PowerPivotPro

The Official PowerPivotPro Sound Booth
(Yes, all Good Sound Booths Have Primus Posters)

Even though today’s post is the first time you’ve seen a video from me in a long time, I’ve actually been doing quite a bit of video recording lately – stuff that pays the bills while I spin up my new (unannounced) company, and stuff that supports the launch of said company.

Recording some guest modules for Chandoo’s PowerPivot training course is one example of this (I am finishing those today, so for those of you who enrolled, look to see those show up sometime in the next week).

As part of this process I realized that I needed a better setup for sound.  A home recording studio on the cheap. 

It wasn’t that expensive, so I thought I’d share what I got:

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This Vanity Fair Article Blames Microsoft’s Lost Decade on its Employee Review System -
I Hated that System But I Think the Real Problem Was Something Else

Continuing a bit of a tradition of more “reflective” holiday articles, today I thought I’d share some long-simmering thoughts on Microsoft, especially in light of various developments this year (including the recent departure of Steven Sinofsky).  Along the way I’m going to share some of my own experiences that I’ve been meaning to write about.  I think those will give my broader point some “flavor.”  This is a longish post and probably is better described as an “article.”  I think this topic, overall, is relevant to ANY professional enterprise, but the quality of my thoughts is for you to judge as always.

The Vanity Fair article above got a lot of attention this summer.  In it, the author exposes a culture of infighting and rivalries at Microsoft, and he attributes Microsoft’s past decade of struggles to that culture.  The article continues from there and attributes that culture to the performance review system, specifically the practice of “stack ranking.”

I disliked *both* the 2010 political environment at MS *and* the stack rank system, so when a colleague of mine told me about this article that linked two of my least-favorite things from Redmond, I had to buy the magazine and read the whole thing.  But before I share my opinion, we have to explain what stack ranking is.

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Yeah I know, two bonus posts in one week.  This one is a bit more on-topic, but still really just all in fun.

A quick search on “PowerPivot” is one of my favorite tests of search engine “quality.”

Here’s Bing:

Bing Search Results for “PowerPivot”

A fine reference site like PowerPivotPro in position 7 on the first page – that’s a clear sign of High Quality!   Not bad, Bing. Not bad at all.

Now let’s try the same with Google:

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My Visualization of a Most Unproductive Process

Off Topic for the Fourth of July (Back to PowerPivot Tomorrow)

NOTE:  this may look like a political post, but actually it’s about the way we think, and how analytical approaches deserve a much bigger place in politics.  I promise you three things:

1. It will be thought-provoking.  Or at least, as thought-provoking as I can be.
2. It’s sympathetic to number crunchers and nerds everywhere.  People who like to figure things out are fundamentally similar, no matter where you live.
3. No candidates or political parties will be endorsed.  Not even in a sneaky way.  No implications or hints.  (I honestly don’t care which one of these chuckleheads wins in November.)

Stick with me and I will try to make it worth your while.

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This was sent to me yesterday by a colleague, appropriate given yesterday’s post:

Why yes.  Yes we are.  More effectively every day in fact.

 
I stumbled into an interesting discussion on Facebook yesterday, and didn’t have room to express my opinion there, so I thought I’d do it here.  It’s about the economy, which has been my only real hobby for the past several years.

And hey, the economy is numbers-related so it’s not entirely off topic for this blog right?

Nobel Economist Paul Krugman Wants More “Stimulus Spending”

Stimulus spending is generally Mr. Krugman’s preferred fix for the US (and world) economy.  Lately, he hasn’t been getting enough of it so he is on tour these days demanding more.

What exactly IS stimulus spending?  Fundamentally it means “the government spends or gives away money.”  The idea is that by injecting new money into the economy, it can kickstart a benevolent cycle that sustains itself:

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Row-Wise AND Column-Wise Calcs!
(Click for Bigger Version)

My 9-Year Old Son Has Never Touched Excel…

No, I’ve never sat my son down in front of Excel.  Does that reflect good parenting or poor parenting?  I can see both sides of that one.

But it doesn’t matter.  Life finds a way doesn’t it?

He put this together to “optimize” his army in his Lego Battles game.  Each row is a series of yes/no properties of each character – does it have each ability or not – and then sums up the count of “yes’s” as a score for each character.  And then decides whether that score is good enough to include in his army based on ranking that score against all other scores:

When I asked him what he was doing, his response was basically “these are my numbers dad, I make them go up.”

Fair and Balanced

For obvious reasons, I can’t do a post about my son without also featuring my daughter.  Whereas he got a picture of his spreadsheet, she gets a picture of her:

Like her dad, she is a huge movie quoter.  She can recite you just about any line from any Star Wars movie.  She is in charge of the daily Star Wars “simulation” at recess on the school playground.  I am very lucky to have these particular young people in my life.

This is my favorite so far, by the narrowest of margins.  It comes from Angel Abundez of RDP Streamline Solutions.  And Angel (twitter) executes quite well.  Note the form.  Good X – not the V or the Y that most people’s X’s are turning out to be.  And a sharp L.  The background pic is nice too.

But his daughter simply nails it.  Look at that total lack of emotion.  A stone cold spreadsheet killa.  Everyone should aspire to her standard of excellence.

VIEW THE FULL GALLERY HERE

I’m gonna leave submission open for a few more days.  Plenty of time to get yours in!

SUBMIT YOUR PICTURE(S) HERE