who was running Gideon? Who was that? Shishir Mehrotra (00:12:20): Satya was our skip-level boss and this was much, much earlier in his career. And the guy actually running the project was a guy named John [Lacada 00:12:27]. I think he's gone now. I don't know where he is. Yeah. Rob Collie (00:12:29): I worked with John quite a bit over the years [crosstalk 00:12:32]. And this is how you know Danny Simmons. Right? Shishir Mehrotra (00:12:34): That's right. Danny was part of that team. Rob Collie (00:12:36): Oh my gosh! Yeah. Shishir Mehrotra (00:12:36): Yeah. Danny was on that team. I ended up working with Danny multiple times. Mike Hewitt was the one who was my intern manager who pulled me over to the project. Actually, as a fun version of fate or whatever, Mike now works at Coda. [crosstalk 00:12:48]- Rob Collie (00:12:48): Does he really? Shishir Mehrotra (00:12:49): Yeah, he's an engineer here. He's great. He lives in Idaho. Once we really started hiring distributed, I finally managed to pull him into Coda. So, I turned on Google in that period and they didn't let up. Basically, every year they would call and say, "Hey, we got something down here for you." Gideon actually didn't have a very positive outcome. I showed up to work on this thing and nine months later, Sinofsky killed it. Given the priorities Office had at the time, it made reasonable sense, but it was my first education of big company politics and that's how I ended up working at WinFS. Rob Collie (00:13:20): Sinofsky has delivered many such educations of big company politics. Shishir Mehrotra (00:13:24): Yes. Yes. For sure. For sure. Rob Collie (00:13:26): One of his primary contributions. Yes. Shishir Mehrotra (00:13:27): So, are you reading his history of Microsoft [inaudible 00:13:30]? Rob Collie (00:13:30): I haven't been but now I will be. Shishir Mehrotra (00:13:32): Oh, you should. It's good. Steve and I didn't always see eye to eye on everything, but his sense of history is really good. I don't know how the hell he remembered so much stuff, but he's basically publishing a new thing every few days, I think, maybe every week, and it's really good. Rob Collie (00:13:44): I both loved Stephen and was terrified of him at the same time. Shishir Mehrotra (00:13:48): It's common. Rob Collie (00:13:49): Yeah. Shishir Mehrotra (00:13:50): So, I'm working on SQL Server, but the reason all that matters is I was committed to Seattle. I had convinced my, at the time, fiance now wife, to move up to Seattle. She's a physician. So, she was doing her residency at Children's Seattle. And I convinced her to stay and do her fellowship and that all ran out. So, my clock ran out on Seattle. Said, "All right, now we're ready to move." And we had presumed we were going to move to the Bay area. So, it was just implied at the time, if you're going to be a techie, you got to move down to the Bay Area at some point. And I thought I was going to start another company. I was ready to do it again but Jonathan Rosenberg, the guy at Google who ended up running product there, he called me, he said, "Oh, if you're thinking about coming back, why don't you just come meet a few people?" Shishir Mehrotra (00:14:28): And I said, "No, I've been doing the big company thing for a while. I don't think I want to do that anymore." And he said, "No, no, no, no. Google is not that big a company." This is 2007, 2008. And he said, "Google is not that big of a company. Come just meet a few people and nothing else and have some good conversations." And so, I went down, met a bunch of people and this was Larry and Sergey but also Vic Gundotra was there then and Andy Rubin had just joined. And there was a bunch of ... That era of Google was being formed. And I end up, at the end of the day, in Jonathan's office and I tell him, "That was really entertaining, but it feels like a big company. I don't think this is for me." Jonathan's a pretty crass person. I won't use the same language he used but he said, "Oh, that's really effing stupid." Shishir Mehrotra (00:15:06): And I said, "Why?" And he said, "Well, look, and I'll just give you a really simple reason. All those people, they probably talk to you about Android and Chrome and all this other stuff but what they forget is that, at the heart, Google sells advertising and all the money in advertising goes to television. And nobody even watches those stupid ads." This may sound dumb, but maybe not to this group. I didn't know that. For me, I'd never bought or sold an ad in my life. And the idea that all of the money and advertising goes to television was news to me. And I got on a plane after work back to Seattle. I do a lot of my thinking on planes for weird reasons. You may be the same. I don't know. Shishir Mehrotra (00:15:40): But I get on the plane, I take out this little sheet of paper and this was a week after the Super Bowl, February of 2008, the Giants had just beaten the Pats in this epic Super Bowl. And I take out the sheet of paper, I write at the top, how come advertising doesn't feel like a Super Bowl every day? And the basic thing I was thinking about was we had our friends over for Super Bowl and while we're watching the game, the ad would come on, if somebody missed it, I would have to rewind for people to watch the ad again. It's like, "Oh, people actually like the ads in this one day of the year. What's different?" And so, I take out this sheet of paper, I end up writing this little position paper on what I think is wrong with advertising, without knowing really anything about advertising. Get home, it's pretty late. My wife's not up to tell me it was all stupid. Shishir Mehrotra (00:16:19): And then I wake up the next morning and I write to Jonathan. I say, "Hey, look, I really enjoyed the time. I don't think Google's for me, but I had some thoughts on something you said that stuck with me about why advertising sucks. And I'm sure you guys are already thinking about it, but I'm happy to send it to you if you'd like." And he's pretty early morning guy and so he read it and said, "Actually, nobody's thinking about this. Maybe you should come and I'll give you a small team and you can start running this." There were three ideas in the paper but the most simple one was how come ads don't have a skip button on them? And then, if you skip the ad, why don't you make it so that if you skip the ad, the advertiser doesn't pay? Shishir Mehrotra (00:16:50): You change all the incentives of advertising so that if the ads aren't good, then nobody gets paid if the ads are going to get better. And we're going to reset the balance and that's why it's going to feel like Super Bowl every day. He was like, "There's a lot of reward and be creative on the Super Bowl." So, J.R. convinced me. He's like, "Come down. Run this project." When I tell the story, it sounds eerily similar to how I ended up at Microsoft, like, "Oh, come run this small project." And it was this group of people, again, that misunderstood what ... This project was at the time called Mosaic. Shishir Mehrotra (00:17:19): It became a product called Google TV. Chromecast, Google TV, Google Home, all comes out of that same group now. So, I showed up to work on that and very quickly in that process realized that this had actually very poor corporate sponsorship as well. In this case, Larry and Sergey thought this product was really, really dumb. I should have known as I was going through the interview process. And so, I told J.R. and I was excited about the project and I said, "Hey, maybe I should talk to Larry and Sergey about that, a bunch of ideas and other stuff if I met them." He's like, "Oh yeah, they're traveling this week." I was like, "Really? Okay." And every time I asked, he was avoiding me talking to them about the project. But, anyway, so I show up to work on that and it's very long story out, but this paper leads to me working on this project. Shishir Mehrotra (00:17:57): And then, just, basically, we decided to merge the project into YouTube. And back in 2008, to a very side door, end up initially running the monetization team and eventually running the rest of the team for YouTube and then spending six years there and growing that business, which was ... At the time, when I joined YouTube, it was the weird stepchild of Google. It was generally thought of as the first bad acquisition that Google made. Until then we had this string of amazing acquisitions led to Maps and Android and all this stuff. YouTube was a weird one, right? It was the, we lost hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It was dogs on skateboards. We had a billion dollar lawsuit from Viacom. Rob Collie (00:18:35): Mark Cuban famously said it's never going to go anywhere. Shishir Mehrotra (00:18:38): I have very fun stories with Mark Cuban. It was two years after I left YouTube where he finally wrote me and said, "Actually, I think you might've been right." He was quite convinced we were wrong about it. But, anyway, so I ended up working on YouTube. I'd never bought or sold an ad in my life, knew nothing about video and an infrastructure guy in the previous career, and ended up working on YouTube for six years. Rob Collie (00:19:02): It's a really interesting thing, right? Sometimes not knowing a lot about an industry or a topic is actually fantastic because you don't bring all the baggage and all the preconceptions. Of course, you can't just go all in on that. If you never know anything about anything, you're just someone wandering around the world with a loud voice. And so, getting the right balance between knowing what you should know and not knowing the things that will throw you off, if we could get that mix right at all times in our lives, we'd be in great shape, but it's tricky, isn't it? Shishir Mehrotra (00:19:32): You've roughly described my career. Almost every job I took was in a space I knew nothing about. And it's a very positive interpretation of this person who has to learn every piece of this. But yeah, I think a beginner's eye allows you to look at a space a little bit differently and it certainly worked out at YouTube. And we were walking the trends of the video industry in every way, how we thought about content, how we thought about monetization, and what is good content? What is not good content? Our views on these things were diametrically opposite of every assumption that had been made by every experienced person in that industry. I think we turned out to be more right than wrong. Rob Collie (00:20:07): Oh my gosh! Yeah. Now, a few things jumped out at me from that story. First of all, if we think about it with the perfection of hindsight, the clarity of hindsight, basically, Google ran this really sick reverse auction for your services where they like, "If you come here now we'll pay you a billion dollars." And you're like, "Hmm, no." Right? And then- Shishir Mehrotra (00:20:30): It wasn't obvious that it was going to be a billion dollars. Rob Collie (00:20:30): I know. Then they call you back a year later and they say, "Okay. Fine. How about 100 million?" And you're like, "Hmm, no." And they finally got it down low enough for you to take the job. I've never met anybody who has a story where you can even joke about a billion dollar mistake. So, I'll never have the opportunity to recruit you, but if I did, now I know how. Shishir Mehrotra (00:20:56): [crosstalk 00:20:56] blowing your offer. That's right. That's right. Rob Collie (00:20:59): And it's got to include the words, just come run this small, little team. Shishir Mehrotra (00:21:03): Yeah. Yeah. I get drawn to projects. I don't get drawn to the rest of it. So far it's worked out okay. But yeah, I get drawn to ideas. I mean, this is really only the fourth company I've ever worked for yet every transition was drawn by some idea that I couldn't stop thinking about. Rob Collie (00:21:17): That idea or position statement, is that in some way, at the beginning, the origin story of the skip button for ads? Shishir Mehrotra (00:21:27): Oh yeah. I mean, the skip button for ads it's now called TrueView. Back to your point on beginner's mind. So, I show up, I've got this idea around the skip button and actually it makes more sense for YouTube than it does for this Google TV thing that we were working on. So, there's totally reasonable outcome. I show up and my first meeting with the sales team, I'm maybe six weeks in, the head of sales, Susie, she says, "Can you come give a talk to sales team and just tell a little bit about your vision for YouTube." And we had a nice ... And I said, "Look, I don't think this is a good idea. I don't know anything about this part of the industry. So, I'm going to make a fool of myself." And she's, "No, no, no. You have got all these great ideas and they're fresh and different and why don't you come talk to them?" Shishir Mehrotra (00:22:04): And I go talk about a bunch of different ideas, and I talk about this one about skip buttons on ads. And one of the salespeople, who I've since become very good friends with, she raises her hand and she says, "Wait, I don't understand. Do you want none of us to make any money?" They thought this was the dumbest idea on the planet. You put a skip button on ads, people are going to hit the skip button. It's like that's what obviously is going to happen. And, basically, the entire sales force rejected this idea. And it took me three years to ship that feature because every person in the sales force thought it was such a dumb idea. I would get told, "You can come talk at the sales conference, but you're not allowed to talk about your stupid skip button idea. You have to talk about everything else." Shishir Mehrotra (00:22:43): And what turned out was ... This is actually another fun story in great product managers. I don't know if you still think of yourself as a PM, but I consider you to be a really strong product manager as well. But this is a story about a guy, Lane Shackleton, who actually now runs product at Coda. So, Lane was a sales guy. He was actually our primary sales guy at YouTube. And he really wanted to be a PM. And at the time, we had this really stupid policy where you weren't allowed to be a product manager at Google unless you had a CS degree. It was just part of the early, early viewpoint the founders had. Rob Collie (00:23:17): So relevant. Shishir Mehrotra (00:23:21): Right. So, you commiserate with this a lot. So, Lane comes to me and says, "I want to be a PM. How do I do it?" And I said, "Hey, look, I mean, I love you and I think you could do a great job but I've got this policy. And I got to make a really strong case if I'm going to get over the policy." And he said, "How about I just do it on the side? Do it as a trial run." He gave me an idea. I said, "Okay, I'll make a deal with you. I'll let you try to be a PM, but you have to do it in your 20% time. And not in your 80-20% time, but you got to do a great job of your sales job and then you do this part. And the second criteria is you take whatever project I give you." Shishir Mehrotra (00:23:52): And he said, "All right, deal. What's the project?" I said, "Okay, I want you to work on this thing called skippable ads." And I said, "Look, the sales team thinks it's really dumb because the way that the division work, the engineering leader was like, "I'm not allocating stuff that the sales team thinks is dumb. And so, I can give you one engineer who is a new grad and that's it." But I have a playbook for you. I think you need to go and you just go talk to the AdWords team and get this thing out of the buying experience and then work on this with the analytics and figure just these couple pieces out. And we'll be able to ship this thing and we'll slowly build up the business. It'll be fine." Shishir Mehrotra (00:24:23): And so, he goes away and he comes back a couple of weeks later for his update. And I said, "Oh, how's it going? Did you talk to the AdWords team?" And he said, "No, actually, I decided that's not the problem here." And I said, "What do you mean? That was your job. Go talk to those different people." And he says, "Well, I've been thinking about it and I think the real problem here is the name is wrong." I was like, "The name? What are you talking about? We'll name this thing later. This is not that important." And he says, "No, no, I think the problem is that skippable ad is a value proposition to an end user but who buys advertising? The advertiser buys advertising. Skippable is actually a really poor value proposition to the advertiser. Why would I want my ad to be skipped? Right? And so, the reason you're hearing so much negative reaction if people don't understand why it's helpful to the advertiser." Shishir Mehrotra (00:25:06): And so then he came up with this idea and said, "Why don't we name it TrueView?" And I'm skipping a whole bunch of parts in the story, but we call it TrueView. That's what the ad for one is actually called. You have no idea what ads are called, right? Oh, there's ads on Google. Nobody knows [crosstalk 00:25:18] from AdWord. Rob Collie (00:25:18): Yeah. It's not a feature. Yeah. Shishir Mehrotra (00:25:19): But what's a sponsored story? And you don't know any of that stuff. You just know it's an ad. And he said, "So, let's focus on the advertising." Came up with this name TrueView. And the idea is very simple is you only pay per true views. You don't pay for the junk, you only pay for the real ones. Right? And all of a sudden this thing went from being, I'm not allowed to talk about it at sales conferences to the number one thing on the entire sales force [inaudible 00:25:42] all of Google. Beyond anything the average team was working on. Shishir Mehrotra (00:25:45): And it was such a simple idea. And, by the way, the way the math works is very simple, it's most people do skip the ad. It's about 80% skip rates on those ads. So, four out of five times you see an ad, you probably have a skip button, but it turns out that the 20% of the time you don't is such high signal and so effective an ad that you can often charge something like 20 times as much for that view. And so, what you end up with is you end up with you just take that math and say, [inaudible 00:26:09] four times better monetization with a skippable ad than without a skippable ad. Shishir Mehrotra (00:26:13): It was not obvious that advertisers would be willing to pay that much more if they know you actually watched the ad but when you start ... But this is a good example, again, a beginner's mind and, Lane, I mean, this is one of his ... So, I've managed to convince the calibration committees and so on and turned to a product manager and turned into a great product manager. He joined me early on at Coda and now runs the product and design team here. Great example of coming fresh to a new problem. Rob Collie (00:26:36): Yeah. Well, if only he'd had a computer science degree, that idea would have been so much smarter. You know? Shishir Mehrotra (00:26:43): Yeah. The crazy part, this is one of the most technical guys I know and he's like, "I don't understand. I write this stuff on the side. Why do I need a stupid degree for that?" Right? Rob Collie (00:26:53): I know. There was one time in my first three years at Microsoft where I used one piece of my computer science education, one time. I used O notation to prove that we shouldn't do it a certain way. And when I got my way after using O notation, it's like, "This is an O of N squared algorithm." I got to run around the hallways chanting, like, "Whoa, look, my education, it worked. It worked. It worked." And that was the only time I ever used any of that. So, no, that's a silly policy. Shishir Mehrotra (00:27:25): Yeah. It was funny, when I was going to college, my parents were both computer scientists and I was one of those kids who grew up with a ... I never knew what I wanted to be. One week I was going to be a lawyer, then I was going to be a doctor, then I was going to be a scary period for my mom where I really wanted to be a taxi driver. I went through all the different periods. And then, I'm filling out my college applications and it says like, "What do you want to major in?" And I said, "Oh, I think I'll write down CS." I was into computers at the time and so I write down CS. And my dad says, "If you major in CS, I'm not paying for college." What are you talking about? I thought you'd be really excited. Shishir Mehrotra (00:27:57): That's what you guys do. My dad now runs supercomputing for NASA. I thought this would be pretty exciting for you. And he says, "No, no, no. This is a practitioner's degree. I'm not paying for college unless you major in something where the books are at least 50 years old." And that was the policy. And so, I ended up majoring in math and computer science. And from his perspective, he paid for a math degree and I happened to get the CS degree for free. But his view was that ... Which is true ... Computer science changes so fundamentally every 10 years. Shishir Mehrotra (00:28:22): And my classes the professors often taught out of the book that they're about to publish. The book wasn't even published yet and they're like, "Oh, here's the new way to think about operating systems." And it was totally different than what it was five years ago. I think there's a lot of knowledge in CS degrees but I actually think ... O notation is an example. I used to teach that class at school. That's math. That's not CS. Rob Collie (00:28:42): I know. Yeah. Yeah. Shishir Mehrotra (00:28:44): It's a very good way to think about isotonic functions but the actual CS knowledge is all but relevant by the time you graduate. Rob Collie (00:28:51): One thing that you said to me about your time at YouTube that stuck with me years, years, years, years later is that here we are at the tip of the spear, the head of this giant organization and YouTube eventually became giant, and with all this amazing machine learning and just so much algorithmic, not even complexity, but also just we don't even know what it's doing anymore. It's so sophisticated that we can't even explain why it's making these decisions but they're doing well, and yet every day we get together, we're looking at simple pivot tables and there's these knobs on the sides of these giant algorithmic machines that some human being has to set to, like, "Should we set it to six or seven?" And it's just this judgment call. And I just love that. That was, in a weird way, so reassuring to me that even at the absolute top of the pyramid of the algorithmic world, there's still a need for this other stuff. Shishir Mehrotra (00:29:43): The most fun example of this, backing for a moment, my dad, back to the story of me going into CS. At one point I had asked him, what is artificial intelligence? And he said, "Well, artificial intelligence is this really hard to describe field." I asked, "Why is that?" And he said, "Well, because it's got this characteristic that the moment something works, it's no longer AI." And so, AI is what's left is all the stuff that doesn't work. And so, you can use all these examples of when you have all regressions, it's like, "That's just math. That's not AI. We understand how it works." My favorite example with the kids is when you drive up to the traffic light, how does it know when to turn red and green and so on? Shishir Mehrotra (00:30:19): Oh, there's a sensor there. It just senses the cars there and so then it decides to turn red or green. That's not AI. I know how that works. I can describe it. It's a sensor. And so, we went through, I think, decades of time where the moment something worked, it stopped getting called AI. And then, some point, 10, 15 years ago, I'd say 10, we flipped it. And now, all of a sudden, anything that does math is AI. And it's amazing to me that we would look at some of these systems and it was literally a simple regression and we say, "Oh, that's machine learning." And it became very invoked. I think about it that way. Shishir Mehrotra (00:30:53): I mean, there are some really complicated machine learning techniques and the way our neural network works, which is the heart of how most of these machine learning techniques work is very complicated, but at the heart of what it's doing, it's approximation function for a multi-variable phenomenon. So, the most fun example I can tell you about your observation there is this project called DALS. DALS was an acronym for Dynamic Ad Load System where at the time, on YouTube, the rate at which we showed ads was contractually set. We would go negotiate with the creator and say, "Oh, ESPN, we want your content on YouTube." And we would say, "Look, our policy is we show ads every seven minutes." And they say, "No, our content is so good. We