Aug 10, 2021
Beyonce, Prince, Madonna...Like so many of these iconic one word name celebrities in the music world, Chandoo is as unique and talented as they come in the data world! His story is quite inspiring, his heart and soul are warm, and his brain is brimming with great ideas!
All Things Chandoo:
Some Creators and Channels that inspire Chandoo:
References in this episode:
- 4:40 - Chandoo's introduction to Excel was born from necessity (like many of us!), The birth of Chandoo.org (often imitated, never duplicated), and the uniqueness of Chandoo that makes him a huge success
- 31:50 - Chandoo's Excel Dashboarding is exquisite, his transition to Power BI, and what really matters in one's career
- 54:10 - Chandoo the Excel celebrity and the Power BI celebrity, Lambda functions, and a curveball question for Chandoo about working for Microsoft
- 1:06:25 - Chandoo and Rob cross paths, Chandoo's iconic hair, the Game-Changing features of Power BI, and some Power BI hacks
- 1:33:45 - What's next for Chandoo?
Episode Transcript:
Rob Collie (00:00:00):
Hello friends. Think for a moment about the people that you're
aware of, who only go by a single word name. They're usually
musicians, Prince, Madonna, Cher, Beyonce. There are a couple of
non-musician examples that come to mind like Oprah, for instance.
These tend to be celebrities on the world stage. Well, today's
guest is the rare exception that pulls that off within the Excel,
Power BI, and data community. And I'm talking, of course, about
Chandoo. Chandoo is one of the completely original early stage
MVP-type celebrities within our community. He blazed a path that
now hundreds, if not thousands of people have followed. And
sometimes with things like this, it's really that first-mover
advantage that really sets someone apart and he did, in fact, have
that kind of first-mover advantage. But he is still, to this day,
so incredibly unique that I challenge anyone to actually truly
duplicate him.
Rob Collie (00:01:06):
He is legitimately one of a kind. And for me, he's been there
literally since the beginning, even physically, since the
beginning. He and his family came to live near us in the United
States for a summer. That first summer after which I had formed P3
as a company. With someone as gifted as Chandoo, it's always easy
and tempting to sort of assume that they've always been doing what
they're doing. And he is very gifted, but it's not like those
gifts, where always from the beginning, oriented towards something
like Excel. Just like many of us, he had to have his collides with
moment, the moment where you bounce off of Excel or you stick to it
and obviously, he's stuck. So, of course, we go back to and explore
that origin story. And also, like many professionals in this space,
Chandoo has, over the years, branched out from Excel into Power BI,
creating such wonderful offerings like the Power BI Play Date,
which we talk about a little bit.
Rob Collie (00:02:07):
So, we talk about that, what it's like coming from the Excel
background and digging into Power BI. He had some unexpected
observations there that once I heard them, I was just nodding.
"Yep. Yep. That's right." And that conversation also then led to a
familiar conclusion that again, I wouldn't have expected from
Chandoo, but of course, I should have. And another part of the
conversation, we also talked about where he looked for inspiration,
where he looked for stimulation and new ideas. It was great to
catch up with an old friend, who was also just a wise and dynamic
soul. So, without further preamble, let's get into it.
Announcer (00:02:48):
This is the Raw Data by P3 Adaptive podcast, with your host, Rob
Collie and your cohost, Thomas LaRock. Find out what the experts at
P3 Adaptive can do for your business. Just go to p3adaptive.com.
Raw Data by P3 Adaptive is data with the human element.
Rob Collie (00:03:12):
Welcome to the show, the one and only Chandoo, how are you?
Chandoo (00:03:17):
I am doing good, Rob. How are you?
Rob Collie (00:03:19):
Fantastic. Been looking forward to this for a while. We've been
trying to schedule this for probably three or four months now. And
here we are like a power reserve. We saved a Chandoo interview very
carefully for that six months over the podcast. Actually, how many
months are we in now, Luke? Is this our 10th month?
Luke (00:03:37):
Start on October, early October.
Rob Collie (00:03:40):
We're potentially in our 10th month. That's what we do. We lose
track of time. You're one of the sort of original internet
celebrity instructors, often imitated. There's a lot of people who
I've seen, sort of explicitly trying to follow in your footsteps
and to varying degrees of success. You're not a formula that really
others can follow because there really is, and this is awesome to
say this. There really is only one you. I've learned that when we
actually met. I didn't know that over the internet. How'd you get
started on Excel? That was the beginning, right?
Chandoo (00:04:22):
It's a long story, but that's what we're here for, anyway.
Rob Collie (00:04:25):
That's right.
Chandoo (00:04:26):
So, I first remember using Excel all the way back in 2000. There
were times before that I used it, but 2003 is the first real moment
in my life when I actually used Excel for something. And this is
not even to do anything with what I'm doing nowadays with Excel or
Power BI. So, the reason why I use it at that point in life is I
was preparing for some computer exams. So, I just finished my
graduate studies in computer science, and I started working, but
simultaneously, I was preparing for some MBA exams. And in India,
there is a lot of competition when it comes to getting into a good
college for doing your masters. So, they have all these highly
competitive exams where sometimes, upwards of 200,000 people will
take the exam and just about 500, 600 people will actually be
admitted into the college.
Rob Collie (00:05:20):
Wow. As like a 0.1% acceptance rate.
Chandoo (00:05:25):
Yeah. You look at the Ivy League and other top university
acceptance rates and then, take it to India. Then, it is nowhere
near, like you'd be amazed at the craziness that goes on with some
of these places. There are a couple of reasons like India has
billion people, right? Obviously, there's lots of competition. On
top, there were fewer universities at that point of time. The
government has added many more now, but still, with our number of
people, it is very less compared. So, there is all these factors
for that reason. The competition is very high. As part of
preparation strategy, everybody would go and take a lot of extra
lessons outside just to learn how to prepare for the exam. And
then, they'll take these mock examinations sometimes upwards of 25
or 50 in a year just to prepare for the real thing. And there's
only one real thing that's a physical thing at that time.
Chandoo (00:06:19):
So, you can't really make mistakes when the real exam happens, but
you have all the luxury of making mistakes in this mock-up stage or
that you can learn. And because there is a lot of data coming in
from all these exams, right? When I take an exam, there's like 200
questions or 150 questions and I would attempt some. I'll get some
right, some wrong. I could use Excel to just keep track of what I'm
doing in these exams, what mistakes I'm making, and if I spot a
pattern like this automatic question, I'm making the same mistake
again and again, then I will change my study of course to plan and
address that particular gap or try to change my strategy, so that I
won't attempt that area of questions and instead, focus my time on
other things.
Chandoo (00:07:01):
So, that's really when I used Excel and I made this massive
spreadsheet just to keep track of what I was doing in those exams.
And it kind of really helped me finally get a good grade in that
and get into college for my masters. But obviously, you can say
Excel is built for anything and everything. So, that was one of the
use cases, but I was not really using any of the formulas or none
of the power of Excel. And I didn't even know what it is capable
of, but that was the one vivid memory of Excel early on.
Rob Collie (00:07:35):
Do you still have a copy of that spreadsheet somewhere?
Chandoo (00:07:38):
Many people ask me this. This is simply because back in 2003, 2004,
internet is still kind of very nascent in India. It started off as
a Yahoo Group. I don't know if you remember, like Yahoo Groups.
It's like a collaboration.
Rob Collie (00:07:52):
I do.
Chandoo (00:07:53):
But then later on, the forums were a big thing. So, 2003 was the
time when in India, we have these preparatory forums where many of
us who are all over the country would log in there once in a while,
share our stories of how we are preparing, what we are doing, what
is going on right, what is going on wrong. So, we could all learn
from each other and collaborate, and win this exam. So, I posted a
story of how I prepared when I finished the exam and the
spreadsheet was part of that story. And then, many people asked us,
"Can we get a copy of this?" But in those days, I didn't even have
internet at my home. I would go to my workplace to submit something
to this forum. So, the spreadsheet was in my home computer and I
think I lost it. I don't think I have it anywhere, or it's probably
still in my Yahoo Mail. The password of which I no longer remember,
or even use. It's gone.
Rob Collie (00:08:46):
So much of things like that from that era, for me, even though I
had great internet at the time, so many of those things are lost
because we didn't really have the cloud file storage yet. Today,
anything that I ever think is even remotely, possibly valuable,
immediately gets saved to Dropbox. I've got terabytes of Dropbox
space that I'm never going to ever use in my life. So, everything
is saved past a certain point. But before that, it's kind of almost
like in geology, it's below this certain rock layer where the earth
just kind of ground, everything's gone. So, it makes sense that
it's gone. Do you remember how many columns were in that
spreadsheet? Roughly, was it question number and right or wrong
answer, that kind of thing? Was that what it was?
Chandoo (00:09:33):
It's not exactly like that. It was not even structured that way
because I didn't even know how to use Excel at that point. I think
I started off putting stuff in a notepad file or something. And
then, I thought, "Man, this sucks because there is no way to
visually see or identify things here." So just, I opened an Excel
spreadsheet and started putting it there. This is not a podcast on
that exam, but that exam used to have like four or five different
sections. It is all quite random. You wouldn't believe, there is no
set pattern or anything. The number of questions, number of
sections, everything could change at any point.
Chandoo (00:10:07):
There is no official director that these are the things that you
would be tested, but the general outline is you would have
questions on English, you'd have questions on mathematics. And
then, the mathematics itself is split into couple of areas. So, one
is arithmetic and then the other is it's called logical reasoning.
And then, sometimes, they would further split that into
understanding data and graphs and making business decisions from
it. So, three or four sections, essentially. So, there's, I think,
four big columns. Some of them had further split into multiple
columns based on what the heck I was doing. If I think, "Oh, maybe
I should keep track of this." Then, I would just put something
there and fill some color in there just to remind me what it
is.
Rob Collie (00:10:51):
My daughter is, right now, in the middle of taking the college
entrance exams, SAT and ACT here in the United States, and it would
never occur to me to spreadsheet. And she's trying to get her
scores to a particular level to get to a particular college, right?
It takes some effort. It would still never have occurred to me. And
now, I'm wondering if it should have. Never have occurred to me to
make a spreadsheet, where she's performing well and where some
opportunity to raise score.
Chandoo (00:11:18):
They probably have access to better tools and apps and stuff like
that these days. But yeah, a spreadsheet is the original app, I
think.
Rob Collie (00:11:27):
Yeah, it is. It is. I think that necessity is so often the spark.
The Olympics just wrapped up. You watch these events where everyone
looks like they're doing exactly the same thing. They're using
exactly the same form. And then, it's like a couple of millimeters
or something that separates the gold medalist from the fifth place.
The expert watching says, "Oh, see right here where this person's
little toe kind of flaps the wrong way. That was a big mistake."
That's what costs them. And it kind of seems like that when there's
200,000 people competing for a few hundred spots. It's like that,
right? Like one question is going to drop your rank by potentially
thousands of people.
