Using spreadsheets to get to the top

Being a rock star

I have written before about how delivering lectures on Excel to roomfuls of accountants was as close as I ever got to my ambition of being Keith Richards (amazingly, still no vacancy there). However, as I was watching the final of the Olympic sport climbing: boulder and lead event, I came across another way to use spreadsheets to become a rock star. As Tony Roberts won a gold medal for Team GB and Northern Ireland, the commentator revealed that Tony and his father had planned the athlete’s route to gold using a spreadsheet holding details of all Tony’s trips and events.

Although first thoughts of spreadsheets might involve formulas, functions and finance, that sort of spreadsheet seems to be the exception. According to Microsoft, only a small percentage of Excel spreadsheets contain any formulas. When Excel first started reporting user statistics back to Microsoft HQ, the Microsoft analysis found that 95.7% of spreadsheets didn’t contain a single formula or even a cell reference – and this was in 2015, before the widespread adoption of Power Query made formulas in spreadsheets redundant. Of course, most of the 95.7% is accounted for by knitting patterns and shopping lists, but this still leaves many millions of spreadsheets out there with unforeseen and potentially life-changing, capabilities.

The use of spreadsheets cropping up in unexpected circumstances is far from being unusual. The Excel Community has covered several examples in the past. Back in 2016 we revealed that one of the Great British Bake Off finalists had used a spreadsheet to plan their showstopper finale picnic:

• Excel spreadsheet features in Great British Bake Off final

Of course, as you would expect from a community that aims to prepare you for all important future developments, we had already identified the relationship between Bake Off and spreadsheets. We had previously suggested that the BBC should consider a competitive spreadsheet wrangling series as a replacement for the Great British Bake Off, following the program’s surprising, and controversial, relocation to Channel 4:

• New BBC Excel show to replace Bake Off?

In fact, just a few years later in 2019, a TV program entitled ‘Spreadsheet’ did hit British screens when Channel 4 broadcast the Australian series. However, spreadsheet aficionados might have been a bit disappointed when they found out that the program was more about dating than DATE(). The spreadsheet in question was developed by Lauren, the star of the show, and her friend Alex, in order to keep track of her complicated dating experiences (for the protection of the innocent, I have heavily paraphrased the actual synopsis of the program). Coincidentally, the part of Lauren was played by Katharine Parkinson who also featured in real life in the Channel 4 fly-on-the-wall documentary about a corporate IT Team – The IT Crowd.

Proving that I have spent far too much of my life working with spreadsheets, I have contributed several articles over the years linking spreadsheets to other life experiences, from a plumbing disaster:

• Plumbing and spreadsheets - the importance of experience

To model trains:

• Modelling hits the TV screens

Real French trains:

• Bl00d on the tracks

and hiking adventures:

• What could possibly go wrong?

Conclusion

As you relax on your tropical holiday beach, you can explore some more strange spreadsheet and IT stories in the ‘I Don’t Believe IT’ and ‘Opinionated Rants’ topics of the ICAEW archive.