Carol Jacoby

I’ve been using spreadsheets to answer questions for over 30 years. I used it as a mission analyst at Hughes Electronics and other companies to predict outcomes and compare alternatives. The applications were broad and ill-defined: protect Europe from missile attack, limit drug smuggling, design a highway system for self-driving cars and more. The flexibility of Excel helped me try scenarios, find tipping points, pinpoint key drivers and optimize the solution. I’m also a mathematician, the host of The Art of Mathematics podcast and a Michael Management instructor.

I’ve tried multiple data base programs and always run into questions they can’t answer. I always go back to Excel and use if for everything from simple lists, to tracking doctor visits, to complex retirement planning.

I’ve been teaching technical classes to managers through major universities for 20 years. I use Excel in these classes to demonstrate the techniques. The students all have Excel already on their computers and are familiar with it, so they can jump right into hands-on explorations of the complex techniques being taught. For example, they can start digging into data science algorithms without having to learn R or Python. Here are some of the classes where Excel was used extensively.

One thing I like about teaching is interacting with the students. I look forward to comments and direct messages and respond promptly. Any feedback is encouraged. If something is confusing or doesn’t work as expected, I want to hear about it right away so I can fix it. I want to hear about your own data explorations, alternative answers to the case studies and other topics you’d like to learn about or problems you’d like to solve. 

So, are you ready to dig into that data and see what you can learn? Learn how in just a couple hours. Sign up now. If you want more of a taste first, check out the quick promo video or some of the free lessons. I hope to see you in class.