Excel Links – What are your plans for 2011?

Wish you a happy new year and Welcome back to Chandoo.org.

So how did you celebrate the new year’s eve? We put the kids to sleep early and partied till 1. Next day, we took them to a park. The kids loved grass, trees and ran like wind.

What about you?

As for the new year plans, I think it is fair to review how the plans I made last year worked out. Last year, my goals were,

• run 20k
• start excel school
• travel less
• do what I enjoy, more.

Except the running goal, I achieved everything else. It feels good to have not traveled at all and run 3 batches of Excel School in last year. Since I love writing and learning new things, I quit my job in April last year to work on this blog full-time. It seems like the best decision in my life so far.

This year too I have simple goals.

• Run & workout often: After I quit my job, I started my business from home. This meant work intertwined with parenting. Since we have twins, taking time out for simple tasks like jogging seemed impossible on some days. I did workout on a lot of days, but my fitness has gone-down in last one year. This year I plan to dedicate more time to working out and running.
• Spread Excel School to More People: Excel School has been a grand success since its launch. I want to make even more people awesome in Excel in this year.
• Start PowerPoint School: You heard me right. I have been preparing material & gathering ideas on running a PowerPoint training program. Very soon, you will hear about it.
• Conduct 2 Live Excel Workshops: I have been itching to conduct live workshops on MS Excel & related topics. But due to job and parenting, I could not say yes to any opportunities that came along. This year, the scene is different. So I plan to conduct at least 2 live Excel Workshops and meet some of you face to face this year.
• Learn more: Even though I did not aim for it, last year I ended up reading a lot of books and blogs. This year, I plan to continue the trend. I want to become good in Pivot Tables, Data Analysis, Learn tools like Tableau, Access, Become a better businessman.

What awesome things you are planning to accomplish this year? And how do you think Chandoo.org can help you in achieving them? Please share using comments.

Excel Links:

Here are some Excel & Visualization related links that I recommend. Go thru them to learn something awesome.

The joy of stats – Recommended Video Talk

Prof. Hans Rosling is one my Data Visualization Gurus. He is passionate about statistics and how it can help us understand data better. In this very entertaining talk, he tells us how statistics is joy. Please set aside an hour and watch this. It is totally beautiful.

Dashboard Design 101

A very good article from UXMatters website on Dashboard Design Principles. I particularly liked the portion on “What data should we display?”.

Importing Excel Data in to Access

Danny explains the process behind importing Excel data in to Access. You can watch the whole thing in a short Youtube video. The explanation is very clear and easy to follow.

Learn 30 Excel Formulas in 30 Days

Debra at Contextures blog has started a new series on 30 formulas in 30 days. She opens the series with a bang by explaining the EXACT formula. I am going to follow this series and contribute to the discussion by writing 1-2 followup posts on chandoo.org. I suggest you follow it too. This is the easiest way to learn 30 different formulas in 30 days. PS: You can also learn 51 Excel formulas.

Using Excel to Build Crossword Puzzles

Have ever used Excel to build crossword puzzles? Dick Kusleika did. He shares with us a template & macro code to create crossword puzzles using Excel. Pretty interesting and cool stuff.

Browse more Excel Links or Share a link with me (email me at chandoo.d @ gmail.com)