Archive for September, 2009

One of the interesting statistics I looked into when preparing for my presentation at Microsoft TechEd Australia 2009 was how many people make use of the shortcut keys in Office.

One of my favourite resources for fun facts like that is Jensen Harris.  Those of you who have dug a little deeper into Office 2007 would recognise that name – he is the guy responsible for the new Ribbon user interface.

In his presentation at MIX 08, he brings up a few statistics which really shocked me (and I am paraphrasing here):

• Only around 50% of users use the Ctrl+C shortcut to copy (which means 50% of folk use the menu!)
• Only around 27% of users use the Ctrl+S shortcut to save (which means 73% use the menu!)
• Only around 2% of users use the Ctrl+O shortcut to open documents  (which means around 97% of users don’t!)

Anyone thinking what I am thinking?  There is a huge opportunity here to increase productivity of Office users across the board, simply by working with users to identify what shortcut keys have the biggest impact, and helping them to master them.

Now there are two ways to go about that.  The first is probably the most pervasive already – lists of shortcut keys.  You can find them anywhere, simply by Googling (or Bing’ing) “Word Shortcut Keys”.  People download them, print them out, and put them on their desk beside their computer.

But what happens when you have a list of shortcut keys? 

1) You don’t learn them, you just refer to them

2) You don’t actually work through the shortcut keys to understand what they are capable of

3) You are probably less productive when you take into account the time it takes to look up the shortcut key every time you use one!

The second way is to work through a learning program which helps you understand the impact of, remember, and give you confidence to use key shortcut key combinations when you need to.

How many learning programs like that exist?  None.

Well until now…

I have put together a audio course called “Five days to Word 2007 shortcut mastery”.  Now this isn’t for everyone.  If you are comfortable with your list of shortcuts that you refer to all the time – then great!  If it works for you then there is no reason to even think about enrolling in this course.

On the other hand, if you still struggle with remembering, or understanding what shortcut keys are available in Word 2007, then this course is exactly what you are looking for.

Before you ask… no, it isn’t free.  But this is the kind of specialist training that you can’t really find anywhere else at the moment, and it has the potential to help you save hundreds or even thousands of dollars in lost productivity yourself.

Want to learn more – visit www.shortcutcourse.com.

‘till next time!
TNP

If you follow @thenewpaperclip on Twitter (or @paulwoods – the guy behind The New Paperclip), you would have known that I was presenting at TechEd Australia the past week.

My session (with Microsoft Australia’s Andrew Lowson) was titled “Personal Productivity for the IT Pro” and was one of the level 100 sessions in the Office System track.

It was never meant to be a deep dive – simply a session to highlight some quick productivity wins you can get simply by getting to know the tools you already have in front of you – in this case, Microsoft Office.

The best part of the session was that about about half way through we handed it over to the audience and started crowd sourcing productivity tips.  It was obvious that there are some very smart, very passionate people out there – and plenty of knowledge was shared

For those of you who could not make it to TechEd, or are unable to access the session I delivered via your TechEd Online subscription, whilst on site at the Gold Coast Convention Centre I did record a TechTalk just for you.

Titled “The Productivity Myth”, this interview with Alistair Speirs from Microsoft Australia will give you a taste of what the session was all about.

If you want to read more about “The Productivity Myth” – check out this blog post. 

Looking forward to seeing you all at TechEd next year!

‘till next time!
TNP