By Hiran de Silva Most people who know me know that I am deeply committed to Excel, not as a hobby, not as a commodity skill, but as a vehicle for solving real business...

By Hiran de Silva “Excel Hell” is a phrase many of us know all too well. Senior managers feel the pain most acutely, but even at the ground level, workers often sense...

To celebrate Excel’s 40th anniversary, Bill Jelen posed the question: What non-business spreadsheet have you ever created? My answer is simple and unique: the Beatles...

By Hiran de Silva This article is inspired by a post from Mike Thomas on LinkedIn. We are in danger of falling into a lazy trap: projecting today’s technological...

By Hiran de Silva If you’ve followed my origin story, you might already be asking yourself a simple question. That penny-drop moment I experienced all those years...

By Hiran de Silva Just before Christmas in 1996, I took on a six-week temp assignment. The task was to assist a colleague with year-end reconciliations. The job was...

By Hiran de Silva There’s widespread misunderstanding of what pivot tables are actually for. The clue is in the name: pivot. A Little History By the early 1990s...

By Hiran de Silva This piece is inspired by the reflections of Md Ismail Hosen on LinkedIn. This is Part 3. See Part 1 and Part 2 here. In earlier parts of this series...

By Hiran de Silva This is a follow up (Part 2), inspired by Md Ismail Hosen’s post on LinkedIn about BS on social media posts. (Part 1) Imagine you run a shop. On...

By Hiran de Silva There’s widespread misunderstanding of what pivot tables are actually for. The clue is in the name: pivot. To pivot is to change from something to...