Excel is a whiteboard

Excel is a weird piece of software. When we think of Excel, we think of numbers. Of data. Of endlessly tinkering with information until we get it just right.

But really, Excel is a whiteboard. A spatial canvas.

Excel is fundamentally organised around cells. A6, C7, E10. Like a chess board. Each cell can hold a bit of information; a number, a piece of text, or a formula. And each cell can function as an input for a formula in another cell.

This allows us to piece together numbers like Lego bricks. We can visualise the relations between pieces of information, and tinker with how to combine them.

And that act of connecting and tinkering, gives us new insights. New understanding of the information.

And although we might often fail to get the pivot table we originally wanted, we do leave Excel with a better understanding of our problem. We have created a little prototype of a mental model.

The spatial canvas is what makes Excel so powerful.