How Finance Professionals Can Grow with Excel, Avoid Automation Traps, and Build a Brand with Jon Acampora
In this episode of Financial Modeler's Corner, host Paul Barnhurst sits down with Jon Acampora to discuss the ever-evolving world of financial modeling, focusing on Excel. Jon shares about the importance of creating user-friendly models and the impact of Excel Esports on financial modeling skills. The conversation covers best practices for building efficient models, lessons from Excel competitions, and how new technologies like Power Query and AI are shaping the future of modeling.
Jon is the founder of Excel Campus, a Microsoft MVP, and an expert in helping Excel users simplify and automate their workflows. With over 600,000 YouTube subscribers, Jon is passionate about making Excel both fun and efficient. He’s also a regular commentator for Excel Esports competitions, where Excel professionals compete to solve complex modeling challenges in real time. Jon’s mission is to help people leverage Excel to boost productivity and creativity, making financial modeling more accessible and enjoyable.
Expect to Learn
The importance of building financial models that are easy for others to understand and use.
Jon's take on the role of Excel Esports in advancing modeling skills and fostering creativity.
How Power Query can save you hours of data processing time in Excel.
Why financial modelers should focus on simplicity and automation rather than over-complicating their models.
Insights into the future of financial modeling with the integration of Python and AI tools.
Here are a few quotes from the episode:
“AI is great at generating code, but it’s the human creativity that still leads the way.” - Jon Acampora
“As an Excel professional, it's important to make models that others can easily work with, even if they don't have the same technical skills you do.” - Jon Acampora
“If you want to be great at Excel, you have to understand that learning never stops. There’s always something new to discover.” - Jon Acampora
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Website - https://www.excelcampus.com/
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In today’s episode:
[03:45] - Horror Story
[08:50] - Defining Financial Models
[11:55] - From Accounting to Excel Business
[18:42] - Competing in Excel Esports
[21:27] - What Jon Enjoys About Announcing
[27:36] - Advice for Aspiring Excel Competitors
[37:43] - Memorable Teaching Moment
[42:43] - Favourite Excel Shortcut
[45:12] - Rapid Fire Section
Full Show Transcript
[00:01:01] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Welcome to Financial Modeler’s Corner. I am your host, Paul Barnhurst, aka the FP&A Guy. This is a podcast where we talk all about the art and science of financial modeling, with distinguished guests from around the globe. The Financial Modeler’s Corner podcast is brought to you by the Financial Modeling Institute. FMI offers the most respected accreditations in financial modeling, and that is why I completed the Advanced Financial Modeler last year. And this year I'm working on the Chartered Financial Modeler. This week, I'm thrilled to welcome our guest to the show, Jon Acampora. Jon, Welcome to the show.
[00:01:57] Guest: Jon Acampora : Paul, thanks for having me. It's good to be here. I'm excited.
[00:02:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, really excited to have you. I think last time I had you, it was you and Oz in Tucson.
[00:02:06] Guest: Jon Acampora : That's right. Yeah. We were at the, Excel Esports event.
[00:02:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: The Esports event. And I think we learned who your Jesus was. Then who was it again?
[00:02:15] Guest: Jon Acampora : Well, my. Well, you have to be clear. That's my.
[00:02:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I figured you might elaborate on that. I couldn't resist putting it that way.
[00:02:22] Guest: Jon Acampora : That would be the one and only Mr. Ken Poles. I'd say he's my Excel power query. Jesus.
[00:02:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yes. I don't know, I don't know. I had to bring that one in.
[00:02:34] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That was our fun. And, you know, you did. You listen to the Ken episode where he said I had to use that.
[00:02:40] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yes, I heard that.
[00:02:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. So let me give a little bit of Jon's background and then we'll jump into conversation here. So Jon runs Excel Campus Com and he's all about making Excel easier and more fun. And I can attest to that. I've learned from many of his videos. He's been a Microsoft MVP for 11 years and has over 600,000 YouTube subscribers. I thought my 25 was pretty good and a regular host of the Microsoft Excel World Champion events. His love for Excel is probably obvious to anyone who knows him, but what really drives him is helping people. At the heart of his mission is a genuine passion for helping the community harness the power of Excel by eliminating mundane tasks. Jon strives to make Excel not only a tool for efficiency, but also a canvas for fun and creativity. With innovative Excel add-ins and insightful online courses, he's paving the way for a more efficient and enjoyable spreadsheet experience. So we start every episode with this question. Jon, tell me that horror story. I know you have one worst model you built, you inherited. You've seen that horror story of a financial model you had to work with.
[00:03:58] Guest: Jon Acampora : I do have a lot. It's been a long career, as you just alluded to in the intro, but one that sticks out and I'm going to share this one because I think it's applicable to everyone that works in any kind of environment with spreadsheets. Was it a model that I inherited? It was actually several. There was a guy that, you know, I used to work for in FP&A before I started Excel Campus.
[00:04:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Man.
[00:04:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: After my own heart.
[00:04:19] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, thumbs up for that.
[00:04:20] Guest: Jon Acampora : And of course, there was a guy that came before me that worked at the company that built a lot of the models, and he used a lot of VBA, a lot of macros. I never got to meet him, but I think his background was more in it and engineering. He's probably more of an engineer. Sure. So he was using VBA to solve problems that you could probably easily solve with a pivot table or even a relatively simple formula.
[00:04:44] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So basically coding everything, whether it needed to be or not.
[00:04:48] Guest: Jon Acampora : Exactly. Yeah. And a lot of complexity comes with that, because now you're trying to interface between the VB editor in the background and the spreadsheet, and a lot of hidden processes going on and stuff for the average user that's just using this model and doesn't understand. And of course, I won't share his name, but everyone around the office would kind of say, oh, this is you know, I'll just say, Bob, this is one of Bob's spreadsheets. And they kind of hated it and always were scared of it and stuff like that. Since I knew VBA, I became the person that could hopefully fix all these models. But the big lesson I've learned from that is that whenever you create a model, you're creating what I call leaving your legacy. Really, you're kind of leaving your legacy on this model that other people are going to inherit from you eventually, and might also be like cursing your name in the future. So I've always tried to take that as a learning lesson to make models much easier to use for others that don't have the same skill set that you know you have. As an Excel professional.
[00:05:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I.