Chandoo (00:12:12):
Yeah, totally right.
Rob Collie (00:12:13):
The pressure.
Chandoo (00:12:14):
There is a lot of pressure and I think, it is probably one of those
formative things in my life, too, that having been through that
journey. So the exam, I took it during my final year of college
because I thought I know why go and work for some time. I might
just finish my graduation and then, just go for post-grad. But I
didn't get anywhere near the required cutoff to actually go in and
make it for the colleges. So, and I felt really bad because I
thought all this was like something that I would easily get.
Chandoo (00:12:44):
I used to have this self-perception that, "Yes, I'm awesome." In
college, you are in a bubble, right? You're not really aware of
this wider world out there where there's another 195,000 people who
are also writing this. So, that was the wakening call for me. And
then I thought, "Oh man, I need to actually sit and strategize this
and prepare for it." Like I'm attacking this rather than just wake
up and go and right. So, that's preparation became a real thing and
I prioritize that, set aside time for it every day. And then, we'll
track the shit out of it every day, really.
Rob Collie (00:13:20):
Yeah. Like I've told this story on this podcast before, but it's
metaphorical. I go out to a field day, almost like miniature
Olympics for a middle school. I was probably like in eighth grade,
and I was going to run this race. It's one lap around the track,
which to me seems like a distance race. Your kids can be a fast jog
and that starting gun went off and I come out in the fast jog and
the other guys are all sprinting from the very beginning. And
there's this moment of realization like, "Oh, it's going to be like
that." Next thing you know, I'm sprinting. I think I've experienced
multiple junctures in my life that are like this. You think you're
just going to go and do your thing and just be yourself and be
excellent and just be your own self-image that you've very
carefully curated for yourself without realizing it. And then, the
real world goes, "Oh no, uh-uh (negative). That's not going to cut
it." It's a real shock, isn't it?
Chandoo (00:14:22):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (00:14:22):
I've had many of those.
Chandoo (00:14:24):
And I think, that is necessary, especially, probably if you get
that kind of a shock too late in your life, you might be too set in
your ways to change anything. But when you are becoming an adult,
when you are still forming your opinions and ideas about the world,
having as much of these experiences as needed is very much
necessary, I feel. I mean, even today, I would welcome that kind of
things. But growing up, I look back and I think, "Ah, man, that was
really what made me who I am today."
Rob Collie (00:14:54):
Microsoft was a big moment like that for me. That was a moment that
lasted years. That was a bad one. I still have all kinds of
relatively civil disagreements with my ex-wife about raising our
teens. And I'm always of the opinion that like, "Oh no, no, no. The
earlier they can experience failure, the better because the
consequences are lower. The amortized benefit over time is
greater." She's of the opposite. She's there to catch them and
prevent any sort of failure, very proactively avoiding failure for
them. And I'm like, "Oh no, no, no, no, let them fall. It's it's
good for them."
Chandoo (00:15:38):
I feel like maybe, I have lucked out. I mean, obviously, every
parent is so protective of their child, but early on, I think when
I was in fifth class, which is like year five in school, I was sent
to a boarding school and I never really went back home. I just
bumped it from one boarding school to boarding college, to uni,
which is also not my place. So, I was never really around my
parents for them to kind of catch me if I make stupid choices. It
was all like, "You figure it out." And this is all in late '90s,
early 2000s when there is no internet, no mobile phone. I still
remember, if I ran out of the money, I would have to write a
letter, post it, and this would take minimum of three days unless I
do some sort of an express mailing, which obviously costs more.
Chandoo (00:16:27):
So, I'd go for the cheapest thing, postcard. And then, I'll go to
my home three days later and they would have to money order the
money. There's no bank account concept also. So, they'll have to
send it through a postal money order. So, there's actually a lag of
like seven or sometimes upwards of 10 days time. And sometimes,
they may not even have the money. They might say, Oh wait, we'll
send it to you after the first week of the month or whatever." It's
all like, yeah. You figure it out, really.
Rob Collie (00:16:56):
Yeah. There's a week of maybe not eating.
Chandoo (00:17:01):
You'll have to figure it out. That's pretty much it.
Rob Collie (00:17:04):
That's it, yeah. All right. So, that was your first brush with it,
like for real. But then, obviously, later, your Twitter handle, is
it still r1c1?
Chandoo (00:17:15):
Yes, it is. I wouldn't let go of that.
Rob Collie (00:17:18):
No, that is an awesome one. I mean, even people who use Excel a lot
don't always know about R1C1 notation. So, you end up in a very
different strata of Excel skill. At some point later, you ended up
in a number of other countries at one point, right? Like you were
moving around the world, working for, was a consulting firm.
Chandoo (00:17:40):
Yeah. I think the real shift to Excel began a little later,
especially after I finished my post-graduation. I started working
as a consultant with one of the biggest technology companies in
India and they basically go around the world, help other companies
do their IT better. And it's a very large company. And I was
working within the finance and insurance vertical of that company.
Obviously, I am not really there to develop software because my
role there is to understand what the clients want, translate that
into technical terms, so that the software developers, designers,
and testers can do their job. So, essentially, I'm a business
analyst and it's a fancy word of saying that you would be using
PowerPoint and Excel every day. That's pretty much what I was
doing. I was building a lot of models, making presentations, taking
complex concepts, and simplifying them into Word or Excel, so
developers can take that and do their job better.
Chandoo (00:18:39):
So, early on, I realized, "Man, if I don't know Excel, I'm going to
just stay behind in this job." And that's not something that they
teach in college. The college is all about, how do you prepare
marketing strategy for the fortune, 500 company? And here I am,
just sitting in the cubicle, figuring out, "Oh, how do I analyze
this? And how do I figure out what's going on with these bunch of
projects so that we could improve something?" So, Excel became the
real world application that I would use six to eight hours every
day. And there were all these colleagues right next to me who do
all these amazing models in Excel to figure out the costing for a
project or all sorts of things. And I would know nothing about that
and I felt really bad.
Chandoo (00:19:21):
But early on in that job, I was not really doing anything
worthwhile. I was just kind of like an apprentice. So, I would only
do odd jobs. So, I had a lot of, you could say free time, but I
would think that as learning time. So, all I would do is I'd open
up Excel. I'd click on random buttons to see, "Oh, what this does.
Oh, indirect function, what this would do." So, that got me really
curious and I started building some silly things for my personal
life, like I'll bill a budget in Excel just to understand how
things work, how to make it better. And at one point, I thought, I
steadily bumped into something that looks so interesting. And I
thought nobody in the world would know about this. I felt like, and
I discovered something and they already had my chandoo.org website
by then because I am always fascinated by tech.
Chandoo (00:20:08):
So, I had website created couple of years before, really just as a
personal project and I put all my personal life stories there. So,
I thought, "Oh, maybe I should just put it on my blog and talk
about this new thing that I discovered in Excel." And I put it
there. Obviously, it's not a discovery. It's something that people
have been doing for ages. It's just that in my own silo, I thought
this was new. But when I put there, I got a random comment from
somebody in a different part of the world. And that was a weird
experience because up until that time, the only people who read the
blog are my friends or people who I personally know. I'll tell
them, "Hey, I have this blog," and they'll go and read it and
they'll comment. But then, I got this comment from a strange dude
all over in a different part of the world saying, "You know what,
you could also do this to improve the chart."
Chandoo (00:20:57):
And that kind of blew me like, "Oh, there is actually a community
of Excel users who are collaborating and sharing information." And
I started slowly doing that over time. And one thing led to another
and it kind of blew really out of proportion that at some point, I
was actually doing two jobs, right? This consulting job, as well as
maintaining the blog in the weekends and nights, just keeping up
with the traffic, as well as sharing information, collaborating
with people in the comments and email. It became too much. But I
also thought, maybe I could go and launch a product here to see if
this could become a business. And again, none of this was
intentional. It was simply, I would write an article and people
will say, "Hey, if you put a template around this, we would buy
it."
Chandoo (00:21:43):
And then, I thought, "Oh, really? You'd pay for this? Okay. Let's
just see this." So, that's how things really happen. So, this all
began in 2006, but around 2009, after three years of doing that, I
left my job so that I could just do this full time. And by then, I
had a bunch of not really products. I had two products, main
products. So, one is an online Excel class, and the other is a set
of project management templates built in Excel. And that's pretty
much where it kind of really went from a blog website to a business
and a life thing for me.
Rob Collie (00:22:20):
There are some echoes of some other people's stories in that.
There's a little bit of parallel for me. I started my blog after
you started yours. I started mine in 2009, long before I really
knew what sort of business opportunities would come out of it. I
kind of knew that there was a consulting company to be created
around this new stuff, but the world wasn't ready for that. I
wasn't ready for that. So, the blog existed for a long time before
we became a company. It sounds a little bit like Bill Jelen story.
It sounds a little bit like Adam Saxton, Guy in a Cube, right? Like
it's almost always this side thing. That's just like a passion
thing that eventually morphs into something more.
Chandoo (00:23:08):
You could kind of say that the formula, but again, there are many
people who might either give up halfway through the journey simply
because life got in the way, or they'd never really got to a point
where it could become a self-sustaining thing. And also, some other
people might be so lucky as today. From day one, they vision it as
a business. But for many of us in this particular group, I think it
all happened almost like a series of accidents really, rather
than... Looking back, you might think, "Oh, that was a genius
strategy to have a blog and this and that." And there's nothing
really deliberate there.
Rob Collie (00:23:48):
Oh, I completely agree. It's like the same thing people tell me
about the books that I wrote. "Oh, it's such genius that you wrote
it in that informal non-tech book tone, Rob." And I go, "Well, it
turned out though," but at the time, it was just a survival
strategy. I couldn't get through writing that thing in the other
voice.
Chandoo (00:24:09):
Yeah, I wouldn't have imagine. I think that's the thing, right? It
is always good to look back and try to figure out or maybe there's
a picture that we draw with all these random dots on the paper.
There were other dots...
Rob Collie (00:24:24):
Or just let other people draw it for you. It's usually more
flattering, than what you would draw for yourself, looking back.
One of the things that we do on this show is we compliment our
guests. We almost like attempt to make you uncomfortable with
praise, but it's authentic, right? We don't go out of our way to
manufacture things. So, again, I've seen multiple people, almost
like explicitly try to copy the Chandoo formula. They've looked in
from the outside and gone, "Wow, look at that," right? And go and
try to copy it. And it's easier said than done because it turns out
that the person behind the Chandoo formula is a little bit unique,
like your personality and creativity and humanity.
Rob Collie (00:25:14):
You integrate that into this technical stuff in a way that you
either have that or you don't. You can coach it up in yourself to a
certain extent, but to go with all the hard work, there are some
innate characteristics that we all look into them or don't look
into them and that creativity and that sense of fun and whimsy,
it's easy to tell when someone's forcing it. If people have very,
very, very good radar for that, you're just so dang quirky in a
such a good way. I mean that completely, as a compliment, I call
some of my best friends freak shows. It's so cool and to have
gotten to know you personally, we haven't necessarily kept in the
closest touch, but we definitely got to know each other personally
back in the day, and that was awesome.
