On a number of forums, I found the following suggested formulas for returning the last TEXT value in a column. These are pretty good and they allow the range to include blanks, error values (like #N/A), and numeric values.=VLOOKUP(REPT("z",255),A:A,1) or=INDEX(A:A,MATCH(REPT("z",255),A:A))(For the formula that returns the last NUMERIC value in a column, see my previous post)I prefer the formula
. Read More........Return the Last Numeric Value in a Column
Returning the final value in a column is particularly useful for spreadsheets that involve running balances, where you want to reference the final balance regardless of whether it is the smallest or largest value in the column.After trying a variety of different formulas for returning the last numeric value in a column, I settled on the following two.=VLOOKUP(9.99999999999999E+307,A:A,1) or=
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Microsoft FY09Q3 Results
Last time we did quarterly results, it was a doooozy. Immediate layoffs for 1,400 Microsofties and sometime-in-the-next-18-months layoffs for 3,600 more. Of course, the layoffs were offset somewhat by continued crazy hiring for Live Search (should we expect a work of Shakespeare to pop out of there sometime soon, too?).
What kind of questions do you want to be asked during the conference call? Some off of the top of my head:
- So... how's that, ah, layoff... thingy.. going?
- Which groups and products are specifically being affected by layoffs?
- What other cost-cutting measures are in effect?
- What are the causes in drop of revenue and what are the expectations going forward (will Microsoft give guidance this time)?
- What bright spots are there in profits?
- How is gaining share going?
- The EU seems to be pulling its leg way back for a full-on kick to Microsoft's financial groin. How does the defense against EU charges look to protect shareholder money for additional EU fines?
- What does a financial geek have to do to get a beer at The Commons?
And you know, speaking of The Commons: I trekked over there today (meh, not the sunniest day) and I have to say it's an impressive space. I walked around admiring the scope of the project, thinking "This is what Windows built. This is what Office built." I then reflected on the irony that it's Mr. Robbie Bach's Entertainment and Devices moving into the new campus with The Commons. Windows and Office funded this extravagant place for the folks who managed to burn through $8,000,000,000USD+ on the Xbox, be shown how it's done right from Nintendo with the Wii, dash the Zune against the juggernaut iPod, and have the iPhone drop-kick WinMobile to Mars.
Microsoft Senior Leadership Team is rewarding something here moving these people into such a great place, but it's not anything that I could make sense of while I wandered the new campus...
I'll update this post later with commentary about the quarterly results. In the meantime, some of my favorite places to track insights and opinions on MSFT quarterly results:
- Mr. Joe Wilcox over at Microsoft Watch.
- Mr. Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog at TechFlash.
- Mr. Joseph Tartakoff somewhere within paidContent.org
Update: closing the loop here a little bit later than I wanted (sorry, I was bounced off the grid for a while):
Wow: have a plunge in profits and get rewarded by your stock shooting up 10%+ in one day! Sweet! And by "Sweet" I mean none of this makes a lick of sense except to look at an article like Cost-cutting saves Microsoft stock after rough 3Q and realize that the market is supposedly rewarding the stock price and recognizing appreciation for the reduction in overhead and expenditures.
So now, we must have a plan to have constant announcements about reduction of expenditures.
Announcement #1: No more Company Picnic. Ever. Next?
What would be on your short list of things to cut back on? MGX? The Company Meeting? Beer at morale events? Soda? The Company Store? Whole product groups? Your group? Yeah, I don't know how often that last one makes the list. Though I have friends who have sniffed the way the FY10 wind is blowing and are getting the hell out of groups that have spent more time talking about what they are going to do than actually doing anything or - get this - shipping something to actual customers. You know, the type of groups that make Yahoo's Carol Bartz slip in the F-bomb.
I'm surprised to learn from Ms. Fried's Company Picnic article above that The Company Meeting is still on. As much as I love the Company Meeting, it was totally dead and gone to me in my mind. Talk about the most challenging Company Meeting ever. Yes, we'll have Win7 and coming in close Office 14, along with other emerging products. But how in the world to you manage to pull off a great Company Meeting within our current environment? You have to take the big issues head-on, and part of that will be looking at the upcoming MSPoll numbers and actually sharing with Microsofties who they hell were let go as part of the layoff. And why.