[00:05:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Am confident more than one person has cursed my name. They definitely didn't refer to me like some refer to Ken when they inherited my model. I can relate to that for sure.
[00:05:57] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, but it's good. I think it's really good just for people to think about that when they're designing a model, because it's very easy to use, very complex formulas. And a lot of times we think, oh, well, this is going to help me keep my job security because I'm using all this complex stuff and no one else is going to be able to to understand it or use it. But I think oftentimes that can backfire. And it backfired for me in my career because then all of a sudden you can't even go on vacation without, you know, the company calling you, emailing you, hey, how do we do this? How do we update this thing and that kind of stuff? Um, so there's a balance there.
[00:06:30] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I had a guy on, uh, for tomorrow, my other podcast who shared a story where he'd gone so deep in VBA and being complex with the model that he was so relied on, it really delayed him getting promoted like almost a year in the company because they were worried he wouldn't, you know, if they put him in a new role, how was someone going to manage that? So you really and I think early on in the career, as you first start to learn it, it's really easy to get complex as you start to age and bend through it more times and get more experience, you realize. I think the real challenge is doing it efficiently, you know, automating while still making it understandable. Simple enough that, you know, 95% of the people who are going to inherit it, can still manage it. There's always some cases you might use VBA or some things they're going to get complex, but I think it's kind of as you experience more and more, you learn that. I don't know if that's kind of what you found, but definitely for me, I can remember building some complex formulas where it's like, hey, that was not the right way to do that 100%.
[00:07:30] Guest: Jon Acampora : Absolutely. I think it's a learning process and you'll never get it perfect. Right? That's the other thing to make sure that everyone knows is it's never something that you'll get absolutely perfect, but just being aware of it can really go a long way in trying to to figure it out. And another thing, too, is one other tip from that, that I kind of learned is that the more you get your users involved in the development process of the model, the more likely they are going to use it and adopt it going forward, right? So that's another big piece of it too. Don't just like to spend. I mean, I made this mistake where I spent months creating a model and then, you know, giving it to everyone to use. And they're like, well, it doesn't do this one little thing. And it's, you know, we're not going to use it because it doesn't use, you know, it doesn't have this feature that we need. So then you're going back to the drawing board. So getting everyone involved along the way can really help with usability. And they also feel kind of involved in a part of the process.
[00:08:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah 100% agree. You get the usability benefit. There's also something to be said for them feeling like they have some ownership in the whole process. One more question around the financial model. Go ahead. You're going to say something about that.
[00:08:44] Guest: Jon Acampora : Oh no I think that's good. Yeah, I totally agree.
[00:08:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. No, I'm with you. So I'm curious. Someone recently asked me on YouTube, they're like you. Never in your show define what a financial model is. So we've been trying a few episodes to ask different people, and we'll probably put together a video at some point with different clips of how everybody defines a model and see how similar or different it is. But if I ask you, how would you define a financial model? You know what would be what you would consider one? What would you include in that? Or how would you define it?
[00:09:14] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, I would keep it relatively simple and that I think any financial model includes inputs, calculations and outputs. Right. Kind of those three components. And that I think and maybe that definition is a little too broad. But it opens like kind of the definition of a financial model up to more than just financial data. Right. Like if you might your data might not be necessarily financial. But if as long as you're kind of inputting data somewhere, doing some calculations and then have an output, I think it could fall under that umbrella. I don't know what your thoughts are. I would love to.
[00:09:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. So I go a little. So there's a couple definitions I like. I really like one from Danielle Stein. First, I think you probably met her before. I know she was in.
[00:10:01] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah.
[00:10:01] Host: Paul Barnhurst: She was in Vegas last year, but she described it in one of her books. She goes as long as it's dynamic and flexible, it includes inputs, outputs and calculations. I'm willing to call it a model. Someone else had one where they added a little bit more. It has to help support answering something, some kind of decision. Otherwise it's just a report. And I thought that was a good point. Kind of saying, you know, the model is really you're supposed to be modeling something. It's a representation of real life. So it should help answer something. And so I thought that was good. So those are some that I really like. So it's fairly similar to yours. I might just add a little bit more to it.
[00:10:44] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah I like that. I do agree that there's a difference between a financial model and a report. So yeah, I like that nuance. Interesting. I'll think about it.
[00:10:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It. Yeah. So it is interesting to get different people's opinions. If you ever want to read a really esoteric and painful definition, go to the Federal Reserve Board and read how they define a financial model. I share it in one of my courses to kind of start with, here's your really technical definition that you can ignore. Here's a more, you know, kind of general one, you'll see. And then here's a real simple, practical one.
[00:11:19] Guest: Jon Acampora : Interesting. Oh I'll chat. Well I might have summarized it, but I'll check it out.
[00:11:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah I'm sure they can. Or if you email me, I can. I can pull it out of the deck and send it to you. It'd take me like two minutes. So.
[00:11:28] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. That's cool.
[00:11:29] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I get it from I faster though, but it was pretty funny because I just like, you know, using all these big words and some of them, I'm like, what does that word mean?
[00:11:37] Guest: Jon Acampora : Right, right. But a lot of money to spend on that document. So better be good.
[00:11:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm sure it was our money, but we digress.
[00:11:46] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. Let's not go down that road.
[00:11:49] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, we could be here a while. We might offend everybody by the time we're done, so we'll steer clear of that. All right. So you started your career working in accounting and finance. How did you end up starting your own Excel business? How did you go from kind of that accounting to FP & going to I'm going to talk about Excel all day.
[00:12:08] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. It's an interesting journey. I think it was really born like probably a lot of, you know, Excel quote unquote experts, uh, or really just heavy Excel users within a role. You know, you end up using Excel all day, every day, and you either love it or hate it. And I really loved it. I felt like it was this tool that you could be really creative with. Like I said, I did a lot of VBA coding, so I really felt like it was almost a platform where you could develop applications with Excel. And that kind of led me down this road of I was still working in accounting and FOP, but usually doing a lot of projects that required a bit more automation, a bit more creativity and things like that, versus just kind of, you know, doing some of the other tasks that might be involved there. And so that led me into maybe a little more systems analyst type roles, business analyst type roles as well. And from there it was kind of trying to start my blog, I think it was in 2009. Uh, and that was really just to share some of the add ins and macros that I had developed online.
