

Excel is a Database ... - whyme
http://www.neopoleon.com/home/blogs/neo/archive/2003/09/29/5458.aspx

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koeselitz
This is good. And it's true.

There's one dude in sales where I work who consistently (at least once a week)
sends us his latest specification as a spreadsheet embedded in a _Powerpoint
slide_. I called him once and tried to explain what he was doing wrong, and I
realized I pretty much didn't know how to communicate the level of wrong that
is to his mind.

 _You're not supposed to... well, you know there's a separate program for
that, right?_

"Yeah, of course. I just stick it in Microsoft Office and send it to you.
That's what I've always done."

 _Yes, but Office has different parts, and you're using the part that's for
presentations, and..._

"Look, I just click the button to open Microsoft Office, and then I stick the
stuff in those columns. Is that really so hard for you guys?"

... at which point I just gave up, because it's not worth the headache to
explain this.

~~~
Legion
Seen in video form: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SNxaJlicEU>

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Tawheed
Jokes on us for not creating friendlier software for these people who struggle
with this all day. They'd pay good money for it too.

~~~
jerf
See koeselitz's post. What you say is true up to a point, but no matter how
much you simplify and refine and simplify and refine again, your users do have
to be willing to learn _something_ to use your program. At the point where the
user is literally not even in the right program for the task they are trying
to do it is difficult to imagine what more could be done without the user
trying at least a little harder.

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p858snake
and heres how to make the excel file relational:
[http://angrytechnician.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/dear-
microso...](http://angrytechnician.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/dear-microsoft/)

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BonoboBoner
In my company they use Excel for Newsletter mailing. True story.