The Company Picnic boggled my mind just looking at the logistical nightmare it had turned into. Tell you what: if we reduce the company size back down to something reasonable, we should bring it back. But for now, I'll be happy with my group renting space for a family morale team event at Vasa Park.
CRF: unmoderated comment thread: Microsoft FY09Q3 Results.
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Toggle Between Relative and Absolute References
Use the function key F4 to toggle a reference between relative and absolute references while editing a formula. Repeatedly pressing F4 will cycle through the 4 different options in this order: A1, $A$1, A$1, $A1.If you want to toggle all the references in the formula at the same time, just select the entire formula. The first time you press F4, all of the references currently selected will change
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Quickly Fill Multiple Cells with a Value or Formula
Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Enter to quickly fill multiple cells with a value or formula. For example, you may want to enter a bunch of 0's (zeros) in a range of cells. Or, you want to apply the same formula to a range of cells without changing the cell formats. 1. Select a range of cells2. Enter the value or formula3. Instead of pressing Enter afterwards, press Ctrl+Enter to fill the entire
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Spitfire Backfire, Live Labs, and Not My 1,400
Here's a quick post before next Thursday's quarterly results. Given the layoffs in the last quarterly results I know there is some increased anxiety about any additional cost cutting Mr. Ballmer might be ready to unleash, like more staff reductions or, you know, "Hey congratulations on entering RC and all. Now... about that next release and, well, you specifically..."
Mr. Joseph Tartakoff over at paidContent has a post around further reductions: Microsoft Still On Track To Cut Another 3,600 Jobs.
Contrition time for me: last post I shared how amazed I was that everyone in the 1,400 that I knew or that were in my extended network got rehired. Pretty much the feedback I heard here and on Twitter was, "Wow, you're one lousy sample set," because a number of you are either in the non-presently-Microsoftie 1,400 or know plenty of people in that pool.
I wish I could blame it on drinking too much at Spitfire but, (1) it wasn't opened yet, and (2) it will never be opened thanks to the brazenly stupid idea to have it planned and ready to go for what seems like the better part of a year and then three days before it was to open, Microsoft yanks the rug out from under Spitfire and thirsty Microsoftie patrons.
You know, if upfront the Senior Leadership Team had decided that a bar was an interesting idea but didn't make sense for Microsoft I would have just shrugged and scooted over to a Mustard Seed, had I even heard of the idea. But to have this set up for so long with curious expectations building in Redmond and then to have a last minute revelation and cancelling Spitfire really calls into question basic judgment and execution abilities.
So-- what, what's that? Hmm, checking in over at the Bring Spitfire back to Microsoft Facebook group (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70887074034) it appears Spitfire is on track to open at the end of the month? From Jonathan Sposato:
thx for everyone's support! OK there's GOOD NEWS today; the spitfire has reached an agreement in principal with msft to open on the west commons campus later this month : ) over the last few days, both parties re-engaged and worked creatively to find a way to deliver on a great spitfire experience on campus.
('scuse me while I tweet that.) Great! Allow me to raise a glass. Now I'm vaguely curious to know about all the soap-opera court-intrigue going on behind the scenes here. And I can cancel my idea for a BYOB + Towel Commons protest.
Update: well, not so fast, you twittering fool. Looks like the compromise is pretty extreme, in that drinks will only be served for scheduled special events. Hmm. More by Mr. Todd Bishop here: Microsoft revives Spitfire pub under compromise arrangement.
