By Hiran de Silva
Over the years, I’ve had productive conversations with people like Oz du Soleil, Mark Proctor, and many others about the state of Excel training, influence, and career progression. While we may disagree on some points, there’s one tension that repeatedly comes up—yet almost never gets explored properly:
There are two distinct worlds of Excel.
Yet on social media, only one of these worlds is acknowledged—and that fact alone often prevents any meaningful discussion from even starting.
This article is the next instrument in my campaign to change that. Not through argument—but through contrast, clarity, and case studies.
🎯 The Premise
I’m not here to criticise anyone. In fact, I admire the work of many top Excel influencers and trainers.
But my goal in this series is to:
- Demonstrate that there is a second, largely invisible world of Excel.
- Show that most social media content exclusively serves the first world.
- Prove that the second world is more lucrative—for those who want to move into it.
- Break the illusion that the second world is “too hard” or “not for you.”
- Give management what they’re really looking for: people who solve high-value pain with tools they already own.
🧱 What Are the Two Worlds?
Let’s define the first world of Excel—the one we see all over YouTube, LinkedIn, and Excel newsletters.
The Audience:
- Mostly beginners or intermediate users
- Little to no management responsibility
- “Boxed” thinking: focused solely on assigned tasks, not enterprise context
- View Excel as a “large sheet of paper,” not a business system
- Prefer short, literal how-to videos
- Drawn in by thumbnails, shocked faces, and presenter charisma
- No exposure to systems thinking or architectural use of Excel
The Influencers:
- Prioritise engagement metrics: likes, views, shares
- Master the art of “QVC-style” video presentation
- Teach literal solutions to individual tasks
- Don’t cover relational databases, client-server architecture, or enterprise data models
- Often dismiss professional/architectural Excel as “out of scope” or “too niche”
Again: this is not a criticism. It’s a definition.
And for this world—Oz, Mark, Mynda, and others are doing an excellent job. Their audiences love it.
But here’s my question:
What about the people who want to move beyond this world?
What about the users who do want more responsibility, more pay, more influence, and more options?
🔍 Case Selection Methodology
I’ve selected five highly visible, respected cases from social media—not to critique them, but to use them as a lens.
Each one:
- Was delivered by a well-known influencer
- Has been viewed tens of thousands (or millions) of times
- Is aimed squarely at the first world of Excel
My purpose is to reframe each scenario, showing how the same technical idea—when applied with enterprise-level thinking—can transform someone’s value in the eyes of management.
🧪 The Five Cases (Introduced)
1. Oz du Soleil – Christmas Expenses
- A fun, clear exercise involving three people and expenses.
- A standalone task for a single analyst.
- Reframed: What if this scenario needed to scale across 300 budget holders, with monthly submissions and live updates?
2. Mark Proctor – Power Query for Account Reconciliation
- A strong tutorial showing how to match two lists.
- Reframed: Management has hundreds of accounts to reconcile, on a schedule, with exceptions flagged automatically.
- Literal thinking solves two lists. Lateral thinking eliminates the pain for an entire finance department.
3. Call Handler – Cascading Drop-Downs
- One of the most popular topics in Excel social media.
- Always sourced from within the workbook.
- Reframed: What if we have 50 call handlers and 20 warehouses, all needing to reference one truth, dynamically sourced from a database?
4. Bill Jelen – Podcast Episode 2316
- A lone Excel guru struggling to consolidate endless spreadsheets into a report.
- Reframed: What if the entire messy job became unnecessary, because data is streamed from sources into a single query and refreshed on open?
5. Mynda Treacy – Data Validation
- A comprehensive, high-value tutorial—viewed over 10 million times.
- But all sourced from within the workbook.
- Reframed: What if the validation list came from a central database, and the workbook acted only as a front-end UI for hundreds of distributed users?
💡 What This Means
These five cases are powerful not because they’re wrong—but because they represent what most Excel learners are seeing. Over and over again.
And they reveal three critical truths:
- Most Excel education serves the first world.
- The second world exists—but is rarely shown.
- Management values the outcomes of the second world far more.
💼 Management’s Pain—and the 1% Solution
In my “Gordon Ramsay Experiment,” 99% of Excel users approached the challenge using first-world techniques.
Only 1% used second-world architecture.
And when we showed both solutions to real management, the verdict was unanimous:
“We want that second-world solution. But where do we find people who can do that?”
That’s the moment the penny drops.
The second world of Excel is not harder. It is just unseen, untaught, and unacknowledged.
And it creates massive value by solving problems for the people who actually have money to spend to solve them.
💸 Why It Matters for You
If you’re reading this and thinking:
- “I want to be noticed more at work.”
- “I want to make more money.”
- “I want to build things that actually matter.”
- “I’m tired of chasing likes and formula tricks.”
Then this message is for you.
You may not know about the second world of Excel—but I’m here to show you the way in.
You’ll stop being one of the 99%.
You’ll be in demand.
You’ll have what Joel Garfinkle calls PVI:
Perception. Visibility. Influence.
🧭 Final Word to Oz, Mark, and the Wider Community
To those who say “there’s only one Excel audience”—I respectfully disagree.
There is a sub-demographic—often hidden—of people who want to cross over.
My job is to find them.
To empower them.
To help management find them.
And to open up a new generation of career paths that social media isn’t showing.
Not with hype. Not with hacks.
But with clarity, design, and enterprise-grade Excel that already exists—but remains invisible.
The next part of this series will walk through each of the five cases in detail.
Thank you for listening.
Let’s build the bridge.
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