Don’t you just live for certain “regular” occurrences in life? You know, like your favorite monthly column in your favorite magazine. Or your favorite weekly TV show (which may or may not be one you’d like to publicly announce.) Or Taco Tuesday…

We at the eTail Blog are happy to bring you yet another such occurrence, starting biweekly then hopefully moving toward weekly. While it is, of course, business related and therefore less scandalous than Jerseylicious (oh, I’m sorry, did you not say that was your favorite show?), it will undoubtedly be something to look forward to as it will reveal one thing someone in your industry (who you may even know), can’t work without. We’re talking about anything that you and your colleagues, as retailers or multi-channel retail solution providers, cannot do your jobs without. And we’re taking that beyond the obvious. To kick off the series, we bring you Charlie Cole, the Vice President of Online Marketing for Lucky Brand Jeans. He’s one heck of a digital marketer, as you can witness in his recent presentation here, and this is his, “One thing I couldn’t live without…”

Charlie Cole, VP Online Marketing, Lucky Brand Jeans

1. As an online marketer and retailer, what’s something you can’t live without? And we don’t mean coffee. We mean anything from a technology tool to a partner to a cool trick you do on Excel to a shortcut you take. Anything you think your job would be impossible to do without.

Pivot tables. Pivot tables allows me to cross-reference every relevant data point I have in my life, combine online/offline data, and in general organize information.

2. Cool. And tell us what those are, please.

Pivot tables are a tool within Excel that allows you to manipulate data to answer any question quickly and efficiently.

3. Why can you NOT live without this?

I have to be able to answer questions quickly and on the fly. By having readymade pivots fed by back end data, I can anticipate others’ needs and answer questions in seconds.

4. How often do you use it and how long have you been using it?

Every day and for 10 years.

5. If lightning struck tomorrow and you suddenly didn’t have this one thing, what would you do to improvise?

Ugh. I would probably have to explore some sort of higher end database which would be more expensive, confusing to use, and not as accessible.

6. How can other people get this too?

Everyone has the functionality in Excel, it’s just a matter of figuring out what information is relevant and how to organize it. Really understanding your data is the key.

BONUS: And what’s the non-work related thing you can’t do your job without? This is where the coffee, or anything else comes in…

The beach.