This post discusses the use of VBA in Excel dashboards and links to a VBA-free Excel dashboard

via Creating a VBA-free Excel dashboard.

Cheers,

Nick www.scenario2.com

To squeeze some competitive advantage of using Excel in your business, you must avoid several basic mistakes everyone makes. This is a short list of 10 of them.

via Are Excel Charts Hurting Your Business? 10 Mistakes You Should Avoid..

Cheers,

Nick www.scenario2.com

I just saw the promotion for the new WordPress Theme P2 and it got me thinking about innovation.

The keyboard controls are just about right, but not quite, almost like comparing a Blackberry to a Motorola, Nokia, Sony or any Microsoft based device.

How is this story connected to NUMBERS which are the raw material of choice for the NUMERATI?  Innovation is mostly painfully slow if you are a manufacturer.  Very few, like RIM the Blackberry maker, get it right and so the numbers cut, chopped and sliced in a anemic attempt to convince customers there is market traction are just not available to the marketing blowhards.  Or the NUMERATI.

Marketers, accountants and the NUMERATI would be better served to understand the stories behind the success of RIM and other very rare companies who get it right.  Check out how winners observe and serve Peronae.

P2, heck NO!

Cheers,

Nick www.neuropersona.com

Microsoft anhialtes adCenter analytics or as posted here Microsoft Kills AdCenter Analytics

This is HUGE as analytics acts as an on-ramp to adCenter–see the Story Lens where we make the connection between Story, Process, Software, Brand and Metrics/Analytics.  Unless customers understand which words impact the Story to Analytics continuum they don’t know the most effective way to spend their money or event focus their attention.

MISSING LINK  –> Search words uses change at a rate of 30% daily

WHAT NOW? –>  Understand the Persona Behaviours and you will succeed by being in their ‘word proxity’

Word proximity means that they will understand that the search word combinations that you selected COMBINED with the story you have linked to the words will serve their needs BETTER than their other options.

PREDICTION –>  Microsoft will buy another analytics provider, soon, whether it is Yahoo, Omniture or other…IMHO

Cheers,

Nick

GRYO Analytics is the ability for the numbers and the stories used in Analysis or Analytics to adjust according to the needs of the user without programming or modification.  This is done with the concept of the MAGIC LENS.

A LENS provides the wearer PERSPECTIVE for CLARITY in their environment.  LENSES may be combined according to the need of the wearer, time, place and people which are being viewed.  This is a LENS WEARER…

 Cheers,

Nick www.scenario2.com

A NeuroPersona sees the world through LENSES and WE BUILD LENSES!

NeuroPersona LENSES

To understand the NeuroPersona or Persona behind the LENSES please see:

http://numerati.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/chanel-no5-and-neuropersona-behaviour/

Stories make up the mask of a NeuroPersona and are important to Numerati as they also are at the core of numbers.

Comments on LENSES that you may use are appreciated here:

http://numerati.wordpress.com/2009/01/05/neuropersona-and-story-lenses/

Cheers,

Nick www.scenario2.com

Understanding the connection between numbers and stories is critical, especially for people who believe that numbers are the only lens at which to view past, present and future.  My original post is a good start.

As a fully recovered accountant I have moved from someone who serves client processes to being a storyteller. Oddly enough I do this successfully by offering analytics services based on Microsoft, Cognos and Business Objects technologies in the international enterprise spaces which they occupy.

Here is how I make the link from stories to numbers with a little mantra that I call my ’story lens’.

Story Process Software Brand KPI

Tell a story twice and it becomes a Process.
Tell a story three times and software is made to speed up Processes.
Tell a story four times and you create a Brand value.
Tell a story five times and someone creates a KPI to measure.

Anyone can point this story lens at a corporation’s value chain to obtain a clear understanding of what is happening there today and what will happen in the next 6 to 12 months.

