Group items tagged

A since deceased, highly-regarded fellow faculty member, Anthony (Tony) Athos, occasionally sat on a bench on a nice day at the Harvard Business School, apparently staring off into space. When asked what he was doing, ever the iconoclast, he would say, "Nothing." His colleagues, trained to admire and teach action, would walk away shaking their heads and asking each other, "Is he alright?" It is perhaps no coincidence that Tony often came up with some of the most profound insights at faculty meetings and informal gatherings. This story captures much of the sense of the responses to this month's question about why managers don't think deeply. The list of causes was much longer than the list of proposed responses. But in the process, some other questions were posed. Ben Kirk kicked off the list of reasons for the phenomenon when he commented, "… what rises to the top levels are very productive and very diligent individuals who tend not to … reflect and are extremely efficient at deploying other people's ideas," implying that this type of leader is not likely to understand, encourage, or recognize deep thinking in others. Adnan Younis added the possibility that "… managers are not trained for it." Dianne Jacobs cited the possibility that persisting assumptions borne out of success serve as "roadblocks to act on needed change" (proposed by those who engage in deep thinking?). Ulysses U. Pardey, whose comment triggered my recollection of Tony Athos, wrote that "Time-for-thinking is a special moment which can be resource consuming and an unsafe activity …" (Fortunately, Athos held a tenured position in an academic organization.) A number of comments alluded to the triumph of bureaucracies and large organizations over deep thinking. As Lorre Zuppan said, "I think Jeff Immelt's efforts to protect deep thinking reflect a nice sentiment but … If his team could carry the ball, would he need to announce that he's protecting it?" Tom Henkel was more succinct: "Ther

Editor's note: Since this article was originally published in April 2013, Project codename "GeoFlow" has been renamed Power Map as part of the new Power BI for Office 365 offering. Today we are announcing the availability of the project codename "GeoFlow" Preview for Excel 2013, a result of collaborations between several teams within Microsoft. GeoFlow lets you plot geographic and temporal data visually, analyze that data in 3D, and create interactive "tours" to share with others. GeoFlow originated in Microsoft Research, evolving out of the successful WorldWide Telescope project for scientific and academic communities to explore large volumes of astronomical and geological data. Researchers collaborated closely with the Office product team to usher GeoFlow from its research lab inception to this public preview availability in Excel. GeoFlow adds to the existing self-service Business Intelligence capabilities in Excel 2013, such as Microsoft Data Explorer Preview and Power View, to help discover and visualize large amounts of data, from Twitter traffic to sales performance to population data in cities around the world.

This post is brought to you by Seayoung Rhee, Product Marketing Manager in the SharePoint Product Marketing Group. Reliable business intelligence and insight are key to a thriving business. Excel, SharePoint and Office 365 make business intelligence (BI) in the new Office more accessible to everyone across an organization as part of their everyday work. New and enhanced features in familiar tools such as Excel empower everyone in a business to easily explore, model, analyze, and visualize data from various sources. With SharePoint, users of all levels can collaboratively develop and share insights through dashboards and scorecards, and this experience continues seamlessly in the cloud with Office 365. For corporate environments, these features are further enhanced by SQL Server for higher levels of performance and scalability both on-premises and in the cloud with BI Azure. Ultimately with Microsoft BI, anyone in the organization can develop the insights that help drive new discoveries and make better, more informed decisions. EXPLORE YOUR DATA PowerPivot was a popular add-in to Excel 2010, allowing users to create large data models with hundreds of millions of rows in Excel. This feature is now natively embedded in Excel to reduce the hassle of downloads and installation. PowerPivot is also supported in SharePoint with SQL Server Analysis Services where the workbooks with PowerPivot models can be shared broadly across the organization. New features like Quick Explore aid users in navigating their data, and Quick Analysis provides previews of their charts, graphs, and scorecards. Users can: Combine and analyze large datasets with PowerPivot Summarize data and discover trends with Quick Explore Instantly preview charts and pivot tables with Quick Analysis www.office.com/setup VISUALIZE YOUR INSIGHTS Introduced with SQL Server 2012, Power View provided a canvas to create visual dashboards in SharePoint. Now this feature is embedded into Excel and SharePoint so

