On a recent episode of The Intelligence, The data editor at The Economist spoke about a U.S. presidential election forecast their publication is working on. I looked more into their model and discuss some of the features and parameters of their model and what makes their forecast unique. Some of the techniques used in The […]
Have you ever wondered what the underlying meaning of your dreams are? Chances are you may have tried Googling something like “What does it mean to dream about [INSERT DREAM].” In The Shape of Dreams, Federica Fragapane answers this very question of what people around the world dream about by using Google Search queries from […]
This is one of my favorite VLOOKUP tips. Given that it’s pride month, we’ll be applying this tip to a list of all pride events in the United States. Here is the Google Sheet if you want to follow along with this example. Here’s the scenario: you have a super large table in Excel or […]
The Black Lives Matter movement has come to the forefront in the news media. People around the world are looking for ways to fight racial injustice. If you are in a position to donate to an organization fighting racial injustice, you are joining the ranks of individuals and companies who are supporting the movement with […]
The QUERY() function in Google Sheets gives you the ability to quickly filter and sort your data similar to how you might get data from a database. If you write SQL queries, the QUERY() function feels easy and natural to use. There are a few caveats as I discuss in this episode. If you want […]
I worked on a “small” side project recently to sync data between Google Sheets and tables in Coda. The full blog post tutorial is here, and the GitHub repository is here. I started using Google Apps Script last year and it’s a super powerful way to connect different apps you use in the G Suite […]
Now that you’re staying home and picking up new hobbies and taking classes online, here are a few tips on how to learn Excel and spreadsheets from an online class. I have seen viewership on my own Excel classes spike since COVID-19 hit which has led me to think about the best way to learn […]
Have you ever wondered what an “array-entered formula” is? It’s an intermediate/advanced concept in Excel but in late 2018, Microsoft released dynamic array functions and formulas that “spill” into the cells below your current cell with a function. This makes writing formulas easier and less prone to human error, but there are some tradeoffs to […]
This spreadsheet tip is based on a question I get asked all the time when I teach (well taught) Excel at in-person classes: How do I fill a formula down to the last row of my data set without over-shooting the last row with keyboard shortcuts? This problem occurs with larger data sets where you […]
This is an Excel trick that’s not super complicated but super useful for labelling a simple table in Excel. Let’s say you have one set of labels along the rows (e.g. “Region”) and then another set of labels along the columns (e.g. “Month”). Cell A1 is now empty because you don’t know which label to […]
Excel for the Real World III studentExcellent class for a beginner data analyst, great insight into this particular world, really appreciate it.
