My latest great find on the internet is
ThinkFree an office suite that offers documents, spreadsheets and presentations. What's more it collaborates with your desktop.
Open a file on your desktop, save it to the synchronised files and it's available in your online workspace.
What makes this application even better is the price... you can use the services free for a time with limits or purchase for a very competitive price, approximately $70 NZD for a single desktop.
With so many applications available today one could quite possibly find themselves in a position where there are too many tools and not enough features working for your business.
Its great to use one program for this and another for that but when you get too many programs, you fail to use them effectively.
So narrow the scope. You may have to sacrifice one great feature but narrow the scope to a managable set of tools.
You can narrow the scope to 2 or 5 or 10 or 20 depending on how much time or delegation ability you have.
You need to ask yourself these questions when narrowing the scope:
1. Is this application going to take me into the future or is it going to be defunct in 18 months time?
2. Does the application have data exportability? i.e. export to .csv or API.
3. Can I customise some of these features or add my own?
4. Is there another application that will do what I'm doing now plus more or even include another applications features so I can narrow things further?
Lately we have implemented the following to narrow our scope:
1. Ping.fm - to feed out updates to 4 of our social networks at once.
2. Zoho CRM - a long term project to take over our newsletter and webform integration.
Most programs have many features that need to be discovered and implemented. So find them and use them!
I took some time during the long weekend to test out a few tools. Being a social networker I want something that is going to make my life easier, so here are the two tools out of the several that I tried that I have kept.
www.digsby.com is a desktop application keeping you up to date with your social networks and who’s online. I've put my msn/yahoo/facebook chat into its widget and you just chat with everyone through it. I also put in my www.linkedin.com, www.twitter.com and www.facebook.com information in and now it keeps me up to date. I have auto-loaded this so everytime I open my laptop, it signs in. Also, I added a little chat widget to my personal blog www.worklifeballs.weebly.com so people can chat to me if they want.
www.ping.fm is an online application where you can update your social networks at once. I've added my www.linkedin.com, www.twitter.com, www.facebook.com and www.plaxo.com networks and now all I have to do is enter my update into ping.fm and it feeds out to these networks.
Sometimes the simplest task can make or break ones day. In this day and age there can be added pressures to perform and be able to do simple tasks.
So how does one do simple tasks when they haven't been taught or haven't learned to do the task? Some responses are; research, google, ask, give up, crash, cry, forget it, walk out and so on.
So the next time you scream at someone for not doing something properly... ask yourself, have they been taught how to do the task. This can be frustrating as we do believe others should know how to do tasks that are simple to us.
Always make sure instructions are available but don't rely on the fact that instructions are easy to follow. Allow people to google and research problem solving. Simple tips and how-to's are avaialble all over the internet.
A lot of you will know exactly how to format a picture in an ms word document, but for those who don't this Quick Tip will show you within a minute how to do it.
So next time you don't know how to do a simple task, google it or ask those who do know.
Dictation and transcription has had its day many times and once again it's back. Managers aren't being bogged down by their administration any longer... Corporations are issuing dictation devices. A lot of you out there will say... I can type fast than that! and hey, you might just be able to... but can you type that fast, format the document, apply filing structures and then get through your next appointment?
Not only do you recieve a tool to save administration time, you now have targets to get through your case load or whatever the load may be. So embrace this recycled technology, it can be your best friend.
Debra Clark delivers morning or afternoon sessions to get your workforce embracing this born again technology.
Admincorp Limited endorses products by http://www.nch.com.au/.
6 Ways to Dictate. See the range of dictation software for PC, Mac & Pocket PCs. >>Download Today to save 10-50% off normal pricing.
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