want it every two minutes." Shishir Mehrotra (00:31:32): And then, the Disney folks would have their own number. And so, there is this long line of contractual stuff baked into our ad serving logic that's like, "Oh, it's been two minutes. You have to show an ad." Because they all just thought they knew better of how good their content was. And so, one of the engineers had this idea and said, "This is dumb." We know our intentions are well aligned. Almost all our deals were rev share deals. We made money when the creator made money. And we know whether or not this is a good time to show an ad or not, why don't we turn this into a machine learning system and guess whether or not we should show an ad? So, it's called Dynamic Ad Load System. DALS was its acronym. So, the team goes off and this engineer goes off and builds this thing. Shishir Mehrotra (00:32:08): Lexi was his name. So, Lexi builds this thing and he brings it to one of our staff reviews. Every Friday, we had this meeting of IT staff. That's where we went through all the major stats for the business and including any major experiments that are running. If he brings something in and he says, "All right, before we launch this thing, I'd like to know what our trade-off function." The trade-off function in this case is, how much watch time are you willing to trade off for revenue? These are two primary metrics. At every moment we're going to decide, should we show an ad or not? And we have to make a guess at, "We think if we don't show an ad you'll watch for this much longer, if we do show an ad, there's a chance you'll leave but we'll make this much money. So, what's the number? How much should we trade off?" Shishir Mehrotra (00:32:45): This is a very typical question I would get in this forum. It's impossible to answer, how much would you trade off? Watch time, revenue. And so, I came up with a number and I put a slope on this chart and we decided two for one. I can't remember whether it was two points of watch time for one point of revenue. But whichever way it was, I do a slope and we got a lot of reaction. They're like, "Okay. Great." And they ran away from the room. "Okay. We have a number. We can go do our thing." And so, they come back a few weeks later and say that we're ready to launch. And I said, "Okay, so did you hit the number?" And they said, "Well, actually, we have some interesting news for you. Turns out in our first tuning of the system, we actually have a tuning that is positive on both watch time and revenue. And somehow by redeploying the system, we make more money and people watch longer." Shishir Mehrotra (00:33:25): And I said, "Really? How does that happen?" And they said, "Well, we don't really know yet, but can we ship because clearly better than your ratio?" And I said, "Well, okay, you can ship but next week I want you to come back and tell me why." And so, next week they come back and I said, "Do you know why?" And they said, "Well, we don't know why, but we have another tuning and it's even better on both watch time and revenue. I was thinking we ship this one." Shishir Mehrotra (00:33:47): I was like, "Okay, but please come back next week." This went on for four weeks. Right? So every week they would come back and they'd say, "Okay, we got this thing. It's even better on both. And we still have no idea why." And, finally, they figured out why. And it turns out that basically what was happening was the system was learning to push ads later in people's sessions. If you watch YouTube for a while, early on, you'll see very little advertising. But if you sit there and watch for hours and hours and hours, the ad frequency will gradually increase with a viewpoint of, this person's not going anywhere. They're committed, which makes intuitive sense, but it wasn't an input that we handed the system. Shishir Mehrotra (00:34:18): And how did we figure that out? The pivot table. I notice that the ... What did we do? We went and charted everything we could out of the experiment group and in our experiment group and we just guessed at what is the way to figure out why is this happening? Because it's not a signal that we were intentionally giving the system, it's just the system got every other signal it could. And we looked at everything. I mean, is it geography? Is it tied to content? Is it age? Is it ... How is it possible that we're showing more ads and people are watching for longer? That story is a lesson in a number of different things. I mean, I think it was a great lesson in how when people think about machine learning systems, they miss this element of ... Any machine learning system is just a function. Shishir Mehrotra (00:34:54): All the ML system does is take a very large set of inputs, apply a function to it and generate an output. Generally, that output is a decision, show an ad, don't show an ad. Self-driving car turn right or turn left. It's some decisions of, is this image a person or an animal? And that system is trained and is trained on a bunch of data. And at some point, somebody, usually fairly low in an organization, makes the tuning decision and says, "I'm willing to accept this much being wrong for this much being right." Generally called precision recall. More layman's term for it is you figured out your false positive rate versus your false negative rate for whatever system you're trying to figure out. But somebody has to make a decision. Shishir Mehrotra (00:35:30): It's usually three tunings, very deep in the system. And then, after that point, the system is unexplainable. You have no idea how this thing works. And so, what do you do then? You go look at a bunch of empirical data of what's happening and try to figure out, "What did I just do? I've got this thing and what's actually happening here?" And you try to figure out, is it doing what you actually want it to do? And all of that is done in fancy pivot tables. Rob Collie (00:35:53): Yeah. It's so funny, the AI, and you've said before, your dad, as soon as it reaches a equilibrium, it's not AI anymore. Shishir Mehrotra (00:36:00): Right. Not anymore. Rob Collie (00:36:02): Now though, it seems like it's a funny thing that you built these systems that then figure things out and they seem to be working great but then they can't turn around and explain to you what they're doing. It's not built to explain. It's just built to do. Shishir Mehrotra (00:36:15): It makes some sense how the human brain works. Why did you do that? I don't know. I just did it. And when you're running a business, that's not an acceptable answer. I need to know why did it go that way instead of ... Why did it turn right? I need to know why. So, you end up with this interesting tuning and then you're constantly looking at charts of output, what is going on here? To try to figure out whether it's working the way you want it. Rob Collie (00:36:34): So, while we're on pivot tables for a moment, go back to your story about skippable ads. This is TrueView. Imagine how much better off we would be as a society if pivot tables had originally been named summary tables. Shishir Mehrotra (00:36:50): Oh man. Rob Collie (00:36:51): You know? That one was blown. Shishir Mehrotra (00:36:53): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:36:54): I actually tried to rename it stupidly. I mean, it was too late. It was way too late. And I fought that battle for way too long. It was a fool's errand to try to rename something that had been in the world for that long but what does it mean to pivot data? No one knows. Shishir Mehrotra (00:37:08): It's now the insider's club handshake. Rob Collie (00:37:12): I know. I know. I think we probably lost half of the people who would have used them just in the name. Shishir Mehrotra (00:37:17): It's interesting you say that because the way we do the equivalence in Coda, we don't use the term pivot at all. We call it grouping. We don't even call it a thing. Right? We don't give it a noun name. We give it a verb name. And it just turns out that grouping a table is a very understandable phenomenon. In Coda, our model of grouping doesn't require aggregates also turns out ... And the reason I don't love the word summary is I actually think most commonly what you want to do is you take a set of records and you say, "I've got a bunch of tasks. Let me sort them by in progress and done." And I still want to be able to see the tasks. And one of the things pivot table, I think screwed up, is that you can't see the tasks anymore. The moment you're in that world ... Rob Collie (00:37:55): Yeah. I agree. But given what was built, the pivot table implementation, right? Summary would have been the killer name, right? Shishir Mehrotra (00:38:02): Would have been a much better name. What would you have named VLOOKUP to? Rob Collie (00:38:05): Oh, I don't know. Pivots is still relevant to me, VLOOKUP not as much. No. But like Bill Gates always pressing for the unification of grouping in Excel with pivots. And we were always like, "Hmm, no." And it became a running joke after a while, he'd be like, "To the extent that you guys on Excel ever do anything that I ask you." That would be his preamble to some of the things he would say to us. Shishir Mehrotra (00:38:33): I mean, I would say, nowadays, people use pivot for lots of things, but for our first year for the customer journey, our grouping feature was definitely the top of the list. And, honestly, there's a bunch of people who, like you said, never really understood pivot tables and could never compare the two, like, "Oh, that makes total sense to me. I drew up a table. That makes total sense." Then two, to show aggregates. Rob Collie (00:38:50): The way you zeroed in on noun versus verb, that actually has come up multiple, multiple times on this show. It's one of my things. My new hires, when they'd come to work for me on the Excel team, I would sit them down and say, "Listen, you are not allowed to introduce nouns into this product. If you want a new noun, you've got to come to me. You got to fight me for it. You can verb all you want." That was hard one knowledge. I was a noun guy coming out of computer science school. Computer science people love them some nouns. Entities. Just say the word entity and you get all gooey inside, but no, it's a verb world. Shishir Mehrotra (00:39:26): I make that specific statement, you can ask my team, all the time. You're going to add a new noun, you got to come through me. I mean, on YouTube, it was interesting because YouTube has three primary nouns, video, channel and playlist. And we spent forever ... For a long time video was the only noun that mattered. And it was a big debate over which one matters more, channel or playlist. And I made the team pick. You got to pick one. We picked channel, which is probably obvious. Playlists are these long forgotten feature of YouTube and channels are now a big deal. But that wasn't always true. Channels actually used to be a very small deal on YouTube. If you go back to what I do in 2008, yeah, you would publish a video, it's like, "A channel, whatever." Totally bit my fingers on this channel, but it has nothing else on it. Shishir Mehrotra (00:40:05): And, nowadays, all people care about on YouTube is like, "This is my channel. How many subscribers I have." And the same way with Coda, we've put a lot of energy into as few nouns as possible. We'd use common language for nouns, only brand the ones that you really, really, really want to brand. Because there are very few branded nouns in Coda. There's lots of incentives in product development that lead to it. In a lot of companies, you get promoted on it. Like, "I invented this thing. It's now Power BI. And it's now this pivot thing." And you get a lot of feedback loop because nouns are distinguishable but it doesn't help your customers. Rob Collie (00:40:37): Even the technology under the hood is screaming at you, "Noun me. Noun me." It's like, I've got this really cool data structure here. It's dying to be surfaced in the ... No, no, don't do that. That's not what we do. We do not surface the technology. That's not what we're here for, but it's a powerful instinct. Really powerful. Okay. So, Coda, that's the next chapter. And that's the next place where we crossed paths. So, I actually realized that it was six years ago. I visited you in the Valley six years ago. And the reason I know it was six years ago is because one of the people who was there in the early days with you, the very beginning. Shishir Mehrotra (00:41:18): They're all still here, but yeah. Rob Collie (00:41:19): Okay. Good. So, got the feel that they will be long-timers. Yeah. It was a tight bunch. It was a tight crew. The two of you were joking to them, "Maybe we should go to Burning Man this year." And I was sitting there thinking to myself, I had been invited that year to a friend's bachelor party. He was going to Burning Man. And I didn't even speak up because I was so terrified of going. I wasn't even sure if I was going to go. Shishir Mehrotra (00:41:42): Did you go? Rob Collie (00:41:42): I did. And that was 2015. So, that's how I know. It was also, I think, the first year that the Warriors had blown up down the NBA scene. So, we were sitting and watching the Warriors annihilate people after we talked. So, six years ago, you were pretty deep into this thing that's now called Coda. It was codename something else at the time that I kept getting wrong. Was it Krypton? Shishir Mehrotra (00:42:03): Krypton. That's right. Rob Collie (00:42:05): But I kept calling it Vulcan. Shishir Mehrotra (00:42:08): The team had such a laugh out of that. Rob Collie (00:42:12): I kept forgetting it was Krypton and calling it Vulcan. So, why don't you explain both to me and to our listeners what the original vision was and how and if that's evolved over time. Shishir Mehrotra (00:42:25): By the way that meeting was, hey, super entertaining. Rob came in and described this as Vulcan as been repeated many times in the story. But it also was super informative because you came and gave a bunch of perspective. I think probably one of the most relevant to our last discussion, one of your most interesting observations that stuck with the team was you described this person and you said, "Hey, I can walk into a room and if I ask them just a couple of questions I can split the room into two groups of people very quickly." You used to call it the data gene. And your questions were, do you know what a VLOOKUP is or do you know what a VLOOKUP is? What a pivot table is? Bad for many of the reasons we just talked about, but for the perspective of understanding how humans are evolving and so on, it was actually quite insightful that these people you just can't keep them away. They will eventually figure these things out. Shishir Mehrotra (00:43:11): And if you have that data gene, you will some point in your life intersect with these things and figure out what they are. The Coda founding story, so I was at YouTube and an old friend of mine, [inaudible 00:43:21] Alex DeNeui, now my co-founder at Coda, he and I have known each other for 20 plus years. We went to college together. And he's part of the founding team at Sintrata as well. Interestingly, we've worked every other job together, which is a fun pattern. So, he had started this company that got acquired by Google and he had just quit. And he was starting a new company and he'd come to me and he said, "Hey, my company's not doing that well. I'm thinking about pivoting to do something different. Can you help me brainstorm a new set of ideas?" So, we started brainstorming mostly about what he should do. Shishir Mehrotra (00:43:49): I was still relatively happy at Google, but I had told him, "If you pick something interesting, I'd be happy to invest or advise or help out in some way." Said this long list of ideas and we started brainstorming and at one point, one of us writes this sentence on the whiteboard, what if anyone can build a doc as powerful as an app? And that sentence ended up becoming the rallying cry for what became Krypton and then Coda. It's a very simple statement but it comes out of two primary observations. One is, I think the world runs on docs not apps. That if you go ask any team how they operate, any business, company person, so on, if you ask them how they operate, they'll immediately rattle off all the different packet software they use. "Oh, we use this thing for CRM and this thing for inventory. And we use this thing for pass tracking and so on." Shishir Mehrotra (00:44:32): And then, if you just sit behind them and watch them work for a day, what do they do all day? They're in documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and some communication tool. That's what they live in. And this first observation was one that was very deeply embedded in us because that's how we ran YouTube. I mean, YouTube, amongst other things was born right in the start of the Google Docs generation. I got the YouTube 2008, Google Docs is just coming out and, as I mentioned, we were the forgotten stepchild of Google, so we were allowed to do whatever we wanted but we could get no help in doing it. And so, we decided, for example, we would run our task management goal-setting process. We didn't like how OKRs worked. Shishir Mehrotra (00:45:09): I actually just published a whole paper on this last week. You can take a look. But we didn't like how OKRs worked. We wanted to do a different way. And so, how do we do it? We do in a big spreadsheet? I ran compensation differently at YouTube. I had this philosophy I call level independent compensation and the Google HR team allowed us to do it, but said, "We're building zero software for it." So, we did it in a network of documents and spreadsheets. One of the most fun example is if you hit flag on a YouTube video, for years, a flag on a YouTube video would show up as a row in a spreadsheet [inaudible 00:45:37] the person's desk. That's how we ran all these systems. We used to get made fun of. People are like, "Oh, look at these people. They're duct taping together documents and spreadsheets to run what became a multi-billion dollar division." I used to say like, "I actually think this is our strategic strength." Shishir Mehrotra (00:45:49): I mean, the reason we can plan so nimbly, the reason I can hire whoever I want, the reason we can adjust our flagging and approval system so quickly is because we didn't purchase some big bulky software to do it, we design it ourselves and turned it into something that then actually met our, at the time, current value system. So, this is observation number one, it's the world runs on docs not app, which is, by the way, not obvious to people but I feel fairly strongly about it. The second observation is that those documents surfaces haven't fundamentally changed in almost 50 years. The running joke at the company is that if Austin Powers popped out of his freezing chamber, he wouldn't know what clothes to wear or what music to listen to, but he could work a document, a spreadsheet, and a presentation just as well as anybody else could. Because everything we're looking at is metaphors that were created by the same people who created WordStar, Harvard Graphics and VisiCalc. Shishir Mehrotra (00:46:39): And we still have almost the exact same metaphor, which just seems crazy to me. In that same period of time, every other piece of software stack is totally different. An operating system from the '70s versus Android and iOS is unrecognizable. Databases, which we thought were pretty fundamental are completely different than they used to be. Things like search engine, social networks, none of these things even existed and yet the way that slide decks are put together, the way you navigate the spreadsheet grid and the way you think about pages and document is exactly the same as it was in the 1970s. Shishir Mehrotra (00:47:10): So, you take the two observations, you stick them together and you say, "Hey, we [inaudible 00:47:13] runs on these docs, not applications." And those surfaces haven't changed in almost 50 years. Something's broken. What if we started from scratch and built an entirely new type of doc based on this observation that what we are actually doing with our docs is a lot closer to what we're doing with applications than not? That was the thesis we started with. I got personally obsessed with it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. And this went from, hey, let me invest, let me help, to I quit Google and went and started but at the time with Krypton and then eventually became Coda. Rob Collie (00:47:44): I'm sure he recruited you at some point by saying, "How about you just come run this small team over here?" Shishir Mehrotra (00:47:48): Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. That's right. Rob Collie (00:47:51): Those are the magic words. Shishir Mehrotra (00:47:52): We won't pay you at all. That's the ... Rob Collie (00:47:54): Something silly that occurred to me is that your Austin Powers metaphor might even be more accurate than you realize. We are now farther away, in terms of time, from the premiere of that '70s show, than that '70s show was from the time it represented. Shishir Mehrotra (00:48:09): I like that. Yeah. Rob Collie (00:48:11): It's crazy. We passed that point six months ago. So, when did Austin Powers the first one come out? Sometime in the '90s? Shishir Mehrotra (00:48:17): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:48:18): Right? And it represented a time probably 35 years before it? Probably 1964, maybe 1999. Right? Shishir Mehrotra (00:48:25): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:48:25): So, we're almost reaching the point where we're close to the Austin Powers movie as Austin Powers was to the time. So, clearly, if we rewind 35 years, we are what? We're in the '80s, right? Shishir Mehrotra (00:48:35): Yeah. Rob Collie (00:48:36): You're right our documents basically look like that. Shishir Mehrotra (00:48:39): Yeah. You and I can probably geek out on this. And I get asked a lot about why did that happen? Lots of industries saw a change. And the database industry is a great example, you wouldn't expect the database industry to change that much. Codd wrote his book in the 1970s that's still the book that every database engineer you can find will have the book up on the shelf for Codd's relational databases, and yet things like OLAP came out and cubes and it turned into a Power BI. I think what happened in the document industry ... Well, two things. Shishir Mehrotra (00:49:05): One, every company that wanted to innovate in that space was a platform company whose primary interest was evangelizing a platform. Microsoft didn't really want to displace Lotus and so on with a new thing, they just wanted people to use Windows. It was very important that it actually be backwards compatible with everything at Soft. The other thing that happened is we live through what I think of as a period where we're beholden to file format. And so, one of my favorite examples is Steve Jobs and Apple. I've met a bunch of people that worked on the early iWork suite. And the iWork suite, Jobs came in with a bunch of new ideas. He's like, "This is dumb. We shouldn't have a spreadsheet that's one big universal grid. We should have a bunch of separate grids that are actually a little closer to tables." Shishir Mehrotra (00:49:45): And so, that's how numbers worked, actually, it's not actually one universal grid, it's a bunch of separate ones. And the way he did it with pages was a little bit different. And then, Keynote, which is probably the most popular of the three is actually different from PowerPoint in those really critical ways and none of the three took off. And why didn't they take off? I mean, Jobs was pretty smart and [inaudible 00:50:02] were pretty good. I think it was really simple reason. If I build something in numbers and then I want to send it to you, I have to assume that you have a copy of numbers and that you run on a Mac and that's not a safe assumption. It hasn't really been a safe assumption for a long time. And then, Google Docs came out. Rob Collie (00:50:16): Which, by the way, is fundamentally what YouTube did for video. Right? Shishir Mehrotra (00:50:19): That's right. Rob Collie (00:50:19): I had all these delivery ... Shishir Mehrotra (00:50:21): Plugin. Rob Collie (00:50:21): ... And Coda and pl ... I couldn't send you a video, trust that you'd be able to watch it. Shishir Mehrotra (00:50:27): And assume you could play. That's right. That's right. I mean, in that case, it was hard to send the videos because- Rob Collie (00:50:32): Yeah. There was a file size problem and there was also a software c