[00:13:17] Guest: Jon Acampora : I didn't really have a clear business idea or anything for this. It was not like, you know, I'm going to quit my day job and go start this online business, and it's going to be an overnight success. It was a much slower path, um, where I was doing just some blogging here and there and some YouTube videos for years, and then, uh, started selling the add-ins online. And that didn't really make a lot of, you know, money. It was still kind of very much a hobby at that point. Um, and I think it was in 2015 or 2016. I launched my first online course, uh, on VBA. It's called the VBA Pro course. And that's uh, and, you know, between 2009 and 2016, I was also building an audience, building an email list and things like that. Um, so I had an audience, but it was at that time, after I launched the first course, that it really felt more like a business. I was able to make a good amount of income from that and generate a good amount of revenue as well. Um, for it to support me and then eventually leave my day job and run Excel campus full time.
[00:14:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So it was about a kind of five six year journey from, hey, I got this blog. It's a hobby. I'll throw some stuff up there too, oh, I could start selling a little bit too, hey, let's release a course. Oh, this is big enough. I built enough of an audience. Maybe I should really turn this into a business.
[00:14:35] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, exactly. So it's about a six year overnight success, I would say, because I think it's often misconception is like you just, you know, you start a website, you start social media and you throw up a course and it's, uh, it's instant success. And that's definitely not the case for me. Uh, for others, it might have worked, but.
[00:14:56] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, there's always the occasional flash in the pan or over. Yeah. I don't want to say overnight that I hesitate to use it because there's still a lot of work, but there's some that are much shorter, much quicker builds to success and some that are much longer. But really, any sustained success I would say is really never overnight.
[00:15:17] Guest: Jon Acampora : Mhm. Yeah I agree and I think especially with this industry, you know, or with Excel and financial modeling kind of being the arena there, it's something that takes a long time to learn. It's not something you're going to learn overnight anyways. And like all the kinds of experiences we just talked about, you have to have those in order to teach how not to do those things or how to learn from them, you know? So it takes a lot.
[00:15:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It's kind of funny. I'm, uh, one of the other Excel MVP's gave me access to one of his courses. I've been going through it all, and it's surprising how many little tips and tricks I've picked up that, you know, even some concepts I've seen people use a lot. I've never really used myself and didn't quite fully grasp them. Oh, that totally makes sense. Now I get it. And so there's always more to learn, whether it's modeling Excel. Yeah. In these areas, especially when you have a technical field and a tool that a billion people are using, it has to have a lot of use cases that that many people are using.
[00:16:18] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. And the use cases that are absolutely endless in terms of what you can use it for, how you can solve problems. And even if you're solving a very specific problem, there's at least ten different ways to solve it with different formulas and tools and features of Excel. So there's always something new to learn. No one knows it all, and no one ever will because it's just such a vast tool.
[00:16:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I was, I was going to vote for you as the person who's going to know it all. You and Ken, it's a race.
[00:16:49] Guest: Jon Acampora : Ken's got me. Yeah, I mean, he's a walking encyclopedia, but even that, like, you know, there's a whole set of engineering functions that I've never used.
[00:16:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, exactly. You know, I see all those, and I'm just like, yeah, I'm never using these.
[00:17:02] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. I'm no, no use. So there's just. Yeah. Even with that, it's just stuff I will never learn.
[00:17:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. I mean I think there's what now? Almost 600 formulas, I believe, you know, kind of funky things.
[00:17:15] Guest: Jon Acampora : Last I heard, yeah. Over 500 probably. Yeah. Close to six.
[00:17:19] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I know it's over five. I just think the number keeps growing. Are they adding more and more of these dynamic arrays and things? So it's hard to keep track. But I mean I guess I maybe know, you know, 100 150 I use on any kind of regular basis maybe 30.
[00:17:34] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, that would be an interesting test. I don't even know. Like it'd be interesting just to go through them and and say, oh yeah, I know this one that I've never heard of, or a lot of variations of each of them to, you know, some older legacy ones.
[00:17:46] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So maybe I, you know, could be fun. We'll have a show, we'll do some kind of Excel jeopardy!
[00:17:53] Guest: Jon Acampora : That would be.
[00:17:53] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Fun. That was actually kind of fun. I bet I could get a couple of MVP's. Maybe we'll do that as a little webinar, turn it into a podcast and have a little just nothing but an Excel jeopardy! Different categories of functions.
[00:18:05] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah.
[00:18:06] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And asking different questions about them, how they work. You know, what's the third argument in this function? And you know, just watch the glaze and there'll always be somebody that I know that one.
[00:18:16] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah that would be fun. Sign me up.
[00:18:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. We'll definitely keep that in mind when I, when I have a little more free time I'll put that together. Which means it could be a while.
[00:18:25] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah okay. A Sunday.
[00:18:27] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No, I definitely will consider that. That could be fun. So we'll put you on. We'll put you on the short list for that one.
[00:18:32] Guest: Jon Acampora : Okay. I might have to be the commentator. There's people that know a lot more than me. So it's like the Esports thing. I'm better at the commentating because I can't, I can't compete.
[00:18:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Have you competed much in Esports? Speaking of that, we'll come back to another question. But you know, I know you do. The Esports announcing. How did you become the announcer of the commentator versus competing? Like how did that come about?
[00:18:53] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, that's a good question. I think the coordinators have originally just reached out to a bunch of MVPs and tried to just get people to commentate on some of their live streams, and I thought, oh, it'd be fun. You know, it's kind of interesting. So I gave it a shot and, um, they invited me back, so I must have done a decent job, and, uh, or no one else wanted to do it. I don't know either one. Uh, but. Yeah. And then it just kind of grew from there. Oz and I commented on a few events together, and that kind of. We have pretty good chemistry. I'd say, uh, him and I and have a lot of fun together. So just kind of grew from there. I never really competed. Uh, they always send the cases before the event, so I get a chance to solve them. And on my own, I'll. Try. I'll set a 30 minute timer because the events are or the challenges are 30 minutes in length. Um, when the competitors do compete. So I'll set a 30 minute timer to see how far I can get. And it's usually just not very far. Um, or or the thing that gets me is that I, I don't read the instructions clearly, and then I have mistakes, um, in my model, so it'd take a lot of practice. Um, but the competitors now at the pro level are so fast. They're so unbelievably fast at solving these things that I wouldn't stand a chance. And it's amazing to watch.
