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Logical's BlogFest

A goulash of commentary from Ann, Dot, and our guest bloggers about business, technology, project management, consulting, writing, training, learning, and life.

gou·lash [goo-lahsh, -lash] –noun.  a heterogeneous mixture; hodgepodge; jumble.  Dictionary.com Unabridged


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Monday
08Mar2010

Finding merged cells in Excel

Were you ever prevented from sorting records in Excel because of merged fields? Well, if you just want to remove all merged fields, you can just select all cells in the worksheet, click Format>>Cells, and clear the Merge cells checkbox.

If you prefer to take care of each merged cell individually, to avoid unintended consequences, try this (written for Excel 2003):

1.  Open the Find and Replace dialog box.

2.  Click Options.

3.  Click Format (to the right of the Find what field).

4.  On the Alignment tab, click Choose format from cell

5.  Click a merged cell.

A list of merged cells is displayed in the lower pane of the Find dialog box. Click one to navigate to that reference.

Tuesday
02Mar2010

Creating a list of unique records

So my insurance guy and client Jack Grove wants to send a mailing to people who have a homeowner policy but do not have car insurance through his agency. If someone has both policies or only a car insurance policy, he will not receive the mailing.

There are any number of ways to do this in Microsoft Excel, but I've attached a modest attempt. Using this method, each record in each list is tagged with an identifier (a combination of name and telephone number). Then the records are compared based on identifier. You can sort a list based on a true/false column, to identify just the missing records.

For more information, check out these Microsoft-generated articles:

Use Excel to compare two lists of data

For an alternate approach involving advanced filtering: How to use advanced filter to exclude records in Excel 2000 and How to use advanced filter to exclude records

 

Wednesday
20Jan2010

Self-determined vs. stubborn

This weekend, a family member mused out loud "What is the difference between being self-determined and stubborn?"

I said, "Oh, that is easy. When you are talking about yourself, you say 'self-determined.' When you are talking about someone else, you say 'stubborn.' "  :)

Thursday
14Jan2010

Personality testing: Friend or foe

People have often asks me how I have scored on the Myers Briggs test. I have never taken it, I reply. I've been a contractor for many years, and most companies only subject _employees_ to the test, I suppose due to expense.

But privately, I've always kind of questioned the value of personality tests. For instance, it doesn't seem to me designed to determine whether someone is a pathological practice of hoarding information or putting down peers. Now THAT would be truly valuable information. Barring that kind of hard-to-get info, I think a peer's work history tells me most of what I need to know.

Anyway, today a peer on my management list pointed out this 2004 article in the New Yorker, by Malcolm Gladwell, that goes into some depth about the limitations of personality testing. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

I particularly enjoyed the author's self-created personality test, which tests four personality dimensions: Canine/Feline, More/Different, Insider/Outsider, and Nibbler/Gobbler.

Thursday
14Jan2010

What is a technical communicator? 

The following comes from Marc Gravez, president of the Society for Technical Communication's Philly metro chapter:

What is a technical communicator? Technical communicators develop and design instructional and informational tools needed to assure safe, appropriate, and effective use of science and technology, intellectual property, and manufactured products and services. Technical communicators combine multimedia knowledge and strong communication skills with technical expertise to educate across the entire spectrum of users’ abilities, technical experience, and visual and auditory capabilities. For more information, see http://www.stc.org/story/tc_tw.asp.