Just when I was thinking on how to replace the bullet point hell for introducing my CV vor an upcoming talk I came across a TED talk by David McCandless (http://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization.html). He provides a slide with colored bars for his CV which I consider visually fresh. So I decided to try one with Excel and with a little trick these can be made rather easily:

Obviously the first steps are to fill in your data with numbers reflecting the intensity of topics (I used 1-5). You can then use the “conditional formatting -> color scales” to get the formatting right. However, at this points, the actual data will still be in the cells cluttering the view.

Just use the “cell formatting->numbers” and pick “user defined” and enter a blank in the entry field. The numbers of the cells will disappear from view, but if you select a cell, you will still be able to edit it in the formula entry box of excel.