Chandoo (00:26:13):
It is awesome. Talking about that formula, you could say it's a
formula, but I would say it's one of the proven ways of growing
your online brand and making it into a sustainable business. And
it's nothing new that I invented. I think you could say, maybe I
had lucked out by starting early because around 2003, 2004, that's
pretty much when the ecosystem of these blogs and in personal
branding was kind of like picking up in a more rapid fashion, just
because there's more people with internet, there is more... For
example, back in '90s, if you have to create a website, you
wouldn't really know where to begin. But 2000s was slightly
different because there's software like WordPress or BlogSpot and
other stuff, which makes it easy for anybody to get them and then,
put their...
Chandoo (00:27:03):
Which makes it easy for anybody to get on and then put their story
out in the front of millions of people. Of course, people may or
may not read it, but it was easy for me to put it out. And I think
what I did early on is I would read a lot of blogs about growing an
online business and an online brand. And this was also not
deliberate, it so happened that those were the guys who were
loudest in the blogosphere. So if for every 10 articles that are
out there, five and six of them would be about the small business
or teaching stuff or selling stuff. There's a lot of that, and I
would read that and I would think, "Oh, this is a good idea, maybe
I should include it in what I'm doing. And this is a good idea,
maybe I should do it." But there is also some things that you are
gifted with, not really gifted, but those are the things that were
a part of your personality even before you jumped into this
business world.
Chandoo (00:27:54):
You either grew up as an introvert or an extrovert, you either have
flair for technology or you don't, and you either have good
understanding of the language or you don't, and all of those
things. So that's really our personality mix. So there is a strange
combination of all of these weird things that really helped me
reach the audience and say things. And also, keep it fun. I look
back and I think, "Oh man, I put a joke in here without even
trying." I think that's because I really enjoy... That's the way I
liked to say things. My kids are now quite old and they're at a
point where they're getting annoyed with all the jokes that I put,
but they also appreciate that Dad probably is not going to ever be
serious about... I mean, I am serious, I think about everything,
but it's just that he's not going to be a strict dad, he's going to
be a fun dad. That's really the kind of thing that they say.
Chandoo (00:28:53):
So that's really me. And I think that was part of the thing. But
people can go and take the formula, which is really what I did.
When I launched my first online course, I had no clue what to do.
So I read this article, they were already doing some online courses
in a different field, and one of the suggestions they gave is, you
don't have to record the whole thing to sell it. Up until that
point, I was thinking I had to create this 20 hour course before I
could actually go and sell it. But they said, "Maybe make one or
two modules first and then go and start marketing, go and start
selling, because there may not be a market for what you're
offering, so go and do it."
Chandoo (00:29:33):
So that's really what I did. I was working in Sweden at that time,
and Nishant and Nakshatra were just born, and Jo was with them in
India. Because of my consulting job, I'd go to all these places. So
I was in Denmark and Sweden that time. And I launched this course,
I said that, "Hey, there is Excel School now, please go and sign
up." and I created only one module, one or two modules. Then I sold
it, and I thought maybe five or 10 will buy it, it's about 60 to
$100, the course. In my mind, that was a lot of money. Even today,
it is a lot of money, but I felt like at that point, that is big
bucks. And I think around 100 people bought it. And that really
scared the shit out of me because when you take 100 times 100,
that's almost $10,000 really.
Chandoo (00:30:22):
And $10,000 was sitting in my PayPal account, close to that. And
$10,000 is close to my salary if I'm working in India, that's my
annual salary at that point in life. But because I was working in
Sweden, I would get overseas payments, so it was almost $50,000,
that's how much I was making at that time. But I was thinking in my
Indian mindset, "I'm making all my annual salary by selling this
one course, which is not even ready." So it scared me. And I
thought, "Man, I need to do it right by these people. They paid for
it, they bought it, I need to deliver it to them, I only made two
modules." So I left my job, went back to India, finished recording
the rest of it and launched the course. So that's how I learned,
and that's the formula that I show in my blog and sharing my
personal stories, because I want others to take these ideas as
well. But I think the key thing people might miss out is putting
their personality into it.
Chandoo (00:31:19):
If you just want to fake it all the way, then it might be hard, but
if you bring yourself in your perspective and your life and your
values into it, that will make it your own, and you're no longer
cloning anything you're taking the best of what is working for
others and mashing it up.
Rob Collie (00:31:35):
Now, at some point on this journey, not to narrow you in too much,
you were running Excel School, it's general purpose. One of the
things I think you became known for as an outlier, even within that
space was the dashboarding that you would do in Excel. Now that's
where we saw the Mozart in Chandoo. I mean, holy cow, people would
look at the stuff that you would build in Excel, and it's gorgeous,
it's just so beautiful. And everyone... Not everyone, but a lot of
people that I knew, very wise, people knew that the quality of
their work was going to be judged by the visual impact that their
spreadsheets would have. And people would go to your site, and
again, they would go to your site for many reasons, but the one
that I disproportionately encountered was people saying, "Yeah, we
go get the slick Excel visuals from Chandoo." And this is
particularly relevant as the world is experiencing the onset of
Power BI. And I know you've diversified, you're not just the Excel
guy anymore. I mean, heck you did a Power Pivot class for that, in
what, 2012, 2013.
Rob Collie (00:33:07):
I honestly haven't kept close tabs on what you've been doing with
Power BI. And that is a real shame because if, and again, I haven't
looked, maybe I haven't looked because I don't want to feel
inadequate, but as rich of a canvas as Excel is for dashboard
creation, oh my gosh, Power BI has really hit critical mass on the
things you can do in their report canvas. I feel like now I need to
have a Christmas morning moment where I go open up a bunch of
Chandoo-approved Power BI reports and go, "Oh my God." Does it
speak to you? How's that transition been?
Chandoo (00:33:51):
Yeah, it's been very good, but also there were a couple of things
that stopped me from really going full on when the Power BI way was
going up. The number one thing is, between 2015 and 2016, that's
when Power BI was gaining that initial momentum, I have been
blogging and talking about Power BI as well, but we also chose to
move from India to New Zealand. So that was a big move, you are
taking all your life that you have been rooting in one country and
then now suddenly you uplift and you go to a different part of the
world. It is both physically and emotionally very hard experience
to go set yourself up in a different place, make new friends and
start your life all over again. And also around 2015, you could
say, I reached a point where, and I'm not trying to brag or
anything, it's just the fact of the matter is, I reached a point
where there is no financial incentive that would motivate me to do
things.
Chandoo (00:34:54):
I am very happy with what I have in my life. I have a very good
family, enough money to sustain whatever I want to do for the rest
of my life, and everything was there. So there is really no carrot
in front of me that will chase me to go and get it. I mean, I would
only have to do it if I am enjoying this. So for me, the enjoyment
started shifting slowly from running a website to other things,
like maybe becoming a better cyclist or being around the kids with
their life or playing with Lego or doing video games or doing other
fun craft things. Because one of the challenges of being creative
in any field, I guess, you can't be creative all the while if
you're just doing it not for fun reasons, but for something else. I
thought, "Maybe I had my day, I'm enjoying things. I don't need to
push myself harder." So that's when I turned a blind eye to Power
BI, not just to Power, to Excel also. And I would only blog once or
twice a month, and that's pretty much it.
Chandoo (00:35:57):
I would still produce good quality content that I'm enjoying, but I
got myself into a place where there are so many other things and
balls juggling in the air that I thought, "Okay, this is enough."
But after settling down in New Zealand and after things calmed down
a bit, that's when I started thinking, "Okay, I need to figure out
what I'm doing with my time. You're not really doing it for money
or anything, but there is also, you have time." I try to rekindle
that passion for data and for helping people become good in their
lives. So naturally I reassessed like, "Okay, what are the things
that we have available today? So there's Excel, there is obviously
Power BI and then there is other tools coming in." Simultaneously,
I would do some consulting work for the local government here in
New Zealand. So I'd get into situations where the data or the
challenges were different than the ones that I have experienced
previously. So I'm learning a lot, and I thought, "Okay." Again, my
go-to point when I learn something new is, put it out on the blog
so other people can also learn.
Chandoo (00:37:00):
So I created a course on Power BI, it's called Power BI Play Date.
I teach dashboards and stuff like that in there. I tried to
replicate some of that Xcel crafting and that sort of dashboard
mindset, which tries to tell a compelling story and provide a good
narrative to the end user rather than just use things for the heck
of using it within Power BI. Now, Power BI is a different platform
altogether. So it has its own rules and it has its own canvas and
things like that, where there are set limitations imposed by the
nature of things. Like in Excel, you may have to explain 10 things,
but within Power BI, because of the interactions, you don't have to
explain 10 things, you have to let your audience know that there
are 10 things there, but only bring the important bits out and let
them figure out the rest.
Chandoo (00:37:50):
So I do this and I enjoy it. I run the course and I do more around
Power BI these days than I do on Excel. I run corporate trainings
and stuff like that as well. It is a different platform and I enjoy
building stuff on Power BI. What I do find a little bit lacking
though, and I think it's just still evolving, it's too early for us
to go and put judgment on Power BI on this space, which is the
visuals, sometimes they are not up to the mark and not everything
that you want to achieve to get the correct and accurate
representation of the information, are straightforward within Power
BI. There's probably custom visuals AND heavy customization you
could do, but one of my core principles when I build anything with
any software is, that we humans should be lazy. But if I am ending
up clicking 300 times to format a bar chart, then I'm like, "What
the heck? This should be simple."
Rob Collie (00:38:46):
Yeah. It is very clicky with the formatting.
Chandoo (00:38:53):
Yeah. I mean, there is Format Painter, but I feel like even after
all the formatting, it will not get you nowhere near as good as a
visual that you could produce in R or Excel, or any other tool for
that matter. This is simply because I think they went in a
different direction, maybe deliberately to enable that sort of
interact to things. So everything needs to interact, or hence not
everything that you could do in other tools is possible. But it's a
visual software, the whole output of whatever you create in Power
BI. You might build an amazing model and beautiful measures, but
nothing is visible until you put a visual there. So the visuals
need to be the hero of that platform, but I feel like the focus has
been heavily on the data and modeling side of things. You need
those, I guess, but now that they're stable, I wish Microsoft would
put in more effort into the visual space and try to make them right
and make them easy for the audience to build and work on them.
Rob Collie (00:39:53):
If you're interested in providing feedback, I can certainly connect
you with the people that would like to hear it.
Chandoo (00:40:00):
I think.
