Tagged: data
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Your spreadsheets, supercharged: Deploy as APIs & integrate with AI
Spreadsheets are programs. You can easily make them part of your software stack for AI and automation.
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App Stores for ChatGPT and Claude
They’re inevitable
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Bringing Spreadsheets Into the AI-First Era
Introducing GRID’s new mission
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LLMs as the Interface to Everything
The Rise of a New UI Paradigm
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AI Workspaces and Function calls
These are key drivers transitioning LLMs from single-player, generic use to broad commercial adoption in the workplace — but what are they…
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ChatGPT vs. Spreadsheet powered AI
ChatGPT is not ready for spreadsheet models. It will give you wrong results … and confidently so.
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Let Large Language Models handle language
Leave facts to databases and calculations to algorithms
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When all roads lead (back) to spreadsheets
GRID doubles down on spreadsheet modeling
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Monetizing expertise through spreadsheet models
Domain experts across a range of domains use spreadsheets to “encode” their unique expertise. Many are looking for ways to monetize it.
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Free-form spreadsheets vs. spreadsheets-as-databases
Take a look at the spreadsheets in your life, and you will notice that every sheet falls into one of two categories:
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Generative AI and spreadsheets
Large language models won’t replace financial modelers any time soon, but are here to assist them already
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Launching Scratchpad: GRID evolves into an end-to-end data tool
GRID is on a mission to become the numbers tool for a new generation.
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Blocks and Surfaces: Battlegrounds for the Future of Work
With the rise of next-generation productivity tools I feel that we are about to witness a two-pronged race:
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We built a spreadsheet engine from scratch. Here’s what we learned.
From the very beginning, one of the core ideas behind GRID has been that spreadsheets — and spreadsheet models in particular — can be made…
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Spreadsheets: Where businesses dream about their future
Businesses analyze their past using Business Intelligence, but spreadsheet models are where they dream about the future.
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We can all be numbers people!
Working with numbers and data does not have to be so intimidating.
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What’s next for GRID?
GRID has already given spreadsheets a new face. In 2022 we’re transforming GRID to become the primary tool of choice for modern teams…
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There’s a programming language that rules the world, but doesn’t have a name!
1. ??? 2. JavaScript 3. Python 4. Java 5. C/C++ 6. PHP. …
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GRID adds in-product conversations — extending the power of spreadsheets from exploration to…
I’m thrilled that we are rolling out the next step on our journey to make GRID the tool where modern teams explore and explain matters at…
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The true value of analytics is in the discussions that follow
Every now and then, you read or hear something that changes the way you think about things. The most profound such moments are when you…
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The value of Product Principles
What are Product Principles? Why are they important? How to establish them? …and an example from GRID
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What every product innovator can learn from the spreadsheet history
Understand which shoulders you are standing on, and meet your users where they are already comfortable.
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What Excel and UK’s Covid data can tell us about modern IT infrastructure
As you’ve probably heard, about 16,000 cases of the coronavirus in the UK went unreported because Public Health England used Excel and an…
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Observations from raising a Series A in 2020
Two weeks ago, GRID announced a $12M Series A funding round led by NEA. I thought it might be interesting for fellow entrepreneurs to read…
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GRID: The Backstory
Although we’ve only been working on GRID for a little over 18 months, the backstory is certainly somewhat longer.
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If you understand the spreadsheet, you understand the deal
The one with the spreadsheet is the one with the knowledge.
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A Notebook for Excel (and Google Sheets)
Computational notebooks have taken the Data Science world by storm over the last few years. And for a good reason. They enable transparent…
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Linguists are to text what _____ are to data?
You don’t have to be a linguist to write great text — why do you have to be a data expert to work with data?
