Can you be ‘a creative’ and be good with Excel?
Today I was approached by a very charming lady from Brazil to do some freelance work. She was articulate and well mannered, her online presence hinted toward a capable and clever person, but she said something that made me sit up and take notice. Then I had to sit back down and have a think about it.
I do a little bit of trading on the US stock market, but being a creative I sadly have no idea how to use excel spreadsheet
Now, she is saying here that trading on the stock market is within her skills as ‘a creative’, but not Excel. I don’t know what creative elements prevent someone to learn Excel, and why that would make them sad.
If she was trying to get me to do some freelance work for no charge I could understand the attempt pulling at my heartstrings with pity, but this was someone with a plan, a need and a budget.
The first thing I had to ask was, what is ‘a creative’?
Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterised by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. If you have ideas but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.
That seems to sum it up (from www.creativityatwork.com) quite nicely. To me, being ‘a creative’ and learning Excel do not immediately seem to be mutually exclusive skills, let’s break the main points down.
Perceive the world in new ways: Perception is skewed by the observer’s own expectations, assumptions and preconceptions. Keep yourself grounded by checking the numbers and keeping your data clean!
Hidden patterns: bring them into the light with Filtering or Charts or even Pivot Tables. The first step is always standardising your data.
Connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena: Using some Conditional Formatting or What-if analysis would help here.
Generate solutions: Autosum? Kidding, but the add-in solver would do the trick!
It seems to me that Excel can actually help in the creative process. If you are looking to make connections between things then categorising them is key, if you are categorising them then you can analyse the results and Excel is probably the most widely distributed and most accessible analysis tool in the world.
What do you think, can you be ‘a creative’ and learn to be proficient in Excel?
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I would argue that it’s essential to be creative to be considered proficient in Excel. On the surface, Excel presents many constraints that a novice observer will assume would restrict any creativity. To them, Excel is simply a tool to present and organize data. However, it’s the proficient user’s ability to figure out how to “creatively” work around those constraints which make really excellent spreadsheets. Whether it’s using VBA to force Excel to do something unusual, or—as you present on your Twitter page—the ability to make actual art in Excel, it’s that creative aspect that leads to powerful solutions.