Rob Collie (00:40:02):
It is very difficult. So, it's funny, the job that you worked at
the consulting firm, you're the business analyst, that's exactly
the job I had at Microsoft, which is trying to absorb what the
customers need. And what they want and what they need aren't
necessarily the same thing. Try to absorb all of that and then
translate it to the tech crew to implement, while at the same time
trying to simplify everything. That's exactly...So you were doing
that for custom line of business software projects, probably, for
the consulting firm, and I was doing it for things like Excel, but
it's the same job.
Chandoo (00:40:34):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (00:40:34):
And for the people at Microsoft who have this job, doing that for
Power BI, it's actually really hard sometimes to see the forest for
the trees. You're so down in the details, it is a gift for someone
in that role to be given any sort of thoughtful, structured
feedback, or thoughtful, structured advice. Like on the visual
layer, I would not be one that you would want to take that kind of
structured advice, it's not really my forte, different beast, the
Chandoo.
Rob Collie (00:41:10):
Okay. I was going to make this joke, which is that you're doing it
wrong. If you have that kind of perspective where you reached the
tipping point where the financial incentive isn't the primary
driver, in my experience, from watching a bunch of Microsoft
executives anyway, that's when you need to tell yourself that it
isn't enough. And you need to just pick a taller hill and go climb
that, and never be complete, never be fulfilled. And there are so
many people like that. I haven't reached that point in my life that
you're describing. That's something I strive for. I think that I'll
be more like you and less like some of the people that I saw at
Microsoft, who had everything, and still wrecked themselves after
having everything. And it was really sad to watch it. I think a lot
of celebrities in business are driven by this perpetual insecurity,
that you fortunately, you're not driven by that.
Chandoo (00:42:07):
Yeah. I think, again, it's not portraying myself as I have no
insecurities or I don't feel inadequate in any which way, it's just
that at least I am aware from time to time, and I take a point...
Like if I feel anxious for some reason and feel myself like I'm
running towards this or that from time to time, I try to at least
pull myself back and take a stop and at least try to admire what is
already there, what is available and what we have achieved. And
that lets me calm down a bit. Obviously there is no value in
running for itself, but you don't want to be standing still and
just admire the beauty. Also, there is some amount of effort you
need to put in because that will make you feel fulfilled, having
some fulfillment in your day, but it need not be just the amount of
money that you are generating on an ongoing basis alone.
Chandoo (00:43:00):
At least that's my value. They might derive satisfaction just by
running and chasing more money, and that's what makes them happy,
they can do it. So you remember the time when you were not there or
you were there, but we all went to Chicago from Cleveland when I
was in US? And Jocelyn and I, we were driving in one car. So we
rented this car, and I think you were driving in another car or
something. And we went to, was it Jocelyn's sister or was it-
Rob Collie (00:43:26):
Yeah.
Chandoo (00:43:26):
... your sister? Okay. Yeah. So we were driving in the car and
Jocelyn was telling me all about her life story and how she met you
and all of that, how both of you met each other while working at
Microsoft and some of the hard times that she had and all of that,
it was a very deep talk because Chicago is not nearby. So it was
like a good four or five hours drive if I remember correctly. The
topic turned into money topic as well. And Jocelyn was saying about
few different things and this and that. And the topic turned on me,
and I remember canvasing to her that I find it really hard to spend
money because I grew up in a very poor family. I mean, it's not
probably the poorest family by Indian standards, but it is still
poor family. And there were times when I was growing up, when we
would not know exactly where our next meal would come or how we are
going to pay for school fees.
Chandoo (00:44:17):
And there were points of time where I had to pull out of school
because we couldn't afford school fees and all sorts of that. There
was a lot of hardship. As a kid I never really thought of that as
hardship, it was just the experience. So you're growing up, but
there was a lot of uncertainty, and that makes you who you are. As
I grew up and as I started making money, that insecurity that if I
don't have money, then I will struggle. Not only me, but whoever is
dependent on me will also struggle. So that made me an obsessive
saver where I will try to save everything for tomorrow rather than
be in the moment and enjoy what I have today. And even when I have
big money and I have lots more to spend, I would be always like, "I
don't need anything. I'm happy with what I have. I'll just put it
off for tomorrow."
Chandoo (00:45:07):
So I was telling Jocelyn that I find it really hard to spend money
with the amount of money that I make. I still try to just spend
maybe 10 or 20% of what I earn and everything else is going towards
the saving or investment or whatever. So you could say maybe I'm
chasing that instead of chasing money, I'm trying to chase for some
better tomorrow. I mean, I do realize that there is no better
tomorrow, today's as good as it gets. So you need to take a moment,
chill out and enjoy. But I think having that awareness is more
important than just chasing. If you know why you are chasing
something, then you will enjoy it.
Rob Collie (00:45:42):
Agreed. The other part of that story also resonated with me, which
is you had a little time to recharge your batteries, pursue some
other things. And then you come back around and you say, "Hey, this
Power BI thing, that is a worthy thing to explore, that is a worthy
development path for myself." It's almost like the opportunity to,
like your favorite movie, you would love to be able to watch it
again for the first time, experience it a new. Now, Power BI isn't
like Excel, it's not the same thing, it's similar in some ways, but
it's the closest you're ever going to get to being able to climb
the Excel hill again, is to climb the Power BI hill. And in the
end, you end up with this same sort of polished, interactive
output, a symphony being played over some data. And for whatever
reason, sickos like me and you, that speaks to us.
Chandoo (00:46:43):
Yeah, we enjoy it. And it is a very good challenging environment
for you to learn and master and talk about it. It's a different
experience altogether to do things in Power BI, because despite all
it's visual, that's what the software is for. Unlike Excel, there
is no area where you're building the calculations, everything is in
this black box. Well, technically not a black box, you can still
see the measures and all that, but a lot goes behind scenes than
what is out there. So explaining that, and because I try to view
everything from the explanation I write, because my job, I feel
like is to do something and then also explain it. So every time I
build something, I'm like, "Okay, how am I going to explain this?"
Because I don't want people to be like, "Ta- da, this is showing up
now." So it needs to be having that steps as well. So I try to
think in that direction, and that is an interesting challenge in
itself to take something like that and make it more reachable to
the audience, I guess.
Rob Collie (00:47:44):
Just thinking about that, I think about you're going through that
and doing that, you're creating videos, right?
Chandoo (00:47:49):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (00:47:50):
So I've got to thank you, you taught me Camtasia.
Chandoo (00:47:55):
Oh, well.
Rob Collie (00:47:55):
Yeah. And not just like, "Oh, here are where the buttons are," you
taught a bit of the art of it.
Chandoo (00:48:02):
Oh, well, I really appreciate it. And I think, I feel like I have
learned more Camtasia in the last year than all of my life
together. This might surprise you lik, "What the heck are you
talking? You are using Camtasia all the way back in 2013 as well."
This is because about a year and half ago, I decided to switch from
blog first to YouTube first. So now all my content is primarily
produced for YouTube. And if needed, I will put a blog article, but
sometimes I'll just link to an older article because there is a lot
of content already. And I feel like there is no extra value in
writing another article just for the sake of maintaining a YouTube
video. So primarily all the content that I'm creating is for
YouTube. And the YouTube presents a different challenge. If I'm
creating a course, people are hooked on it, they paid for it, they
logged in, they're setting time to learn, so they will watch me go
through all the steps for 15 minutes to understand.
Chandoo (00:48:57):
But on YouTube, it's a different game altogether. The audience have
many other distractions. There is also the aspect of how much time
they can set aside in their day. Many times people are not really
deliberately sitting down, "Okay, I'm going to have a YouTube sesh
now." Instead they're doing something, and then suddenly they'll go
onto YouTube to see quickly how to do certain things, or maybe
they're having their tea break or lunch and they just want to watch
a video. So that time span is very limited, and we want to address
something valuable, provide good content and share something fun
with them. So the videos need to be shorter, but they still need to
be just as useful, fun and engaging. So I'm learning more on
Camtasia in the last one year, like how do you combine various
things, how do you add more effects, how do you present your story,
how do you view this together. But yeah, it's good.
Rob Collie (00:49:52):
Tom's not here today, but one of his pet peeves is the cliche you
hear over and over again, "There's more data created in the last
year than in the entire human history before that." Well, here's
another example of that, "Chandoo has learned more about Camtasia
in the last year than he has in all of human history before." And
when you said that you've learned more in the last year about
Camtasia, my jaw did in fact drop. I'm like, "Oh my God, I need to
come see this." Basically, everything I know about video editing in
Camtasia, I learned from you, and in a very short period of time,
so I need another bootcamp.
Chandoo (00:50:29):
You might have taken those and you might have gone really well past
that point. Obviously that's really what happens with technology
tools, the software evolves, we use it day in, day out. Then we
realize, "Oh, we could do this. We could do that". Yeah, maybe
watch some of my YouTube videos and let me know how that is, if you
enjoy not just the video, but also the editing.
Rob Collie (00:50:51):
When you're watching something that's well done, you don't really
notice.
Chandoo (00:50:55):
Yeah, obviously that's the whole point, right?
Rob Collie (00:50:58):
Right, the techniques. But then it was different essentially
sitting at the editing console with you and you going, "Okay, so
here I would probably do something like this." And then I'm like,
"Oh, I would have never thought to do that. That's that's awesome."
Certain pieces of software, certain tool sets are ones that I tend
to evolve my skills over time on my own. I'm not really making
videos these days. Maybe I'll be evolving otherwise. I would say
that my Camtasia skills are basically frozen in 2013 where you
taught me.
Chandoo (00:51:30):
Well, that's a nice compliment. And yeah, I think if you're not
making videos, there's almost no value in learning the skills,
because it just keeps changing and they have newer version now
coming up every year. So sometimes you learn something, and the
next year, boom, there's another way of doing it. And then we're
like, "Why did they even bother learning this in the first
place?"
Rob Collie (00:51:53):
The people at our company that play in our fantasy football league,
and who've been subjected to my fantasy football gloating videos,
they owe the production quality of those to you. I can't credit you
for the singing quality, the vocals in those videos are terrible.
And there's nothing you could do, even Chandoo couldn't correct my
singing. And no, those videos are not available for public
consumption. We are not going to-
Chandoo (00:52:19):
Maybe you should probably-
Rob Collie (00:52:19):
... unlisted for a reason
Chandoo (00:52:20):
... do that as the next episode of Raw Data, we're all singing.
Rob Collie (00:52:25):
On the previous episode, we talked about rewriting an AC/DC song,
Dirty Reads Done Dirt Cheap. AC/DC really lends itself to alternate
vocals. It wouldn't be the first time I've rewritten an AC/DC song,
but then someone's got to get on the mic, things get ugly. Well,
I'm one of those artists, when I write the alternate lyrics, I
can't let someone else sing it for me. I've got to go do it myself,
and again, it's sad. It's kind of neat. I mean, on one hand you
could say that you were early to the internet. I'm going to use the
word celebrity because I don't think really, any other word is
better, and celebrity is not the perfect word, but one of the early
adopters, one of the first movers in that space. Of course at the
same time, that's years later than Bill Jelen.
