Let’s Talk Data

HOW MANY COLUMNS???????

So, here we are, post-data-gathering-phase of the big B2B study we completed. The survey has all kinds of juicy data in it, and it will be examined closely over the next several months as we try to unravel the mysteries of inkjet usage.

But taking a peek at the data has been, well shall we say, less than pleasant!

When you create survey tools that include lots of visuals, and customized questions, the resulting tables are quite big and unwieldy.

Yes, we have SAS and SPSS programmers, tools and all that good stuff, but for your average analyst who just wants to LOOK at the goods, what is usually the tool of choice?? Excel, of course. Or Access.

But Excel has its limitations (great limitations — only 256 columns and 65,000 rows). We searched up and down for tools to let us have Excel-like functionality — yet an ability to handle over 3,000 columns of data.

If you are over the age of 35 — you might remember the WordPerfect vs Microsoft Office battles? Well, upon searching the *wonderous* wide web, we came across an old favorite, from long ago…Corel’s Quattro Pro. This beauty takes 18,000 columns with 1,000,000 rows!!!! And it’s elegant and fast, and so darned easy to use levitra because it works like Excel but somehow it seems even more intuitive. And an upgrade from Excel is only $159.00. How cool is that?

So, if you want to know what I’m up to these days, I’m up to my ears in new data…. gleefully, now that I can see it!