Dear Analyst Episode 25: Structuring data challenge (denormalize data) with Get and Transform

This episode is based on a video and Tweet posted by Mr. Excel (Bill Jelen). Bill discusses an Excel challenge someone emailed him about regarding how to “transform” a badly structured table of data into a structure that makes it easy to do PivotTables and other downstream analysis. Interestingly, I received a ticket from a […]

Dear Analyst Episode 24: Finding and ranking percentiles

I discuss how to calculate percentiles in Excel or Google Sheets using the PERCENTILE function. With the PERCENTILE function, you can calculate the value that would represent nth percentile in your list of values. This is not exactly the calculation I was looking for. Instead, what if you wanted to know what the rank percentile […]

Revisiting Calculating Average Trends Across Time Periods in Spreadsheets

In this episode, I discuss how to calculate trends over time in Excel for the purposes for forecasting future values. I reference an old post about calculating trends where someone recently left a comment about the counter-intuitiveness on calculating averages of changes in your values. In order to follow along with this episode, I would […]

Dear Analyst Episode 22: Calculate win streaks for a pool of players in Google Sheets

If you are by your computer, you may want to open this Google Sheet to understand the example discussed in this episode. I walk through a rather long formula involving the FREQUENCY(), COLUMN(), MAX(), and the ARRAYFORMULA() functions in Google Sheets. Here’s the full formula below to calculate win streaks in the Google Sheet: =ARRAYFORMULA(MAX(FREQUENCY(IF(B2:P2=”W”,COLUMN(B2:P2)),IF(B2:P2=”L”,COLUMN(B2:P2))))) […]

Dear Analyst Episode 21: Building No-Code Tools and Applications from Spreadsheets

This is my talk from Webflow’s No-Code Conference that took place on November 13th, 2019 in San Francisco. The title of my talk was called Building No-Code Tools and Applications from Spreadsheets. The slides from my presentation are on SlideShare here. Themes from the talk This was my first time talking about my experience with […]

What it’s like teaching a week-long online data analytics course

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to teach a week-long data analytics course through General Assembly. The course was taught entirely online using Zoom. I discuss some of the topics the students learned in the class, and what the experience was like teaching an online class in real time. The topics we covered […]

Excerpts from Range by David Epstein and financial modeling

Range: Why Generalists Triumph In A Specialized World by David Epstein came on my radar after listening to another podcast. Thought the premise was interesting in that people who “dabble” in various interests and hobbies end up excelling (no pun intended) in life and have a more rewarding career. I read a few excerpts that […]

Dear Analyst Episode 17: Excel introduces new feature XLOOKUP

New Excel feature alert! Probably one of the biggest announcements in a long time from the Excel world: a new function to supplant VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP. What is it you ask? The XLOOKUP function. Summary of XLOOKUP benefits I discuss some of the benefits, implications for new and existing users of Excel, and also some […]

Dear Analyst Episode 16: The New York Times’ data bootcamp

A few months ago, The New York Times’ Digital Transition team headed by Lindsey Cook published a blog post about a data bootcamp they led for their reporters and editors. The New York Times frequently publishes amazing data visualizations, and it’s awesome to see this newsroom pushing their reporters into the world of “data journalism.” […]