True Character

My grandpa recently shared with me a quote that has really resonated - and I believe it will with you as well.

"True character is the ability to follow through and reach the desired objective ... long after the mood in which the resolve was made has past."

When you are asked to stay home and not travel ....

Take a look at these web-conferencing tools Dim Dim and Twiddla both provide great services for easy web-browser collaboration, whiteboarding, etc. with no downloads. With more online collaboration and less travel, look for these services to be second-nature in no time.

IBM takes notice - social networking is for real

The next wave of the internet - Web 2.0 - is for real.

Take a read at this recent white paper from IBM on social networking and its implications on telecom providers.

The cloud can raise you money for your next startup idea

Check out this entrepreneurial site created to provide seed money for your startup. The top idea for the month wins $10,000 as voted on by the cloud community (YOU). Idea Blob is free and easy to use. Check it out.

Sweet Outlook tool - FREE

Have you ever wondered who your #1 contact is according to number of emails sent and received across all your folders, including inbox and archive. Well, with Xobni, you can. Xobni - inbox spelled backwards - is a super add-on for MS Outlook that takes your email management and analytics to another level. Not only does it provide statistics on every contact by email (e.g., frequency of emails against time of day), but it also integrates with Facebook and LinkedIn to give you instant insight into your contacts' profiles. You can also see a comprehensive list of your contacts' network, all recent conversations and files exchanged - and there is more ... this is a good app.

A travel site for the traveler

With all the traveling I do for work ... the taxis, the hotels, the flights ... and with each week varying greatly, I have come to rely on Trip It, which is a super site for the frequent to even the occasional traveler. It automatically compiles all your itineraries into one master itinerary and provides helpful information like local weather, directions and maps. Not to mention you can easily share your trip information, track your mileage over time and see the details of your friends' trips. Seriously... check it out. You will love it.

What not to put in a resume

Having read hundreds of resumes in a pseudo recruiting position at work I can attest to the following resume words, although used oft, as poorly reflecting true value-add work:

- Responsible for
- Experienced
- Excellent written communication skills
- Team player
- Detail oriented
- Successful

When re-tooling your resume consider the ambiguous nature of the aforementioned words and remove them from your resume.

The next generation of word document collaboration

Check out this tool on word document collaboration. I find the solution simple yet elegant and crucial and absolutely useful when receiving rounds of updates from multiple parties under a tight timeframe ... can you say proposal development??

Free Download of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - audiobook

Download this timeless classic here.

Outlook email to calendar tip

Have you ever received an email with the date and time of an event and wished it would have arrived as a calendar item? Well, one of my favorite tips with Outlook is the easy drag and drop feature turning an email message into a calendar invite. There is a simple screen shot of that here. Enjoy! Any other Outlook productivity tips?

Modeling Links

Over time I have collected a solid list of Excel tips and tricks websites. Some are better than others but all are worthy of a perusal to find what they have to offer.

Excel Add-Ins
Analytics / Excel Blog
Excel Modeling Help
Excel Charts
Enroll in daily Excel tips
More Excel Tips

Do you have any more to add?

Surfing The New Web Wave

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Surfing The New Web Wave

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: enterprise 2.0 office 2.0)

"With the past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future. I live now." Emerson

I had the opportunity the other day to read a little of the new book Power of Less. The main messages from the book are around learning to set clear limitations; choosing the essential to maximize time and energy. Personally, I really liked the simple concepts as I can immediately look to apply them in my own life.

Therein I noted several pragmatic, applicable to-dos that are worth sharing:
- Set aside time just for batch tasks (ideally later in the day) -- batch tasks are phone calls, email maintenance, in-box processing, visiting websites, etc. Think of batch tasks being anything life "maintenance" related
- First thing in the morning, write down your three Most Important Tasks (MITs)
- Focus solely on those tasks; do not multi-task those items
- At your designated batch time, process your in-box to empty; do not use your in-box as a to-do list
- Only check your email 2-3 times a day; once in the morning, during lunch and then in the afternoon; turn off any desktop email notifications
- Stick to 3-7 sentence emails max
- Learn to say "no"
- Create a "To be Filed Folder" within your in-box
- When going through your email, process quickly, and either delete, file away, or respond

Do you have any general or otherwise productivity tips to share?

SEO Tool

Good SEO tool for Google Analytics users: Concentrate