DataFramed
#146 Do Spreadsheets Need a Rethink? With Hjalmar Gislason, CEO of GRID
Mon Jul 17 2023Description
The episode covers the evolution of spreadsheets, the power of Grid as a modern spreadsheet platform, the use of generative AI in spreadsheets, integration with other tools, improving spreadsheets and spreadsheet skills, and the future of spreadsheets. It emphasizes the importance of mastering spreadsheet functions, effectively communicating results, and the potential for spreadsheets to improve presentation skills and teach programming concepts.
Insights
GridDyer: Innovating in the Spreadsheet Market
GridDyer is a modern spreadsheet platform aiming to innovate in the spreadsheet market. It focuses exclusively on the numbers side of spreadsheet work and provides a more modern and sophisticated solution for visualizing data.
AI in Spreadsheets
AI can improve spreadsheets by offering natural editing capabilities, integrating with various data sources, and enabling generative AI for analysis. Generative AI can be used in the analytics industry for data enrichment and filling in missing information. However, expectation management is crucial when using generative AI to avoid blindly trusting incorrect answers.
Integration with Other Tools
Grid integrates with other software tools, such as AirTable, Notion, Google Sheets, Miro, Python, R, and SQL. It enables non-technical users to use advanced functions from external systems like Python in their spreadsheets.
Improving Spreadsheets and Spreadsheet Skills
Spreadsheets can have problems with data quality and data entry, but they empower business users to solve everyday IT needs quickly. There is a trade-off between spreadsheet productivity and occasional errors. Improving visualization in spreadsheets is a focus, with emphasis on basics like column charts and line charts. Building a powerful spreadsheet engine and improving debugging tools are also important. Spreadsheet competency is crucial in many data roles, with formula skills being crucial.
The Future of Spreadsheets
Mastering the top 30 most used spreadsheet functions covers over 98% of all spreadsheets. After mastering data analysis skills, effectively communicating the results becomes important. The future of spreadsheets looks promising, as they are proven tools with new needs arising every day. Spreadsheet usage has increased despite the availability of purpose-built software.
Chapters
- The Evolution of Spreadsheets
- The Power of Grid
- Generative AI in Spreadsheets
- Integration with Other Tools
- Improving Spreadsheets and Spreadsheet Skills
- The Future of Spreadsheets
The Evolution of Spreadsheets
00:00 - 13:42
- VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet released in 1979 and transformed business software usage on personal computers.
- There have been four waves of spreadsheet innovation: Visical on Apple II, Lotus 1-2-3 on PCs, Excel on Windows, and Google Sheets in the cloud.
- Spreadsheets offer flexibility but also have limitations due to their two-dimensional text editor nature.
- GridDyer is a modern spreadsheet platform aiming to innovate in the spreadsheet market.
- Grid is focused exclusively on the numbers side of spreadsheet work and provides a more modern and sophisticated solution for visualizing data.
The Power of Grid
06:54 - 20:37
- Grid separates the data layer, logic layer, and presentation layer in spreadsheets to provide a more interactive user interface.
- Grid allows users to easily share and present their spreadsheet findings without having to copy and paste into other tools.
- AI can improve spreadsheets by offering natural editing capabilities, integrating with various data sources, and enabling generative AI for analysis.
- Grid offers a spreadsheet solution with natural language editing and data presentation capabilities.
- The integration of formula systems in Grid makes writing formulas easier for novice users.
Generative AI in Spreadsheets
13:20 - 27:32
- Generative AI can be used in the analytics industry for data enrichment and filling in missing information.
- Generative AI should be seen as assistants rather than experts, requiring users to apply their own domain knowledge.
- Expectation management is crucial when using generative AI to avoid blindly trusting incorrect answers.
- Grid provides hints and allows users to review formulas before accepting them.
- Confidence levels in generative AI need further exploration and understanding.
- Generative AI lacks the ability to determine its own confidence level in providing answers.
- AI can be useful in explaining results and generating narratives around data.
- Microsoft is introducing a co-pilot that can write a narrative around data.
- Text explanations of data are often more popular than charts with more information.
- Translating insights into text is a valuable area of exploration.
- Generative AI needs to learn how to understand semantic context in spreadsheets.
- AI can be an amplifier for knowledge workers, providing more value the more time they spend in spreadsheets.
Integration with Other Tools
27:05 - 34:05
- Grid integrates with other software tools, such as AirTable and Notion.
- AirTable is used by companies to build their IT infrastructure, including CRM, billing, and financial data.
- Grid is a tool that can be layered on top of AirTable to create charts and narratives for reporting.
- Notion focuses on longform documents but lacks data visualizations and calculations, which Grid provides.
- Grid can also integrate with Google Sheets, Miro, and other visual thinking tools.
- Integrations with Python, R, and SQL are possible through APIs provided by Grid.
- Grid enables non-technical users to use advanced functions from external systems like Python in their spreadsheets.
- With Grid, pricing calculators can be easily updated without relying on web agencies to rewrite the logic.
- Business analysts working with BI tools like Power BI can use Grid to perform similar tasks without the need for extensive training.
Improving Spreadsheets and Spreadsheet Skills
33:58 - 48:23
- Spreadsheets can have problems with data quality and data entry.
- However, spreadsheets empower business users to solve everyday IT needs quickly.
- There is a trade-off between spreadsheet productivity and occasional errors.
- Improving visualization in spreadsheets is a focus, with emphasis on basics like column charts and line charts.
- More technically capable users should have access to APIs for custom visualizations.
- Debugging in spreadsheets can be challenging due to complex dependency graphs.
- Dependency graphs can become very complex with thousands of cells and tens of thousands of links.
- Building a powerful spreadsheet engine from scratch in JavaScript to handle large spreadsheet models in a browser.
- Opportunities to improve debugging tools for tracing errors and dependencies in spreadsheets.
- Applying advanced analysis to spreadsheets for identifying non-obvious errors and omissions.
- Dependency graphs are essential for optimizing and running calculations in spreadsheets.
- The first-time user experience of spreadsheets can be challenging, but it is important to teach best practices and provide guidance on data analysis and visualization.
- Spreadsheet competency is important in many data roles, with formula skills being crucial.
- Mastering the top 30 most used spreadsheet functions covers over 98% of all spreadsheets.
The Future of Spreadsheets
47:56 - 53:58
- 98% of spreadsheets in the world use the top 30 most commonly used functions. Mastering these functions will give you an advantage over colleagues.
- After mastering data analysis skills, the next important skill is effectively communicating the results.
- Data cleansing and manipulation are necessary before starting actual work.
- Presenting your findings to others is crucial, as 88% of the time people present their work to someone else.
- The future of spreadsheets looks promising, as they are proven tools with new needs arising every day.
- Spreadsheet usage has increased despite the availability of purpose-built software.
- Spreadsheets have long-term compatibility and can be used for decades if they work well.
- Backwards compatibility is essential in this space, as each new paradigm must be compatible with existing ones.
- Using spreadsheet software can improve presentation skills and teach programming concepts.