Claire's IT Training and Solutions blog

Well, here I sit, a casualty of Brexit.

Squibb is an unusual surname, but there are a couple of big players. There is a big demolition contractor, with plant and equipment just down by the QE2 bridge, and of course Bristol-Myers-Squibb, a major international pharmaceutical company. When my husband and I decided to set up a family-based website, back in the mists of time, we found that all the obvious domain names for Squibb had been taken. No .com, .co.uk, .org and such available. So being happy internationalists, we took the domain squibb.eu. We set up email addresses for family and work, and started with a family website, but after a long period of inactivity on the site, I pinched it to use for my training and Excel solutions work.

Fast forward to BREXIT. It seems that, once the UK is no longer part of the EU, we cannot use the .eu top-level domain any more and it will be withdrawn soon after we leave. Time for a major rethink. For a while, I considered re-registering the domain in the name of a friend or family member with an EU address. I have various friends who live abroad, but they are mostly elderly, technophobic, or only live in the EU for part of the year, so after giving it brief thought, I felt this would be an unwanted burden for anybody who might agree to take it on. And actually it makes sense to bite the bullet and reorganise everything at one time.

So in the near future, there will be a shiny new website, focussed much more on my client base: www.excelstuff.co.uk. I’m not making this link live, as I have not started working on the site yet. I have a couple of months’ grace and would like to launch it in a fit state. The family side of things will be back in its own domain and may even sprout its own website again one day.

Strangely, in the last week two different organisations have asked me to produce material for no payment. The first is a well-known training company in London, where I spent a number of days spread over two weeks delivering Advanced Excel courses to groups of delegates. (I was not directly engaged by this company, but through a third-party agency.) On my first day, I asked for the delegates to be sent the company’s course manuals after the course: I am usually asked what follow-up material will be available, so this is what I like to be able to tell them will happen.

On completing the second week, however, I was quite persistently asked by this training company to supply them with my files, worked examples and course handouts. I have declined to do so: I do not give away my IP for nothing. The company charges significant money (per delegate) for these courses (of which I receive a pretty small day rate) and I don’t see why I should hand over my own material for nothing. I would be quite happy to spend time crafting such material for them to brand and use, but not for free.

As this was all gradually dying away (thanks in large measure to the mediation of my agents), a second request came in. This time it was from a (different) training agency who gives me occasional work. “As a favour”, could I please supply them with a set of Word outlines: Introductory, Intermediate and Advanced. “We don’t want to get them off the Internet – we’d like a trainer’s input”. Hmm, laudable sentiments; I wonder if they were trying to flatter me into taking this on… Well, I don’t normally do my own outlines. Much of my training is on behalf of third-party companies, so I use my own materials but choose carefully each time according to the outlines I am given. I only use my own outlines when I’m working direct, in which case I discuss the course with my client and tailor a unique outline to meet their needs and wishes. So again, if I were to take this on, it would be a significant (though small) job of work. I have quoted them a rate and we will see what happens.

If you want a professional to carry out a job of work, do be prepared to pay for it. Oh, and documentation IS work. It doesn’t magically appear in an instant, with no effort; it takes thought, care and meticulous checking. Above all, it takes time. Or, if you do want my material, book me for training direct and then I wll be happy to let you have whatever files you want!

Following a frustrating day yesterday, I thought I would share my experience, so that you can see things from a trainer’s perspective – and hopefully avoid being the cause of similar problems. Oh, and Tech alert – I shall be going into a certain amount of detail about Excel. You don’t need to understand it (call me for training…) but read through anyway, because it wasn’t the technical side of things that was the issue.

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I have been training PC users for many years, and specialise in Excel. Yesterday, I delivered an Advanced Excel course on an NHS site that I have visited many times before. Eight delegates attended – all, I presumed, keen to get to grips with the technically challenging aspects of the program.

Well, most of them may have been. But three delegates in particular ruined the course for the others. I am used to seeing a certain range of expertise on this course, but I had two delegates whose previous knowledge was extremely limited. They occasionally work on spreadsheets designed by other people, typing in some numbers. They knew a bit of formatting to make it look pretty, and perhaps sometimes use the AutoSum button to provide column or row totals. For some reason, they thought this qualified them to attend the Advanced course (though a perfectly decent Intermediate course is available within the organisation). By choosing the wrong course, they held it up for everybody else while I had to walk them through each step. This happens sometimes and it is deeply frustrating for me and for the delegates who were actually capable of following the advanced topics.

