By Hiran de Silva
Recently, Mynda Treacy shared an excellent video that demonstrates how to bring a degree of database-style thinking into Excel. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, and rightly so. Her example is simple, practical, and shows how structured lists can replace ad-hoc data entry in spreadsheets.
But alongside the praise, a familiar pattern emerges: questions from viewers about scalability and extendibility.
- Can this work across multiple users?
- Can it be expanded to handle larger, more complex needs?
- How does it fit into the bigger picture of enterprise processes?
These are important questions. And while Mynda never set out to answer them, the fact that they are being asked tells us something: users are hungry to move beyond the spreadsheet box and into the world of digital transformation.
A recent poll on LinkedIn shows that up to 50% of office workers are ready to move outside their traditional box, to take the risk to pursue greater value outside it – by delivering on the needs of higher levels of management (see my Purple Squares and The Spray Gun Illustration). And management would value these people more as they pursue greater end-to-end productivity for the entire organisation.
What Digital Transformation Really Means
Digital technologies have been with us for nearly 50 years. Their power lies not just in doing what we used to do faster, but in transforming how work is organised.
I often use the analogy of the horse-drawn motor car. When the engine was first introduced, many people attached it to familiar shapes and habits, rather than rethinking transport from the ground up. For some, the engine was exciting; for others, it was scary. And many settled for a limited, selective view of what was possible, in this sketch, opting to retain the horses to pull the motor car (!) Hence the ‘horse-drawn’ motor car. The Amish people are an example.
Today we see the same pattern in business tools. Some embrace digital technologies only in ways that feel safe within their existing “box.” Others step outside and look at the bigger picture, as senior management often must.
Social Media and the Dumbing Down of Excel
What amplifies this divide today is social media. Influencers—many with the best of intentions—promote what appeals cosmetically. They favour simple tricks and features that can be shown in a short video, rather than the deeper, systemic capabilities of the tool.
This isn’t unique to Excel, but Excel is a striking case. For decades, Excel has shipped with the ability to connect directly to relational databases using ADO. Yet this capability is almost never taught, even by experts and MVPs. Instead, audiences are steered towards cosmetic features that are easier to showcase but less transformative in practice.
This is what I mean by dumbing down. Meeting the audience where they are is fine. But the purpose should be to lead them further—to “greener pastures.” Too often, the audience is left inside the box.
Local vs Global: The Real Question
At the heart of the issue is the difference between local needs and global needs.
A local spreadsheet technique may be perfectly valid for one user on one machine. But as soon as you scale the envelope—multiple users, multiple locations, dynamic updating—the local solution breaks down. Collaboration is achieved by sending and receiving spreadsheets to each other. (see my Weather App sketch)
This is why Mynda’s video generated questions it didn’t intend to answer. People instinctively recognise the gap between a local workaround and an enterprise solution.
The key is not to criticise the local solution, but to extend it:
- Local technique → useful within its box.
- Global architecture → required for digital transformation.
A Diplomatic Extension
In my own demonstration, I’ve taken the spirit of Mynda’s tutorial and extended it into a multi-user, global scenario. The front end is still Excel, but the data is stored and managed in a relational database, by the Excel spreadsheet—whether that’s Access, SQL Server, or another engine.
The result is a system where:
- Staff anywhere in the world can update shared data.
- The data is always current, centrally stored, and queryable.
- Search and retrieval are instantaneous.
- The process runs itself—no administrators stitching spreadsheets together.
This is digital transformation in practice. It takes the familiar Excel interface and extends it into an enterprise-class process.
The Larger Challenge
The real challenge for our community is how to respond when the box is expanded. Do influencers welcome the extension, or do they feel criticised when local techniques are shown not to scale?
Too often, the reaction has been defensive. Questions are dismissed. The audience is left without answers.
But the questions are valid. They go to the heart of what digital transformation really means. If we only ever showcase local tricks, we risk leaving people stuck in an obsolete traditional spreadsheet mindset, unaware of the bigger picture.
Closing
Mynda’s video is an excellent introduction to thinking in database terms inside Excel. My contribution is to show what happens when we take the next step: connecting Excel to a relational database, and in doing so, unlocking scalability, collaboration, and true digital transformation.
This is not a critique—it’s a continuation. A way of answering the questions that naturally arise once people see beyond the cell grid.
And it points to an exciting reality: Excel is not a database, but it can be the gateway to a spreadsheet having true database functionality.
That is the difference between a horse-drawn motor car—and a real engine.
Add comment