Never stop learning.

image: nsrealtors.ca

I'm sure you already know this and even practice it. You are always open to learn something new from every situation and every person. You even take delight in unpleasant situations that give you some excellent learning. But that is not the type of learning I would be focusing on today. That type is too common and not strategic enough to make breakthrough changes.

I want you to have a strategy to your learning. Pick out what you want to learn and go after them. Preferable to have this structured over years and not just our usual 1st quarter of the year achievement list or yearly achievement list. If while you were a teenager you planned for the next 4, 5 years of your life, learning-wise, by picking a university course, then why should you now be obsessed with short-term plans. 

Let your learning be deeper and more strategic than what you did as a teenager. Have result oriented learning goal. Learn to acquire skills that will produce tangible values at a superb quality level than just for show off.

And if I may suggest -- stay away from any popularity contest. I currently get an email from one guy who has been nominated alongside Basket Mouth, Chude Jideonwo, Chimamanda Adichie and such like for an award. He is constantly bombarding me (and I'm sure all his network) with mails to vote for him. And I'm wondering how an award that is given based on our many random people you could coerce to vote for you is a true reflection of your merit/value. Imagine if that was how Nobel prizes were given. Then Mugabe would even be a Nobel Prize winner; he'll simply make it a law for everyone in Zimbabwe to vote for him.

Popularity contests detract you from genuine value creation and structured learning. And there are the more subtle ones too. The ones that give awards for social entrepreneurship. If your line of business is originally not in the social entrepreneurship space then don't for the sake of an award steer it into that space. Social entrepreneurship is more of a quantity over quality field. How many people you can reach matters way more than depth of quality of what you are doing. If you want to start a purely for profit business then go straight for it. Learn all you can to get the resources you need. Don't bother about those popularity awards. 

You need to have a very thought out learning strategy. Figure out where you want to be and what you'd need to be there. Block out the outside noise/trend. Work, even if slowly, towards where your ultimate aim lies and learn all you can that will help you reach there faster and easier.

In all, never stop learning.

Excel lets you name a cell or a selection of cells. It’s very useful when you are building models in Excel as it makes the model formulas easy to write and troubleshoot. 

They are two ways to create a named range and I will start with the very quick and easy way.
Just select the cell or group of cells you want to name (set up as a named range). Go to the name box and type in the name, replacing the cell address in the name box.





We’ve successfully named all the Imo state revenue values as Imo. As benefit number 1, we can use it in a SUM formula (and any other formula) instead of highlighting the entire range.



Another advantage will become obvious as when I discuss Scenario Manager in a later post. It makes your work much more readable. =Revenue/Exchange_Rate makes more sense than =A5/Q4.

So what is the second way of creating a named range?
It is, in fact, the standard way. It’s also the only way that allows you to edit an already created named range.

Go to Formulas menu and click on the Name Manager.



You can create new named range, edit already created ones and delete a named range.

I have been slowly learning a new data analysis tool -- R statistical and computing language. 

It reminds me of my Excel learning days. It's not about what you understand but what you can creatively do. The most part of learning a new tool is being able to think natively in it.

If you give me a problem to solve, within 5 mins I would be sure if Excel can do it and, if yes, all the ways I can get it done in Excel. I am able to think creatively in Excel. All I think of is the input and the output. If Excel can handle the input and can display the output, then Excel (in almost all cases) can solve the problem. What functions or code or add-in to use is not a factor in my deciding whether Excel can solve a problem or not. If need be I will create new custom functions to get the solution.

Unfortunately, Excel can't handle some statistical and computing tasks well. Which are R's particular domain. So I have been slowly learning R since 2013. Slowly because I have been fixing all my problems with Excel instead of trying out R for practical jobs.

But now I am committing to adding R as one of my native tools. I will begin to use it more and run live projects through it. I like the unmatched charting tools it has and the ease of doing many complex analysis. I might even try out building a web app with it via the amazing Shiny (a package that lets one integrate with a web page and put up results of one's computation online, dynamically too).

So meet R and expect to see more posts on it from me.

Goal seek is one of those powerful but seldom used tools in Excel.

It allows you to set-up a small model and tell Excel to optimize it for you based on one variable input and one set output. It’s the perfect introduction to a model and linear programming in Excel.

Let’s see a simple and common use case. Below is a loan calculation table. Say I have found a huge business opportunity in large scale cocoa farming and I want to borrow N100 million from the bank. The table below is the conditions the bank gave me: a payment period of 10 years and annual interest rate of 24%.