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: SIMPLE RULES FOR BETTER POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS www.office.com/setup Blogs: Have you ever given a PowerPoint presentation and noticed that something about it just seemed a little … off? If you're unfamiliar with basic PowerPoint design principles, it can be difficult to create a slide show that presents your information in the best light. Poorly designed presentations can leave an audience feeling confused, bored, and even irritated. Review these tips on making your next presentation more engaging. DON'T READ YOUR PRESENTATION STRAIGHT FROM THE SLIDES If your audience can both read and hear, it's a waste of time for you to simply read your slides aloud. Your audience will zone out and stop listening to what you're saying, which means they won't hear any extra information you include. Instead of typing out your entire presentation, include only main ideas, keywords, and talking points in your slide show text. Engage your audience by sharing the details out loud. FOLLOW THE 5/5/5 RULE To keep your audience from feeling overwhelmed, you should keep the text on each slide short and to the point. Some experts suggest using the 5/5/5 rule: no more than five words per line of text, five lines of text per slide, or five text-heavy slides in a row. Screenshot of Microsoft PowerPoint DON'T FORGET YOUR AUDIENCE Who will be watching your presentation? The same goofy effects and funny clip art that would entertain a classroom full of middle-school students might make you look unprofessional in front of business colleagues and clients. Humor can lighten up a presentation, but if you use it inappropriately your audience might think you don't know what you're doing. Know your audience, and tailor your presentation to their tastes and expectations. CHOOSE READABLE COLORS AND FONTS Your text should be easy to read and pleasant to look at. Large, simple fonts and theme colors are always your best bet. The best fonts and colors can va

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Microsoft Word is an essential tool for any individual in today's digital age. Whether you are a working professional, a diligent student or an active retiree, proficiency in Microsoft Word is a vital skill1 that is useful for both complex business requirements as well as basic day-to-day purposes. Not only is Microsoft Word a flexible tool that allows you to achieve many of your digital document needs, it is also one of the most user- friendly applications from the Microsoft Office suite. Below are 10 MS Word features that you should be using at work, school or home but likely aren't. 1. SMART ART The Office 2007 and Office 2010 applications share very similar features for working with a range of graphics including pictures, Clip Art, Shapes, diagrams and Charts. It's easy to confuse SmartArt with the similarly named WordArt. Where WordArt just allows you to display text using a wide variety of different formats and effects, SmartArt is a comprehensive and flexible business diagram tool that greatly improves upon the 'Diagram Gallery' feature found in previous versions of Office. Smart Art screen shot 2 - www.office.com/setup The great thing about SmartArt is the ability to swap between different diagrams, even diagrams from other categories, without losing the information that you have already entered. From the selection available, use whichever SmartArt is appropriate to give your document that little bit extra charm. 2. TURN DATA INTO VISUAL CHARTS Charts are created using the same chart 'engine' that Excel uses. Accordingly, as your chart is created, another window will appear containing the Excel-generated data that the chart is based on. Use the Insert Chart button in the Illustrations group to insert a chart and select from the variety of options. The charts are versatile, just like the user-friendly data represented separately in MS Excel to smooth out the whole data-input-to-graph process. Visual Charts -

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: OFFICE 2016 OFFERS MANY ENHANCEMENTS THAT INTEGRATE MORE TIGHTLY WITH SHAREPOINT AND ONEDRIVE. IT CAN BE CONFUSING TO KEEP TRACK OF ALL THE FEATURES, SO WE PICK 10 YOU ARE SURE TO LOVE. Collaboration is the key to Microsoft's still-ubiquitous productivity suite. To the casual user, the applications that make upOffice 2016 - Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook are the anchor tenants, of course, rounded out by OneNote, Access and Publisher - will be indistinguishable from their predecessors. But make no mistake about it; Microsoft's reboot of its flagship software suite is a major update, offering a wealth of collaboration capabilities that integrate more tightly with SharePoint and OneDrive than before. The many tweaks and enhancements across the board can be confusing though, and we peek under the hood to highlight the features that matter most. 1. REAL-TIME CO-AUTHORING The capability to work on the same document simultaneously with your colleagues comes to the desktop version of the productivity suite in Office 2016. Colleagues can work on the same Word documents and PowerPoint presentations that are saved on SharePoint or OneDrive without overwriting each other's changes. Note that the "real-time typing" feature in which you can see your colleagues working on the same document is only available in Word for now. PowerPoint supports co-authoring, but without real-time typing. 2. SIMPLIFIED DOCUMENT SHARING You can now easily share your documents in Office 2016, courtesy of a prominent "Share" button in the Ribbon. Available across Word, Excel and PowerPoint, the Share button lets you share access to a document to your team members, and serves as a one-stop location to review access permissions or see who is currently working on the document. As with co-authoring, the files must be saved in either SharePoint or OneDrive in order to be shared. 3. CAPABILITY TO SEND LARGE FILES USING ONEDRIVE While the ability to sha