[00:20:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Isn't it amazing to watch what some of them do so quickly in Excel? Yeah, I see some of the lambdas they build and I'm like, I couldn't build that lambda in 30 minutes, let alone solve this case.
[00:20:27] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. And that's the thing. They have lambdas, which are, you know, custom functions that they're using. They have a library of those. So they've memorized what all those do, what inputs they need for those to, you know, in order for them to calculate properly. So, uh, yeah, it's absolutely incredible. And it's fun to be a part of.
[00:20:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst:: While my background is in FP&A. I am also passionate about financial modeling. Like many financial Modelers, I was self-taught. Then I discovered the Financial Modeling Institute, the organization that offers the advanced financial modeling program. I am a proud holder of the AFM. Preparing for the AFM exam made me a better modeler. If you want to improve your modeling skills, I recommend the AFM program. Podcast listeners. Save 15% on the AFM program. Just use Code Podcast.
It really is. So I'm curious, what do you enjoy most about being an announcer? Like, what's been your favorite part about that? Because it's just unique, right? I'm sure when you tell people, if you go to a dinner party and it comes up. People are like, wait, you announce Excel competitions where people are working in a spreadsheet. I'm sure you will get some interesting comments with that.
[00:21:45] Guest: Jon Acampora : Oh, 100%, yeah. They don't either understand it, believe it. And then when I tell them I've been on ESPN doing this, it's like they really don't understand or believe it. And that's definitely one of the highlights. I'd say, um, of this is that it's gotten a lot of publicity. And, you know, I've been featured on some of the ESPN channels like ESPN2 and Espnu and stuff. Um, so that's definitely a benefit. But ultimately I do like the competition aspect of it. I think it's, uh, you know, because it's time based. It's essentially scoring the most amount of points in 30 minutes. I really like that competition aspect because it does come down to the wire often. So that's my favorite part about it. I'm always trying to figure out ways that we can improve the broadcast to make that, um, that suspense kind of more visible and stuff like that. So I'm always thinking about that. Um, and along with the commentating too, because I think it's, it's a lot of fun. Uh, but there's so much going on, right? When you're looking at someone's spreadsheet, they're solving a complex financial case and or a complex model, and in a short amount of time it's hard to follow sometimes.
[00:22:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, that's definitely one of the biggest things. I kind of likened it a little bit to baseball. And what I mean by that, a lot of people go to a baseball game, but how many people go to a baseball game that actually keeps score? Or do you go for the social aspect and you're watching occasionally and enjoying the environment? Because personally, for me, if I spent the whole 30 minutes just really trying to follow what was going on everybody's screen, I don't know that I would enjoy it much. It's much more social, the excitement to see who won and just the atmosphere. And that to me is baseball. Yes, there are the die-hards and we know some of them. They're at those competitions, you know. Oh, wow. They pulled out this formula and they're really just 100% into it. But I don't think that's the majority of people curious about your thoughts on that kind of analogy?
[00:23:44] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, that's a really good point. Um, I hadn't thought about it like that, but I do. I like that, like that's definitely something to think about. I also like from a broadcast perspective, I think of it like golf. Um, because with golf, even if you don't watch golf, essentially you're watching one player on one hole and, you know, hit one shot at a time, and then you're moving around to different players that are on different holes. And that's very similar to how this competition works, because we're watching individual players on their own. Uh, Excel workbook. Yeah. So in terms of a broadcast perspective, it's a lot about kind of jumping around to these different scenes and kind of picking up where, um, each individual player is, and that's probably a different Viewing other than, like, golf, you know? I mean, in baseball, in baseball, like what you're talking about. So you're talking about.
[00:24:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That's really good. I hadn't thought about golf, but that's a really good analogy, especially for watching. Right. Because you might pick up hole 16 and see someone hole something in, and then all of a sudden they're taking you to somebody dropping something in the lake.
[00:24:50] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yes.
[00:24:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah.
[00:24:51] Guest: Jon Acampora : Exactly. Yeah.
[00:24:53] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. Which might be that person who just got eliminated because they're doing, you know, eliminating someone every five minutes.
[00:24:58] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So that's exactly how I look at it. Um, but I like the baseball analogy. Kind of the more communal enjoying the game, not really worried about every single strike or, you know, pitch, location and all that stuff.
[00:25:11] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. But I think golf's another great one. And because, yeah, I think it's a challenge to announce something like that. I mean I haven't done it. I've competed in one and it's on YouTube somewhere. If you want to watch somebody completely suck, feel free to watch it. I was in first for about 20s because I answered a bonus question quicker than everybody else, went to the bottom, bombed the rest of the thing and just stayed there.
[00:25:39] Guest: Jon Acampora : You just need a screenshot of that one. That one moment where you're first. You know, that's.
[00:25:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I know I do need to go find that video and just snap that out.
[00:25:47] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. Well well kudos for you to compete like that's that's amazing that you.
[00:25:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: This was my first time ever competing. They live streamed my first one ever.
[00:25:56] Guest: Jon Acampora : That's brave.
[00:25:58] Host: Paul Barnhurst: You know, I figured what's the worst? I do look stupid and I did. I'm okay with that.
[00:26:03] Guest: Jon Acampora : But those challenges are very difficult. And they change every time. The thing about this is different from a lot of sports is every time the field is different and the players don't know what's coming, they don't, they haven't studied the model, so they don't know what they're going to get. So it makes it extremely challenging, unlike probably almost any other sport.
[00:26:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. No, I agree it is definitely challenging. And they can be completely, totally different types. Like I think a little bit like, you know, tennis. Some people are very good on clay courts or grass. Some people are competing, might be really good with, you know, some of these cases are very much positional, like you're moving around a map, but maybe they're not near as good as some other one where you're solving a different type of problem.
[00:26:51] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. Very good point. Like running totals come into the play a lot. That can be challenging. Um, so yeah, just kind of having those different skill sets. Um, yeah. It can really play into the outcome.
[00:27:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Now, did you ever think you'd be on a podcast where we talk Excel Esports, tennis, golf and baseball in the same, same podcast?
[00:27:11] Guest: Jon Acampora : Never. But I love it. I mean, this is it for me.