I add two simple tools to magnify the value of a story lens:

1. Personae–build key personae with a focus on behaviours
2. Scenarios–gather stories that are the core of the financial forecasts of a corporation and its key value stream partners.

First observe which Personae are linked to a corporation’s value stream stories and determine how those Personae might change their behaviours in the next 6 to 12 months.

Next identify the key stories attached to the corporation’s financial forecast–these stories are the orginial story bucket or Scenario at the core of the financial statements.

Then modify some of the original stories according to anticipated changes in Persona behaviours and add new stories which may occur in the future, not those that are a progression of current stories but rather those that may occur due to unforseen events such as Barrack Obama being elected as the next US President. Once the new stories are combined to those in the original Scenario label this bucket of stories Scenario2.

Then consider how you would have to manage and align the business if the world unfolds according to the stories in Scenario1, or your current financial forecasts or if the world unfolds according the the stories that make up Scenario2.

To come full circle, all this is possible by working with a story or rather a series of stories and linking them to Personae.

All storytellers intuitively understand that numbers and stories are complementary and as a storyteller I must point out that at one time stories and numbers were one and indeed even today a number evokes many stories–the numbers 7 or 4 in the Chinese culture or even the number 5 in our own.

Chanel No5–the link between Africa and the western world–

http://uma.chanel.com/fplus.php?chsetdefgnavdiv=13&landing=f&branding=n05

In the Yoruba tradition of Nigeria the deity of love, sexuality and finance is OCHUN and her number is 5.

Coco Chanel either new and used this mythical connection or was extremely lucky. Either way the connection of stories and numbers is illustrated effectively here and others who wish more proof can research as time permits with luminaries like Marie-Louise von Franz.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Marie-Louise%20von%20Franz

though I suggest this as a first read

On Divination and Synchronicity: The Psychology of Meaningful Chance. Originally Presented As Lectures at the C.G. Jung Institute, Zurich (Studies in Jungian Psychology) (Paperback)
by Marie-Louise von Franz
http://www.amazon.com/Divination-Synchronicity-Psychology-Meaningful-Originally/dp/0919123023/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226257728&sr=1-7

Stories are the core of what we are and what we do, and for those with an unclear understanding of what a storyteller means let me offer this view–first a storyteller hears a story, repeats a story, modifies a story, builds a story and finally lives a story.

Cheers,
Nick
nick@scenario2.com

A storyteller is a ‘lens maker’ and provides tools to help people understand where they are and where they can go.

The atomic elements of any lens are Stories and Numbers as highlighted in the Story Lens below and found here:

Sample Lens STORY PERSONA PROMISE TIME MODEL

1. Story Lens: 
Story<->Process<->Software<->Brand<->KPI

A lens provides a unique way of using stories and numbers to provide perspective to its wearer and may be used in may ways.  From a commercial perspective a lens provides assessments of current state of an enterprise and its market environment and supports the alignment of content (sell side) to Customer or Persona needs (buy side).

2.  TIME Lens: C,C,E,S,S

Clock Time–Past, Present, Future (most common way of viewing Time)
Cycle Time–Relative Time based on intereaction of Processes (some flowers only bloom when Salmon are running)
Event Time–Event and Time only starts when participants arrive (party, cultural event…)
Story Time–Stories may be used to change Value of past, present and future data
Scenario Time–Time unfolds according to interaction of stories

3.  PROMISE Lens –> see bottom of this post for a Promise Lens diagram
Sell Side–Value Promise and Deliver
Buy Side–Persona Need and Ability to use or Accept the product

4. PERSONA Lens
Buy Side–Persona Needs and Content Navigation requirements
Sell Side– Company Product or Content creation and deliver

5. MODEL Lens
This lens provides a description of the relationships, mathematical or stories, that exist in a business environment. It can provide details or a high level view depending on the wearer’s need or the speed by which the wearer must apply the lens.  In our experience higher level views of models are generally sufficient and detail can be provided by using the other lenses available much more quickly than building detail models and structures.