The third problem delegate was, however, a whole new experience for me. He was self-taught – to a moderately decent standard, actually – but was not at all receptive to new ideas. I started the day with a gentle look at the VLOOKUP function, aimed at getting my less advanced users on board with functions. [Tech bit: VLOOKUP is one of the most commonly used functions in Excel: it displays a looked-up value from a table. You might use it to look up an ID in your list of customers, and give you their email address. You can use it in multiple places, so that when you type that ID in one cell, all the looked-up values fill instantly with the correct details]. Well, this person was having none of it. “I’ve never seen the point of VLOOKUP – it’s just a gimmick”. He told me that he manually filters his data to find the result he wants, then copies the required information across. Every single time. For every single piece of data. And no matter how much I (or several of the other delegates) tried to persuade him otherwise, he insisted that he knew better. He continued in this way for the rest of the course: every single topic was “I don’t see the point of this”, “Why would I want to use that?” – and aggressively too, not in a spirit of enquiry. He was proud of the fact that, when he encounters a problem in Excel, he finds a way to bodge an answer using his current skills, rather than attempting to learn how to solve the problem efficiently by actually extending his knowledge.

If you are thinking about booking a training course, do please be honest with yourself about your real level of ability. Sometimes it’s better to do a course below the level you think you need, just to make sure you are up to speed, before leaping into the unknown. Oh, and please come prepared to LEARN NEW STUFF!

Today, I delivered a purpose-built automated spreadsheet to a client. The client is a major publisher and the job was very complex: importing daily expenses claim data, processing it in several stages to ascertain what type to assign to each claim, then producing six different reports, each containing multiple types of claim. Finally I had to save an output file containing the data and all six reports, as well as saving two of the reports separately.

I finished the final tweaks and tests this morning and sent it through to the client. By return, I received this testimonial:

“I don’t want to sound too gushing but I just want to tell you how brilliant you are!

• I try to give clear requirements
• You question them when they’re not clear to you
• Then you follow the requirements and give me what I asked for
• You test it before you send it to me
• … and you’re very understanding when I change my mind

Sounds perfectly sensible but there are not many people out there who can do this.”

Well, I must say I was flattered, but in truth the same comments pretty much applied to the client. His original requirements specification was superb, he responded very quickly to any questions I had, he was patient when my first attempts had errors, and he communicated brilliantly at all stages.

As always, communication is key!

It’s been a very long time since my last post, so I thought I would add a quick update. Most of my training work comes from one training company, with a second supplying occasional days. The main company has been inundated with work, as two very large organisations simultaneously decided to upgrade all their computers to Windows 10 and Office 2016/365. Originally, the planned roll-outs were months apart, but one organisation experienced delays and problems with supply of the necessary hardware, so in the end these two major projects coincided.

As well as these two projects, my training company also had to consider their other customers who still needed training. All available trainers were “called up” to assist. Many of these already work full-time, so although they could be moved around between jobs, they couldn’t actually take on more days. As a part-timer, I saw my one or two days a week jump to three and four, and only just missed my first five-day week in years when a client cancelled. (I do try and keep at least one day free, preferably midweek, to visit my aging father, and I have a dog to consider as well.) I have worked on both roll-outs and for a variety of end clients, training Office and Excel at all levels.

The last couple of months have really given me a boost and I hope to keep a steady two or three days a week of organisational training, with the remaining time reserved for my own clients and projects – and of course dear old Dad!

I have recently had a spate of calls from people who turned on their PC one morning and found it installing Windows 10 without asking. As the deadline for the Free Upgrade approaches, Microsoft has steadily been ramping up the importance level of this upgrade, so that it is now a “Recommended Update”, and many PCs are set up to install these with no further prompting.