Ever wonder how your colleague get ahead with awesome spreadsheets and bet you to the punch in organizing data. Stay tuned for some tips and tricks on how you can make excel and google sheets work for you using the VLookup aka vertical lookup tool. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/blackmantel/support

4/3/11 - Google Calendar public links. https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37083?hl=en 4/4/11 - VLOOKUP in Excel 4/5/11 - Murderface is a Notary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dethklok#William_Murderface https://dethklok.fandom.com/wiki/William_Murderface https://abclegaldocs.com/blog-Colorado-Notary/notaries-ancient-greece-360-bc/ 4/6/11 - How to play QWOP a bit better. http://foddy.net/Athletics.html?webgl=true https://www.wikihow.com/Play-Qwop 4/7/11 - HTML5 conversion in Dreamweaver https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XHTML https://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-html5-20080122/#relationship0 https://www.templatemonster.com/blog/html5-extension-dreamweaver-cs5/ https://digicompdiy.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/how-to-convert-a-dreamweaver-document-from-xhtml-to-html5/ https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/13037/Converting-to-HTML5-with-Dreamweaver.html 4/8/11 - Getting more AP for Heimerdinger in LoL 4/9/11 - What channel Bravo is at my univeristy. This week's episode comes from Apple iMovie. Tracks featured in this episode include: Apple - Buddy Apple - Newborn Apple - Jaracanda Apple - Havana Apple - Acoustic Sunrise Apple - Sanskrit Apple - Park Bench Apple - Piano Ballad Apple - Daydream

Выпуск про тест на хорнинесс и таблицу с его результатами, про ячейки, столбцы и строки, про VLOOKUP и любовь к условному форматированию. Слушайте подкаст К тебе или ко мне?: https://podcast.ru/1494552672 Patreon: www.patreon.com/blitzandchips Boom Clap: podcasts.apple.com/ru/podcast/boom…ap/id1456280130 Жуть: podcasts.apple.com/ru/podcast/%D0%…8C/id1474237014 Beats and Chords: podcasts.apple.com/ru/podcast/beat…ds/id1326222560 Канал на YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/BlitzandChipsVideo В выпуске участвуют: Гриша Пророков, Полина Анисимова, Артём Гордин, Дмитрий Кабацкий Музыку написал Иван Калашников из Наади (спасибо!), вот его инстаграм: www.instagram.com/terebish/ Логотип сделал Даня Удобный (спасибо!) Почта: prorokovgrisha@gmail.com Канал в Telegram: telegram.me/grishaprorokov Вот ссылки: тест: https://bzfd.it/3slZCOh секретная игра в Excel: https://bit.ly/39dvAVn видео БДГ про странную работу: https://bit.ly/3lRcmdh Спасибо всем, кто даёт $10 и больше на Patreon: Aidar Galimov Anastasiya Artem Gordin Вова Апенов Alexey Taktarov Anton Philippov Daria Silkina Golgothan Ilya Kochetkov Lena Khalilova Sergey Timoshin Sonya Permiakova Vadim Patsev Valentine Panchin Евдокия Антощак Людмила Корнилова Alexander Raspopov Valeriya Neborskaya Anastasia Rastorgueva

