How to Create a Web Page from a Microsoft Excel 2007 Worksheet
If like me you are not an html wizard, you might find this little trick for creating web pages from Microsoft Office Excel useful. Here is how: Read More
Arrow-Tip #62 Maintaining Inbox Zero
I’ve talked a lot about attaining Inbox Zero in the past couple of months, but what are some of the biggest challenges to maintaining it? Vacation or the occasional work or personal crisis are two situations that can lead to temporary setbacks, but again those can be overcome with some of the same tactics used to attain Inbox Zero in the first place. But what about those every day emails that seem to stick in your Inbox either because you don’t know where to put them or you’re worried they will fall through the cracks if you move them? Read on to discover my Inbox Zero epiphany regarding these tricky messages. Read More
Selling from Outside In – Let’s Help the Sales Rep
Recently I was chatting with my friend and founder of DRE Software, Inc. Donald Hatter about collaborating online from a sales perspective. It just so happens that his company has a great new tool that I thought Arrow-Tips readers might find interesting so I asked him to discuss the need he saw in the market and the BCN solution his company developed. Enjoy and please give Donald some comment love! Read More
Arrow-Tip #61 Publishing KPI Metrics in Microsoft Excel
In Arrow-Tip #56 and #57 Creating Metrics to Illustrate KPIs Parts I and II, we discussed the metrics that my client Gulf Coast Welding (GCW) Corp. decided to track. After some agonizing over where to house the data (to be discussed in the next Arrow-Tip) we decided it was easiest to compile the data in a Microsoft Excel workbook and then publish it to SharePoint from there. So here is how we set up the Excel workbook: Read More
My 10 Year Old Son Has a Blog
Last week my 10 year old son announced that he wanted to learn how to earn his own money and asked me if I could help him do it. We sat down and brainstormed on ways that he could earn money including selling fruit from our back yard, walking neighbors dogs, and teaching other kids how to fly radio controlled airplanes.
My son has a true passion for all things airplane so we decided on the last option. He has a great natural ability to fly remote controlled planes and a well cultivated understanding of how they work. In fact, he probably knows more about airplanes and fighter jets than most adults. But of course, he’s got to convince people besides his doting mom that money spent with him on flying lessons is a good investment. I started thinking about how I would advise a client in this situation and decided that he needed a blog to establish his credibility. Read More
Arrow-Tips #60 Why Use an Online Backup Service & How to Choose One
I often mention both here on Arrow-Tips and in my live seminars that one of the reasons I became an Outlook evangelist is my hatred of paper files. A frequent retort is something along the lines of “what if your computer crashes – where is your back up?” To which I confidently reply that my Outlook files are backed up on the MailStreet Exchange Server (I use Mailstreet owned by Apptix for hosted Exchange services) and my other computer files are backed up using an online backup service. I can’t begin to describe the huge risk you are taking if you do not have some type of back up procedure for your computers. But after my interview with Cathy Connolly, President of PackRat Solutions I can tell you some of the great benefits of using an online backup service and what to look for when choosing a service provider. Read on to see what Cathy had to say. Read More
Arrow-Tips #59 Categorize Your Contacts
This Arrow-Tip was inspired by Mashable.com writer Dan Schawbel in his June 3rd post HOW TO: Organize Your Contacts for Networking Success – thanks, Dan! He has some great tips in the article especially regarding capture of social media contacts, but one of my favorites is the concept of taking the time to categorize your contacts. I’ve talked about categorizing contacts in several Arrow-Tips posts before, but in honor of Dan I thought I’d actually list some of my favorite categories and describe why they are useful. Please feel free to name some of your favorite categories in the comments section! Read More
Social Media Presentation to Partners in Wealth Group
Another big thank you to the folks at Partners in Wealth who invited me to speak about social media during their May luncheon at Ouisie’s Table. You can check out the slides from my presentation on slideshare. I also thoroughly enjoyed their other presentation that day regarding Financial Assistance to Grown Children: How to Give without Promoting Dependence – lots of good seeds planted even for my young children. Following are a couple highlights from my presentation regarding why non-profit board members need to participate in social media and using social networking sites to drive traffic to your blog.
Arrow-Tip #58 Using the Outlook Conversations Feature to Achieve Inbox Zero
As explained in Arrow-Tip #33 Managing Inbox Overload Part I, one of the fastest ways of cleaning out your Inbox is to sort on the FROM field. Once you have cleaned out the newsletters, spam filter reports, vacation responses, etc. you are left with emails you care about. Arrow-Tip #34 Managing Inbox Overload Part II discusses creating a system to file these remaining emails. This can still be a daunting task because you will have many emails from the same contact, many of which build on previous emails. You do not need to keep all of these. By keeping the most recent email (which contains the replies in the email thread) and deleting the others you are shrinking the size of your mailbox and enabling you to find important information much faster. Read More
Nutshell Mail Acquired by Constant Contact
A huge and heartfelt congratulations to my friends and hometown Houston boys David Lyman and Mark Schmulen of Nutshell Mail on the acquisition of their company by Constant Contact. Arrow-Tips readers know that I’ve been a huge fan and client of both of these firms for years (or in the case of Nutshell Mail since inception). I can’t wait to see how these two organizations evolve as they combine the benefits of email and social media marketing. Best of luck, Guys and once again congratulations!