Excel has a formula for calculating the annual payment amount.





So I go and check my business financial projection, and find out that I can only afford to make N20 million annual payment. What rate will I negotiate with the bank? 

This is where Goal Seek comes in. We simply tell it to find out what interest rate will evaluate to N20 million annual payment.

To access Goal Seek, go to Data menu and What-If-Analysis.





I set payment amount cell to N20 million and tell Goal Seek to vary the interest rate.

Once I click on OK, it does a series of iteration and gives me the result.



I should ask for 15% annual interest rate.

It's now your turn to find that interesting use of Goal Seek.

Ever wondered why engineers used to be adored? Why people rank engineers as high as medical doctors, and, in some countries, even higher. It is because engineering is one of those rare fields of study where you are taught to create your idea. To never stop at thinking or having a great idea, but to always work at building something immediately useful and replicable from your ideas.

It is engineers who built the greater part of the modern life we enjoy. And like I used to tell my doctor friends -- "Doctors save lives; Engineers make your life worth living." Imagine being alive in a jungle with no access to any technology. That would be a life not worth living. To further prove our prominence, all the cool gadgets the medical world depend on are built by engineers.

image: swharden.com

So why programming?

Now engineering has evolved. To turn your ideas to immediately useful and replicable products, you now have the internet platform. Every year, the online world is booming. That is where all the innovation is mostly oozing from. And the new biggest companies in the world are those who operate in that space. 

And guess who control that space? Who are treated like Kings and Queens in that expanding world? It's the programmers. Think Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and those geeky programmers who are now billionaires because they wrote a computer program.

And as usual, things take a long time to catch up with the global trends here in Nigeria. Remember how Blackberry was still hippy here when the rest of the world had moved on to android and iPhones. Even the ATM got here 20 years after it had been in other countries. But the great thing is that when we catch up it's like a wildfire. Almost everyone has an android phone. There are millions of ATM machines in Nigeria. So I am sure that when the new online billionaire trend reaches here, it would make working in Shell and going into politics look less rewarding.

And that is why you need to start positioning yourself for the (permit me to call it) coming wealth transfer. Where the non-geeks and non-programmers will give their money to the geeks and programmers. Even if you can't prepare yourself, encourage your child and siblings to get into the programming space. Not only will they have a greater chance of becoming a millionaire, they will also never become jobless. No good programmer ever runs out of work. 

I recently got a mail from one of the finance managers I trained. Occasionally, I get such high profile clients. Usually CFOs who are changing jobs or wanting advanced knowledge of Excel to complement their very high finance and accounting domain knowledge. I do a one-on-one training for them which I currently bill at N50,000/day.

So in the email, he attached a particular chart and asked how to make a similar one. Below is a snapshot of the chart type he sent.

We’ll make for this table. Download the practice file here: Creative Chart File

UrBizedge Yearly Revenue
UrBizedge	FY2013	FY2014	FY2015	FY2016	FY2017	FY2018
Expenses	₦ 63,000,000	₦ 78,750,000	₦ 98,437,500	₦ 123,046,875	₦ 153,808,594	₦ 192,260,742
Tax	₦ 15,924,093	₦ 16,480,479	₦ 19,062,787	₦ 11,381,509	₦ 13,075,861	₦ 10,050,507
Revenue	₦ 75,600,000	₦ 113,400,000	₦ 170,100,000	₦ 204,120,000	₦ 306,180,000	₦ 459,270,000

Insert a chart: Column Chart.

Also choose the first chart layout under design. So the labels will be under the charts, like the one under.

Rightclick on the Expenses chart bar and move to secondary axis. Do same for tax too.

The end result is:

Next is to give the secondary axis the same range (0 to 500million) as the primary axis.

Now make the Expense and Tax bars overlap. Rightclick on any of them, format data series and set to overlap.

Last major step is to expand the Revenue bar by reducing the gaps between the bars.

Final stage is to delete the secondary axis and give the chart a title.

Download the practice file here: Creative Chart File

A lot of my friends are amazed when I tell them that most of our clients come from my online activity. We don't do any offline marketing and we constantly get a stream of customers enough for us to run a monthly Excel training class. And I handle all the online branding and marketing.