One last thing: Live Labs recently restructured, with some projects going forward and others getting the axe and the researchers being repurposed into groups like Mobile and Search. I've only had superficial dealings with Live Labs folks and I found them very refreshing compared to other teams in research I had planned with: a sort of practicality that was uncommon. To add a few more words here, we'll end with a special guest writer reflection on the recent Live Labs happenings:
Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is downsizing its high-profile Live Labs group, which was created three years ago to speed up innovation in the company�s online business, paidContent.org has learned. -- Joseph Tartakoff, Microsoft breaks up its Live Labs group, 2009
Microsoft describes it as a "restructuring". About half of the team will be moved to various product groups. The remaining half, still run by former Overture/Yahoo star Gary Flake, will focus on search, data organization and user experience aspects. There's more information in articles by Mary Jo Foley on ZD Net, Ina Fried on CNET, and Gavin Clarke in The Register.
Contrary to recent whispers and tweets, we are not shutting down, disbanding, dismantling, or anything of the sort. In the coming weeks and months we'll bring you updated developer tools, new ways to use Seadragon, and much more. Going forward, we intend to focus on a smaller number of projects relative to what we've done in the past, but invest in them at a much bigger scale. -- What's next for Live Labs, on the Live Labs blog
Mary Jo comments that "Microsoft execs often touted Live Labs as proof that Microsoft is an innovator, not just a follower," and there's no question that the acquisition of Seadragon and merging it with Microsoft Research technologies has a chance to be transformational. Photosynth is an encouraging start, and there's a lot more to build on. A tighter focus and bigger bets could be a good thing here. On the other hand, Live Labs was also supposed to be a company-wide (or at least Windows Live/MSN-wide) innovation center. Gary's 2006 Live Labs Manifesto and coverage at the time like Ina Fried's captures the original vision: bridging the gap between research and the product groups and revitalizing how software is developed. This was always going to be a tough sell, with senior executives like Steven Sinfosky firmly against the idea of a separate innovation group outside of their control. The restructuring seems to throw in the towel on this front. And Microsoft spokeswoman's Stacy Drake McCredy's comments in paidcontent.org are somewhat alarming:
Economic conditions are imposing constraints that challenge the original Live Labs model by diminishing the group�s ability to transfer innovations to business groups who�re understandably giving priority to �needs� vs. �opportunities.�
Well yeah, it is understandable. But what this is saying that Microsoft product groups aren't in a situation where they can take advantage of opportunities. It's really hard to see that as a recipe for long-term success.
Administrivia: The Cutting Room Floor is unmoderated and folks have been pleading for me to shut down the red-hot discussions over there. I moderate here - when I can manage - to keep things on track. If the CRF can be the crazy diatribe magnet and that makes moderation here all that more easy: fan-damn-tastic.
CRF: Unmoderated thread for "Spitfire Backfire, Live Labs, and Not My 1,400"
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File Free Federal Tax Return Extension on IRS website
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Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee Plan to Expand Telecommuting
On the horizons, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee has decided to work on expanding the amount of employees telecommuting. Currently, BCBS of Tennessee has 100 employees who work from home, but in the next 1 � 2 years they plan to expand that number in order to cut down on operational costs and draw a wider range of qualified applicants.
Use Correct Syntax with INDEX()
I am guilty of shortcutting when using the INDEX() function. The proper syntax is INDEX(array,row_num,column_num), but if your data is in a row, the following shortcut will also work: INDEX(array,column_num). DON'T DO THAT! It may work just fine in your Excel document, but I discovered recently that when you try to open the document with OpenOffice, it will interpret your formula as INDEX(array,
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Create a Drop Down List within a Cell
One of the tricks you can use when creating a nice dashboard or Excel template is to add a drop-down list to a cell using Data Validation. You can reference a list from a different worksheet as long as you define the list as a Named Range. In my new article, "Drop Down List using Data Validation", I explain how to do it.
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Agent Communications Panel for OCS and CRM
Obviously Microsoft is heading full speed towards tight integration of strategic business applications. Now they have released a FREE addon that "integrates Microsoft Dynamics CRM with Microsoft� Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (OCS) and enables users to manage their communications (make calls, receive calls, conference, chat, and monitor presence information) from their Dynamics CRM Web client." Compare that to other CRM solutions where you might have to spend a lot of dough to get such a functionality. Nice�
Deployment seems rather easy, download here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=0d689f13-4953-40ea-995e-49469dae559e
Gonna check and let you know more soon....
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