Chandoo (00:53:13):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (00:53:14):
Which is crazy, right? I mean, it's like...
Chandoo (00:53:17):
I mean, imagine how much vision or... I don't want to say random
and [inaudible 00:53:23] all his effort. It's completely his vision
to have that started and even have a publishing company and all of
that empire built.
Rob Collie (00:53:32):
Amazing, yeah. And as you say, he's been on the show and he has,
absolutely it was not deliberate, it was still not a called
shot.
Chandoo (00:53:42):
Yeah, but even if it's not deliberate, I think the biggest quality
with some of these people like Bill, they have is, they listen,
they see what's happening, they get the feedback, they tap into
their emotions, they take a deliberate action from time to time. He
could have started MrExcel forum and left it there, but he
realized, "Okay, people are getting help from this. I need
to...
Chandoo (00:54:03):
And left it there. But he realized, okay, people are getting help
from this, I need to work on this, improve it better for them and
people are buying these over priced Excel books that are sometimes
way too detailed or way too complicated. I need to change the
market. So, those are deliberate actions. You couldn't say one day
he woke up and suddenly found a printing press in his house or
anything.
Rob Collie (00:54:21):
Yeah. Agreed. So, what has it been like, having been early to the
Excel internet celebrity phenomenon, but then joining the Power BI
game... Not late, but very much in progress. Just like me, when I
was first blogging about Power Pivot, I basically didn't have
competition. I was the only weirdo obsessed with this stuff and
writing about it like violently almost. I couldn't help myself.
Whereas if I started that today, I would be joining a field that is
very crowded by comparison. How has that been different? And I know
that it's a different point in your life. So of course, it's going
to be different anyway, but what have you noticed that's different
about those two different journeys?
Chandoo (00:55:10):
I didn't really notice any difference, this is because the audience
that I have been cultivating over time, they have also gone to a
point in life where they are naturally migrating to Power BI and
they already trust me, they know me, they have joined the courses
or they have learned from me previously. So for them, it's easy to
relate to the content that I produce because, it's like same
teacher is teaching you 101 and then 102 class kind of thing. So,
it's easy for them to relate. So, I had the ready audience either
by luck or by that...
Rob Collie (00:55:47):
Cultivation.
Chandoo (00:55:48):
Yeah. So, it wasn't really like a fresh start. Like I would go and
put, learnpowerbi.com as a website and put there. I'm already
putting it on my website, so it's easy for people to connect the
dots. But what I did notice is that audience, especially because
Power BI is like an evolving platform and people have been using it
way before even I started writing or we making videos about it,
some of the people have already shifted away to those channels or
those platforms to learn more. So, they are kind of tuning me out
for Power BI because they're thinking Chandoo will teach us Excel,
these other people will teach me about Power BI. So, the engagement
or the feedback that I would get on Power BI related stuff is
significantly lower than the Excel stuff that I would produce. So,
I could clearly see that happening both on the YouTube channel as
well as on my website. This is the reason why I got into self-doubt
at some point thinking, should I even bother making a course about
it, because it's a big investment of time on my side.
Chandoo (00:56:55):
And if I'm not benefiting a lot of people, then it would be just a
futile exercise of me recording videos, producing everything,
marketing it, and just simply annoying people if they're not ready
to buy or whatever. But then when I launched the course, to my
surprise, people were willing to pay and join. And that was the
good, positive feedback for me. So, I went and I did that a few
more times. So, it is good experience for me. All in all, I'd say
it's a very positive experience. Last month on my YouTube channel,
what I've been doing is, last Friday of every month, I do a live
stream. So, Power BI is one of the most requested topics for live
stream and the live stream that I did on Power BI, which was in
June, was a massive success. Like we had quite a few people show up
and go through the thing. And even on replay... This is a live
stream, right? We are talking. There is lots of valuable content,
but there is also a lot of content. I'm not going to call it.
Rob Collie (00:57:52):
There's valuable content and then there's content.
Chandoo (00:57:55):
So, there's a lot of stuff where I would just randomly read
comments and flash them on the screen to say what people are asking
or muse about things and all of that. And even on replays, people
are watching all of that. So, this is good indicator that now there
is more. And every time I ask a question on my community like,
"What do you want to see next?" Power BI was the highest asked
item. So, there's more people asking for that and I believe this is
simply because people explain, they like my style, define me to be
their teacher. So, they want me to teach it. And I think that is a
good indicator for me. I will be creating more Power BI focused
videos in the rest of this year and get more into Power BI. Not to
say I'll ditch Excel. I'll keep using Excel because, Excel has
continued to be the big platform that is used by millions of people
all over the world. And I would love to be of help to them.
Rob Collie (00:58:49):
I think Excel is also experiencing a sort of Renaissance.
Chandoo (00:58:53):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (00:58:54):
The re-imagining what all it is that can happen in Excel. Some of
the fundamentals of Excel are not being changed. They're being
expanded in ways that we really haven't seen, maybe ever. There's a
lot of fresh opportunity, a lot of fresh topics to talk about in
Excel. A lot of things to dive into.
Chandoo (00:59:14):
Exactly. Especially the way they are expanding the formal language
into more dynamic world and probably the terrible name, but the
Lambda functions and all of that.
Rob Collie (00:59:27):
On the podcast with Brian Jones of Excel, I told him multiple
times, "You're going to rename this at some point. You're going to
rename it."
Chandoo (00:59:38):
The moment you see Lambda, you'll be like, "This is like another
bot text." Nobody's going to even type that into Excel. Like, "What
is Lambda?"
Rob Collie (00:59:49):
Yeah. I told him my favorite thing about the Lambda functions is
that you hear the name and you immediately know what they do.
Chandoo (00:59:56):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (00:59:58):
So, are you getting into Lambda functions?
Chandoo (01:00:00):
I don't want to use the beta version. This is just by choice. I
don't have access to Lambda function yet. I'm itching to play. I
could just enable it with a click. I know that, but I don't want to
make them. Simply because I don't want to ruin my Excel by changing
the user experience from time to time. And I don't have to compete
with them. I couldn't be really bothered to do that. But I know
what they're capable of. I watch other people do it on YouTube and
I did help play with them on my personal laptop the other day. It
is a very good addition. I feel like this is not to again, go and
say negative things about the amazing work this Excel team is
doing. There is a lot of energy put into the more abstract way of
doing things. I would say Lambda and Map and Reduce are at a very
high level.
Chandoo (01:00:46):
And even I have done a lot of programming and I believe you may
have already done some programming too. Even for us, it would be a
hard concept to understand such a very generic version of things.
And then actually capitalize on that raw power that you are getting
now. But what would really help end users is, at least the way I
hear when I talk to people or trying them is, some of the more
things that should be done readily. Just to give one simple
example, the other day I was training some people in Australia and
they were asking, "How do I remove the spaces within the text?" So
you have two words, but there's some extra spaces in the middle.
And then I said, "Oh, you could use trim." And then they're like,
"Trim? What is that?" Because when you hear the word trim, unless
you have a very good background in the language or the history of
computers, you wouldn't really guess that-
Rob Collie (01:01:39):
Right.
Chandoo (01:01:39):
... this is the one that removes spaces. And then she immediately
said, "Why doesn't it say remove spaces?"
Rob Collie (01:01:46):
Yeah.
Chandoo (01:01:46):
This is the usability that I'm talking about. We could add more
synonym functions or if you go on internet and search, one of the
common things that people ask with VLOOKUP is, "How do I VLOOKUP
the second value or how do I get to everything with VLOOKUP?" And
Excel still doesn't have a function. And they say, "Oh, you can use
filter", or you can use this or that, but why not take the VLOOKUP
and make, when now there is XLOOKUP also, but they had the
opportunity to take the XLOOKUP and also make it more like XLOOKUP
filter. So, I feel like some of that energy also needs to go into
these mainstream things. Might sound like ranting here. But...
Rob Collie (01:02:26):
No. This is important. I share these beliefs. I think you're a bit
more sophisticated in your beliefs all along these lines, where I'm
a bit more intuitive, emotional about them. You can refine them to
very specific points very quickly and effortlessly. I'm going to
ask you a wild question out of the blue. If Microsoft came to you
one day and offered you a job, let's ignore the money for a moment.
How much they were paying you, whatever and you didn't have to
move. Would you accept job on the Microsoft product teams?
Chandoo (01:02:58):
I might accept. In fact, this is not something that I told many
people, but a while ago I did actually put my hand up for a job,
because I saw one in the MVP group, we get some emails from product
managers. The email content was, they're looking for a person who
is at the intersection of Excel, Power BI and the data
visualization. I said, "Yeah. I'm not really looking for a job or
anything. I don't really have the energy to do a full-time job. But
if you are happy to take somebody remote and if you're willing to
take someone part-time for a couple of days a week, I might be
willing to do this, because I believe I can contribute in this
space." But I think they were actually looking for a specific role
within a specific city in US. So, it didn't happen.
Chandoo (01:03:45):
I also questioned like, it's easy for an outsider to make noise and
complain and bitch about things. But when you are there, you will
then suddenly come across these 75 constraints on every little
thing that I want to do and there's a lot of internal drama and
politics and whatnot goes on in these organizations, right? So,
there might be genuinely people trying hard, but get just pushed
aside, because there're other priorities or paying customers are
asking you to do this or that. So, I wouldn't really know for
sure.
Rob Collie (01:04:16):
Well, I do. I've had that job and you are correct that very often,
some of the things that seem very frustrating on the outside. Why
the hell? But on the inside, there's a really good reason.
Chandoo (01:04:31):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:04:31):
It wouldn't even help the world to hear it really. It's too
mundane, it's really boring. So, you're never going to hear that
reason on the outside. But the thing is, it's also that clarity is
very hard to come by. When you're in that job, almost by
definition, this isn't always true. They've been hiring people over
time that came from the user ranks, the customer, that our number
of former intense customers, who do now work for them and the
clarity that someone like you would bring, would be absolutely
worth it in a big way and incredibly valuable. Even with your very
mature caveat, that some things are a lot harder than they look. I
agree. There's always particular logistics about every particular
position or whatever. Just take this at face value, you would
definitely be an asset to either of those teams. Not that you need
it. I'm not saying, "Oh, Chandoo, you're looking for you're...
You're wandering, you're lost. Let me help you find yourself." No.
Not at all. You might decide after a taste of that. You'd be like,
"Nah."
Chandoo (01:05:43):
If I didn't know any better, I would say this podcast is like an
interview, like a software...
Rob Collie (01:05:48):
Yeah. I'm going to open the door behind me here. And they're going
to see the whole team is there.
Chandoo (01:05:53):
Welcome to Microsoft.
Rob Collie (01:05:55):
They don't pay me anymore, Chandoo. Why would I do their work?
Chandoo (01:06:00):
Oh wow.
Rob Collie (01:06:01):
So, that's cool that you're reasonably significant subset of your
Excel audience, has joined you and it's called Power BI play
date?