Take The Path of Least Resistance To Save Time At Work One of the best things that happen when you are aligned with your natural talents is that work ceases to feel like "work." This is that sweet spot where you accomplish your tasks feel like you're in a state of flow. This is when things on your to-do list energize you, rather than drain you. Since the work is easier and the results are more excellent, you save time and precious energy at work. It's totally different on the flip side when you work out of your weaknesses. You feel this inner resistance, which can lead to self-doubt and early exhaustion. As your energy dips, you feel like you have nothing to give. Which is not the truth, because you have it in you all along. Here at Lead Through Strengths, we want you to drive towards what you want to have more of, such as work that gives a sense of meaning, while managing all other tasks at hand.  The more you use your strengths, the more you're able to offer your best to the world. But how exactly do you get more of what you want when your plate is already full of soul-sucking tasks, and for which you think there are no takers either?  Certainly, you don’t have to get stuck in this situation for long. So, listen up as Lisa Cummings and TyAnn Osborn put together and share great insights that will help you build a career centered on strengths that you love. Here's their conversation. Lisa: You're listening to Lead Through Strengths, where you'll learn to apply your greatest strengths at work. I'm your host, Lisa Cummings and you know, I'm always telling you, it's hard to find something more energizing than using your natural talents every day at work. Well, something that's just about as energizing is when I get to hang out with my other host here in the room TyAnn Osborn. Today, the topic is, you know, stuff that happens at work, that is, a little weird or awkward "things that make you go, hmm." And that thing…. it's a ridiculous call back to Arsenio Hall. It was way back. No really, it's those things that make you go hmmmm because you can't figure out how to quit making work feel so hard. TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: What if that thing is, “Hey, Ty, why is my manager keep giving me all the tasks that I hate? Hmm.” TyAnn: I think it's because they hate you. Lisa: (eyes widen) Hmmm. TyAnn: No, they don't hate you. That's what we're going to talk about today.  Lisa: But this is a real thing.  TyAnn: This does happen. This happens all the time. Lisa: I actually have an uncle who said from his corporate experience (shout out to Alan) he said that if you are doing a task that you can't stand, but you're the one who does it the best in the office, he's like, “Well, the next time they need to get that thing done, who are they going to come to to get the thing done? You, the one who did it the best.”  TyAnn: Right.  Doing A Great Job? Best If It’s On Tasks That You Love Lisa: So I do think this can happen because people get known for things that they don't even like, but they haven't worked on their career brand.  TyAnn: Right.  Lisa: They haven't talked to their manager about what they do like or hope for more of in their development. And I think that is one of the reasons you can be really good at something that you don't like. You're masterful because you keep getting it assigned to you. TyAnn: Absolutely. This happens all the time. This has happened to you and me. This happens to our corporate clients all the time and in a very innocuous way. There's no diabolical plot behind this. And especially when you're more junior in your career, where you might not feel like you can say, “I don't really want to do this, or, I don't really like this.”  And so, here's what happens: Oftentimes, when you're smart, you can do a lot of things, and do it in a very proficient way. And actually, your product can be pretty good. And then guess what, because you did a pretty good job at that, next time, they have that horrible spreadsheet that needs to be done — “You did a pretty good job so you're gonna get known as the horrible spreadsheet fixer.” Lisa: And you don't want to be the one... I mean, if you're a hard worker...  TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: ...yet you don't want to be the whiner, complainer...  TyAnn: Right.  Lisa: The purpose of this episode isn't to say, we're going to empower you to go tell your leaders all of the things that you just don't like.  TyAnn: Yeah, don't don't do that. That’s not the takeaway from this section at all. That's a career-limiting move by the way.  Lisa: High-risk conversation.  TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: It would be less risky to figure out a way to describe the stuff you do want more of that you would like to grow into. TyAnn: Yeah. So Lisa's got a great term that she uses about career crafting. She calls it "job shaping." So we're going to talk to you about how to lean your job more toward the things that you do like, and how maybe to get away from some of these legacy things, that kind of seems stuck to your shoe that you can't quite shake.  Lisa: Oooh, that's a good way to say it.  TyAnn: Or how to, how to avoid that thing you don't like. So, we'll give you some tips both ways. So how to lean more toward the stuff you want, and how to get out of this position of some stuff that you don't like.  Lisa: Yeah. And I mean, I think the simplest concept for the gum on your shoe, (that's a good one), is like, it starts to fade away from assignments if you continue to get known for the things that you *do* enjoy.  TyAnn: Right. Lisa: I call this concept, “don't expect your managers to be mind readers." Because it's easy to think, “They should know that that's a horrible thing, the horrible spreadsheet task, like they should know, I hate that. Why do the give the junk tasks to me? Yes, I might save time because it can turn into a mundane brainless task, but that's now how I want to save time at work.”  TyAnn: How would they know? And what do you...  Lisa: You call it something else, don't you? What do you call it? TyAnn: I call it "the psychic method doesn't work." Even though we might try to prove this over and over? Yeah, so and here's the deal, too. We see the world through our own eyes, because that's the lenses we were given, right. And we tend to think, "everything I hate, everyone else hates." Or the opposite: "everything I like everyone else likes."  But that's not how the world works. And certainly in the strengths world we find there's all kinds of different things. So just because you like something or dislike something, somebody else has a completely different set of likes and dislikes. So if you secretly hate that thing you're working on, and you don't ever say anything, guess what? How would anybody know that? Especially if you keep doing a really good job at it. And the other factor is that if you're working in your weakness zone, it's not going to be as intuitive. It's going to take you longer. The way to save time at work is to spend more of your time in your strengths zone. Lisa: Yeah.  TyAnn: And you never say anything. And then they're like, “Hey, Lisa, good job on that spreadsheet.” You're like, “Okay, thanks.” Lisa: Hey thanks. Hey, I'm a hard worker. And I keep getting more of this stuff that I don't like. It feels soul-sucking and time consuming. TyAnn: And think about this. What if you have a lot of Achiever and Responsibility in your top themes?  Lisa: I had it. I had a client, example, recently where she led through Responsibility. And she was on a big global project, all people in all time zones, and she thought it was really important to get people synched-up that someone would capture the initial conversation. This is basically a note taking thing.  TyAnn: Ahh Lisa: So she asked, “Who would like to volunteer?”  TyAnn: Okay, usually the answer is going to be, “no one.”  Lisa: That is pretty much what happened. Podcasts don't go well with me demonstrating the long cricket-silence she got in the meeting. But that's what happened. She asked, and all she heard was crickets. TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: *no answer, *no answer.  TyAnn: She probably felt like she had to do it.  Lisa: She did. She leads through Responsibility. She can't let a ball drop. She was like, “I'll take it.” So she takes it. And she said she found herself time after time after time taking it and she was new to the company and new to the role and six months in, she said — “Do you know my career brand here is I'm the team secretary?” Oh, and she feels like it was that one decision that led to the next one, to the next one, to the next one. And now that's how they see her. So now work feels slow and clunky. She drudges through it. She's dying to save time at work because she's bogged down in tasks she hates. TyAnn: And now for her branding exercise, she has to undo all of that, which is a, you know, a much more difficult spin.  Lisa: Our career-memories are long.  TyAnn: Yeah. So that's going to be a whole ball of work just to undo just to get her back to neutral. Because then we have to replace all that with something else. Lisa: Mm hmm. Yeah.  TyAnn: I mean, it can be done but that's just a harder way to go.  Lisa: I think that's actually a good one for the example of what you were talking about. Like there's the how, how do you unwind from what you don't like and then build into what you do like? Now if you imagine this person walking around declaring: “By the way, I don't like note-taking.”  “By the way, I’m not a secretary.”  “By the way, that's not really what I want. I'm, I'm so much more.”  "By the way, I'm actually trying to save time at work and be efficient here!" That would not go well. That would be awkward, whiny and bizarre.  TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: But if instead, she starts really knocking it out on these other three things that are a big deal (the ones that are in her strengths-zone), then over time, it doesn't take that much time. She gets known for other (good) things and the draining things fade away into a distant memory.  TyAnn: Right.  Lisa: And that is a path that is much more doable. And I like to give clients a script that is like a starting place for a career conversation with their manager. For example: “I just listened to this podcast episode and it got me thinking about what I would love the most to grow into next in my role. And so it made me think...I'd love to have more projects that require a person to create momentum on the team. I'd love it if you'd consider me next time a big change management effort comes up. (To TyAnn), give me another talent theme that she has besides Responsibility.  TyAnn: Okay, let's say she also has, um, Communication.  Lisa: Okay, so she also leads through Communication. And the team's doing a project where they need to roll it out to a bunch of end-users who aren't really going to love it. And it's going to take some real change management effort.  TyAnn: What clients don't always love what you have to roll out? Sometimes there's change management?  Lisa: And imagine how many people wouldn't like that? You know, I have to go out and convince a bunch of other people to do a thing, like most people go, “I don't want to do the dog and pony show. I just want to make the great thing.”  And then if you build it, they will come, right? No, you need people who lead through Communication, who can spark momentum and get other people excited about it, and communicate the benefits of it and get out there and spread the message and recruit other messengers. This kind of stuff that would be really fun to her would be loathsome to other people. TyAnn: Absolutely.  Lisa:  So if she comes around now and says, “I just listened to this podcast. It got me thinking about things I'd like to grow into. I know we have this problem right ahead of us. If you see a part of that project, where I could contribute my Communication talent theme to to be the spark of momentum, I would love to help with that. So I just want to put it out there. If you see this opportunity, I hope you'll think of me.”  TyAnn: Absolutely.  Lisa: Any manager would love to hear that.  TyAnn: They're probably, “Oh my gosh, thank you so much because I was cringing inside thinking how are we going to get all the engineers on board, or whatever it is. And hey, now that you've been working, you know, Pan Global, you've been, you know, all these people in all these different regions. You know, we can really tap into that.”  So what she didn't do was go around and whine about it. So I would say from personal experience, not the best approach. So she didn't put on her t-shirt, “Here's all the things I hate about my job.” Again, not the best approach. And she didn't go to her manager with an ultimatum, “If you don't give me this I'm gonna fight.” You know, be, “I'm gonna quit” or whatever. That's not also good.  What she did do is offer up something that she would like to be known for, she would like to lean into. And even in this case, she might not be saying “I have all this experience in this area.’ It sounded like she was saying, “I would like to get experienced in this.” And now she's getting assigned work she loves. Those lovable tasks feel like they save time at work because they do - they're easier. They're your space to get in flow. Lisa: Yeah.  Sharing Your ‘Trash And Treasure’ List To The Team Could Fast-Track A Career You Love TyAnn: So that means I'm going to be great at it. First, right out of the box, I might need to partner up with someone to try to offload some of the trash-tasks. But it's a great way for her to lean into something as opposed to just leading with, here's what I hate about my job, which would be great. Here's what's funny: because here's this task now that she loathes, but there is someone else out there, I promise you, who would love the opportunity to do the thing that she hates. This is what's so hard for us. Remember, everything that we hate, we think everyone else hates too.  But there's someone else out there who maybe you know, funny enough, maybe they also have Communication, but theirs show up in a written form. Maybe they are not the extroverted person out there, in terms of extroverted catalytic change. Maybe they are, you know, they are more introverted. They like the details, they want to keep everybody abreast through this great written form.  It could be all kinds of things. But there's somebody else out there who would love this. And so a great, you know, really well-functioning team is able to talk about these things. You've got this great trash-to-treasure team activity, where again, it takes a little bit of vulnerability, but we can say, here are the top three things I love, or I'm looking forward to. Here are the things that I'm kind of ready to pass on to somebody else. Lisa: I mean, look at that, like we, we love talking with each other. And we don't get to the actionable takeaway this fast usually. This is, this is great. That thing that you just described, where if you share it as a team….  Here's an example the other day. A guy goes, (I introduced trash and treasure sort of things, like, what are some things that you really enjoy?), and he said, “I really like escalation calls."  TyAnn: Which is funny, because a lot of other people are like, “Oh, my God, I would hate that.”  Lisa: They thought he added in the wrong column. And then and you know, you just get a lot of that. “Why? Why?”  TyAnn: Why?  Lisa: “What are you talking about?” Like, “surely he wrote that on the wrong side.” And he's like — “I, I am a deep subject-matter expert. I love when there's a big challenge. It's gotten.... I don't love that customer services are flustered, but he's like, “I love that it's been too big and hairy for anyone to figure out, and I can come in and I know when they talk to me, it is over. Their frustration is done.” He said, “It's so satisfying to know that there is no escalation after me. It is always solved.”  TyAnn: Wow.  Lisa: And that thing just made him feel so alive. And instantly, in that moment, people are like, “Can I give you mine? Can I give you mine? Can I give you mine?” And he is like, “In fact, yes. If other things can get off my plate, yes, I would love it if my day were filled with that.”  Imagine. He feels more productive doing escalation calls. He didn't study a time management book. He didn't even have to apply the Getting Things Done (GTD) method. He saved time at work because he loved it and that is a responsibility that lights him on fire. TyAnn: That's brilliant.  Lisa: Now, it's not always that clean and easy. I mean, you can't just be like, “Yes, let me give you my worst tasks ever.” For many on the team, that's their worst well ever. But it works. There are moments.  TyAnn: I love that like that. I love that. Or if we could find, usually there's somebody on the team who maybe highly Analytical or they have whatever skill, like the Excel skills, or the Microsoft Project skills. They love, you know, a good Gantt chart or whatever. Usually, there's somebody who, that’s their jam.  