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Spreadsheets lack people skills
Spreadsheets are these amazing productivity tools that enable regular knowledge workers to get all sorts of stuff done without having to…
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Spreadsheets as a UI pattern — leveraging knowledge workers’ existing skills
After a somewhat quiet decade or so, the last few years have seen a significant uptick in innovation in the productivity tool space. The…
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Every company has a “spreadsheet fabric”
When talking to people about their spreadsheet usage, I’ve noticed that spreadsheets are so ubiquitous, people tend to underestimate how…
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Spreadsheets, we have a problem!
In previous posts, we’ve talked a lot about how spreadsheets empower domain experts to solve many of their own IT needs:
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How can I get things done NOW (without talking to IT)?
Spreadsheets are the knowledge worker’s answer to the question: How can I get things done NOW?
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The Case for Modern Productivity Tools
Several startups are realizing the power of spreadsheets and the spreadsheet “metaphor” as an end-user development approach: A way to…
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The business world’s love/hate relationship with spreadsheets
Spreadsheets are knowledge workers’ answer to the question: “How can I get this done NOW?”, where “this” can be anything from creating a…
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1978: Spreadsheets = Sorcery
The “father of the spreadsheet” — Dan Bricklin — recently presented remotely for a group of college students at Carnegie Mellon.
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The 20 Best Spreadsheet Quotes
In GRID’s deep dive into the world of spreadsheets, we’ve come across a lot of insightful, witty and sometimes somewhat distressing quotes…
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Spreadsheets are programs
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Spreadsheets are programs!
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The 3 types of spreadsheets
We have been taking quite a deep dive into the world of spreadsheets lately. We have analyzed tens of thousands of spreadsheets “from the…
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What’s your level? Six levels of spreadsheet sophistication
In preparing everything from the product features and UI to the go-to-market plan and messaging for GRID, we have realized that it will be…
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Excel vs. Google Sheets usage — nature and numbers
This post was written as a part of research for: GRID — the new face of spreadsheets.
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Export to Excel — business software’s most common feature?
In the analytics industry there is a standing joke that “Export to Excel” is the most used feature of any analytics software. From my own…
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Your biggest competitor is a spreadsheet
This article has also been published on the GRID Blog.
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Is no data better than wrong data?
A few weeks back I stumbled upon this tweet in a thread about the accuracy — or lack thereof — of the Foobot air quality meter:
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The first digital data dashboard?
A few weeks ago I wrote about what might be the first computer data visualization.
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3 things you don’t understand about spreadsheets (part 3)
This is the 3rd and final part of a series of blog posts on the origin and nature of spreadsheets.
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3 things you don’t understand about spreadsheets (Part 2)
This is part 2 of 3 in a series of posts about the nature and history of spreadsheets. Make sure to also check out part 1: “Spreadsheets…
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3 things you don’t understand about spreadsheets (Part 1)
The world has a love/hate relationship with spreadsheets.
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Is this the first computer visualization?
For a while, I’ve been on the hunt for what might qualify as the first computer data visualization.
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Ten famous and useful demo data sets
When working with data preparation, analytics and visualization software, a few data sets show up again and again. A short while ago, I…
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When Fitbit says “Your data belongs to you!”…
…what they really mean is
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There is no “unstructured data” in analytics
When evaluating analytics and Business Intelligence solutions, people often ask whether the software supports unstructured data.
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There is no “Big” in “Data”
Despite everything you hear about “Big Data” these days, here’s a piece of news: Anything you will ever see in your life is “small data”.
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Identifying people — in data
First off: This is *not* an article about how to identify individuals in anonymous or anonymized data. It is about the standard codes and…
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Formatting numbers for machines and mortals
I was deeply proud the other day when my five year old son encountered this screen in one of his favorite games, and exclaimed: “Why didn’t…
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100 Random People on Planet Earth
Here are 100 people picked randomly from the population on planet earth:
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A [data entity] by any other name…
When working with data, you’ll quickly realize how useful it is to have reliable unique identifiers to reference individual items or common…
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Unique identifiers’ cheat sheet
For context, see previous posts:
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Rest in peace professor Rosling
I am deeply saddened learning that professor Hans Rosling passed away this morning.