Chandoo (01:06:13):
Yep.
Rob Collie (01:06:13):
That is such a cool name. Someone could try to now imitate that,
they come up with a class and call it Power BI playroom. And it
just wouldn't be the same. You mentioned this earlier, but the
fateful summer of 2013, you and your entire family, all four of you
came over from India and moved in, in Cleveland. I know a couple of
miles from where we lived. We were in Cleveland until 2015. So,
that was when we were there and we got to hang out for... Not an
entire summer.
Chandoo (01:06:48):
Pretty much everyday.
Rob Collie (01:06:48):
Pretty much every day, up until the point where I destroyed my
knee.
Chandoo (01:06:52):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:06:55):
We had just taught a class together. You and I in Columbus, Ohio. I
think I was teaching on my birthday and teaching on Jocelyn's
birthday, June 22nd. And she wanted to go to the trampoline park in
Columbus, after we were done teaching. I also met one of the
students at that class, that joint class that we did together, was
Mike Miskol of command and his right-hand man at the time, Donovan.
Command ended up being one of the ground floor clients that
launched our company. We ended up doing a lot of consulting work
for them over the years. And, we've talked about Mike on the blog
multiple times. Sadly, he was the wolf. He passed away a few years
ago, but that was a heck of a summer. A lot of things happened that
summer. We didn't make it back from that class in Columbus in one
piece.
Rob Collie (01:07:50):
I remember we all went to the drive-in movies outside of Cleveland
one time, after I'd hurt myself.
Chandoo (01:07:57):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:07:57):
And I was sitting in the back seat of the Jeep with my leg out,
across the bench. And I'm watching this drive-in movie through the
crack between the headrest and the window. It was a Despicable Me
two or something like that we watched.
Chandoo (01:08:14):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:08:15):
Your kids were little.
Chandoo (01:08:16):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:08:17):
I guess mine were too. Your children, I remember describing them as
luminous. They just glowed. It was like a light meter up to them
and like, "Oh! They're emitting light." Such cool young people. We
missed y'all when you left.
Chandoo (01:08:38):
Yeah. If I look back and think about some of the best experiences
in my life, that will be definitely one of them, because there was
so much fun that we had and it was, because I'm not really working
and Joey's also not working. We are working in our business, but we
are not really physically going somewhere. So, we had all the
freedom and the weather was really good. And, you guys were just
around the corner. So, if we need anything or we felt lost, we
could always call you or just walk to your house and you'd be there
to help us. And it was such a really fun time. And when you're
having things like that, we were enjoying, I always thought, we
would repeat that a couple of years down the line. We were talking
about these kinds of things.
Chandoo (01:09:23):
I remember leaving a small box of some utensils and stuff like that
in your basement when we left, because we were thinking we'll come
back another time in a couple of years and we will repeat it.
Rob Collie (01:09:33):
Yeah.
Chandoo (01:09:33):
But, life has different plans every time. We went back from that
and things kept moving in different directions. You started your
business and I had this vision that we should probably move and
live in other country. So, we started looking for that and we moved
to New Zealand. And even when we were in New Zealand, we would have
some video calls where you'd say, "We will come and visit you for a
holiday or something." And look now where we are. We can't even
leave our countries if we want to.
Rob Collie (01:10:01):
I know. They'd let me leave, but your country wouldn't let me
in.
Chandoo (01:10:05):
Yeah, exactly.
Rob Collie (01:10:07):
I think you chose well. See, there you go. That foresight again.
You're like, "Okay. There's going to be a pandemic in a few years.
And New Zealand really seems to have their act together. And the US
looks... I don't think so. You didn't see that coming, but good
choice. Obviously, I was a little bummed when you didn't move to
the US but now, I can't help but look at it and go, "Oh, good
move."
Chandoo (01:10:38):
Yeah. Again, nothing was planned. We just were thinking we would go
to either Australia or New Zealand and we just kind of flipped a
coin and then it was New Zealand. So, that's where we applied and
we got in and we're happy we are here. But again, it was not
deliberate at all.
Rob Collie (01:10:55):
The future holds many possibilities. We need to come visit. You
live in one of the coolest places. They chose to film Lord of the
Rings there. That's how cool.
Chandoo (01:11:07):
It's an amazing place and there is so much natural beauty and
people are just nice.
Rob Collie (01:11:12):
Do you mind telling the story of the now absolutely iconic
chandoo.org avatar? Can you tell me how that came to pass? Because
when you got off the airplane in Cleveland to come visit.
Chandoo (01:11:30):
It's the other way.
Rob Collie (01:11:30):
Really funny. You didn't look like that.
Chandoo (01:11:34):
This is like... Probably there were many crazy accidents, all this
journey, but this has got to be one of the craziest accidents
because, I had my website chandoo.org way before I got into Excel,
the original website is called... Not that it matters anymore, but
it's called Modus Indoramus and it's nothing to do with anything
that I'm doing nowadays. But, I thought in those days, that's a
good name. So, I went with that and it used to be hosted on Blog
spot. And later on, when I finished my management degree and I
started working, I needed to rename that to reflect my new stage of
life. So, I went with the name, Pointy Head Dilbert. This is simply
because, I like Dilbert cartoon and I find that Dilbert is this
technical guy. And the point, he had boss is this, or lack of
better word, a dumb ass who is like a manager.
Chandoo (01:12:26):
And I find myself in the junction of these two. I got my technical
degree and now I'm a management degree holder. So I thought, "Oh.
Let's fuse these two things together." And I come up with this
brilliant name... Well, it's not brilliant, but I thought it is
brilliant. Pointy Head Dilbert. And there was a point where the
logo of the blog was actually Dilbert with the point he had boss's
ears on his head.
Rob Collie (01:12:48):
Okay.
Chandoo (01:12:48):
So, I kind of photoshopped it. That was the logo. Fast forward to
2008 and we moved to US for work Joey and I and around that time, I
was fascinated with MacBooks and all. I got my first computer,
which is a MacBook and the MacBook got delivered home and it had
this photo booth app, using which you could kind of take a selfie,
but it was cute, your facial features. So, one day morning I got up
and then I was doing my usual routine of checking mail and stuff
like that and I opened the photo booth and I took some selfies and
one of that was this iconic hair picture. So, it's really just my
selfie in the Mac. And then later on during the day or the next
day, I thought, "You know what? I could use this because it has
pointy hair", because the hair is kind of really stretched out. And
I opened Photoshop and I cropped that image and polished it a bit,
a change of the saturation and whatnot, and replaced that on my
blog.
Chandoo (01:13:49):
And people were like, "Oh wow. This looks amazing. We love it."
Yeah. Later on, I renamed the whole thing as chandu.org instead of
Pointy Head Dilbert. But, that is how it came up. The sad thing is,
I don't have the original picture anymore. The MacBook died. So, I
have no access to the original picture, not even higher version of
it. There is nothing there. The only thing that is on my website is
the only one that I have. And I thought at some point maybe I could
get someone to do a vector drawing of this, but I never got into
any sort of merchandising or anything like that. So, there was
never really a need for a higher resolution version of this. I'm
not printing coffee mugs or anything. But, I am really glad that I
had a picture like that and I could use it. I am also glad that I
still have some hair on my head after all these years.
Rob Collie (01:14:39):
Your hair was much shorter, that summer we spent together. I can
see now with your current hair, how that picture might've happened.
Did you also distort the hair a little bit?
Chandoo (01:14:50):
No. It's the photo booth app.
Rob Collie (01:14:52):
Your hair was actually that tall, that morning?
Chandoo (01:14:54):
It was tall, but what the photo booth does is I think if you have
an iPad or iPhone, you can actually test it. It will basically take
a central point. I think the point was somewhere here on my head
and it'll stretch every pixel out.
Rob Collie (01:15:07):
I see.
Chandoo (01:15:08):
So, that's how the hair kind of became too wild. But I did have
fairly long hair at that point and I think because I just got up,
it was all over the place.
Rob Collie (01:15:17):
Well, what a happy accident. Because again, so iconic. I didn't
know you as Chandoo, for a long time. All I knew was there was this
guy on Twitter, R1C1, who simultaneously had this really quirky
sense of humor and at the same time, like this mastery feel. And it
was very much enhanced by that icon, by that logo. I would see that
icon and I go, this is someone who lives at the top of some
pyramid. You need to climb in order to have an audience with him.
It's amazing how much power that had, when I didn't even know that
you were Chandoo. You were just R1C1, this bad-ass, who was also
really funny. It was only eventually, one day I clicked through him
like, "Oh." Yeah, I expected your website to be like pyramid living
bad-ass dot com. Chandoo.org was a much friendlier name. Again, you
were very friendly on Twitter. It's just that I expected some sort
of Kung Fu master.
Chandoo (01:16:29):
That was also not intentional. I think I'm just being...
Rob Collie (01:16:32):
You're just being funny. Right?
Chandoo (01:16:33):
Yeah. Exactly.
Rob Collie (01:16:34):
I think it's great. So, going back to Power BI for a moment, what
are some of the things about power BI that you have found
surprisingly delightful? What are some of the things that you've
just really gone, "Wow. That is a cool thing that we can do in that
environment that we couldn't do in Excel."
Chandoo (01:16:54):
This is no longer true, but what I found Power BI to be amazing in
is, it has this massive power query layer in the front, that lets
you take anything, manipulate it in any which way you want and get
the clean cut of data for your analysis. So, that's one thing that
I found to be a true game changer. Because, many times when we want
to analyze data, when we want to present things, we have this like
an 800 meter hurdle to cross, where our data is really shit. The
Power Query was like a true game changer. I mean, in a way it was
coexisting in both Excel and Power BI worlds, but many times within
Excel, you already begin with the data that is pasted into the
spreadsheet. So, you're not really deliberately trying to clean it
up more. It kind of comes in a semi clean format, whereas Power BI,
because there is no holding cell where the data can be pasted.
Chandoo (01:17:52):
You can kind of technically copy paste, but there's no place where
the data is. It has to come from outside, because of the nature of
platform. Having Power Query was like one of the big key things.
And it is a mental model shift also. We don't really begin in that
space. Now, we are beginning in that space where I could
potentially get anything and manage it and manipulate it. And the
second thing is obviously the power pivot engine, which is really
dynamic and amazingly powerful. You could write a simple measure
that is just doing a sum or count or whatever, but then the way you
present, it really changes the meaning of it and completely
presents a different insight, that you would have spent hours and
days and sometimes weeks or just might even give up to try to
replicate in Excel.
Chandoo (01:18:40):
But those two are no longer true because of the coexistence of the
same ideas in Excel world, but they feel more natural within Power
BI. Whereas in Excel, if you can't do something with Power Pivot,
you always would be like, "Okay. I'll get as far as I need. And
then I'll use the cell structure and the relative references and
whatnot to calculate the rest. Whereas power BI doesn't offer that.