And someone else wants to poke their eye out if that's what they have to do. So wouldn't it be great if you could just shift a little bit so that, you know, “Hey, maybe I can't just unload this task? Maybe I'm still responsible for it but hey, Lisa, can I go to lunch with you? And you could just give this thing a once over and you know, make sure I'm on the right path?”  You know, and you're probably like, “That's awesome. Yes!” And I'll say I’ll buy your lunch. And you're like, “You don't even have to do that, I'm excited to help.”  Lisa: Mmmm.  TyAnn: I'm like, “Why would you be excited to help about this loathsome project?” But so you know, those kinds of things are easy ways you can ease into it, even if it's not possible for me to be like here at least. So you take it up.  Lisa: And I think you're bringing up a nuance that's important is that you don't just want your manager, the person you report to, to be the only one who knows what you want to grow into. Now, your teammates know new things about, you and you know things about them.  Maybe then you share with the leader like, “Oh, wow, he was so helpful to me in this way.” And now he's getting known for the thing that he likes.  TyAnn: Right. Lisa: And he's getting more of it. And it really does have this virtuous..  TyAnn: ...virtuous cycle — my favorite thing about Significance, right. Uhhmm, share with each other, what is the thing you love best about your job because, in the words of my friend, Lisa, notice what works to get more of what works. And so if I don't know what works for you, I can't ever help you get more of that.  Lisa: Yeah.  TyAnn: And I can't ever point out because if I keep pointing out your spreadsheet looks really good, and you're like, “Oh my god, I hate that thing. I am going to go to my grave and have that spreadsheet etched on my tombstone.” And you never want to say, “Ah, I'd really like to do this other thing.” So again, coming back to the idea that your manager doesn’t automatically know what you want, and the psychic method doesn't work, and it doesn't work for your teammates, either.  This is where I think being vulnerable, having that psychological safety, and I think also having that concept of, “just because I don't say, just because I don't love something doesn't mean I'm saying, “I hate this. I'm not going to do it.” Or, “I'm going to do it poorly.” Because again, I don't get to run my unicorn work. I don't only get to do the things I want to do all day long. I'm going to approach my work and always do everything with as much integrity as I can. But there are some things I would like to do more of, and probably have more of an act to do. Attract Opportunities By Striking A Conversation About Your ‘How’ Skills Lisa: Yay. Good luck on that, Ty. And don't make your take away, the refusal of the job...  TyAnn: Don't do that.  Lisa: ...or the excuse to get out of work or...  TyAnn: Don't do that. But as you know, as we tell children, you got to use your words. So you've got to put it out there. Whether you call it the secret, or the universe, or using your words, you've got to put out there what you're hoping to do more of.  Lisa: Oh, and you have to first decide what you want more of. If you're going to save time at work by doing work that puts you in flow, you have to reflect enough to know what responsibilities put you in the flow state.  TyAnn: Yeah. Lisa: Strengths, reading the book StrengthsFinder, doing the CliftonStrengths assessment, these are all helpful things if you've never even thought of, “Oh, it's not just that I would like more of this skill,  TyAnn: Right. Lisa: … but also, how I interact with people. Or like, in the Communication example, that was more of a ‘how’, not a ‘what’ skill thing” and...  TyAnn: Right.  Lisa: ...like, “Oh, I like to build momentum. Aha, I can ask my manager for things that require momentum building, that's not something that they've probably ever thought of using, as an assignment criteria.” And now they have a whole new realm of things to offer you instead of like that one specific job that you were hoping to move into next.  TyAnn: I think that's actually a really good point because if you just look at, you know, let me find the magic job title, well, I'll just tell you, that's going to be a long hard search. Because that often doesn't exist. But these “how” skills exist in a lot of places that you might not even realize, right? But that's where you can, the more you put out there what you want, the more other people will start to help you and say — “You know, there's actually the thing you didn't even know, but they could use you on that project team.” Like I didn't even know that was a thing.  And then, you know. But again, if you just sit there at your cube, or now you know, at your home office, hoping that the magical assignment comes your way and bluebirds into your, to your window, you're going to be sitting there a long time. So you can, you can have a little bit more control in your life when you do the right thing(?)  Lisa: Yeah. So if we bring this all together, I would say one action is, you want to have a conversation with the person that you report to.  TyAnn: Absolutely.  Lisa: And and try to find a way to express, “Here's this thing I would love to grow into. And I would love it, if you would think of me next time you're considering assignments that relate to x, and if you use those “how” skills.  TyAnn: Absolutely. And by the way, it's perfectly legitimate feedback for your manager to say, “Okay, I hear you saying that, but you know what, you don't have any of those skills today.” That might happen. And then you can have a conversation about, “Okay, how might I be positioned to get those skills? What would a path look like for that?”  Lisa : Yeah.  TyAnn: That is completely legitimate.  Lisa: Yeah.  TyAnn: Or for you to look up in the organization somewhere, and then just go talk to someone and say, “how did you get here?” How, and, you know, that's what, I kind of interview internal people all the time. Have, you know, and just have kind of an informational one-on-one. By the way, people love to talk about themselves, little tip, and people will meet with you all day long, for 30 minutes, just to tell you their story.  And so that's where real growth happens. So I love that. So talk to your manager. Again, second method doesn't work there. So that's the first tip, communication.  Lisa: I'd say, volunteering the talent out. So let's say for example, you lead through Learner and Input. And now your company is implementing Microsoft Teams, but no one knows how to use it, and they're resisting it. And you're like, “we're gonna have to get down with this program, because it's going to be the way of the world. Microsoft is embedded in everything we do, we need to figure it out.”  And so you decide, “I'm going to turn on my Learner and Input. I'm going to find all the cool features and things that could make life easier for teammates and then I'm going to share it with teammates. So then you get an opportunity to get known for what you want more of because you've decided, “I'm going to do it anyway. I can tell it we'll have to figure it out. I'm going to turn on my Learner and Input which would be fun for me because those are in my top five. And then I'm going to use those, volunteer them out beyond myself to help the team." By virtue of volunteering it out, you can see where using the talent makes you feel more productive and efficient. It's an experimenting process. It is a process, yet the compounding effect can save you a lot of time at work over the course of months or years. In fact, the job itself can be totally different as a byproduct of these experiments. If the team does StrengthsFinder as a team thing, then they know the words Learner and Input and you're able to say, “Okay, you know, Learner and Input. I nerded out on this. So I thought you might find this helpful, here are all the things that I've picked up.” And you give them the tip sheet. TyAnn: I love that. I mean, that's so cool. You've made yourself the super user. You've... and it's not just about you, you've created, you know, you've positioned yourself in a way of service to other people.  So by the way, anytime you're helpful to other people, they tend to want to come back to you to get more help, which is great, because you've, you know, you're killing kind of two birds with one stone, this is great. They're gonna be like, - “Oh, that you did such a great job that last time we had this thing. Now we've got to have this. You know, we're gonna put this in Slack. Nobody here knows anything about it. Can you help us with that?”  And yeah, you would be the person. So I love that. It's volunteering your talent, not again, sitting at your desk quietly with your head down, waiting for someone to come tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey, Lisa, I know you're a high Learner Input. So I was thinking maybe here's an opportunity, you could, you could do.”  That, that's rarely going to happen. It's rarely going to happen. So you have to really keep your eye on the landscape and think, “How could I apply my top themes to what's going on here?” So...  Lisa: Those are big.  TyAnn: I know. Lisa: Okay. I have a third one, which would be, listen for what people kvetch and complain about.  TyAnn: Hmm.  Lisa: Not to join it?  TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: Again, more career limiting.  TyAnn: Yeah, don't do that.  Lisa: But if you listen, you can hear like when Ty was explaining the spreadsheet with doing the VLOOKUPs. She was good at them but when she remembers this role that she had where she had to spend all day in the spreadsheet doing Vlookups, her nose crinkles up when she says “Vlookup” like there's an uhm!  TyAnn: Yeah, there's a physical response when you don't like something. You're basically or even your body might hunch down a little bit.  Lisa: Yeah. So watch for that because let's say I were the teammate, I lead through Analytical and Deliberative and I love slicing and dicing data and living in Excel put me in Excel all day long as my favorite job, when I see her react that way, if I'm listening to other people's responses, both tuning in...  TyAnn: Yeah,  Lisa: ...even just to watch, but I'm watching, “Oh, saw your reaction in the Vlookup there.”  TyAnn: ‘Saw the nose crinkle.  Lisa: “Not your BFF, huh?” She's like, “NO!” And then I go, “Ah, I start to get ideas. I could, I could take that on for you. And maybe you could swap something out with me. Or maybe I could give you a shortcut template or something like that, where I'm just volunteering it out.”  She's thinking, yeah Vlookups are slow and cumbersome and awful. Meanwhile you're thinking that Vlookups are such a great way to save time at work and get really efficient. But beyond watch for things you could swap with others. And when you see others kvetching and complaining, you're often able to see — “Oh, that thing that I like, not everybody likes that.”  “Oh, that thing that I'm good at, not everyone else is good at it.”  TyAnn: Right. I think that's huge. And just thinking about that person with a spreadsheet, you know, maybe there's a meeting they have to go to every week where they have to report out on that spreadsheet. And that meeting causes them no end of angst. They get the pit in the tummy feeling, they get the flop sweat, they go in and even though they know it front and back, they can't communicate that to save their lives.  Lisa: Yeah.  TyAnn: And it's miserable for everybody. And you're like, “I could talk to those people cold.”  Lisa: That is perfect.  TyAnn: You're like, “How about I, you do the back end, I'll do the front end and together we are the Ty and Lisa show? Only if it was the two of us. There really wouldn't be a back end, we would only be to the front.  Lisa: We’re going, “To the back. To the back. To the front. To the front.” It would be stuck — a skipping record. “To the front. To the front. To the front”  TyAnn: We need to have a team. We would need Deena a lot with this, to help, to help round us out. Um, yeah. So again, the psychic method doesn't work. So you got to have that, those conversations, and I think that will really serve me well.  Lisa: Yeah. So let us know, how did your conversation go? How did you bring it up?  TyAnn: Yeah.  Lisa: And when you were thinking of the talents that you're trying to lead into, how did you phrase it with your manager. This is a scripting thing that I find a lot of people get stuck on. And that's why I like to give that thing where it's like, - “Hey, I've been thinking about what I want to grow into next.” Or even using this podcast because at least it's less awkward to say, “Hey, I was listening to this podcast. I was trying to learn more about being awesome at work," you know, in something that makes you sound like you're continuing to grow.  TyAnn: Right?  Lisa: “I've been putting a lot of thought into this and it gave me this idea.” And then you can offer it out.  TyAnn: And then let us know and we'll talk about it. Let us know if you tried it and it doesn't work either. We'll come up with something else for you. There's more than one way here.  Lisa: We can have the failure recapture. “Okay, here's a scripting idea that doesn't work. Don't try this because this goes back into that high-risk category that sits right along what...  TyAnn: Lisa and I laugh about this because we have tried a whole bunch of things that haven't worked before. So we, you know, we can, we're right there with you on that. We can help prevent you from having those same experiences.  Lisa: Yes. And although my stint in HR was very, very short, yours was much more significant. And the time that we got to spend with leaders saying, “All right, fire me.” Like, “We’re doing the roleplay. It's going to be an awkward conversation. I am now the person.” And then getting them to go through….  Scripting things out is tough. And there are so many hard conversations in the workplace. So even these when you're, you're trying to talk about yourself without sounding braggadocious.  TyAnn: Right. Lisa:  That's tough too.  TyAnn: Right?  Lisa: And it's not even awkward, and you're not telling someone they're about to… TyAnn: Right. Lisa: ...lose their job or be on a performance improvement plan. It's just simply like, “how do I describe something that I might be good at without sounding like an arrogant jerk?  TyAnn: Like a braggy jerk. So it's fine. We, again, it feels a little uncomfortable, because we don't have these conversations all the time. So that's where you're just, you know, you can get a little index card and just literally write this out. And then kind of practice in a mirror saying this. You can practice with a friend. You can call a spirit guide to help you out.  And the more you do it, the easier it will become. And again, we're not trying at all for you to say, “here's the list of things I'm not going to do.” This is just how can you lean your career, how can you steer it a little bit more toward the things that bring you energy, and a little bit less towards the soul sucker parts of the job.  Lisa: Yeah. And if you do decide that you want to do this as a team exercise, where you're talking about it and you want a facilitator, Ty would be a great one for this. She can come into your organization and walk you through that trash and treasure exercise. She's great at helping you figure out what fills you up - even a personal branding exercise for each person on the team. We have one where you walk away with three words that describe how you would love to be known and describe how you want to show up in the organization so that you can actually take the time to reflect because it's hard to carve the time out, and then your teammates can know how you want to be known, and your manager. TyAnn: That's a cool exercise too, by the way. People feel really good about that.  Lisa: Yeah. And it feels so good to hear them about each other.  TyAnn: Yeah. Very affirming. Lisa: And it takes away that...  TyAnn: Very affirming. I love that one.  Lisa: Yeah because you're not being awkward or arrogant when some facilitators ask you to do the exercise.  TyAnn: Yeah, absolutely.  Lisa: Yeah. TyAnn: So give us a ring. Let us know what works for you and if you need help on this process. Lisa: All right. With that, we will see you next time. Bye for now. More Relevant Resources To Support Your Strengths-Focused Career Growth The previous discussion on strengths as easy buttons for better performance truly supports today’s episode. You turn on your "easy buttons" when you go for tasks or projects that you find enjoyable and energizing. This leads to a better and well-recognized performance at work. But going more for these tasks that you love also means ensuring you don’t end up sounding braggy. Not all people around you might respond well to it. Here’s Lead Through Strengths Facilitator Strother Gaines sharing tips on how to not sound arrogant when building a career around your strengths, so you can review your script before you talk to others about yourself. If you’re a team manager, you can help and guide your team members realize their full potential in whatever roles they express to lean more into by assessing their top strengths, along with their trash and treasure list. Revisit Lisa’s interview with Adam Seaman to pick up more tips.