[00:27:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. I'm sitting there going, I don't think I've ever covered all that.
[00:27:19] Guest: Jon Acampora : Okay, okay. This is the first for, uh, for the podcast. Awesome.
[00:27:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And so one more question around the kind of financial modeling World Cup that I want to ask Excel Esports. You know, people often go, hey, I should do something like that, or like, how do you do something like that? What advice would you offer to people who are listening? Obviously, our audience is financial modelers primarily, you know, people that are really building models, spending a lot of time in Excel. What would you tell them if they're considering doing something like this?
[00:27:50] Guest: Jon Acampora : Well, I'd absolutely encourage them. I mean, I do this on the broadcast all the time, and I really don't have any. It's just that I don't have an affiliation with the company. So there's no financial reason for me to say this. Um, but I think it's like, it's just something that is going to help you practice and improve in your job. Uh, and it's a great way to challenge yourself too, uh, so, yeah, I'd highly encourage people to just sign up and try. And even if they don't feel like they're going to be the best in the world, still give it a shot. Uh, I've even even within our training programs, we've recently launched a weekly challenges feature where we publish an Excel challenge, kind of similar to these, uh, Esports challenges. We've launched these weekly challenges where it's very similar to that, uh, and it's really helping our members just push themselves to learn new skills by opening a file that they're maybe not familiar with and need to learn how to problem solve and critically think through that. So it really helps develop those skills that you can apply elsewhere.
[00:28:52] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That's great. And there's a lot of them on LinkedIn. You know, I know Oz does his weekly challenge on LinkedIn, and there are several other people who regularly do challenges. So I mean, I think the the thing is, whether it's Excel Esports with financial modeling World Cup, the more you can gamify, the more you can have fun in learning, the more it's going to help you in Excel and you're just going to pick up new ways. So whatever it might be, I think it's really beneficial to find something like that. It's like the people who used to not as much anymore, but the discussion boards like going and helping answer people's questions. A great way to get better at Excel. I can't remember the last time I looked at a discussion board about Excel's problems.
[00:29:31] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, that's true, I guess. Like, yeah, those are kind of fading a little bit now in this new era, but, um, it does. Yeah. That was where I originally learned all of my knowledge from, uh, you know, it's kind of dating me a bit, but I was really the original, you know, Excel knowledge base. And you still see posts from, you know, 20 years, 25 years old that are still relevant today topics. So.
[00:29:54] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I mean, I still sometimes, you know, you Google something and I find them and we'll look at them, but it's not like it used to be where that's where the majority of people's knowledge would come from is spending time on those boards every day.
[00:30:06] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. And you know, it's interesting, like now that we have these AI tools to help answer a lot of questions, uh, and a lot of people don't fully know or understand this, but all of the knowledge that the AI tools have is based on what they've learned from the internet. And when it comes to Excel, because there's such a rich, long history. You know, a lot of times I can just hallucinate because it's reading data from 25 years ago on a lookup and kind of mashing that with a new lookup, and you might get some kind of, you know, answer that kind of combines both of those. And it's not really 100% right. Um, a lot of that comes from the fact that, you know, this tool has been around so long, there's so much information, so much knowledge out there that it's, you know, it's definitely getting better. But, um, when you've come across those challenges, know that a lot of times it's that, um, that's the reason.
[00:31:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No, it's a great point and kind of, you know, fun, controversial take. When I had Ken Pulse on it, we were talking okay. And kind of asked his opinion on something. And he goes, it is the greatest data theft in the world. Basically they've stolen everybody's content.
[00:31:19] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, I don't disagree. You know, I, I've talked with Ken, um, on this kind of privately And, uh, and I don't disagree there. I think there's definitely a challenge with that. I try not to get too frustrated with it, but yeah, in a sense it is the tool that's learned from everybody else. So, um, good or bad, that's what it is.
[00:31:40] Host: Paul Barnhurst: There is some frustration sometimes to people and, you know, they're all trying to figure that out. Okay. Do you compensate? How different is it from somebody looking at a bunch of pictures to learn to draw one, you know, where's the. And so we won't get into that whole detail. But it definitely could be frustrating. You know, he was very strong in his opinion and he had a good conversation about that. But regardless of some of the frustration, it's amazing what it can teach us. If you're not using it, you're missing out. Like if you look back, say, two and a half years ago, you know, kind of when it first came out, I'm going to guess you're getting quite a bit of efficiency from different AI tools today. When I came out.
[00:32:20] Guest: Jon Acampora : Oh yeah. Yeah. Over the last two years, two and a half years. Absolutely. Like and it's got it's improved so much. Right. They all have all the top tier LMS and have really improved a lot. So yeah I definitely encourage everyone to to use them, figure out how you can use them, how you know they're best for your role and what you're doing. Um, to help assist you in your work.
[00:32:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm with you. It's great for podcasts. It definitely makes putting together the summaries after the episode so much quicker than when I used to go listen to every single episode after the fact.
[00:32:53] Guest: Jon Acampora : Oh, yeah. Interesting. Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:55] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I just dumped the transcript in and it gives me the summary and then I tweak it, you know, saves me 30, 40 minutes on every single episode just right there.
[00:33:02] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. Amazing. Right. And it does it in 10s or so. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's unbelievable.
[00:33:10] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So I'm curious, you've been a Microsoft MVP for 11 straight years now. Is that what I think?
[00:33:15] Guest: Jon Acampora : That's the tally. Yeah, that's the count. It's been a long road.
[00:33:19] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm. I'm in year one, so I got a while to go, but congratulations.
[00:33:23] Guest: Jon Acampora : By the way. You know, I think I said that last time around, but. Yeah. Congratulations.
[00:33:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No, I really appreciate that. It's been fun. It's a great, great community. I learn a lot. And, you know, you get people I'm sure you've had people ask you. I was like, you know, what does it take to become a Microsoft MVP or what advice would you offer somebody listening? And they're like, yeah, I think that'd be cool. I'd like to, you know, kind of strive to achieve that.