Today employers face multiple challenges with traditional online hiring portals such as:

ü  Escalating cost of accessing candidates database which is largely unused

ü  Time-consuming candidate search and review process

ü  Hard to zero-in on the right resource

ü  Limited branding options

Needless to say, all the above factors slow hiring online which delays bringing candidates on-board. To help employers tackle these online recruitment problems, Pinhopes - a new-age online hiring destination, has introduced innovative profile filtering features, video based online hiring process, multiple branding avenues combined with cost-effective payment option. Here are the key differentiators which help employers hire 3x faster:

Get relevant applications from interested candidates - Every time

Unlike existing online recruitment portals Pinhopes doesn't deal in database business which means employers are not required to search for right candidates, in a database which is largely unused. Instead employers get relevant applications directly from active job seekers for a job opening, without putting much effort.

No tedious candidate search process - Advanced built-in search bubbles best ta

UpsideLMS Version 4.0 now comes in two variants (that run on the same robust and scalable architecture) - UpsideLMS Professional and UpsideLMS Enterprise. UpsideLMS Professional is designed and packaged specifically for SMBs and Training companies where the need for an LMS is to efficiently manage learning data, large number and churn of users and the need to quickly configure training with a high degree of flexibility. Additionally, it meets the needs of training companies for an easy way to manage multiple customers through a single system that include licensing and branding control and to have an eCommerce module. UpsideLMS Enterprise is for large enterprises that need the LMS to manage learning within the context of an organizational hierarchy, and tight links to a competency framework; they also tend to require solutions that are scalable.

Shednstuff.com.au is Australia's number 1 garden sheds retailer.With a large range of garden sheds from small flat roof to large cyclone rated garden sheds they will have one that suits your needs.Other than garden sheds for sale,shednstuff also sells lawn mowers, BBQ's and more.

MOOCs are online courses involving large-scale interactive participation and open access via the web. Besides traditional course materials like videos, readings and problems, MOOCs provide interactive user forums that build a community for the students and professors. MOOCs are a recent development in distance education.

You might have seen this function in Gmail or in wordpress, where, when user enters large text in textarea or in HTML editor like TinyMCE, system starts saving data automatically in database so that if something wrong happens then user will not loose his/her data which he/she entered by spending ample amount of time.

When FHI 360 wanted to move to cloud-based business productivity services, the organization decided to implement a Microsoft cloud-based solution. We recently spoke to Douglas Wilkins, Director of IT Infrastructure at FHI 360, to learn how the company is benefiting: FHI360 logoQ: Please tell us about FHI 360. Douglas Wilkins: FHI 360 is a nonprofit human development organization dedicated to improving lives in lasting ways by advancing integrated, locally driven solutions. Our staff includes experts in health, education, nutrition, environment, economic development, civil society, gender equality, youth, research, technology, communication, and social marketing-creating a unique mix of capabilities to address today's interrelated development challenges. FHI 360 serves more than 60 countries and all US states and territories. Q: Why did you want to move to cloud-based services for messaging and collaboration? Wilkins: We had a diverse IT infrastructure. Employees in the US had different IT toolsets and Internet access than staff in countries like Mozambique. Subscribing employees to a single, cloud-based solution was the most expedient way to ensure that everyone had the same IT tools, to work efficiently regardless of location. Migrating our communication and collaboration technologies to the cloud reduced much of the time required by our IT staff to manage divergent IT infrastructures and connectivity options found around the world. Q: What criteria did you use to select Microsoft as your vendor for cloud-based business productivity services? Wilkins: We wanted a vendor that demonstrated a real interest in our mission and goals, and that offered online business productivity tools tailored for the enterprise space. The capabilities of the Microsoft Services Consulting team, and the work of Intellinet, the partner Microsoft introduced us to, provided us with that. We migrated our 4,300 staff members around the world from diverse platforms to a Microsoft Offi