Everything has to be done with these two preset engines. So, you
will be forced to go in and achieve more with them. And the more
you get it right at those two stages, everything else becomes like
a piece of cake really when it comes to visualizing and analyzing,
There are other aspects too, and we kind of grown a customer trait
now. So we don't no longer find that amazing to be honest, but the
first time you see it, you will always be like, wow, this is
good.
Chandoo (01:19:30):
That kind of cross filtering and interaction is a game changer. The
ability to have tool tips that are rich and informative is a good
thing. That idea of using bookmarks to change the state or the
display of the visual, so that you don't have to put multiple
things and still get what you want. Or even some of the simple
things like having a separate mobile view, where I can show
different visuals or structure them differently, depending on what
the audience is, looking at it from. All of those are some of those
fundamental things that really, for me, at least helped that
platform elevate to a different level from what is previously
possible in Excel. There's many other things like even some of the
simplest things like the ability to show pictures from a URL, it is
nearly impossible to do that in Excel. Whereas in Power BI just
happens with the simple switch of the setting. And now suddenly you
have something that is so much more beautiful than a simple
table.
Rob Collie (01:20:31):
Yeah. I mean that composability of Excel, the network effect of all
of its features, sort of interacting in the grid, leads to an
environment in which, like you mentioned in the very beginning with
that first blog post, you felt like you'd either invented or
discovered something, that in your own silo, felt like the first
light bulb, like first time anyone ever discovered fire. I know how
that feels for sure. Big time. You're wiser now, you know that when
you discover or invent some-
Rob Collie (01:21:03):
You're wiser now. You know that when you discover or invent
something, you're probably not the first. As I am also now wiser.
But there's still that moment where for yourself, you invented
something using things that were not necessarily ... no one ever
anticipated that particular usage.
Rob Collie (01:21:18):
So let me give you an example from my life in Power BI, is I
quote-unquote, Invented an American football passing chart that
shows where the quarterback likes to throw the ball and where he's
successful at it and all that kind of stuff, right? It's just a
Power BI 2D scatterplot.
Chandoo (01:21:38):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:21:39):
With a football field image behind it.
Chandoo (01:21:42):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:21:42):
That's it. It's just the background image. Now, but then I had to
go to your blog accidentally one time and read about jittering.
Chandoo (01:21:50):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:21:51):
The concept of jittering. And I remember you had a really great
article on jittering in Excel.
Chandoo (01:21:55):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:21:55):
And I was like, oh, I need that in my passing chart because all my
dots are going to be on top of each other.
Chandoo (01:22:00):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:22:01):
And then I did a really, really, really complicated, it was really
labor intensive, to achieve jittering in my chart, took a
combination of M and DAX that I pity the fool that has to go back
and understand what I did. I wrote a long article about it. But if
you just stumbled upon my workbook and tried to figure out how I
did it, oh God. And so here I am, I have invented a pass chart. You
know, we forget about it. We set it aside. And then years later, a
football coach from Texas, a high school in Texas, calls us up and
says, "Hey, do you know that that football thing you invented is
probably the best football passing chart that's available on the
internet?"
Rob Collie (01:22:37):
I'm like, "No". And so we went and did this thing called Cover
Hawk. If you go to coverhawk.app, it's very, very, very much like
an MVP exploratory thing where we're trying to see if there's some
traction to this. Maybe there's a product worth developing. We even
went to a conference two weeks ago in Texas. Conference of, nothing
but football coaches, nothing but high school football coaches and
we're just standing there like the data nerds. Two booths down from
us is a bunch of tackling dummies. They're trying to sell tackling
dummies and helmets and things like that and we're there as the
data nerds with Cover Hawk.
Rob Collie (01:23:15):
So have you had any of those that you're comfortable sharing? Have
you invented anything?
Chandoo (01:23:20):
I don't want to call, there've been mentions, because I feel like,
like you said, we're all wiser now.
Rob Collie (01:23:28):
Right. Invented in air quotes.
Chandoo (01:23:31):
Yes. So there are, you could call them as hacks because the way
Power BI is evolving, certain things are not possible at certain
points of time. They may not be true anymore. Like now, you could
do it. But at that point in time, that feature is not available or
it's not as refined.
Chandoo (01:23:47):
If people are finding it useful, you might invent something fun,
but if nobody has the use for it, then it's just a novelty, right?
Like the way you did, the football coach said it is a useful thing.
Based on the YouTube videos that I have on Power BI and the
comments or the views that I get, one video that I have is a budget
versus actual with variance information as a combined graph. So the
idea is in the world of finance, we do a lot of comparisons with
what's my actual, what's my budget for a bunch of projects or
products or whatever.
Chandoo (01:24:19):
And many times you may also want to, okay, 100 is my budget, 120 is
my actual, so we got 20 variance or 20% variance. And I want to see
the variance information right there, but because Power BI yet
doesn't have any customizable data labels, so you get both 100 and
120, but you can't really get 20 or 20% in there. And even if you
could get it somehow, it's not visually represented so it's hard
for people to see that and instantly make a mental picture of what
that 20 is, which direction it is going.
Chandoo (01:24:52):
So I made a graph where it's nothing but a column or a bar chart
and another column or bar chart. And the sort order is also
maintained on both depending on what interactions are happening and
whatnot as a visual and I made a YouTube video about it. And from
time to time, people tell me that, "Oh, this is a good one we've
been looking." Like you know, there are custom visuals that can do
this for you. But sometimes custom visuals, people try to shy away
from them, just like Excel add ins in a way. Maybe because they're
not compatible or there's maybe security issues or whatever.
Chandoo (01:25:25):
Having a native visual is useful. That's one thing. And there are
other fun projects I do to just demo certain things. But I think
this is one. There is another one that I had an article and I think
even a YouTube video where we are using the what-if parameter
option of Power BI to user input and then build a calculator that
will do some projections on what if you save $500 a month that, I
don't know, some sort of investment that will give you 6%, how much
money it would create in future, right? So some sort of
projections. And again, at that point, Power BI didn't have the
functions like FV or future value calculation things. So you had to
do it in an arithmetic way using the formulas. But now it is, I
believe they have added some more finance functions now.
Rob Collie (01:26:15):
I remember that with PRODUCTX.
Chandoo (01:26:17):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:26:17):
They didn't have the PRODUCTX function. And so Amir told me, "Oh
no, no problem. You just convert it to exponents". Like you do
something with the E-function or something, right.
Chandoo (01:26:29):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:26:30):
And then you do a sum-x of that. And then you raise that answer to
the power and now you're, and I'm like, "Oh God". And I actually
did a few things like that. And then PRODUCTX came along and I'm
like, "Oh, thank goodness". Yeah. I mean, because it's exactly that
scenario, right? The future projection scenario. If your growth
rate is the same every year, then you can use the power function,
right? But as soon as there's variables happening at each year,
it's all over, you need other functions. So you had to re-implement
the FV function before it existed.
Chandoo (01:27:04):
Yeah. So there are some of those things that I had fun. And again,
what I find tricky within the Power BI space especially is because
the platform is shaky and it is always moving, the goal posts are
changing. What you find it useful in a hack kind of a thing may not
be relevant tomorrow or 10 months down the line. But yeah, certain
ideas, and I think because I don't view them as innovations, but
those are good things, good practice in a way I think, just try and
showing people how to do and things will eventually ... that will
be normalized and then the next things will happen.
Rob Collie (01:27:40):
Yeah. Well, I find those moments of hack, or invent, or work
around, or whatever you want to call them where you create
something that didn't quite seem possible when you got started, it
was like on the fringe of possible. Those are some of the most
satisfying achievements. Those feel really good. I think in a way
it's like, that's almost what it's all about is that act of
creation.
Chandoo (01:28:04):
Yep.
Rob Collie (01:28:04):
Even if you stayed a hundred percent within the known and
traditional bounds of the product and you haven't invented some new
technique, by the time you're done with a good report, a good
dashboard, whatever noun you want to use and then the customer, in
our case, the client, right? That's a piece of software they're
going to now go use to revolutionize their business. You still get
that feeling of creation.
Chandoo (01:28:31):
Yep.
Rob Collie (01:28:31):
And I think it's one of those addictions with no downside, it's a
positive addiction.
Chandoo (01:28:38):
Yeah totally. And I feel like in that sense, the amount of
satisfaction I derive within the Power BI space, more of it comes
from Power Query and Power Pivot side of things, because that's
where you are really tinkering with the language that is available
to you. Whereas, the visual space is still hacky. You have all
these bookmarks and selection pane and toll tips and stuff like
that. That'll let you go in and make it to the next level. But
because there is so much click action happening, you feel like the
sequence of clicks is the real source there. Whereas in Power Query
or another place, what you are describing, can we replicate it with
a different situation, different data and different scenario, more
easily.
Chandoo (01:29:18):
I think another example that people find useful, the ones that are
blogged are using Power Query to look up the whole thing. But it's
basically like a word search, but more, not simple words, but
keyword search. So you got your X values in a column, and then you
have your key phrases that you want to go and see in that and
either remove them or delimit them based on any of those. So then
there is no direct function. Maybe there is now, but when I was
doing it, there was no direct function so I had to use the
accumulate function or the list thing, which is basically like,
it'll go through and it'll run some. It's a crazy concoction, but
it works.
Rob Collie (01:29:59):
You want to see crazy concoctions, go look at my jittering,
jittering techniques. I'm not very sophisticated. It's always like
a street fight with me with this stuff. You know, it's like
throwing dirt.
Chandoo (01:30:10):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:30:11):
It's not an Olympic fencing tournament with me. I find that very
interesting that the two engines under the hood are the ones that
have spoken to you the most. Coming in, I know that you can
formula. You're R1C1 on Twitter. Like that's a reputation to live
up to. But again, just sort of always thinking about you as the so
incredibly differentiated on the visuals layer and Excel, I would
have expected you to be just sort of fully enamored with the
toolkit that they've given us, despite the fact that it's
clicky.
Chandoo (01:30:47):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:30:47):
It's clicky to set it up. It's not clicky for the end user. It is
very clicky for the developer.
Chandoo (01:30:53):
Yeah. I do create a lot of visuals in Power BI and I share them on
the course as well as on my blog and YouTube. So there is quite a
few visuals that I'm very proud of them and people do tell me that
this is really good and well-composed. It's just that I find that
you can't really get there unless you have a very good data and
calc engine behind. So 70% of the time really goes there, right?
The other 30% is really choosing the visual, putting it and
coloring it. That's pretty much it. That's why I mentioned those
because without that, you're really not able to deliver the
visual.
Rob Collie (01:31:29):
And once I heard you say it, that's where I am. It makes total
sense to me. Yeah, the visuals are a very, very, very important
last mile. They're only the representation of the metrics coming
out of your data model. They can't be better than that.
Chandoo (01:31:46):
Exactly.
Rob Collie (01:31:47):
And oftentimes, when you want to achieve a particular visual
effect, you actually need to go do something in the data model to
power it. For example, the dashboard we use to track the podcast
statistics. I index all of those, every podcast episode to day one,
the time sequence, the time access across the bottom of the chart.