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Dealing with countries — in data
Countries are one of the more common entities one comes across in data sets of all sizes, shapes and topic areas. Often found in a field or…
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Data pivots for Kindergartners
One of the first things many of us are likely to do with data is a Kindergarten or first grade exercise in data gathering that will result…
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Data tables: From Sumer to VisiCalc
The history of tabular data in 5 beautiful prints — now on my office wall
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“Brutal transparency” on the DataMarket blog
I just posted a new entry on the DataMarket blog: Iceland: Restoring trust through open data and “brutal transparency”
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Iceland & Energy – presentation w. John Perkins
Just finished my previously mentioned presentation on Icelandic energy data. Some 250-300 people showed up – mostly to listen to John Perkins obviously. Interesting audience to say the least, but a lot of fun! My DataMarket piece went well – and putting it together at least helped me put some thi...
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Iceland & Energy: Upcoming presentation
I have been invited – on behalf of DataMarket – to give a presentation at the University of Iceland on April 6th. The occasion is a small conference due to the visit of “Economic Hit Man” John Perkins to Iceland. Perkins is here to attend the premiere of “Dreamland“, a documentary on the effects ...
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Icesave and Icelandic deposits
As DataMarket‘s Money:Tech gig (see previous entry) approaches, we’re starting to see all sorts of interesting data coming together to form our “DataMarket on the Icelandic Economy”. Some graphs just speak for themselves. Here’s one that caught my eye today: The numbers are millions ISK. Note tha...
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DataMarket at Money:Tech 2009
My company – DataMarket – will be doing a presentation at O’Reilly’s Money:Tech conference in New York in February. I attended the first Money:Tech conference earlier this year, and I must say it’s one of my favorite conferences ever, so I’m greatly honored to be speaking there. The topic of my p...
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Hans Rosling strikes again
I’m a big fan of Hans Rosling. He’s really the guy that opened up the eyes of the world to the importance of availability of and open access to data. His latest presentation, from Google’s Zeitgeist08 conference, is now available on YouTube. It is not as stunning as his original TED eye-opener, b...
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DataMarket launched
I’m pleased to announce the launch of DataMarket’s new website. As the name implies, DataMarket is about creating a marketplace for data – structured data to be more specific. This means all sorts of statistics and tabular data, including but not limited to: market research, exchange rates, vario...
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The future of finance: Total transparency?
The financial crisis hit Iceland full force last Monday. One of our banks was pretty much nationalized, followed by a large investment company filing the equivalent of Chapter 11. This led to significant losses by a large “risk free” money market fund, that stored a part or all of the personal sa...
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The Case for Open Access to Public Sector Data
This article will be published tomorrow in The Reykjavík Grapevine. Government institutions and other public organizations gather a lot of data. Some of them – like the Statistics Office – have it as their main purpose, others as a part of their function, and yet others almost as a by-product of ...
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Adventures in copyright: Open access, data and wikis
I’ve just had a very interesting experience that sheds light on some important issues regarding copyright, online data and crowdsourced media such as wikis. I thought I’d share the story to spark a debate on these issues. For a couple of years I’ve worked on and off on a simple web based system f...
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Firehose aimed at a teacup
Dogbert to Dilbert: Information is gushing toward your brain like a firehose aimed at a teacup. Every company, organization and individual is continuously gathering and creating all kinds of data. Most of this data collection is happening in separated silos, with very limited connections between ...
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Statistics With a Vengeance
Statistics superhero Prof. Hans Rosling is back with a new, entertaining talk about the importance of statistics and access to information as means to make our world a better place.
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The world needs more people like him
This is a video of a presentation by Hans Rosling of Gapminder, the Swedish data visualisation organization that Google recently bought. Rosling has a great vision: To make the world a better place by improving access to and presentation of data about the world, such as statistics about poor coun...