I am already getting a few collaborative offers to come facilitate digital marketing and social media branding classes. I have walked the talk and my business is built entirely on digital marketing. So I have the practical and business experience people will want to hear and learn from. Then on top of that I have read the theories and have consulted for one of Nigeria's foremost digital research agency. So you can safely say I have a deep knowledge of both the practical and the theory.

I have decided to share my knowledge and test run the training I would be delivering to paying clients. It would be free for you and you can also ask me all the questions you have about getting results online.

image: blog.snobmonkey.com

If you are interested email me at mike[at]urbizedge[dot]com

It would be an online live training (webinar). I will send you the webinar invite so you'll have the joining details. The date of the webinar would be Sunday 12 July 2015 at 6:00pm. 

I would be explaining the following:

1. Introduction to Digital Marketing
2. a.    What really is digital marketing?
   b.    Digital marketing vs Traditional marketing
   c.    Recent trends in the global business and marketing world
   d.    The components of Digital Marketing
                                            i.    Having a strategy
                                          ii.    Defining your audience
                                        iii.    Matching your audience and your strategy (Optimization)
                                         iv.    Selecting your digital tools
                                           v.    Social media marketing
                                         vi.    Measuring results and making continuous changes
                                        vii.    Building a lasting and profitable relationship with your audience
                                      viii.    Going from good to great: having a cult following
   
   
   2)    Social Media Marketing
   a.    Social Media fundamentals
                                            i.    What really is social media?
                                          ii.    How did the social media come about?
                                        iii.    How does the social media work?
                                         iv.    What are the current global trends for businesses?
   b.    Facebook
                                            i.    What really is Facebook?
                                          ii.    How big and effective is Facebook marketing?
                                        iii.    Why your company needs to be present and active on Facebook
                                         iv.    Marketing as against just placing adverts on Facebook
                                           v.    Setting up a Facebook advert (live demo)
                                         
   c.    LinkedIn
                                            i.    The Facebook exclusively for professionals and companies.
                                          ii.    How big and rewarding is LinkedIn marketing?
                                        iii.    Why you and your company need to be present and active on LinkedIn
                                         iv.    Marketing and job attracting strategy on LinkedIn
                                           v.    Best practices for effective brand building on LinkedIn
                                         
   d.    Twitter
                                            i.    Demystifying Twitter
                                          ii.   Finding out if Twitter will benefit you or not
       

Don't forget to sign up by emailing me at mike[at]urbizedge[dot]com or replying to this blog post.
                                 

After about two weeks of setting up, getting rejected and making changes, the hugely popular online learning platform, Udemy, has approved and made internationally available my business data analysis with Excel training course!

You can view it here: Business Data Analysis with Microsoft Excel 

I plan to make it as rich as possible, constantly updating it with new training sessions covering Power BI, ODBC connection setup, PowerPivot, DAX, lots of sample projects, VBA programming in-depth and everything I know on Excel.

It will be my main online Excel training platform. I would be referring those wanting online training there. It frees up the stress of managing an online course, billing and technical set-up.

It's time for me to get the mic and screencast software, and start recording more videos. Even remaking the old ones.

Don't forget to check it out: Business Data Analysis with Microsoft Excel 

Happy new month!

This month we'll be hosting a webinar on Excel's revolutionary PowerPivot and DAX (the functions you use in PowerPivot). You can register here: Webinar Sign Up Form

PowerPivot is Excel's powerful tool for analyzing big data and it can connect to a lot of popular data sources: Access, Microsoft SQL server, Oracle Database, Teradata, Informix, IBM DB2, Sybase, MySQL (via ODBC), Excel files and text files.

I currently use PowerPivot for a project I consult on for a big telecoms company. It allows me to easily analyse millions of rows of data easily and make lots of deep insight reports. I am able to explore relationships between different data sources and make rich reports that would have been impossible with other common data analysis software.

In the coming webinar, I will show you how to enable PowerPivot in Excel 2013 (provided your license version of Excel has it) and how to set it up to import the data you want to analyze. I will also show you how to make new columns from the columns in the originally imported data. They are called Calculated Columns.

I will introduce Data Analysis Expressions (DAX). They are the formulas you'd use in PowerPivot. They are more like modified Excel formulas but just structurally different. I will, in my usual easy to understand way, demystify DAX. We will work through some common DAX functions.

Best of all, I will have all your questions on PowerPivot and it's practical use answered.

Don't forget to sign up: Webinar Sign Up Form