Friday, October 20, 2017
Coda is a next-generation spreadsheet designed to make Excel a thing of the past
The Verge: When Shishir Mehrotra worked at YouTube, he was struck by the relatively pedestrian tools that kept the site running. Mehrotra, who served as the company’s head of product until he left in 2014, managed his team largely using a combination of Google Docs and Sheets. The system worked well enough, but the tools had been built for a previous age. Mehrotra began to fixate on a question: what would documents and spreadsheets look if they were invented today?
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6 comments:
A tool like this has so many positive implications not only for just the world of business but for theater and all of its many flavors of managers. In my short time as a manager there have been many occasions in which the tools of the trade (aka. Microsoft Suite) have lacked the exact tools that I have needed. While Microsoft is continually adapting and trying to catch up to the needs of the customers it is often that they make changes that cause problems and sometimes the need for a whole other piece of software to fix the very change they made in the first place. To have a software like this that is so versatile where all the functions which you need can be found in one place and have such versatility to be able to add the apps and functions which are the most beneficial to you personally would be something I would willingly pay for.
Every once in a while, you have to rethink the things that seem ubiquitous from the ground up. It can be hard to find the flaws or potential improvements in programs that have proven their effectiveness time and time again. Sometimes, like with Coda, you have to rebuild from something of a blank slate. Of course, as a manager, I’m jazzed about any new way to manage and organize information and work. The description does make Coda seem eminently flexible and powerful. I’m intrigued by the change in formula building and have positive feelings about mechanics that allow the user to input names of columns instead of ranges, but it does leave me with some questions. What if you only want to select part of a column? It seems like an unlikely need, but you never know. The interface is slick but unfamiliar and, as the article mentions, the learning curve of understanding a platform that operates using a different language and looks so very different could deter its adoption. Can’t wait to have an opportunity to try it out.
The article describes some interesting new features. I especially like the idea of being able to insert data that can update automatically in a text document. The article also has some information wrong – named ranges are a part of Excel and Google Sheets. Granted, one has to name the ranges, but they do exist. As great as this new software, I don’t think we’re going to see the Office or Google suites going away any time soon. Even though the Google apps haven’t been around as long, its ease of use and ability to collaborate in real time make it popular. It also sounds like there is a fair bit of coding that needs to be done in order to make this program as effective as its potential is. While there is some coding done in databases, like Microsoft Access, it isn’t strictly necessary to make the program work. It doesn’t sound like this is the case with Coda.
I think this is interesting on multiple levels. The first is that programs like these are representational of shift occurring with the workplace. As the article points out, collaboration is a key characteristic of modern workflow, and I think it is excellent that apps and programs are rising to that challenge. The second thing I find compelling about this program is the program itself. I appreciate the push for more live, real-time updating data as this is the kind of world we live in now. Modern business methods seem to dictate that the faster we can receive accurate information, the better. There also seems to be a fluidity of combination in Coda that I think reflects a change in the way many perceive information. I personally had experienced several projects in which the functionality of a Word doc table was too restricted, and yet I did not want to deal with all the whiz-bang of Excel. This seems like - as much as any program can be - a happy, intuitive medium, befitting the changing times.
I remember in third grade computer class we learned about Excel, how to build basic formulas and input data. Then last year in Production Resource Management we learned a lot of tools in Excel and how to manipulate them to create budgets. I found it kind of surprising how long Excel has lasted, without that much changing. I would not be surprised in a new interface like Coda does take over. A big part of any finance job is being able to manipulate data, so the inputs can show different outputs, if Coda can make it easier than Excel to do so, or have more options to use with the data, then I could see companies really wanting to use that. I think it is interesting now to see how companies are adapting to Google Doc and Sheets, because while I know that have not replaced Microsoft Office, there are a lot of advantages to them. So I don't know if another processing platform would replace either one, but it could become something often used as well.
This sounds like really fantastic technology that is truly going to reinvent the “spreadsheet” that we use in today’s world. I have never actually learned how to use Excel—I have always just done simple spreadsheets to organize things or create lists. Despite the fact that I had no idea what I was doing or did not know how to use all of the features available, I always felt that there was something missing, something more that could be done. Inserting outside media was always awkward in Excel, but with Coda it seems so simple and user friendly. You can insert data, tables, and even Google map directions. One of the photos the article provided was of the user adjusting a slider of priority level due to time, and the event or note automatically changed colors and adjusted it’s size; in Excel, you’d need to key in a million codes and manually add color to make it look nearly as clean. A user friendly interface is something many people will really benefit from, I think.
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