We're excited to announce a major upgrade for our Outlook.com app for Android devices that overhauls the entire user interface and provides a number of new features. You can get the latest app here. www.office.com/setup We believe that the best mobile experience is enabled through Exchange ActiveSync-which provides a rich, powerful, network-optimized experience for Windows Phone, iOS and other mobile devices. However, native support for Exchange ActiveSync on Android devices varies significantly and so we build a separate app to ensure as many people as possible can have a great Outlook.com experience across all their devices. As you've heard us talk about previously, the overall response to Outlook.com has been very positive. However, our Android app has been behind and so we're excited to take this large step forward. Starting today, you can get the same great Outlook.com look and feel you've come to love on Windows 8 and the web on your Android device.

Small businesses have enough to focus on without having to spend time and energy worrying about email, data storage or backup servers. In fact, most small businesses don't know or understand what a server is. The good news is that in today's technology environment, they don't need to. This is because more small businesses are rapidly moving from outdated technology solutions to Web-based solutions to power their company, also known as "moving to the cloud." By moving to cloud solutions like Office 365, small businesses find they can concentrate their resources on growing their business rather than trying to solve technical issues. Large enterprises typically have entire divisions dedicated to supporting and keeping their IT infrastructure up and running. Even though small businesses don't have this luxury, they can still punch above their weight by choosing the enterprise-grade IT services in Office 365 to help solve their most top-of-mind business challenges.

If you've got a really killer PowerPoint presentation but would like to extract all the information to Microsoft Word - you can. Sometimes this is necessary because the size of your PowerPoint presentation is rather large and you would like to share it with others over email or an intranet. Converting it to Word will help reduce the size and make it easier to view for everyone involved. It's also possible that you would like your slides presented as thumbnails, with or without speaker notes included, for easier reviewing, editing, or handing out during the presentation itself. You can convert your presentation in one of three ways.

Over the past few months, customers across the globe and from a wide range of industries have chosen Office 365 to communicate and collaborate more effectively using familiar cloud based applications they know and trust. The retail industry is using technology more than ever to stay competitive while better serving the needs of their customers. In January we shared how large companies like Tescoand Helly Hansen have joined other notable brands such as, 'wichcraft, BCBG, and Sephora who are moving to Office 365 for security-enhanced access to the familiar productivity tools they rely on at all levels of their business. Office 365 has become the go-to-choice for retailers looking to move their productivity to the cloud - in fact, our retail customers employ more than 8 million people worldwide, more than the total population of Hong Kong! And it's not just retail - we're seeing businesses such as Healthcare Australia, the country's largest supplier of hospital labor, Australia's leading fuel supplier and convenience retailer Caltex, Australia's V8 Supercars, Bang and Olufsen, Barilla, and Toyota Motor Corporation who are all choosing Office 365 to remain competitive without sacrificing familiarity, privacy or security. Office 365 brings leading social and productivity tools to employees across the organization - from headquarters to the stock room to the store floor - unlocking insights and empowering employees to better serve customers. And because the service is available in packages tailored to the needs of every type of user, employees can have the power of the full Office suite at their fingertips with more flexible ways of working. From clothing to technology and all industries in between, we strongly believe one size does not fit all. We have worked to provide your business regardless of its size or your area of expertise with the perfect solution for your unique business needs. We're honored to have the opportunity to power companie