As part of the Microsoft Excel podcast series, Neale Blackwood CPA will explain all about the XLOOKUP function and why it is important to use. Just like VLOOKUP which is going away, XLOOKUP allows you to look up a code in a table and return entries on the same row as the code.

Outages, Microsoft Ignite reactions and feelings, Excel Vlookup is cool, a story about wifi, a new "That is Accurate," and Question of the Week! Extended show notes available at https://hthpc.com Boot Up • SLACK OUTAGE • M365 outage ○ MO222965 - What is the point of posting this to a portal nobody can get to? ○ Root Cause Analysis posted • Ignite post-game show ○ Thoughts overall ○ NO SWAG! ○ Also the Vmware VMWorld post-game show within a show ○ Physical Ignite is so much better ○ Azure VMware Solution ○ Microsoft Announces Ignite, Part 2, is Happening in March ○ Exchange – Here, There and Everywhere - External Forwarding Command Center and Certificate-Based Authentication (CBA). On-prem Exchange now subscription only ○ PowerShell Unplugged - Challenge Edition ○ Taking your automation to the next level with PowerShell 7 ○ Microsoft Mechanics 2020 ○ RIP Defender ATP, new name Microsoft Defender for Endpoint ○ Video Hub • Random bug of the day ○ When using multiple Container tabs/accounts for the same website, Twitter/Anchor in Firefox seems to require a cached reload (CTRL F5) for likes/retweets/notification counts to clear. Anchor needs it for certain settings to save. ALL HAIL VLOOKUP • Why Vlookup ○ Say your master server inventory is inconsistent with your VMWare inventory, how do you find out what's missing? Vlookup • How Vlookup ○ Syntax: Source cell, Range to look up, column index, exact match (false most of the time) • Who Vlookup ○ People in a hurry • Where Vlookup ○ Say you are trying to merge multiple lists of data. How do you link them? Vlookup + copy + "Paste values" Declassified Sysadmin Stories: The impossible wifi project • (What happens when a sysadmin attempts a wifi project by himself) • Project was in 2016 • Replace ancient HP Procurve wireless infrastructure with Cisco infrastructure ○ ProCurve 420 and 530 WAPs ○ Rebootable via PoE, they frequently died • Perform tests all over campus, run scans, tests, learn a lot of about radios ○ Test with lights on, lights off, doors open/closed, microwaves, bathrooms, water, etc • Vistumbler, Airport Utility, RSSI • Carts with long cables • Limited number of Cisco APs (30 Aironet CAP1602i), not enough to cover the campus • MAC-Daddy registration for all standard wifi devices, ancient Linux box, student project from years past that became production • Learned all about RADIUS (NPS) • MAC registration for non-802.1x compliant devices ○ Test things like Zune HD, Wii U, Wii U in Wii Mode, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, 3DS, Android Tablets, TVs, etc ○ Visual Studio .NET app called MacDaddyJr - Form to CSV - PS Scheduled Task to create AD Users for MACs, add to group, change primary group • Manually build out two Cisco WLC 2500s for the APs to talk to + interface with parent company controller • Summer of wiring • Impossible fiber line repair: Line going from campus to building we didn't own with difficult owner to athletics building/hangar that was rarely used in the first place That is Accurate • Azure has the most Global regions than any other cloud provider Ask the Stiffs: Question of the Week • What is your favorite current piece of tech [wrong answers only]? Outro - "Plus Delta" • We help you, you help us: Rate us on iTunes --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Since TikTok is in the news right now about who is going to buy them, I thought using some fake-ish TikTok acquisition data would be relevant for this episode. A classic Excel/Google Sheets challenge: how to do a VLOOKUP to the “left” e.g. your lookup column is not the first column in your lookup table. […] The post Dear Analyst #41: How to do a VLOOKUP to the “left” without INDEX/MATCH with TikTok data appeared first on .

This is one of my favorite VLOOKUP tips. Given that it’s pride month, we’ll be applying this tip to a list of all pride events in the United States. Here is the Google Sheet if you want to follow along with this example. Here’s the scenario: you have a super large table in Excel or […] The post Dear Analyst #34: Trick for finding column index for VLOOKUPs using pride events data appeared first on .

There are some great features of the XLOOKUP Function, most peoples favourite part I imagine would be that the lookupvalue can be located anywhere not just on the first column of your table. XLOOKUP function eliminated the need for nesting other functions to get the job done like the IFERROR and MATCH functions. You can also search from top to bottom or from Bottom to top. The IFERROR component is built into the functions. I also have a YouTube Video if you prefer lookup Analir Pisani. If face to face consulting is best and you are in Sydney Australia https:azsolutions.com.au can help.

The XLookup overcomes the limitations of the Vlookup Function in Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets. With the XLookup you are not bound by the lookup value being located in the first column of the table, you can return the nearest highest value and more. YouTube Analir Pisani. Customised Computer Courses in Sydney, Australia and Virtual Classes. http:azsolutions.com.au

In this audio you will easily understand what is VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP .

#EduDuctTape S02-E037 #EduDuctTape -- EduDuctTape.com -- @JakeMillerTech -- JakeMiller.net -- JakeMillerTech@gmail.com   Additional Audio Content from this episode available here: traffic.libsyn.com/eduducttape/EDT037_Bonus_Content_with_Andreas_Johansson.mp3 Ways to Support the Show or Connect with Jake & other Duct Tapers!  Apple Podcast Reviews FlipGrid.com/EduDuctTape #EduDuctTape on social media Telling your friends & colleagues The Duct Tapers Facebook Group - facebook.com/groups/ducttapers Stickers! Want to pass some out?  Want some for yourself? JakeMiller.net/SendMeStickers Certificates of Listening, Laughing, and Learning! EduDuctTape.com/certificate Listen to the whole show to hear the “super-secret code”! #EduDuctTape Twitter Chats Access the calendar! - bit.ly/EduDuctTapeCalendar Highlights from the last chat - wke.lt/w/s/8WQtj7 Thanks to The Mighty Ducts! 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Today’s Guest: Andreas Johansson Andreas launches rockets at Streetsboro City Schools. He's passionate about purpose, people, and problem solving. PhD student at KSU. He’s an INTJ. In his spare time, he runs in the woods with maps and a few other things... Contact Info:  @rocketcto eajohansson.net linkedin.com/in/eandreas youtube.com/user/TheEajohansson 2 Truths & 1 Lie Question #1: How can we make daily processes simpler and more efficient for staff that normally don't interface with technology? For some of these staff members just checking email may be difficult or inconvenient. Quick Links Menu for Staff Using the Design Thinking Process - observation, hearing feedback When they see you hearing & applying their feedback, it’s appreciated. “Go Do” - just fix it right away Lean Thinking - wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_thinking “Go to the work where the place happens to see what’s truly happening.” - the Gemba - wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemba Question #2: Since there are still some procedures within schools that require paper by law, how can we make the process simpler? Bus Driver Hub (screenshot) Building value: Does it add value?  Is it required? Create stuff that creates value. Mimic things that you already know work for the general public like a phone app. Make sure it works well on desktop as well as mobile. Google Sites Use preview mode to see what it’ll look like on different screens support.google.com/a/users/answer/9310269 Keep the end-user in mind Pre-Trip Certification Form: Screenshot 1 Screenshot 2 Graphics for buttons - iconfinder.com Use Google Forms Keep in mind “How long will this process take?” Do you really need to collect email address?  Or can you just ask them for name? With date questions in Google Forms click the center button to select “today.” Use branching with “go to page based on answer” for options that everyone doesn’t have to fill out Form Ranger Google Forms Add-On In the Google Sheets backend… Screenshot Leave the data collection sheet alone Use Pivot Tables (by date, by bus, etc.) FormMule Google Sheets Add-on - generates emails based on rules that you set - cloudlab.newvisions.org/form-mule Google Forms reuse a question - gsuiteupdates.googleblog.com/2019/07/import-questions-forms.html Standardize your data using dropdowns & multiple choice rather than open-ended questions FormRanger Add-on pulls a list from a Google Sheet and makes them multiple choice or dropdown options in a Form - cloudlab.newvisions.org/form-ranger AutoCrat Google Sheets Add-on - generates docs, pdfs or slides based on rules that you set and content in your spreadsheet - cloudlab.newvisions.org/autocrat VLookUp formula - Vertical Lookup pulls information from a separate tab in spreadsheet-based on content in the first one - support.google.com/docs/answer/3093318 Lock any tabs of your Sheets that you don’t need others to edit Use Concatenate (support.google.com/docs/answer/3094123) & Substitute (support.google.com/docs/answer/3094215)  to create URLs for things like links to Google Maps - Screenshot Additional Audio Content from this episode available here: traffic.libsyn.com/eduducttape/EDT037_Bonus_Content_with_Andreas_Johansson.mp3 Screenshot of the Field Trip pivot table discussed in the bonus content Content from the Duct Taper Community Apple Podcasts Review - None to share Favorite #EduDuctTape Tweets: (each handle is linked to the mentioned tweet) @AngelaGreene12 @MrsDi @hartel30 @MrCoachK15 @engageducate New #EduDuctTape Tweeps: @atkauffman, @BandaBookChat, @breicher, @dailystem, @DominicSlauson, @edtech_workshop, @ehlmstech, @flrimmer, @HeskTech, @hickstro, @itsthemitchell, @jesshugSTEAM, @KarlOLeary4, @KenFromNelson, @kklaster, @Liftoff2Learn, @michelecarmode, @Mr_van_W, @mrkgsw, @MrsDi, @MsRomeroR, @mylifeaslinds, @Rrrerin2go, @SaiaStacy, @sdeereed, @shawnspaventa, @TechyLeaderEDU, @wagjuer, @Wainscott_Tech #EduDuctTape FlipGrid Responses: Skipped today for time                    

This week, Avram Piltch discusses a new feature in Microsoft Excel: XLOOKUP. Now, we don't usually show off things like Microsoft Office functions, but this one is truly special. The predecessor to XLOOKUP, which is VLOOKUP, is the third most used function in Excel, and XLOOKUP expands on its capabilities by removing a number of limitations.Both functions allow you to combine data from different sheets or files by joining on common data. For example, if you have one document with employee IDs and names, and another with employee IDs and addresses and phone numbers, these functions will allow you to join on the common data item, the employee IDs, and show the combined data. However, there are some significant differences between the old and new methods.The most important change is in how you match data. With VLOOKUP, you could only do exact matches between sheets. With XLOOKUP, however, there are several ways of joining data. You can do the exact match, but you can also have it choose values above and below the closest match, or, most importantly, use wildcards. For example, if you want to return the first employee whose last name starts with S, you can search for "S*" rather than using an entire cell value.Equally important is the amount of data that can be returned. With the older VLOOKUP, you could only return a single column worth of data per query. This means that if you wanted to return first name, last name, and address from one sheet, you would have to do three separate lookups. That means processing power and additional scripting to return everything you want. With the new XLOOKUP, however, you can return multiple columns in a single query. So, one lookup could return the first, last, and address.In addition to all of this, the function call is actually shorter for XLOOKUP, making it easier to use. If you're about to learn about joining data in Excel, XLOOKUP is definitely the way to go.

This week, Avram Piltch discusses a new feature in Microsoft Excel: XLOOKUP. Now, we don't usually show off things like Microsoft Office functions, but this one is truly special. The predecessor to XLOOKUP, which is VLOOKUP, is the third most used function in Excel, and XLOOKUP expands on its capabilities by removing a number of limitations.Both functions allow you to combine data from different sheets or files by joining on common data. For example, if you have one document with employee IDs and names, and another with employee IDs and addresses and phone numbers, these functions will allow you to join on the common data item, the employee IDs, and show the combined data. However, there are some significant differences between the old and new methods.The most important change is in how you match data. With VLOOKUP, you could only do exact matches between sheets. With XLOOKUP, however, there are several ways of joining data. You can do the exact match, but you can also have it choose values above and below the closest match, or, most importantly, use wildcards. For example, if you want to return the first employee whose last name starts with S, you can search for "S*" rather than using an entire cell value.Equally important is the amount of data that can be returned. With the older VLOOKUP, you could only return a single column worth of data per query. This means that if you wanted to return first name, last name, and address from one sheet, you would have to do three separate lookups. That means processing power and additional scripting to return everything you want. With the new XLOOKUP, however, you can return multiple columns in a single query. So, one lookup could return the first, last, and address.In addition to all of this, the function call is actually shorter for XLOOKUP, making it easier to use. If you're about to learn about joining data in Excel, XLOOKUP is definitely the way to go.

ゆ回１３１　収録日：20200205【エクセル時短】新関数「XLOOKUP」の使い方。VLOOKUPと異なる3つのポイント | できるネットhttps://dekiru.net/article/19557/おたよりはいつでも募集しております！メールフォーム・ハッシュタグ・直接のメール「radio.horoyoi7@gmail.com」宛てでもどしどしお送りください！はつおた・ふつおた・ちょい能力・ガジェット自慢・肉体改造部などなど、以下のリンクのメールフォームにて受付いたしま..