A couple of months ago, I decided to take the plunge voluntarily. I had no problem with updating my Windows 8.1 laptop machine, and was very happy with the result. Then I upgraded my desktop PC – a much older machine and one that has been modified so much that I think the only original part is the case! This was not so successful. At first everything seemed fine. There were a couple of pieces of old hardware that no longer worked, as there were no new drivers for them, but I had expected problems of this nature and was prepared to do without them. However, I soon found my PC locking up. The screen froze and would not respond to mouse clicks or even Ctrl-Alt-Delete on the keyboard. The only remedy was to hold down the power button until it powered off. Soon this was happening 3 or 4 times an hour. I make a living from my computer, and have publishing deadlines, course development and client projects to complete, so I need a machine I can rely on. I used the option to roll back to my previous version of Windows, and have so far not been upgraded against my will.

If you find that your PC suddenly decides to install Windows 10 all by itself, don’t panic.The good news is that Windows 10 is actually quite good. It is easy to use – somewhere between Windows 7 and 8.1. It uses less in the way of system resources than earlier versions, and it is more secure. Programs work the same, there are a number of useful tablet-style apps, and your old documents SHOULD be untouched. If you find that you run into difficulties as I did, you can uninstall the upgrade for up to a month – and you will probably spot any issues very quickly.

I wish you good luck if you upgrade – whether it was you or Microsoft who made the decision to do so.

I am currently mid-contract, training members of a finance department in using Microsoft Excel – a course tailored to their requirements. I have been booked for five training days spread over February and March. Each time, the level of the delegates determines the level at which I pitch my course: there’s no point in covering advanced material if the group isn’t up to it, and equally I don’t want to hold back the more advanced delegates. So as well as tailoring for content overall, I tailor “on the fly” for the abilities of the group.

This week, I gave my third session. As I was setting out my course materials, I realised that I had managed to leave my course notes at home. However, I do train this material frequently so I just swallowed hard and hoped I would be OK “flying blind”.

I was fortunate in that all the delegates in this group were at much the same level: not as advanced as some, but all with a good grasp of basic principles and keen to get more knowledge. Starting with a blank “scratchpad” spreadsheet, I introduced some basic refresher material to get them going gently (and to establish the level), then I moved into some more complex prepared exercises. Because I had no notes, I found myself much freer, and able to digress as questions arose. Everybody soon engaged fully with the course material and the banter between them showed that they were comfortable in asking questions – nobody felt embarrassed to be showing their “ignorance”. The day passed with much laughter from the delegates, as well as useful and interesting input and ideas being exchanged. In the end we got onto some considerably advanced material, and they all really showed that they were comfortable with the new knowledge they had acquired over the day.

At the end of the course, everybody was appreciative and happy, but one girl came up to me, shook me warmly by the hand and said, “that’s the best training course I’ve ever been on – I think you’re absolutely amazing”! Of course, the success of the day was largely down to the way the group had worked together, but I think this was aided by the fact that I was working in a much more flexible manner due to my lack of notes.

I think those notes will soon be heading for the recycling bin!

One of my regular clients is expanding his business into a slightly different area of interest. Rather than using his existing spreadsheet to account for the new side of things, he called me in today to help him set up a new spreadsheet to handle this aspect of his business separately. I was happy to do so, and introduced him to some of the newer features of Excel that will make his work easier. After an hour’s work, he has a cleaner sheet that will let him enter the data efficiently and quickly. I showed him how to hide certain columns for printout, and I set up the required formulae correctly.

This lead me to consider small business spreadsheets in general. I imagine that most SMEs use spreadsheets in their businesses, for cashflow, profit/loss, income/expenditure, business plans, quotations, invoicing and so on. But most people running small businesses are not experts in using computer software – they have a business to run and their expertise lies in that field.

Several of my clients have come to me with spreadsheets that they think are “just about good enough”. They have designed them like a paper-based system and can, with a couple of hours’ effort, extract the information they need for various situations. An end-of year report may take longer, perhaps a day or two. They ask me if I can help do a “tidy up” and maybe show them a few tricks. Sometimes it is that simple, but on other occasions I do a fairly radical re-design: my aim in either case is to make the spreadsheet fast and easy to use, both when inputting data and when analysing the results. One of my clients has told me that her data entry now takes about a quarter of the time it used to, and her end-of-year reporting has gone down from two days to under two hours!

If you use spreadsheets in your business, ask yourself “Friend or foe?” If data entry is a chore and you have to fight to extract the information you need, then your spreadsheet is not right for you. Contact me, and I bet you’ll be amazed at the difference I can make!