The Spreadsheet that Fueled the Telecom Boom – and Bust

“I had built a model in an Excel spreadsheet that translated what our sales forecast was into how much traffic we would expect to see,” he says. “And so I just assigned variables for those various parameters, and then said we can set those variables to whatever we think is appropriate.” – Tom Stluka, Worldcom […]

Digital Spreadsheets – The Time-Space Power of Accounting, Part 1

The digital spreadsheet was designed as an electronic document in which data was arranged in the rows and columns of a matrix and could be manipulated and used in calculations. It combined listing, tabling, and other formulaic calculations to create a new imaginative technology that transformed modern finance and the management of organizations. While the spreadsheet handles various types of information, accounting information is some of the most effective and its power is accelerated by an organization’s information technology.

Lotus Spreadsheets – The Killer App of the Reagan Revolution – Part 1

The major feature of the “Reagan Revolution,” according to Peter Gowan’s Global Gamble, was to “put money-capital in the policy saddle for the first time in decades.”[1] From the time of his presidential inauguration in early 1981 and throughout his eight-year tenure, Reagan’s administration sought to propel the financial sector through widespread policy changes designed […]

HOW IT CAME TO RULE THE WORLD, 0.5

Technologies are part of a set of practices that frame information and meaning. The spreadsheet, for example, combines the power of lists and tables with other calculative abilities that “in-form” meaning and organize sets of knowledge that run organizations and structure lives.