[00:33:47] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, it's a great question. It is a very common question that I've gotten over the years. Um, the short answer is, I don't know, because they kind of keep it a secret. What constitutes your contributions? But ultimately it comes down to contributions. And it's really just I mean, you do such a great job of it. You have, what, three podcasts that you do, Paul? Is that right? Yeah. So you're constantly talking, you know, about Microsoft tools. In my case, I'm mostly talking about Excel and Power BI and some other tools, Power Automate and things like that. Um, but really it's about talking about those tools and whatever fashion you do, whether that's podcasting or YouTube or blogging or whatever it is. Um, and just being passionate, kind of an evangelist, you know, for the product is, I think, really what it takes. And it's probably, I'd say most of the people that I know that have become MVPs over the years, that's not their sole focus. It's really that they're passionate about the tool and the kind of the MVP award, because it is an award that Microsoft gives out. It's not something you can take a test for or, you know, qualify for in that fashion. Um, so most for most people, the award is kind of a byproduct of just all the contributions they've done over the years.
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I think that's a good way to put it. I like that because it's really the contribution that is key. You have to have a technical level of proficiency. They got to be comfortable, you know, how to use the tool and you can speak to it. But it's really that community engagement, however you choose to do it.
[00:36:22] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, exactly. So yeah, for anyone that's, you know, wants to do that and there's some great benefits, right? We get to talk with the product team at Microsoft, see what's coming next in the product. And of course connect with other MVPs in this network and stuff like that. So there's definitely some great benefits. Um, but I'd say for anyone listening that's looking to do that, just continue to do what you're passionate about and all that stuff will kind of follow.
[00:36:48] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah. I totally agree. Just contribute. You know, I never started out to, hey, I want to be a Microsoft MVP. It was something I enjoyed doing. And over time it just kind of somebody said, hey, can I nominate you? And I'm like, yeah, sure. Why not? I mean, you know, I was flattered. That's kind of, you know, when I got the email from him and because he asked me first if I would, if it was okay with him, if I nominated, I'm like, yeah, that'd be fine.
[00:37:11] Guest: Jon Acampora : So yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. When I got the award, I didn't even know what it was. I mean, it was a long time ago and I don't think it was, um, as calm. I don't I still don't know how many people really know what it is, but I think nowadays it's a little more common.
[00:37:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I would agree it's better known today than five, ten, 15 years ago.
[00:37:31] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah for sure. But yeah, it's a great program. So.
[00:37:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. We're going to move into some standard questions here in a minute that we asked almost every guest. But I want to ask you one more question. First you mentioned how much you love helping people. Do you have maybe a favorite memory moment experience, you know, from teaching, consulting, just working with people that really has resonated with you, where you've kind of made a huge difference and it's just kind of stuck with you.
[00:37:55] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, that's a great question. I think, you know, there's several over the years, um, I've been focusing lately because I mentioned earlier that I got my start with VBA, especially kind of doing data cleansing type work. And, um, since Power Query came along, I know we mentioned Ken. Ken is my Jesus for Power Query. Ken, Ken, I think it was my first MVP summit. I was sitting next to Ken and I was in awe of everyone in the room. You know, all those that came before me. Big names, um, including Ken. You know, Ken has written several books and he's been around forever. Um, and anyways, I was sharing this VBA macro that I had or add in really that I had developed to do essentially what Power Query does with Unpivot, the Unpivot feature in Power Query. I'd written a very complex macro to do that, and Ken was like, oh, that's cool, but you could do that in Power Query. And then he spent the next 15 minutes walking through, you know, it was still a complex, um, report with multiple headers, multiple sheets. Like it wasn't easy. Um, but essentially, you know, to get the data in a tabular format. So we could use it for pivot tables and reporting and forecasting. You know, it's a few button clicks in Power Query where this macro took me forever to write.
[00:39:08] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I'm sure there was a moment of, wow, that's amazing. And are you kidding me? I spent how much time building this?
[00:39:13] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, exactly. A lot of that. Yeah. I still was in disbelief for a bit, but I eventually, uh, kind of, you know, caught on. And so since then. Anyway, long story short, since then I've been teaching Power Query more and more because what I've learned is that a lot of data analyst time is spent cleaning up data. There's studies that show that almost 80% of our time can be spent cleaning data. Right. And this is the problem that Power Query helps solve to automate that entire process. Um, so I've been spending more time doing that. One story that just kind of comes to mind is, uh, a student of ours. Her name was Sherry. And on LinkedIn, she posted that she saved her company over $500,000 by implementing Power Query in her work. You know, I think that was over a two year period. So it wasn't like an overnight thing, but she was just calculating the number of labor hours saved from them having to prepare. I think it was a budget process and all the data that goes along with that. Right. The iterations and stuff. So just being able to consolidate that with this, you know, relatively simple automation. Power query doesn't require coding. Most of it you can do you can code with it, but most of it you just do with button clicks. It's kind of a low code, no code solution built right into Excel. Also built into power BI. Um, so that's, you know, just a I think that in general is something that I'd try and bring more awareness to because it can be such a time saver for so many Excel users that are just kind of bored and frustrated with data cleanup, data prep type work.
[00:40:44] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I'm totally with you. I preach that tool all the time. When I first learned it, for me, it was 2017 and I'd heard of it, but I'd never really used it. You know? I knew what it was, but I was working on a project and I was able to build this project. But at first I'm running it all through an access database instead of using the, you know, the and then putting it into the data model and flattening all my. And it took quite a while to really figure out what I was doing with Power Query and Power Pivot and all those, but it saved me so much time in the rest of the business. I thought I was working magic. They're like, wow, you got that report? And I'm sitting there thinking, this thing's really clunky, but it's a start, you know? So yeah, it was huge. It really helped get me promoted because I worked at a company where the data was the worst I've ever seen, much worse than any other company I'd worked at. And so it allowed me to get insights and information to other people, but couldn't in any kind of timely manner. And, you know, that got noticed by management and it really helped advance my career there. And so I attribute a lot of it to what I was able to do with Power Query and Power Pivot as well. And then a little bit of power BI. But it all started with Power Query.
[00:41:48] Guest: Jon Acampora : Interesting. Yeah, that's where it all started. I mean, that's really kind of where the data analysis process starts is of course getting your data, cleaning it up. Um, and a lot of times, you know, if you're spending 80% of your time doing that work, then you really don't have much time left for analysis, calculations, you know, preparing dashboards, reporting and all that other stuff.
[00:42:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That's only if you want to have a life. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Just that.
[00:42:15] Guest: Jon Acampora : That small little thing called a life.