The concept of a 'physical office' as a small business hub of productivity is quickly being replaced by the connected 'mobile office,' which connects employees wherever they happen to be. Today's business landscape favors those who are nimble and able to adapt rapidly by collaborating on the go, sharing ideas quickly and anticipating customer needs. Luckily, small businesses today can achieve this dynamic work environment through the use of Web-based software available for both desktop and mobile platforms. Web-based software is known as 'cloud services' or as 'the cloud' for short. Today, small businesses have access to IT solutions that were previously only available to enterprises - allowing them to punch above their weight class and better compete in their industry. By taking advantage of these Web-based and mobile solutions, small businesses can effectively run their company from anywhere - even from a mobile device or tablet. Here are just a few of the ways technology can help small businesses overcome everyday business challenges: ELIMINATE THE NEED FOR A PHYSICAL OFFICE Starting a business is difficult. Many small businesses owners may not have the capital to lease office space, or they may be hiring friends and staff who aren't based in the same city. Modern cloud technology can unify small business teams, removing the need for a physical office space. WORK WHEREVER IT'S CONVENIENT Cloud services let employees set up a shared folder from a mobile device while taking the bus; create a new spreadsheet on a tablet at lunch; get a presentation from the company's shared drive and make edits from a friend's computer; or schedule a team meeting from a home computer. Office 365 can be installed on up to 5 devices, giving small businesses the ability to do more than just read documents from a mobile device, a tablet, a laptop or even a desktop* by extending the office experience to employees wherever and whenever they need to cond

Forms are the cornerstone of business applications, and plenty of options exist to create a form in SharePoint. Which one you use will depend on your needs, technical skill and the version of SharePoint you are using. In this article we'll explore seven ways to build forms in SharePoint along with some of the pros and cons of each. All these options will be storing the data in an existing SharePoint list. SHAREPOINT LISTS Default forms are available for any SharePoint list. Create a list and you have a corresponding form to add and modify items. Options are available to organize the order of fields, format them, validate input, add basic calculations and attach files. There are also more advanced options such as limiting permissions to item owners and enabling workflows. You can modify all of these under List Settings for the list. These generic SharePoint forms are a good choice for simple applications that don't have too many columns or records and that only require basic functionality. Lists also offer a data sheet view to edit a limited set of columns, much like a spreadsheet. What you see is what you get with these basic forms. If you need to break fields up into multiple tabs, or perhaps have business logic run on them in real time, you'll need to keep on reading. And although theoretically a list can store millions of items, you can only access up to 5,000 items in any view (in reality the numbers are far lower before performance degrades considerably). Basic Sharepoint list form - www.office.com/setup SHAREPOINT DESIGNER Creating a custom form in SharePoint Designer is relatively easy. You take an existing SharePoint list and use Designer to create a new .aspx page which renders and controls the form. There are files used by a list to create forms, one each to add, edit and view. These are located in the same folder as their associated SharePoint list. With Designer you can show or hide fields based on certain criteria, change the layout, use va

Office 365 for business allows small and large companies to use the power of SharePoint Online. In this week's webinar, you'll learn some of the basics and we'll answer your questions.

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Microsoft Office www.office.com/setup Blogs: Windows 10 has grabbed the attention of social media and customers alike more so because it is a crucial operating system for Microsoft after the debacle of Windows 8 and a not so great reception for Windows 8.1. But, Microsoft has another major product on their cards now, Office, which enhances the Windows productivity of five major products into a system of applications. With Office 2016, Microsoft plans to build from scratch, a mobile and cloud first approach which is customer centric and doesn't only focus on web compared to Office 365 and 2013. Office 2016 has recently been launched on September 22, 2015. www.office.com/setup The Cost factor The first and the most important thing we look at during major software products and updates is the price tag that comes along with it as there are so multiple updates for major software and it is not feasible to go through each and every revision. The all new Office 2016 suite is free for customers on mobile and tablets (conditions apply) and pretty cheap at $145 for "Office Home & Student 2016" and the RRP version of the same is priced at $165, along with subscription version of the suite (Office 365 Personal) at about $70 per year. Built for collaboration Office suite has changed how businesses operate and more focus is laid on connectivity and collaboration of projects. So, the latest offering from Microsoft, Office 2016 is emphasized on collaborations among spread out team members who may never work in the same office environment, but easily enhance productivity by accomplishing a major task that took a week to get it done. Touch centric user interface If you have used the Office for Windows 10, it is quite evident that Microsoft has given a universal app style for the apps and a touch friendly UI which is more familiar to the iPad owners. For instance, in Word, Microsoft lays focus on providing touch friendly controls for ease of