will introduce you to the exciting new pivot table features in Excel 2007. Create quick summaries and pivot charts, add impact with traffic light icons, design calculated fields, group dates and numbers.
We Need a Spreadsheet Day
Yesterday, Seth Godin suggested that we should invent a holiday to celebrate the things that we love. For example, today is Family Day here in Ontario, Canada, a holiday that has only existed for a couple of years. It’s nice to have the day off, and that gave me the chance to think about other holidays.
How about a Spreadsheet Day, to honour Excel, and the other spreadsheets that people use? There are other spreadsheets, aren’t there? I searched Google, and nothing relevant came up for the keyword phrase, “Spreadsheet Day”. That’s shocking!
Next, I checked a couple of sites that list all the obscure holidays and special days, but found nothing similar listed there either. There are plenty of obscure holidays, including Pi Day on March 14th, and there’s even a Pickle Day, on November 14th. But no Spreadsheet Day.
What Day Would Work Best?
We should select a suitable day to celebrate spreadsheets, without conflicting with any of the other important holidays. The first cell in an Excel worksheet is A1, so that could guide the holiday date selection. The first “A” month is April, but April 1st is April Fools’ Day, and it would be best to avoid that. Also, April is tax month in Canada and the USA, so Excel users might not be in the mood to celebrate.
How about August 1st? There’s not much happening in August, and no other holidays on that date, that I can see. That would be a good date for Spreadsheet Day. Or maybe you have a better suggestion.
How Could We Celebrate?
What activities could we plan for Spreadsheet Day?
- The 50 yard dashboard?
- Rowing competitions?
- All day cell-ebrations?
- Sitting in a Lotus position?
- Pie Chart eating contests?
Do you have any other ideas?
Spreadsheet Fun
While researching (yes, any search in Google or YouTube is classified as research, for tax purposes), I found a couple of PC vs Mac commercials that mentioned spreadsheets and fun. I’d only seen the US versions of these ads, and was surprised to find different ads for the UK. In this case, at least, the UK version is much funnier.
PC vs Mac – US Version
PC vs Mac – UK Version
Spreadsheet Day 2010
There’s still time to organize a Spreadsheet Day for 2010, if we get started now. Let the hijinks, shenanigans and monkey business begin!
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February 15th, 2010 at 1:58 am
Would this work...
http://www.geekazine.com/dith/day-in-tech-history-jan-26-lotus-1-2-3-released
February 15th, 2010 at 4:51 am
Cool idea....
As I am a passionate user of MS Excel I'm against the Lotus-1-2-3 day *ggg*
My suggestion for ways to celebrate is very close to your last proposal, Deborah: Every participant should bake a cake / pie of his favorite chart-type
Let's organize something via twitter, I suggest the hashcode #spreadsheetday
February 15th, 2010 at 9:37 am
Debra,
After reading your post, I knew the tomfoolery had started already.
Jim Cone
February 15th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Great idea Debra.
I vote to have Spreadsheet Day on Leap Year. In part, because it pays omage to the old Lotus leap year bug. But mainly because it only comes once every 4 years, and I'm fairly lazy.
February 15th, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Thanks Ed, I like the concept of using a spreadsheet launch date, although I agree with Phil, and would rather use VisiCalc's date than Lotus 1-2-3's. Looks like VisiCalc launched Oct 19, 1979:
http://danbricklin.com/log/2009_05_27.htm#vc30
And Jim, thanks for volunteering to be on the organizing committee.
Maybe you can find out who we contact to get things rolling. It looks like Mike won't be much help.
February 15th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
Debra,
Thought I should back to you quickly as I won't be able to attend the organizing committee meeting. I have to wash my hair that day - sorry. You have my support as you carry on with this important work.
Jim Cone
February 16th, 2010 at 1:17 am
How about September 5th? It spells XL on phones when you type 95
February 16th, 2010 at 2:15 am
[...] When should we celebrate the “Spreadsheet day”? [...]
February 16th, 2010 at 3:00 am
A1 as 1st of Augusts sounds fine for me, you can count it as a vote
February 16th, 2010 at 9:13 am
A1 is also April Fools day ?
February 16th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
I love this idea. Excel is everywhere. Before it will disappear, we need to celebrate :)...
More serious thoughts about PLM spreadsheets are here-->
http://plmtwine.com/2009/05/25/why-do-i-like-my-plm-excel-spreadsheet/
Best, Oleg
February 16th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
@Chandoo I finally figured out that you were referring to the letters on a push button phone, so it makes sense now. Might conflict with Labour Day though, and back to school sales.
@Hui we don't want Spreadsheet Day to be associated with April Fools' Day, so August 1st is the next A1 day.
@mikii thanks for the vote!
February 18th, 2010 at 12:25 am
Spreadsheet Day means ... cookie party at Debra's house!
February 18th, 2010 at 12:44 am
JP, thanks for your support! Due to budget constraints, we'll have to ask people to bring their own milk, unless we get a generous sponsor for the event.
March 5th, 2010 at 8:53 am
I want to overrule Debra and vote for April 1. The most fitting day of the year.
March 5th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
@Jon, hey this is my blog -- you can't overrule me! But maybe April 1st is the right day. It's the start of tax month for many people, and Excel has pulled innumerable pranks on me. And it is the first A1 of the year.
All in favour?
March 11th, 2010 at 7:47 am
Of course, the problem with Chandoo's option of Sept 5 spelling XL on a push button phone only works in US/Canada. For those of us on this side of the pond, who write these things *correctly*, the day is written before the month, so it would be 59. Therefore, typing the numbers for Sept 5 into our phone would give us LX or KY, which might not work quite so well.
March 11th, 2010 at 8:02 am
The ISO date format standard is mm-dd. Actually it's yyyy-mm-dd, most significant to least significant, so we don't get it completely correct either.
It took me a couple years to convince a client of mine that appending yyyy-mm-dd dates to a file name made more sense than mm-dd-yyyy dates. He finally figured it out after trying for months to sort his files meaningfully by name.
March 11th, 2010 at 9:22 am
@Jon, of course you're correct re the ISO standard, as a fellow geek I understand that, even if most of my co-workers and family think there's something wrong with me when I write dates as 2010-03-11. However, when my wife tries to find photos on the home laptop, she's secretly glad that I have them catalogued by ISO date first!
The key here, however, is that this is the ISO standard for when you WRITE the date. Like most people, however, when I speak dates, I don't say "Today's date is 2010 March 11th", Rather I say "Today's date is 11th March 2010", i.e., with the year at the end. Therefore, doesn't it make sense to put the portions of the date in their order of significance from least to most. At least the European way of saying dates does this. This is generally how dates are written in "the vernacular" here 11-3-2010, but in North America they're generally written in a "mixed-up" format 3-11-2010, which to me means 3rd November 2010.
About the only date which is used here in the "North American way" is 9-11, but that's a special case.
March 11th, 2010 at 9:46 am
Spoken, we say March 11th, as the year is generally assumed. Putting the year at the end jumbles it all up. But what are we doing, trying to find logic in such a human activity as speech? (or thought?)
March 17th, 2010 at 12:01 am
[...] of Excelebrations, last month I suggested that we pick a day to celebrate as Spreadsheet Day. There were a few dates suggested, and Jimmy Peña wants a poll, to pick a date. So, please go to [...]