My speciality is connecting the big picture to small details.  Sometimes this means Strategy to Action, which is difficult for most Strategy or Scenario Analysis people.  I do it with stories, lenses and with an understanding that stories are at the core of all numbers.

Cheers,
Nick  www.scenario2.com

PROMISE Lens Example

BETTER TO ASK FORGIVENESS THAN PERMISSION is the mantra of the Analysis challenged and in a commercial context analysis is generally considered an essential success component. 

In the last twenty years I have noticed a shift from the lauded and methodical READY, AIM, FIRE approach to analysis and action to the manic READY, FIRE, AIM sequence where the role of Analysis appears to have shifted from careful consideration before acting to backward facing justification of acts done.  Ignoring the value of Analysis is justified by the generic North American ‘first mover wins’ where many avoid the risk of Analysis slowing action.

STRATEGY is supposed to be better, a carefully considered and analyzed long term view of business opportunity and deployment of assets to create market value to serve commercial and non-commercial communities and enterprises.

Oddly enough STRATEGY suffers from the same fate as Analysis as contrary to the fiction of the ‘NUMERATI‘ or data priests, most enterprises, communities or people are uncomfortable with measuring and measures.  There is an awkwardness, discomfort or simple ignorance of how to connect numbers and stories that typically results in:

1. ANALYSIS PARALYSIS
2. ACT FIRST, MEASURE LATER

ANALYSIS PARALYSIS is an affliction, not just a slogan, though it shouldn’t be confused with measurement denial and acting first and measuring later shouldn’t be confused with the ability to measure.

How can numbers help us avoid conditioned behaviour of analysis paralysis or acting first, measuring later?

1. Understand how to MEASURE the CURRENT STATE of your decision environment.
2. Clarify and QUANTIFY your OBJECTIVE.
3. Consider multiple future SCENARIOS or STORY groups in your future environment.
4. Envision ACTION options that may be AVAILABLE depending on the future that unfolds.
5. Take multiple PERSPECTIVES when measuring past, current or future PERFORMANCE

As a fully recovered accountant I discovered that stories underly numbers and indeed stories are numbers and numbers are stories where you become comforatable with the nuances of storytelling.  Don’t get dscouraged if you can tell a story because most that believe they can have a little way to go in this sequence:

1. Hear a Story
2. Tell a Story
3. Modify a Story to fit an environment
4. Create your own Story to craft a Scenario
5. Live a Story from multiple simultaneous Perspectives

If the idea of telling stories or connecting numbers and stories is new to you then read as many stories as you can and observe how the numbers relate to the story and how the story would have changed without numbers.

Remember numbers are necessary to measure and it is difficult to know where you you came from, where you are or where you are going without numbers. 

Cheers,

Nick www.scenario2.com

Marketers are just catching up to artists when it comes to understanding the value of the Persona construct.  What is a Persona and how do different Personae interact?  A simple definition of a Persona is a mask that someone wears, not to hide their identity but rather to simply and clearly indicate the behaviour that they are predisposed towards. 

Artists understand that they can wear and discard masks or Personae at will and this is explored further in personati.wordpress.com and www.scenario2.com and while Artists are story focused, Marketers look for and consume numbers in their quest for selling products and ideas.

Why is it that we distinquish and divide stories and numbers?  –Conditioning, pure and simple.

If you are an accountant, actuary, economist or practice any othe commercial profession that depends on numbers consider that underlying every number, individually or in combination, there lies a story or two.

Financiers, Venture Capitalists and other Master’s of the Universe often forget that stories preceed numbers and actually manifest their forecasts.  Oddly enough once these stories manifest numbers the numerati then forget their existance and attempt to understand and influence the future with numbers alone.

You are welcome to explore the relationship between numbers, stories and numerati here and at www.scenario2.com or www.marketstory.com or www.storyflow.com to see different perspectives of links between stories and numbers, now or in the future.