#EduDuctTape S02-E035 #EduDuctTape -- EduDuctTape.com -- @JakeMillerTech -- JakeMiller.net -- JakeMillerTech@gmail.com Ways to Support the Show or Connect with Jake & other Duct Tapers!  Apple Podcast Reviews FlipGrid.com/EduDuctTape #EduDuctTape on social media Telling your friends & colleagues The Duct Tapers Facebook Group - facebook.com/groups/ducttapers Certificates of Listening, Laughing, and Learning! EduDuctTape.com/certificate Listen to the whole show to hear the “super-secret code”! Resources Relating to the Jared Cooney Horvath Episode: Jared’s Book: lmeglobal.net/stop-talking-start-influencing-book References for Jared’s book: lmeglobal.net/references “Video Captions Benefit Everyone” by Morton Ann Gernsbacher shared by Hillary Goldthwait-Fowles Ph.D, ATP - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5214590 “Closed Captioning Matters: Examining the Value of Closed Captions for All Students” by Karla Kmetz Morris, Casey Frechette, Lyman Dukes III, Nicole Stowell, Nicole Emert Topping, David Brodosi shared by Kelli Sudig - files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1123786.pdf “Research into Using Video Subtitles and Closed Captions to Improve Reading and Literacy Skills” from ZANE Education shared by Kelli Sudig - zaneeducation.com/video-subtitles-captions/subtitle-and-closed-captions-research.php #EduDuctTape Twitter Chats Access the calendar! - bit.ly/EduDuctTapeCalendar Highlights from the last chat - wke.lt/w/s/mPdM2K Seah Fahey & Karly Moura’s “A Beginner’s Guide to Twitter for Educators” - Section 2 focuses on Twitter Chats - drive.google.com/file/d/1wrMWGN6QyrICGNis1SwLQOHlbfze3vpt/view Thanks to The Mighty Ducts! Sarah Kiefer, Alex Oris, Amy Huckaby, Angela Green, Brandy New, Dan Stitzel, David Allan, Jennifer Conti, Kimberly Wren, Lisa Marie Bennett, Matt Meyer, Melinda Vandevort, Melissa Van Heck, Molly Klodor, Nanci Greene, Pam Inabinett! The JakeMillerTech Newsletter - Sign up! jakemiller.net/newsletter Jake’s Upcoming Events Educational Duct Tape Workshop Series at Kent State University Research Center for Educational Technology - kent.edu/rcet/innovating-teaching-learning Session 2 - 2.7.20,  9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.-  Educational Duct Tape Toolbox Focus Session: Flipgrid OETC (Ohio Educational Technology Conference) - 2.11.20-2.13.20 Revere Schools, OH - 2.14.20 KySTE Spring Conference - 3.12.20 - kyste.org/Content2/conference Tech Meet Tuscaloosa - Tuscaloosa, Alabama - 5.29.20 uatmt.weebly.com WITCon (Whatever It Takes Conferences) - Galesburg, Ill - 6.12.20 - witconf.org ISTE - 6.30.20 ***Vote for the #EduDuctTape Panel*** conference.iste.org/2020/peopleschoice/proposal_detail.php?sessionid=113427428 Engage Conference, San Angelo, TX - 7.15.20 Book Jake as a Speaker! - JakeMiller.net/Speaking SoapBox Moment - “What’s Your Adjacent Possible?” Today’s Guest: Craig Klement Craig is the RTI Facilitator at Garland High School in Garland, TX. He is a Google Certified Trainer and former math teacher and edtech coach. Craig is a proud father of 3 wonderful kids... and another kid. He enjoys spending time with his family, playing board games and legos, reading, and playing/watching sports, including being an amateur softball coach for his daughter's team.  Contact Info: Twitter- @craigklement, Email- ctklemen@garlandisd.net, Blog -  "A Higher Calling"- craigklement.wordpress.com 2 Truths & 1 Lie Question #1: How do we "spice up" preparation for standardized tests? (based off of a Twitter question from Kristin Merrill) Link to the tweet Google MyMaps Choice Board - ditchthattextbook.com/take-a-road-trip-with-google-mymaps Desmos - Desmos.com  Khan Academy - KhanAcademy.org Make icons numbers Color icons Google Tour Builder - tourbuilder.withgoogle.com Digital Badging Google Forms - google.com/forms/about Use AutoCrat or FormMule to send kids badges cloudlab.newvisions.org/autocrat cloudlab.newvisions.org/form-mule Track in Google Sheets, Slides, Docs or Sites Schoology badging - support.schoology.com/hc/en-us/articles/201001833-How-do-I-use-Badges- Question #2: How can educators utilize technology to work smarter, not harder? eduProtocols - eduProtocols.com Jon Corippo episode - eduducttape.libsyn.com/jon-corippo-eduprotocols-formative-assessment-quizizz-gimkit-socrative-formative-cue-the-fast-amp-the-curious-nacho-paragraphs-and-more Reflecting on lessons and organizing reflections for easy follow-up the next year Craig’s System Paper-based form → Google Form Google Form Pre-Filled Links  - Craig’s video - youtube.com/watch?v=mw7Bjk1wTh4&t=103s Sample Spreadsheet - docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10wft2XwBDa67R_99Pc9hJqG_Ip9GCOlY54RK1Uh6NYo Using Google Sheets formulas to create the pre-filled links Formulas used: VLookUp - support.google.com/docs/answer/3093318 & Substitute - support.google.com/docs/answer/3094215 Hyperlink - support.google.com/docs/answer/3093313 autoCrat to send pdf - cloudlab.newvisions.org/autocrat Protect Ranges - https://support.google.com/docs/answer/1218656?co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop Creating Google Sites “portals” or “hubs” for yourself, your staff or certain staff groups Toby Chrome Extension - gettoby.com Content from the Duct Taper Community Favorite #EduDuctTape Tweets: (each handle is linked to the mentioned tweet) @AbramsTank95 @craigklement @KeishaBioSpec @MrsPaden1st @BradShreffler New #EduDuctTape Tweeps: @BSGSCSFoster, @chargerblue, @GodinezMgodinez, @jamie_stark, @JJEMisch5, @KarenHeinzen1, @kat_goyette, @loveteachrise, @mamawolfeto2, @MatTechEd, @modonnellcisd, @mrmakemathsense, @msbearce, @MsConradEDU, @msfranksjje, @principledlady, @Prowlander, @Rdene915, @RiseVision, @shapegrams, @sheldoneakins, @sonnymagana, @TeachFromRidge, @teachstrickland, @vambaketesa #EduDuctTape FlipGrid Responses: Adrienne Hudson - @LoveTeachRise Ann Radefeld - @AnnRadefeld  

Juan Carlos Hola Iván Primero quisiera felicitarte por tu extraordinario trabajo con los podcast. Y, en segundo lugar, darte las gracias por todo TU tiempo que nos das desinteresadamente. [...] Soy arquitecto técnico, empecé con el BIM en Revit2012, (siempre autodidacta con YouTube, nada de Másters del Universo. Con los vídeos de VíctorCesa y AD3Consulting (el Sr.Razvan, una maravilla), y luego MiltonChanes, JavierAramendia, EscalaTotal, IngeniosoTV, Autodesk AU, etc, etc, etc… [...] Luego apareció Bimrras (muy bien el nuevo foro), BIMpodcast y SharedCoordinates. Fui dejando los vídeos (creo que los “cachitos de hierro y cromo” del mp4 también se gastan de tanto usarlo. Y en última instancia encontré BIMlevel (a partir del 4º capítulo, o así). Y aquí estoy. Te digo este rollo, porque tu formato es de los que más me gusta. Por la forma y por el contenido. Me gusta cuando te repreguntas (con ese tono de “ñi, ñi, ñi” el chico desagradable de la clase, del curro) que es la pregunta que todos de haríamos. Es ágil, es denso (das mucha información que hay que estar muy atento, porque no sobra nada) y es valioso (compartes tu conocimiento. Y también muy importante por tenernos informados de las noticias del mes [no hay vida para todo]. Los Podcast (sobre todo el cap.2ºVisibilidad en Familias) me recordó a mis clases de Geometría Descriptiva (allá por el Pleistoceno). Teníamos un profe [...] que en la parte última del curso [...] ya NO DIBUJABA. [...] le enunciábamos el problema a consultar. El cerraba los ojos, callaba… y zas! ¿lo veis?. Luego nos explicaba (de voz, nada de dibujo) los pasos a realizar… Lo importante era/ES la idea (la inspiración) y luego “simplemente” manejar el sistema. Para mí, eran clases magistrales. No tanto por lo que se hablase ese día, si no por el concepto [...]. Hablar, hace 5 años, que puedes estar estudiando Revit o BIM con un podcast, sin ver nada, simplemente escuchando un podcast (como aquellas clases de GDescriptiva habladas) es difícilmente imaginable. Muchas gracias Iván. Ahora, para hacerte alguna pregunta/idea para el programa: - ¿Cómo puedo crear una gama de Famila/s CableTrayFittings con MIS propias piezas correspondientes y QUE FUNCIONE?. P.e. podemos dibujar bovedillas teniendo anidada una en una Familia por línea. Y a medida que estiro la línea me va dibujando las piezas automáticamente (también como si fuese una escalera). Si tengo una canaleta de 1m p.e. (que es una Familia propia) y quisiera emplearla para los tramos rectos de CableTrayFitting… no encuentro la forma. - La potencialidad de las LOOKUP Tables. Poder obtener valores de una tabla a partir de otros parámetros de instancia. No puedes dominar Familias si no utilizas y dominas las Lookup Tables (humildad :). Me parece un área interesante. No me extiendo más Iván. De nuevo darte las gracias por tu VALIOSO tiempo. Un abrazo. NOTA: He escuchado 3 veces el 6º BIM 360 “hasta el final”… 8-] ¿Puedo bajarme 3 veces el archivo? Respuesta CableTray Todo depende del detalle que quieras conseguir. Tienes 3 opciones:Usar las familias por defecto que vienen con Revit y aplicarles pequeñas modificaciones:En general, a menos que fabriques las piezas o estés en un proyecto con una solución singular, las familias por defecto son suficientes para definir el proyecto.He preguntado en grupos de whatsapp, e incluso empresas grandes y potentes de ingeniería usan las que vienen por defecto.Las bandejas de cables (CableTray) son familias de sistema y tienen muy poca personalización (anchura y altura y poco más).Las uniones de bandejas de cables son familias cargables, pero bastante complejas de parametrizar.Intenta modificar una de las que vienen por defecto, en lugar de crearlas desde cero.Usar la herramienta Piezas de fabricación (Fabrication Parts).Fue una de las principales novedades de Revit 2016.Permite usar objetos muy detallados creados con Autodesk Fabrication CADmep.https://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2020/ESP/?guid=GUID-A1B4B240-6EE4-4CF8-A9EE-AC989CC1FCD3 Intentar crear tus bandejas con familias cargables de Revit.Crear los tramos rectos de bandejas con familias basadas en línea, no te permite jugar con pendientes. De resto sería igual que la familia de bovedillas que comentas.Usar familias adaptativas:Mete tu familia de pieza de canaleta en una familia de modelo genérico adaptativo.Le añades un punto adaptativo en su centro.Esta nueva familia la vuelves a meter en una nueva familia adaptativa.En este nueva familia, crea dos puntos adaptativos.Los unes con una línea.Usa la herramienta Dividir camino.Colocas tu pieza de canaleta con punto paramétrico en uno de los nodos de la línea.Usa la herramienta Repetir para que la pieza de canaleta se ponga a lo largo de toda la línea. Descargar Bandeja de cables personalizada LOOKUP Tables Las Lookup tables o Tablas de consulta son una fórmula que podemos usar en el editor de familias.Es exactamente lo mismo que la formula VLOOKUP o BUSCARV de excel. Tanto en Revit como en Excel podemos usar fórmulas condicionales:Si la altura de la silla es 5, entonces la anchura que sea 4, sino es 5, la anchura será 3.Podemos encadenar tantas comprobaciones como queramos, (en excel el límite son 64), pero para más de 4 o 5 comprobaciones, se vuelve muy incómodo.Para eso tenemos en excel BUSCARV, y en Revit, las tablas de consulta. En Revit:Creas una tabla en excel donde la primera columna sean todas las alturas posibles de la silla.En la segunda columna, la anchura asociada a cada altura.Podrías seguir añadiendo columnas, como el número de patas, el precio, todo según las alturas de la primera columna.Esta tabla la guardas en formato CSV.En el editor de familias de Revit, dentro de la ventana donde se gestionan los parámetros y sus fórmulas, en la esquina inferior derecha, le damos a Gestionar tablas de consulta e importamos el csv.Nos vamos al parámetro anchura de la silla y usamos la siguiente fórmula: https://help.autodesk.com/view/RVT/2020/ESP/?guid=GUID-91270AEF-225A-49D7-BF84-1F44D1E3E216En qué tabla debe buscar.El nombre de la columna con el resultado (anchura).El valor que debe usar si no encuentra nada en la tabla.El valor a buscar (Altura).Es idéntico al BUSCARV de excel, pero con los argumentos cambiados de sitio.Para no liarnos con la creación de la tabla, lo mejor es coger una de las que vienen de ejemplo con revit y modificarla.Tiene dos grandes limitaciones:No funciona con valores de texto.Sólo sirve para parámetros de ejemplar.Se usa mucho en familias MEP, uniones, codos y demás, para que todas las dimensiones se modifiquen en función del diámetro, por ejemplo.Pero también se pueden usar en cualquier otra familia (como la silla) donde un valor dependa de otro, pero:No se pueda conseguir multiplicando, dividiendo, etc.Haya demasiadas posibilidades para hacerlo con if. José Armando Hola Ivan, tengo la siguiente pregunta: ¿Qué pasó con el servicio A360?, en uno de tus anteriores mencionas la evolución del servicio en la nube de autodesk. Sin embargo hace poco volví abrir mi cuenta A360 y creo que se ha orientado a fusión. ¿Autodesk ya no brindará espacio gratuito para proyectos de edificación? Respuesta Desde el 10 de septiembre es un producto descontinuado.Para usuarios que ya tenían cuenta seguirá funcionando pero pierden el visor online.La parte colaborativa (en BIM360 Team) se queda sólo para el sector industrial (Fusion).Ahora mismo Autodesk no tiene ningún sustituto gratuito a A360 (que te daba 5 GB en la nube). La alternativa pero sólo para clientes es Autodesk Drive. https://drive.autodesk.com/ De BIM360 sólo hay demos de 30 días.Lo único que tienen ahora gratuito es el visor online https://viewer.autodesk.com/ que permite almacenar archivos sueltos durante un periodo finito de días. Rafael Fernández Buenas tardes,Mi nombre es Rafa Fernandez, del estudio F Leon y Leon en Sevilla. Me gustaría preguntaros si sabeis de la existencia de algún add-in que logre la justificación de los textos en Revit? Cómo algo tan básico no está solucionado?Un saludo y gracias por los podcast. Ayudan mucho a los que apostamos fuerte por el BIM. Respuesta Pues no he encontrado nada.Si algún oyente conoce algún add-in o técnica para conseguirlo, somos todo oídos.Tienes toda la razón, puede que los que pensamos que los textos o están justificados o no son textos, seamos un grupo reducido de friquis. Wordpress tampoco lo trae por defecto, todos mis post están sin justificar!!!!!!!!!!. Julia Molina Buenos días Iván,Estoy empezando a escuchar tus podcasts y la verdad es que son muy interesantes, llevo 5 años trabajando en BIM y no paro de aprender cosas nuevas.Tenía algunas consultas puntuales de REVIT, que creo que directamente no están disponibles en el programa, pero no sería la primera vez que me doy por vencida y luego aprendo la forma de hacerlo. Serían las siguientes:-Crear un parámetro para altura desconectada de muro. Esto sería muy útil ya que es la mejor forma de trabajar con proyectos grandes cuyos niveles son susceptibles de que cambien. -Modificar el color de las líneas de un DWG importado en un cuadro de rotulación. -Esta es más general: ¿Hay alguna forma que no sea tediosa (dándole infinitas veces a tabulador) de acotar proyectos que no tienen muros ortogonales? Es decir que no coja caras de muros para acotar sino puntos, como se hacía en CAD.¡Gracias de antemano!Saludos, Respuesta Altura desconectada de muro.Este parámetro existe, está en las propiedades de ejemplar de cada muro.Para usarlo, sólo tienes que elegir No conectada en el nivel superior.Modificar el color de línea de un DWG importado.En el editor de familias no puedes.Pero una vez has cargado la familia en el proyecto puedes en dos sitios:En VV del plano, en la pestaña Categorías importadas, aparecerán todas las capas de todos los dwg importados en todas las familias del proyecto.En Estilo de Objetos, en la misma pestaña. En este caso cambiarías los colores para todos los planos.Pasa lo mismo con las regiones de máscara, en el editor de familias son siempre blancas, pero luego en proyecto puedes cambiar el color en VVEn cualquier caso no te recomiendo que importes un CAD en un cuadro de rotulación.Dibuja el la carátula y demás desde cero en Revit.O importa el dwg, explotalo, y copia las líneas que te interesen en un nuevo archivo de familia.Acotar de punto a puntoSeguro que hay varios plugins para Revit que lo hacen.También habrá gente que lo consiga con dynamo o demás.Yo soy de la vieja escuela: una familia de elemento de detalle basada en línea:En una familia de anotación genérica, creas un parámetro de longitud.Creas un texto de etiqueta asociado a ese parámetro.Insertas esta familia en una de elemento de detalle basado en línea.Asocias el parámetro de la anotación al de la longitud del elemento de detalle.Finalmente dibujas las líneas propias de las cotas (extremos, diagonales...)Con esta familia, acotar será como dibujar líneas. Descargar Cota punto a punto ¿Quieres escuchar otro episodio? Los tienes todos en la sección de Podcast de esta web. AVISO: Este post es sólo un apoyo al audio del podcast. Leerlo de forma independiente podría llevar a conclusiones incompletas o incluso opuestas a las que se quieren transmitir.

