At a recent conference of school business officials, Aziz Aghayev, Harvard’s school business manager, gave a presentation that proved so popular he was asked to repeat it the next day—and then invited back for next year’s conference to present again.
The conference was organized by ASBO International, the Association of School Business Officials, and was held in late October just outside Washington, D.C. Most attendees were from the United States and Canada, with a scattering of people from other countries.
Aghayev’s hands-on presentation was titled “How to Use Excel’s Advanced Features to Build and Automate Salaries, Budget Tables, and More.” Other school business managers were clearly attracted by the time- and labor-saving potential of Aghayev’s techniques, as both workshop sessions were filled to capacity.
Aghayev explained in an email, “My intention was to share my passion for automation and show my fellow business managers from all over the country how they can use simple Excel tricks to speed their day-to-day tasks.”
The ABSO organizers have said they will reimburse Aghayev’s registration fee for next year so that he can repeat his workshop.
“I was happy to see that the information I shared was helpful to my colleagues,” Aghayev wrote. “It is worth saying that all of this was very shocking to me. I did not expect this kind of turnout.”