It doesn't make sense for that to be the calendar because then I
just get all of these curves coming off from different places off
of the zero.
Chandoo (01:32:18):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:32:18):
I need them to all start in the same place. So I can say, "Hey,
look, this one's doing better at day five of it's life then this
other one was doing at day five of its life". And that's really
interesting. So it's this really cool spray chart where
everything's spraying out like a sprinkler. Well, I had to do DAX.
I had to do DAX to shift everything and the chart looks the way it
does because of the DAX. And that interplay is again, one of those
just like incredibly satisfying and gratifying things to do.
Chandoo (01:32:46):
Yeah, I totally agree. And then you can't really get there without
the measure, uplifting work. I remember doing this massive gender
pay gap dashboard for one of the ministries here in New Zealand.
And people look at that and they'll go, "Wow, this is amazing!" But
then I know that it takes me literally 10 minutes to make the
visuals, but the measures behind that, the ones that drive the
calculations and then tell them what actions they need to take. And
that's where a lot of hard work is, right? But writing those
measures was amazingly satisfactory, like learning how to use some
of the, especially, variables to break down complex calculations.
And I remember the times when there were no variable, so it would
be pretty much donkey work to get things done.
Rob Collie (01:33:34):
Yeah. Back in my day, we didn't even have the sort by column
feature. Our slicers had to have zero one dash January in them.
Chandoo (01:33:45):
Exactly.
Rob Collie (01:33:45):
So that we could get good sort order. What do you think the next 10
years looks like for Chandoo?
Chandoo (01:33:53):
Well, that's a very interesting question. And I keep thinking about
it more now than back in 2010, 13 or 2016, to be honest, because
I'm also trying to visualize what's going to happen, how I can be
helpful to others and how I can share my craft and how I can feel
that passion going forward. Because now that I'm more aware of what
could happen if I don't carefully nurture it. So one thing that I'm
trying to do is I'm trying to find myself in a situation where
there is enough challenge, but not too challenged that it feels
like stress and then you will give up halfway thinking, "Oh, this
is not worth my effort, I don't need it" kind of thing. So a
positive challenge that is happening for the last year and half is
that shift to video-based content production versus blog
articles.
Chandoo (01:34:48):
Again, purely because there is that unknown factor of how do I make
videos? How do I make them engaging? How do I make them just as fun
and quirky as a blog? How do I make them useful? So that is
something that I'm finding interesting and learning. And hopefully
that is the path that I want to be on for the next few years. I
don't really know, 10 years, a really long time to commit to
anything. But next few years, this is where I want to be, make more
videos, change, or help people through the video platform while
simultaneously maintaining blog and providing some support material
there from time to time. If there is no global pandemic or anything
like that, personally, we might be doing a lot more travel in 10
years because kids would be what, 21, 22 by then they might be
finishing with their uni or starting their work. So they'll
probably be not with us at that time. And we will find the same
place as you are like an empty-nester. And I would imagine if we
don't have anyone within our house, then we may want to go to India
or parts of Europe, or maybe even visit the US again and spend some
more time with some of the friends and family that we lost
connection all these years.
Chandoo (01:36:01):
That's more on a personal side, but yeah, at gender.org, I think it
will live. I'll keep blabbering about one thing or another. It
could be Excel, it could be Power BI, it could be some other new
technology or whatever. I enjoy tech. I feel like I would enjoy it
for the rest of my life and I enjoy talking about it. So that's
what I would do. I may not launch courses or sell stuff that far
down the line because there is an expectation when you are selling
stuff that you also care for your customers and provide service and
all of that. It is fun to get money and provide service, but not as
fun as producing content, to be honest for me.
Rob Collie (01:36:38):
Yeah.
Chandoo (01:36:38):
You could outsource that and all that, but because I'm not trying
to grow an empire here, I feel like it might be an unnecessary
thing for me to take up that challenge. And there is also a thought
that I keep toying with, which is to probably get into full-time
teaching or something like that. Wherein I might go and try and get
a PhD or start teaching at a university or something like that. I
don't really know. I mean, from outside, it looks like a romantic
thing, but then the moment I try to read up more about it. I'm
like, "Ah, I couldn't be bothered".
Rob Collie (01:37:11):
Yeah, it's tricky. I'm just sort of imagining this world in which
you became a full-time teacher and someone just accidentally lucks
into you as their instructor and their whole life would be
different afterwards. Not everyone is reachable, right? So a bunch
of people would go through that class and be like, "Oh, that guy
was weird", but that handful would just absolutely light up.
Chandoo (01:37:31):
But there are other things too. For example, these days I'm drawing
a lot more inspiration because I'm trying to be on the video
platform more. I'm drawing inspiration from other YouTubers who
have been in the journey for quite a bit of their life. Some of the
people that I enjoy watching content are, there's one person called
VZ waiter. It started off as a blog, but it's basically everything
about life. But because it has been around for as long as I have my
website, 13, 14 years, you could see that evolution in where he's
leading the trajectory, then there's Electro Boom and few other
places.
Chandoo (01:38:07):
When I watch them, I'm thinking they are in the life stages that I
have been, or they are going through the journey and they're still
maintaining that creativity and that inspiration and that fun
factor because I believe in the content place, you need to have
ample amount of fun. Otherwise, it would just drain you out and you
lose that spark. That's where I'm looking. And I'm trying to draw
inspiration from those people and try to get those values into what
I do every day.
Rob Collie (01:38:35):
Yeah. I was going to ask you if you tended to draw inspiration from
other YouTubers, like within our space, or if you primarily looked
sort of broader?
Chandoo (01:38:47):
I'm looking more broader, because our space is good, but also there
is this unwanted or a needed thing of comparison and jealousy and
other negative feelings that you'll get. So I watch our space to
learn, that's for sure. I watch our space to understand what sort
of content is resonating with audience and what sort of reactions
they are getting, how certain things are done, just so that I can
better my craft. But when it comes to getting inspiration or
setting a goal post or whatever, I'm trying to look at it more from
a holistic point of view. If I want to be a content creator like X,
who that X is, and that person is funny, that person is engaging,
that person is awesome, and that person is also a genuinely nice
person. So that's the person that I'm looking for. And there are
plenty of them around the world. So there's enough content to
inspire you. And that will also change from time to time,
right?
Chandoo (01:39:42):
There's one other thing that I thought I'll mention. So when I saw
raw data in the podcast, I remember because I had a podcast back in
the day and I slowly wound it down. So I no longer have episodes,
but all the old episodes are still there. I think early last year I
was talking to a friend that, maybe I should start another podcast
or maybe a video cast or a blog or something like that. I wanted to
call this as data dump simply because it's just me venting things
out or not trying to be an angry, middle-aged man or whatever. It's
just that was the name that I went with. I was kind of in two
minds, whether to call it a podcast or maybe make it a 30 minute
YouTube segment or a series of videos on my channel or whatever.
But I never went with that idea because I have been through the
podcast journey. I know that it is quite a bit of effort to put out
podcasts every week or month or whatever time period you choose.
And I didn't really want to commit myself to something that'll just
become a block on my creativity.
Chandoo (01:40:46):
Already, I'm doing YouTube. I have a blog and I have courses so I
felt like this is not something that I want to put on my plate
right now. But when I saw Raw Data come out, I was like, "Oh,
that's a good name as well". Like, you know her obviously doing
this, but it is good that you are doing this and reaching out to
people that have stories to tell and people need to hear certain
things. And the podcast is a very powerful medium. I hear podcasts
all the time when I go on a walk or when I'm driving and it's a
good companion to have. And it's a very solid way to build the bond
with your audience as well, because you're connected at an audio
level in their ears. Many times people hear this in their
headphones, right? So you're literally, they're just whispering in
their ears.
Rob Collie (01:41:29):
Yeah. We even had recently, we hired a consultant at our company
who heard of us through the podcast.
Chandoo (01:41:36):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:41:37):
That's a first. Yeah, podcasts are a lot of work, especially if you
want to do a good job on them and you've got that high quality
bar.
Chandoo (01:41:44):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:41:45):
And I do too. You need Luke. There's no way. In fact, you need more
than a Luke. And there are many people now that have their hands in
one way or another, to varying degrees, with every episode, in
addition to just the host and the guest. For example, Luke, I know
what Chandoo is, you get to make a choice. I'm going to give you a
choose your own adventure here. We make a gif for every guest, for
every episode. Now, your gif is going to be this. It's going to be
you standing there from the waist up and a table with relatively
normal hair, like what you have today. Okay. But sitting next to
you as a Van Der Graaf Generator, like one of those steel ball
things, right?
Chandoo (01:42:27):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:42:27):
And you're going to put your hand on it in the gif and your hair is
going to stand up and look like the Chandoo icon. Okay.
Chandoo (01:42:34):
Yeah.
Rob Collie (01:42:34):
All right. Now, the question is, and this is an important choice.
The Van Der Graaf Generator is going to have an icon on it. Do you
want it to be the Excel icon or the Power BI icon?
Chandoo (01:42:48):
I feel like you should say Power BI because it has got the
power.
Rob Collie (01:42:51):
Okay. All right. So it's going to be the Power BI icon. It's going
to be the best of all gifs.
Chandoo (01:43:04):
Those gifs were like an amazing thing as well. They add so much
more quirkiness to the podcast, especially when you put them out on
Twitter. Like, oh, it was fun. I liked the one with the [inaudible
01:43:18] on his monkey dancing stuff.
Rob Collie (01:43:25):
I mean, you can imagine, you have this idea, and this is something
I learned again, writing a book. And I learned it again when I was
making the videos, you have this idea, this idea hits you about
what would be perfect and then you can't un-see the idea. You can't
forget the idea, but now you have to go execute the idea. And it
ends up being a lot of work. A gif a week turns out to be a
reasonably intense pace because the idea isn't even always clear to
us. What are we going to do? What are we going to do with this one?
With you, thanks to the signature icon. We know what we're going to
do.
Rob Collie (01:44:03):
So hey, sincerely, a real pleasure to get to talk with you for such
a long time and to see you. And I really appreciate you taking the
time to join us and to do the show with us. So now we've done the
bio, right? We've done the history of Chandoo, right? That doesn't
mean you can't come back. This podcast is in part, just a
professional excuse to talk to cool people.
Rob Collie (01:44:29):
Chandoo thank you for coming and seriously, just thanks for being
you. I've learned so much from you directly and indirectly over the
years, be a good borg. Absorb things from other good people. I've
definitely borged some good Chandoo content.
Chandoo (01:44:45):
Thank you so much for having me and I really appreciate what you're
doing here with the podcast. And it is a really positive and fun
way to get the message out to people and then tell good stories and
connect to your audience. I wish you great success with the
podcast.
Rob Collie (01:45:01):
The podcast is only as good as the guests. Powered by guests.
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