The single most empowering innovation in my immediate field of work is probably the humble PC spreadsheet.

This simple matrix has allowed non-specialists to undertake quite sophisticated analysis independent of distant IT gurus and has meant that hitherto unfathomable strategic options or silos of meaningless data can be assessed and turned into digestible and actionable information.

On the downside it has also been responsible for justifying some of the more extreme fictions in business cases and enshrining many a fundamental error into unassailable fact through the patina of perfect presentation…