On Episode 62 of TISD, the Dummies go Vlookup on a Comedy Show No Go, the Bob Ross Dwarf Toss, and a SuperFan Catfish Scam. Tweet, Share, Like, Love, Tickle and Touch at @sodumb_podcast on twitter and Instagram, and at http://www.ThisIsSoDumb.com

It's a jam-packed episode of accounting and bookkeeping news, including: CPA Practice Advisor announces the 2019 "40 Under 40"; Sage acquires AutoEntry; a CPA exam in Canada that turned into the "Fyre Festival for accountants"; VLOOKUP is dead, long live XLOOKUP; the best job in America turns out to be an accounting job; and last but not least, a special interview with two of the frontline reporters covering the MyPayrollHR payroll fraud saga — get the latest updates on Michael Mann's confession, his web of business lies, and what's next.

I am excited to announce that our in house MyExcelOnline and Microsoft Certified Trainer, Kyle Pew and myself will be holding a free Excel formulas webinar over the coming few days on: The MUST KNOW Excel Formulas to ADVANCE your Excel skills!

During this session, we’ll explore a few handy ways to set things up in Excel that ought to make your life a little easier, or at least your management of data easier. The specific functions/features that we’ll take a look at include: VLOOKUP, data validation, conditional formatting, and perhaps combining INDEX and MATCH.Erik Brady, PhD, CCMEP, Director of Analytics, Reporting, and Outcomes, Clinical Care Options, LLC

During this session, we’ll explore a few handy ways to set things up in Excel that ought to make your life a little easier, or at least your management of data easier. The specific functions/features that we’ll take a look at include: VLOOKUP, data validation, conditional formatting, and perhaps combining INDEX and MATCH.Erik Brady, PhD, CCMEP, Director of Analytics, Reporting, and Outcomes, Clinical Care Options, LLC

This Episode like some many others is all over the place. Grab a beer and enjoy topics from automatic guns to Vlookup in Excel.  Please leave a Review and Rating & Follow us on Social media @stormwatercreek        

The king of spreadsheets, Matt Modlin, shares three great tips using Google Spreadsheets. He shows us vlookup, translates, and pivot tables. Make a copy of Matt's spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1uWyxXX7HP0cRiI9jf98UMW2FqZYeW1lvRewslUCv6Og/copy End of the video is at one of our favorites South Bend restaurants, Crooked Ewe: https://crookedewe.com/ Matt Modlin’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/mmattmodlin Matt Modlin’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-modlin-4679a84/ Please Subscribe to this YouTube Channel Seth’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SethPonder Seth’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seth-ponder109/ Seth’s Email: sethtponder@gmail.com Seth’s Website: https://sites.google.com/sbcsc.k12.in.us/sethponder/home EdTechHeroes Website: https://www.edtechheroes.com I am always looking for new guests, please contact me on Twitter or email. Thanks for watching.

Episode 9 (recorded Sunday, December 9th, 2018) On this episode of Zero Credibility, Peter, Justin, Kathy, Laura, and Lance give their thoughts on the topics listed below:   **Graduation Day** (0:00:50) - Peter reflects on his recent graduation day(0:01:10) - Peter still plotting his insta grad pic drop(0:01:48) - Laura with some graduation tips for the parents of future graduates(0:03:05) - Laura exposes the real reason why Peter went to his graduation(0:03:20) - Breaking down how Instagram works(0:03:45) - Breaking down what photos to use on dating apps (Tinder, Bumble, Coffee & Bagel, etc.)(0:04:13) - Do doggos still work for guys on dating apps?(0:05:15) - Who are our guests?   University (0:07:20) - How was it transitioning  from high school to university(0:09:30) - How college made transitioning easier for Peter, Laura, and Kathy(0:10:30) - Laura explains why she loves working more to uni(0:12:00) - Working vs University lifestyle(0:13:55) - The two-year itch (when you start working)(0:15:00) - The average career change for millennials(0:16:50) - Does Uni prepare you technically for work?(0:20:30) - Justin flexes on the guests(0:23:30) - What does Uni actually teach you?(0:24:35) - Laura explains links Uni to the Hunger Games(0:25:40) - Group assignment tips(0:26:30) - Laura brief cheating story interlude(0:27:50) - So would you go back to Uni to study?(0:29:00) - Breaking down what’s wrong with the University system today(0:29:45) - People should go to skills school(0:31:50) - Peter’s Dad wanted him to take an arts degree(0:33:00) - Peter thinks Lance can be an academic(0:33:44) - Kathy let us know that she considered being at teacher(0:34:12) - Kathy let us know her love for accounting(0:35:00) - Are teachers out here in Australia well paid?(0:36:38) - Scotch College(0:37:10) - Justin says he has no feelings(0:37:30) - Peter’s bad-boy story at Scotch(0:39:05) - Guessing Peter and Justin age(0:41:30) - Kathy story on moving from NZ into college(0:43:30) - Lance story on moving from NZ into Uni(0:44:20) - shoutout AA(0:45:20) - The difficulties when you first move out(0:46:00) - The difficulties of cooking(0:46:30) - Peter’s love for cleaning(0:47:20) - Did moving away for uni affect your high school friendships?(0:49:00) - The problems with University(0:52:39) - Did you think you got everything you expected out of uni?(0:54:00) - Is being an IB the glamour job in Finance(0:57:30) - Getting to know a little more about Justin + We finally figure out how old is Justin(0:58:50) - Excel talk -Vlookup or IndexMatch (1:00:08) - What gets Justin off on Excel(1:00:30) - Best Uni memories(1:01:20) - Justin getting white girl wasted and passing out on Swanston Street(1:07:40) - Lance on going on exchange(1:08:50) - Peter on picking up rowing and girls (not really)(1:12:30) - Lance trying to expose Peter(1:14:50) - Justin educates us on mental pubity(1:16:35) - Drunkest you have ever been?(1:23:30) - Who actually listens to Zero Credibility?(1:24:00) - Lance on his most drunkest story(1:25:00) - Just more banter

Episode 9 (recorded Sunday, December 9th, 2018) On this episode of Zero Credibility, Peter, Justin, Kathy, Laura, and Lance give their thoughts on the topics listed below:   **Graduation Day** (0:00:50) - Peter reflects on his recent graduation day(0:01:10) - Peter still plotting his insta grad pic drop(0:01:48) - Laura with some graduation tips for the parents of future graduates(0:03:05) - Laura exposes the real reason why Peter went to his graduation(0:03:20) - Breaking down how Instagram works(0:03:45) - Breaking down what photos to use on dating apps (Tinder, Bumble, Coffee & Bagel, etc.)(0:04:13) - Do doggos still work for guys on dating apps?(0:05:15) - Who are our guests?   University (0:07:20) - How was it transitioning  from high school to university(0:09:30) - How college made transitioning easier for Peter, Laura, and Kathy(0:10:30) - Laura explains why she loves working more to uni(0:12:00) - Working vs University lifestyle(0:13:55) - The two-year itch (when you start working)(0:15:00) - The average career change for millennials(0:16:50) - Does Uni prepare you technically for work?(0:20:30) - Justin flexes on the guests(0:23:30) - What does Uni actually teach you?(0:24:35) - Laura explains links Uni to the Hunger Games(0:25:40) - Group assignment tips(0:26:30) - Laura brief cheating story interlude(0:27:50) - So would you go back to Uni to study?(0:29:00) - Breaking down what’s wrong with the University system today(0:29:45) - People should go to skills school(0:31:50) - Peter’s Dad wanted him to take an arts degree(0:33:00) - Peter thinks Lance can be an academic(0:33:44) - Kathy let us know that she considered being at teacher(0:34:12) - Kathy let us know her love for accounting(0:35:00) - Are teachers out here in Australia well paid?(0:36:38) - Scotch College(0:37:10) - Justin says he has no feelings(0:37:30) - Peter’s bad-boy story at Scotch(0:39:05) - Guessing Peter and Justin age(0:41:30) - Kathy story on moving from NZ into college(0:43:30) - Lance story on moving from NZ into Uni(0:44:20) - shoutout AA(0:45:20) - The difficulties when you first move out(0:46:00) - The difficulties of cooking(0:46:30) - Peter’s love for cleaning(0:47:20) - Did moving away for uni affect your high school friendships?(0:49:00) - The problems with University(0:52:39) - Did you think you got everything you expected out of uni?(0:54:00) - Is being an IB the glamour job in Finance(0:57:30) - Getting to know a little more about Justin + We finally figure out how old is Justin(0:58:50) - Excel talk -Vlookup or IndexMatch (1:00:08) - What gets Justin off on Excel(1:00:30) - Best Uni memories(1:01:20) - Justin getting white girl wasted and passing out on Swanston Street(1:07:40) - Lance on going on exchange(1:08:50) - Peter on picking up rowing and girls (not really)(1:12:30) - Lance trying to expose Peter(1:14:50) - Justin educates us on mental pubity(1:16:35) - Drunkest you have ever been?(1:23:30) - Who actually listens to Zero Credibility?(1:24:00) - Lance on his most drunkest story(1:25:00) - Just more banter

目次 INDEXおススメのコーナー編集後記収録環境 INDEX 【平成31年分ダウンロード】扶養控除等異動申告書・保険料控除申告書・給与所得者の配偶者特別控除申告書（3種類） ExcelでVlookupが入った表の並び替 […]

In this episode of Ask SME Anything: 1. Can you get certified in Excel? 2:02 2. Sometimes when I'm typing in a column in Excel, it finds the same data and fills it in. Then other times, the whole column auto-fills with the last few entries that had data from other columns in the same pattern. What is going on and how do I control this thing? It can be frustrating. 10:44 3. Someone in my office told me Index and Match functions are superior to VLookup in Excel. Can you tell me why? 19:57 4. How do I add an image to my email signature? 30:36

I needed to merge two spreadsheets that did not have a unique identifier that matched but they did have a column that was kind of in common so I did some formula craziness and got most of it addressed.

I needed to merge two spreadsheets that did not have a unique identifier that matched but they did have a column that was kind of in common so I did some formula craziness and got most of it addressed.

The “Get & Transform” tool in Excel 2016 for Windows is a real game-changer. It enables data imports from a wide variety of systems and software—Access, ERP solutions, accounting software—and moves it into a worksheet that transforms the original information into a new format of choice, which Excel remembers for next time. Even better, it’s all done with a point-and-click wizard-like interface. Practical applications for Get & Transform will be covered in this session: as an alternative to VLOOKUP list comparisons, an automated way to flatten and format data, a method for un-pivoting summarized data, an easy solution for merging several CSV export files into one, and more. Learn to move past copy/paste and time-consuming manual data manipulation with this powerful tool.

In the 51st session of Chandoo.org podcast, let's discuss most frequently asked questions about VLOOKUP. What is in this session? In this podcast, What is VLOOKUP? What happens when VLOOKUP can't find the value? Should my list be sorted? Is VLOOKUP slower than INDEX + MATCH? What if my list has multiple matches? How to fetch 2nd / 3rd matching item? How to fetch all matching items? How to fetch items matching multiple conditions? How to speed up VLOOKUP? Why doesn't my VLOOKUP work? What to do in case of errors? Resources for you The post CP051: VLOOKUP FAQs – Most frequently asked questions about VLOOKUP – Answered appeared first on Chandoo.org - Learn Excel, Power BI & Charting Online.

VLOOKUP, Pivot table makeover, shortcuts, Power Query

Function tips, dashboard webinar, funnel chart, VLOOKUP and data analysis

The pros and cons of mentioning my markets, disliking how solo scenarios gate content, podcasting and rss feeds, spreadsheets and VLOOKUP, listing competition and learning from how they setup their markets,  Afformations (Noah St. John) and goal orientated questions, bankers, inventory and professions Itunes here Stitcher here RSS feed here   Twitter: @Woworgold, @grayzbdf Blog: www.woworgold.blogspot.com

Reunited, and it feels so good. Remember when we always sat around this table and physically communicated to each other? I do, and it feels good to be back. On this episode Rachel goes on another tattoo rant, Jeff complains about VLOOKUP, and spreadsheets (who wouldn’t). We also discuss the OFFICIAL animal of Scotland.  Master […]