[00:42:17] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Um, that's what I joke with people. I was like, well, it all depends if you want to see your family or not.
[00:42:21] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. Yeah. Anyone with kids should learn Power Query. If you know, if you don't have kids yet or.
[00:42:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: There's a tagline, I might have to try that. We will put the tagline. If you do not have kids, you do not need to listen. Just kidding.
[00:42:35] Guest: Jon Acampora : There's a title for a YouTube video.
[00:42:37] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right, so here's kind of the standard. We're gonna go to rapid fire in one second, but I have just two. I want to ask kind of quickly first, what's your favorite Excel shortcut? Do you have a favorite?
[00:42:46] Guest: Jon Acampora : One I use most commonly now is control shift V to paste values. And I mentioned that because a lot of people don't know that on newer versions of Excel, Microsoft has released that shortcut. So you don't have to use alt ESV enter anymore.
[00:43:03] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I know I need to, I need to switch over. I'm still an alt ESV guy.
[00:43:07] Guest: Jon Acampora : Okay. Yeah.
[00:43:07] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So that's preaching to the choir on that one. I just haven't been able to bring myself to make the switch.
[00:43:12] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, that's one. You know, since we're talking Power Query, alt F12 opens the Power Query editor. So that's another one that a lot don't know if you are using Excel. I'm sorry, I am using Power Query.
[00:43:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah sure. All right. And so this is when we start asking every guest and we get some really kind of fun answers. Tell me about the most unique, the most fun thing you've created a model for in your personal life using Excel.
[00:43:36] Guest: Jon Acampora : Okay, so my son and I, I have an eight year old son and he's really into Pokemon and likes collecting the cards for anyone that has kids or is an adult that does Pokemon, they'll know this. And if you haven't or if you don't, I got it.
[00:43:50] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Pokemon Go on my phone and my daughter has about 12 Pokemon books, so.
[00:43:54] Guest: Jon Acampora : Okay, so you're in the world. Yeah. My son entered this world about a year or two ago, and he's fully living in this Pokemon world. So anyways, he wanted to make his own cards. So we created this Excel file where, uh, I basically used like shapes in Excel to recreate a Pokemon card, and then he can draw a picture of the actual character and like take a picture of that, scan it in and put it in Excel. And then he also can fill out a table with all of the character's characteristics. Right?
[00:44:31] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, the attributes like its attributes or whatever, all the different.
[00:44:34] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, yeah. All that stuff. And then uh, and then the card on the, there's another sheet where it has a card and it's kind of interactive. So you can select from a dropdown of the Pokemon character's name and it'll bring up the actual card. Uh, and that's where we've gotten so far. We eventually like our idea that you could have a battle between two cards. You would like, kind of randomly pick two of the cards, and then he could do a battle in them. You know, between those two Pokemon.
[00:45:01] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I bet he has fun with that. I bet he really likes what you build.
[00:45:04] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, it was fun for both of us, you know. Me too. Because I got to geek out on Excel and learn more about Pokemon.
[00:45:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: So cool. That's fun. All right. So now we're going to move to the rapid fire section. Here's how this section works. I always like to lay the ground rules. No it depends. We're not consultants here. You gotta say yes or no. And then at the end you can elaborate on 1 or 2 because I recognize there's nuance to all of these.
[00:45:27] Guest: Jon Acampora : Okay.
[00:45:28] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Make sense. So hold on till the end. You're just kind of quickly answering. Each of them should take us about a minute. And then the 1 or 2 you're most passionate about, like, I got to explain, I can't just say yes or no. You can go ahead and elaborate.
[00:45:40] Guest: Jon Acampora : Okay, I got it. I'll try my best.
[00:45:42] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Are you ready?
[00:45:42] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yes.
[00:45:43] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Circular references and models. Yes or no? No VBA?
[00:45:48] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yes.
[00:45:49] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Do you prefer a horizontal or vertical financial model? Horizontal being lots of sheets or vertical? Kind of doing all your schedules in one sheet.
[00:45:56] Guest: Jon Acampora : Vertical.
[00:45:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: All right. Dynamic arrays and models. Yes or no.
[00:46:01] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yes.
[00:46:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Fully dynamic models like doing everything 100% dynamic in a financial model.
[00:46:08] Guest: Jon Acampora : No.
[00:46:10] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay. Uh, external workbook links.
[00:46:13] Guest: Jon Acampora : No.
[00:46:15] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That's most people's response. It's usually a sound. No, a named range.
[00:46:20] Guest: Jon Acampora : You know, begrudgingly.
[00:46:24] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Right. Do you follow a formal standard when modeling, like fast or smart or any of those, or just kind of have your own principles? You, you.
[00:46:33] Guest: Jon Acampora : Know, own principles?
[00:46:35] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That's what I figured. Okay. Should financial modelers learn Python in Excel?
[00:46:40] Guest: Jon Acampora : Not yet.
[00:46:41] Host: Paul Barnhurst: What about Power Query?
[00:46:43] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yes.
[00:46:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Power BI?
[00:46:46] Guest: Jon Acampora : No.
[00:46:47] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay. Will Excel ever die? And remember, you're Microsoft MVP. I'm just kidding.
[00:46:54] Guest: Jon Acampora : Never. Oh, power BI, I meant to say yes on power BI. Sorry.
[00:47:00] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That's good.
[00:47:01] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. Yeah.
[00:47:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: And it's a no on Excel will never die. Do you think I will build the models for us in the future?
[00:47:08] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. And to some degree, I think with assistance.
[00:47:13] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay. Fair. Yeah. With a human in the loop, so to speak.
[00:47:16] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yes. Yeah.
[00:47:18] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay. Do you believe financial models are the number one corporate decision making tool?
[00:47:25] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yes.
[00:47:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: My favorite answer I've got is that someone said no, and I go, well, what is their politics? Hard to argue with that one.
[00:47:32] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. Well, I would say a close second is, uh, a blindfold and a dartboard. Um, but.
[00:47:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, random walk down Wall Street, if you've ever read that.
[00:47:42] Guest: Jon Acampora : Oh, no, I haven't. Okay.
[00:47:44] Host: Paul Barnhurst: It's kind of the whole idea that basically you could throw darts and you're going to be as successful as trying to pick stocks.
[00:47:49] Guest: Jon Acampora : Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Same premise, but.
