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Meet the Excel warriors saving the world from spreadsheet disaster


Digital TRIAL
Lyford-Smith
the Institute of Chartered Accountants
ICAEW
Canopy Growth
Boeing
Tesla
Yahoo Groups
Spreadsheet News Network
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BDO
the Financial Services Authority
AuditExcel
KPMG
Cardiff Metropolitan University
The WIRED Podcast
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Nicole Kobie
David Lyford-Smith
Chris Stokel-Walker
YouTube
Matt Parker
Patrick O’Beirne
Hiran De Silva
Dean Buckner
Adrian Miric
Kenny Whitelaw-Jones
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Matt Burgess
Simon Thorne
Victoria Turk
Jeremy White
Katia Moskvitch


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Positivity     44.00%   
   Negativity   56.00%
The New York Times
SOURCE: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/spreadsheet-excel-errors
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Summary

Lyford-Smith is part of a community of accountants, auditors and Excel power users who have joined forces in a quiet battle against illogical formulas, copy-and-paste errors, and structural chaos that cause data carnage.Last week, the government stumbled into its own spreadsheet nightmare when it admitted contact-tracing efforts were stymied by a simple data processing mistake. Nobody expects to be hit by a phishing attack.”The spreadsheet defenders who guard against corporate chaos come from myriad backgrounds, but many get their start in accountancy and auditing — professions that make heavy use of Excel. Lyford-Smith started his accountancy career as an auditor, picking up spreadsheet skills along the way and training colleagues who needed help. “I think they’re aware there’s usually a better way of doing it.” Outside of the accounting world, he believes spreadsheets aren’t appreciated as much as they should be. Part of the challenge of this work is that spreadsheet defenders must not only be Excel experts but know the industry that they’re working in. The potential impact could have been in the hundreds of millions of dollars, he says.That’s especially true for anyone on a budget — and if our own government contractors are turning to spreadsheets as a cheaper option, know that countries with less money are leaning on them just as much. “As a result spreadsheets almost become the default – especially within governments,” he says. “People are going to keep using it and usually the problems aren’t systems problems, they’re management or risk problems.” Until we get better at Excel, we’ll need people to protect the world from its own dependence on poorly designed spreadsheets.📦 The best Prime Day 2020 deals hand-picked by the WIRED team🚽 Pee fanatics want to feed the world with your liquid gold🎞️ YouTubers are using AI to bring the past to life.

As said here by Nicole Kobie