By Hiran de Silva
In any large community, there is always an audience within the audience. Social media training for Excel is no exception.
At the base of the pyramid, the largest demographic consists of users whose work is task-bound, local in scope, and framed by their immediate responsibilities. Influencers and trainers naturally cater to this group: they are the biggest audience, they consume the most content, and they give the most visible feedback in likes, clicks, and comments.
This focus is understandable. It is also limiting.
Because within this mass audience, there exists a smaller but more aspirational group — the ones who want to move up the pyramid. They are curious about management thinking, enterprise processes, and the bigger picture. They are analytical, ambitious, and willing to think outside the box of “my spreadsheet, my task.”
This is the audience I address.
The Pyramid Problem
Here’s the dilemma: social media influencers typically build their reputations, their reach, and even their income by speaking to the broadest base. The message is tailored to fit the majority mindset: learn the features, follow the steps, repeat the examples.
But when that teaching is applied at scale, it breaks down. The student who tries to take Power Query from a personal exercise into an enterprise budgeting system finds themselves at the ceiling of the pyramid, trapped in what has been called “Excel Hell.”
And here is where the ethical question arises:
- Should educators confine their message to what the base wants and can easily absorb, even if it leads to dead ends later?
- Or should they risk confusing (or even contradicting) the base message by teaching the principles that help a smaller, more strategic audience move upward?
Two Audiences, Two Responsibilities
The influencers who teach features and formulas are not wrong. They are giving their audience what that audience has asked for — clear, digestible instructions. That is a legitimate mission, and there is value in it.
But the existence of another audience — the ambitious minority within the majority — creates a responsibility. For them, the repetition of base-level tutorials is not enough. They need to understand systems, architecture, and management-level problem-solving.
The ethical tension is this: do we risk “confusing” the base by addressing the inner audience? Or is it more unethical not to equip those who are ready for more?
The Fear of Contradiction
When I show how to scale Mynda Treacy’s personal database idea into a global, hub-and-spoke architecture, am I contradicting her? Not at all. I am answering a different problem for a different audience.
When I demonstrate that budgeting consolidation cannot sustainably be done with Power Query, am I undermining those who teach Power Query? Again, no. I am showing what happens when the principle is applied in the enterprise — and why another approach works better.
These are not contradictions. They are continuations. But social media dynamics can make them appear as contradictions. Algorithms reward simplicity and certainty. “This is how you reconcile three accounts” gets more engagement than “This is how you build a self-running global reconciliation system.” And when nuance is punished, any alternative message can look like an attack.
Human Behaviour and the Ethics of Teaching
We must also consider human behaviour:
- Loss aversion. Influencers may fear that acknowledging higher-level approaches diminishes the value of their own tutorials.
- Identity protection. Trainers build followings by being the “authority” in their space; when someone reframes the problem, it can feel like a challenge rather than a complement.
- Comfort zones. Many learners genuinely prefer the safety of staying at the base. To them, advanced methods can feel like disruption rather than opportunity.
But none of these are reasons to withhold knowledge from those who aspire to more.
So Where Are the Ethics?
The ethical duty lies not in protecting the status quo but in being transparent about which audience we are serving.
- If you are teaching features to help someone do their current job better, say so.
- If you are teaching architecture to help someone think at management level, say so.
The conflict only arises when we pretend there is one homogenous audience. There isn’t. There is always an audience within the audience.
And to that inner audience, the ethical thing is to say:
“You have more options than you’ve been told. Here’s what lies beyond the box.”
My Position
I do not ask permission to share my journey of building enterprise-scale models with Excel. Because I know there are people — perhaps quiet in the comment threads, but present nonetheless — who are waiting for someone to show them the way out of the box.
The real ethical failure would be to leave them stranded at the ceiling of the pyramid.
Closing Thought
In the end, it is not about conflict between influencers. It is about respect for learners. Respect means acknowledging that people have different ambitions, different capacities, and different destinations.
To the majority, simple tutorials will always be valuable.
To the minority, transformative frameworks are necessary.
The ethical path is to serve both without confusing either — by making it clear: this is who I’m talking to, and this is why.
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