[00:47:51] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, same premise.
[00:47:53] Guest: Jon Acampora : Right? Saying you still need the financial model to back that up.
[00:47:55] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, exactly. What is your lookup function of choice? What's your favorite lookup function?
[00:48:01] Guest: Jon Acampora : Xlookup.
[00:48:02] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Okay. And then which one do you want to elaborate on from that list.
[00:48:07] Guest: Jon Acampora : Wow. That's a that's I don't know. I said, um, I said a lot of things, maybe. I don't know.
[00:48:16] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Say yes or no, but your voice had a little more of a media.
[00:48:19] Guest: Jon Acampora : Had a lot of maybe in it. What's it like, what's most interesting or like the hot topic for you from that list?
[00:48:26] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I think Python's an interesting one right now because that's a hot topic. You know, always anything around AI is interesting. I think, you know, fully dynamic array models is another hot topic. So there's a couple if you want to elaborate on just, you know, a minute or two on 1 or 2 of those.
[00:48:40] Guest: Jon Acampora : Okay. Yeah. Because I kind of did it with Python. I said not yet. Um, and I think it's, it's and it kind of blends into AI too, uh, because I think like, there is probably already a shift and will be a shift in how, you know, Excel files and financial models are created and managed. Um, AI is really good at coding. Like unbelievably Believably good at generating code and specifically Python code. Um, so I think there's and I think right now there's a pretty big disconnect, even though Excel has Python built into it. Now, I don't know what the user adoption is of that. And, uh, it could probably be, I don't know. I still think there's a bit of a disconnect between this kind of classic financial modeling where you have formulas in cells and, and, um, you're creating reports and calculations and things like that, and then kind of the Python piece. But I think there's a gap there, because AI is really good at generating Python code and analyzing data through that. Like I think like, you know, these llms aren't necessarily great at just analyzing data on their own, but they can create Python code to do the data analysis.
[00:49:57] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, they're great at creating the code fully.
[00:50:00] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah. So I think that's where those two merge in the future. I don't know what that looks like for Excel, um, or other kind of tools, because the disconnect really is the complexity of Python code versus you kind of your the managers and non finance people that are going to consume these reports and still kind of want to have that control in Excel. Right. That's why I think Excel has had such a long lifespan if you still have that control to make changes and stuff like that to your data and your model. Um, so when you kind of push all that into a Python script, you lose some of that and kind of the, you know, the blending of those two in the future, I think will have an impact there. I don't know what it is.
[00:50:45] Host: Paul Barnhurst: That makes sense. I appreciate that answer. Why did you say no? I'd love to get just a quick thought on fully dynamic models. Yet. Why do you think we're not quite there yet?
[00:50:57] Guest: Jon Acampora : Um, I think like, I like dynamic arrays and and you're talking about dynamic arrays, right?
[00:51:04] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Correct. Yeah, I'm talking about dynamic arrays. So. Right. Building a model 100% adjust. It's fully dynamic dynamic arrays.
[00:51:12] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah I love dynamic arrays. So I'm going to say this and it's going to get some pushback. Uh, I don't think they're feature complete yet.
[00:51:20] Host: Paul Barnhurst: I would actually agree with you. If it makes you feel better, we can both get pushback together.
[00:51:24] Guest: Jon Acampora : And like the biggest one in my opinion is this formatting, right. They don't spill formatting. So you have to go apply number formats. You have to preplan that. So if the range is going to extend longer you got to preplan how long that range is going to extend in order to apply number formatting there. Yes, you can use conditional formatting, um, as kind of a workaround to that. Uh, but that's like that's really for, you know, a lot of people listening to this. But yeah, I just use conditional formatting. It's easy. But that's really kind of pro level stuff. I would say. So for the everyday user to be able to model something and not have formatting applied. There's other nuances to it, but I'd say that's the biggest one right now. So it's just not a complete feature yet for me to say you can do everything with dynamic arrays and it's going to be easy. They don't, you know, another one is like they kind of work in Excel tables, but they don't really they don't spill in Excel tables. Um, so they don't really work in Excel tables. So you kind of have, you know, then it becomes the trade off of, do I use an Excel table for this versus do I use dynamic arrays. You know, you'll run into those trade offs. So that's that's my reason for not being there.
[00:52:38] Host: Paul Barnhurst: No I think that makes sense. The other one that I say is, you know, like when you think of three statement modeling, managing your corkscrews. Right. You got to use some complex lambda. And I just think that's even though, yes, you can find someone and just, you know, put it into your machine and use it. I still think the auditability is the challenge there. We're just not at that level. You either got to be using some really complex math Or really complex lambdas to solve corkscrews, and some just little unique challenges that you get in more complex models.
[00:53:10] Guest: Jon Acampora : Interesting. Yeah, that is really interesting. I agree lambdas are another one. That's just amazing what it can do. But the implementation with, you know, being in the name manager and things like that, I think there's still room for improvement there. And I think Microsoft, it's easy to just point the finger at Microsoft. They're up against a very strong challenge of trying to make things compatible. You know, backwards compatible. You know, kudos to them for even adding this stuff and trying because they got to make it all back compact and a lot of limitations there.
[00:53:39] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Yeah, I would not want to be the one trying to figure all that out. I'll say that I enjoy using them, but don't make me the person who has to figure it out. All right, so last question I want to ask before I let you go. If our audience wants to learn more about the work you do, you know the courses you have, your different offerings or potentially get in touch with you. What's the best way for them to do that?
[00:53:58] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, again, my brand is Excel Campus, so you can find us at Excel Campus. And then we have a popular YouTube channel like you mentioned, which is also Excel Campus.
[00:54:09] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Perfect. We'll put those in the show notes for people that want to see some of your videos. I know I've watched more than a few over the years and learned some things, so thank you for that and thank you for joining me today, Jon, I appreciate it.
[00:54:20] Guest: Jon Acampora : Yeah, Paul, it's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for having me.
[00:54:23] Host: Paul Barnhurst: Financial Modeler's Corner was brought to you by the Financial Modeling Institute. This year, I completed the Advanced Financial Modeler certification and it made me a better financial modeler. What are you waiting for? Visit FMI at www.FMInstitute.com/podcast and use Code Podcast to save 15% when you enroll in one of the accreditations today.