Columns & Rows
I have started a new spreadsheet. I love spreadsheets. Ever since I first met a VisiCalc spreadsheet back in about 1979, I have been in love with spreadsheets and what they can do. I actually think that spreadsheets may be the most impactful invention of my time. I know people will scoff at that in light of everything from EVs to Smartphones, but my logic is quite simple. Spreadsheets enabled all innovations that came after them because they were a necessary tool for the production and financing of all of those things. Spreadsheets actually changed the way we think about using math to our advantage. It’s almost like a language unto itself because it is a tool for the reframing of our thought processes. To me it is FAR more important than word processing calendar functions and even databases because within a spreadsheet you can contain each of those other programs, but none of them can do what a spreadsheet does.
Take word processing for example. It has enabled a far more efficient input and manipulation of the written word, but those are marginal improvements from, say, an electric typewriter. The biggest indicator of that is that despite repeated attempts to displace the QWERTY keyboard as the input mechanism of choice, people keep gravitating back to it and I think its safe to say that keyboarding is now a critical base skill for all young people. We keep thinking that verbal dictation input will replace QWERTY input, but it hasn’t yet. It’s gotten much, much better, but most of us still do a fair bit of keyboarding every day. I know I do.
But spreadsheets are different. There are functions that they perform that are simply so different and so intuitively powerful that they are irreplaceable and very noticeable in their absence by now. Think about digital photography for a moment. We all know its better than silver halide film for many reason including the ease and cost of “developing” and the instantaneous feedback of immediate imagery. But think about how when showed a photo or map or any image and you cannot pinch in to minimize or spread out to maximize, you feel frustrated and less than satisfied. That is a fundamental game-changer for digital photography and that ability to manipulate the image, not to mention auto-edit it or enhance it, has made digital photography so much better as to suggest that it is a quantum improvement to the art. The same is true of the imbedded functionality (extremely broad and robust) and the two-dimensional (or more) matrix process of thinking about mathematical functions and you have the essence of what makes spreadsheets so impactful.
The ability to do iterations and to look at complex equations in a grouped and time-sequenced manner is an exponential expansion of the analytical capability of almost anyone who can do even simple spreadsheet manipulation. Computers can do all of that internally, but spreadsheets can give the user a visual and almost textural feel for the solution. People who are fluent in spreadsheets can look at one and see things the way that a trained musician can see things in sheet music that a non-musician can never see. But even that analogy falls short because musicians do not need to drive sheet music to feel the music and yet spreadsheet people want to do more than look at the output of a spreadsheet, they want to drive the model and look as needed into the cells to understand how it operates and what it is doing to generate the output. In other words, spreadsheets actually change the way people think about the problems they are trying to solve and they understand that driving the model is the best way to improve it.
I use simple spreadsheets for almost everything. I use them to plan trips and keep track of things. When I plan a motorcycle trip I use a simple mathematical model to arrange and organize the expenses so that we can share the cost of the trip without getting into the nickel and diming of who paid what to whom or who then owes what to whom. I called that simple model Marinomics and it has become a mainstay and joke within our motorcycle club. The mainstay is that I am always asked to put trips (even ones I am not running) onto the model. Its a joke because no one seems to really want to get down to understand it well enough to replicate it. I should probably sell it as an App for group travel. I bet it is marketable. The best clue is that in 28 years, no one has come up with a better approach to solving the need, and that must say something.
Just in the last day, I have put together two new spreadsheets to manage my life. The first is for our upcoming trip to SE Asia. I had Mike send me the activities spreadsheet that he put together to record all that he has done to set up our tours during that three-week trip. I’m guessing that he has put together two or three spreadsheets to cover the trip because what he sent me had some, but not all, of the information that I know he has diligently gathered for the six of us on this trip. So, I took his baseline model and started to modify it for the added information that I wanted to have ready access to (like flight departure and arrival information matched off against time). What I was looking to do was to determine exactly where we needed to be at what times and where the gap areas in the schedule existed so that we can book additional tours and/or dining arrangements as we might wish. I am decidedly not trying to overprogram the trip, but rather to get a clear sense of how we want to spend our time and where our optionality exists on the schedule for added or bespoke activities. I know Mike & Melisa like to walk a lot each day. Faraj & Yasuko like that too and are likely to join them on much of that. But I am less walking oriented and I may want other non-walking activities to do that are easily within reach of our locations and that not run the risk of conflicting with other group plans. I find that a spreadsheet is a great way to do that and especially to communicate my thoughts to Kim and the others on the trip so that we can discuss these things as a group.
The other spreadsheet I have created just this morning is a workout spreadsheet, something that many people find useful to track their progress with their physical activity. I am perhaps less goal oriented in this regard than most. I am not trying to reach any particular performance goals like an athlete might, but I do want to track my activity to keep me focused on doing it most every day. I find that the best way to do that is to have a record keeping system that reminds me of when I have become lax. The mere act of recording and measuring your activity helps you maintain it. This is not a new thought…just a bit new for me. So, since I put together my new rowing machine and am all hung-ho on rowing as a source of whole-body workout, I have started keeping track of my rowing workouts. The irony is not lost on me that I am using a column and row tool to keep track of my rowing. Strangely enough, my row sessions are being listed in a specific column as the rows are for days of the week. I doubt there will be complex algorithms built into to my rowing spreadsheet, but who knows. Maybe I will taking column and rowing to new analytical heights.