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More real-world uses for OneNote
Continuing with my theme that telling you how to solve a real-world problem is better than listing what each menu item does, here are three tips that I’ve discovered where OneNote solves a problem better than other methods I’ve tried.
Creating “How-To” Documents for PC procedures
A picture is worth 1K words (as we computer types like to say) and explaining a complicated set of steps is helped enormously by showing intermediate results so the reader can verify that he’s following along successfully. I used to do this with the print screen button, pasting into an image editor, cropping and finally inserting into the Word document. With One Note, the Clip function allows you to select only the area you want, so the cropping step is eliminated. If you want, the entire document can be created in OneNote, or the screen shots can be copied into other programs. The image captured is immediately placed at the cursor location in OneNote, but is also in the clipboard, so you can paste it into whichever program you want to assemble the pictures in. Other uses for this are capturing error messages, logs or other data to report program bugs or clipping part of a website to send to someone, without having to send the whole page.
Providing Design choices to a client
A slightly different use for the Clip is to take repeated snapshots of a design (like a logo, for instance) to present a client with a number of choices. Rather than print a copy of each variation, I now “clip” multiple times, after changing to different fonts or colours or element placement. I can arrange the small clips in a OneNote document and annotate each with the font name or the colour choice so that I can reproduce it later. Finally I print to a PDF straight from OneNote and send it off to my client. An alternative would be to save the OneNote document to a Word document and send that. Sometimes, I clip a representation of the colour palette as well to show what colours are being used overall. Taking snapshots of the work in progress is a lot faster than reproducing multiple “finished” versions. Just be sure to “clip” the image without any selection markers present in the part you want to show.
Changing the order of elements
I don’t know about you, but when I’m free-thinking or brainstorming, I never get the ideas down in my draft in the right order first time! Moving lines around to get them in the right order has always been a pain. I’ve done things like add a column in Excel and sort on that, but in OneNote, you can drag and drop to your heart’s content until the things are in the right order. Cut and paste between Excel and One-Note is well designed, so you can move data to OneNote, get them in the right order and copy and paste them back with no problems. I recently created a web-site development estimating template in Excel, changing the order of tasks in OneNote until they made the most sense. When the work starts, I copy a section back to OneNote to keep track of the actual hours spent, using the timestamp method I described last month.
Meanwhile, I’ve tried to get the two high school students in our household to use One Note for their essay or other homework research, where OneNote’s practice of annotating each web-site clip with the URL makes life so very easy, but without any luck. Isn’t it the old fogies who are supposed to be beyond learning new tricks?
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New Ways of Work
Coming up at the end of this month I will have the privilege of speaking at the University of Toronto. This is the 4th such occasion for me, but truthfully, it is among the most fulfilling parts of my mash-up career.
The lecture will be to a 3rd year management class on “New Ways of Work”. This particular occasion has some added pressure in that Prof. Chris Bovaird has returned from his one year sabbatical to launch this new course in parallel with his new book on the topic.
‘New Ways of Work’ seems to me, broad enough to describe at least one-third of today’s careers. Freelancers, consultants, full-timers with hobby projects, small businesses - the means with which we can define a career have grown exponentially in the last decade. This is being mirrored inside enterprise organizations as well, as seen by the volume of new job titles being created every year.
The definitive line between entrepreneur and employee has been blurred. I can make a case that I belong to either group (as can many others). What it comes down to, is the level of risk you can tolerate at this moment in time. There are character traits that will play into your decision to assume a risk, but at the heart of every person is an equation that says,
The expected value of the things I want, is equal to my probability of success versus my desire to realize that outcome (“the payoff”) .
I’m still early in my career. In many ways this is the ideal time to start my own business. There is less to lose, less responsibility and accountability, and the energy is there. In many ways it is also the worst time to start my business. I haven’t exhausted the learning I can do with other people’s money, I haven’t seen markets shift over 5 year timeframes, and I do not have the capital or investments to hold me over.
And so I keep on working for the man. Okay... I’m not slaving away as employee #2810482. I’m working for small companies in important roles. All the while learning lessons (very openly), through them. I’m seeing what works, what fails and why. I’m maintaining two or three incomes by having a full-time job and some side projects that allow me to apply what I’m learning to different business models (whilst consulting to others on how to do the same).
This is the level of risk I choose for myself, today. One day I will venture off in the truest sense, but not now. Right now I desire to purchase a home, travel and grow my investments. You can’t do all that while risking life and limb. By some accounts I’m sitting right smack on the top of a fence. But hey, I can do that in today’s career climate. And better yet - I can jump down on either side depending on what I want most at that future moment in time.
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Turning up the Heat: How Rachael Ray Rose to the Top
Proudly on display in the front of Rachael Ray’s home is a sign that reads: “Martha Stewart doesn’t live here.” She may not be Martha Stewart, but Ray has found her own equally successful style of cooking and presenting herself on the road to success. How did this young woman who never stepped foot inside a culinary training institute become on of the industry’s most popular and well-known cooks?
Lesson #1: Keep Your Fire Fuelled by Having Fun
“I was raised in a household that taught us that everybody has the right to have a lot of fun,” says Ray.
Lesson #2: Make Yourself Accessible To Your Customers
Rachael Ray has a secret ingredient to her success, but it is not the cayenne pepper or diced garlic she uses in her recipes. What makes Ray stands out from her peers and the likes of Martha Stewart is that Ray is human. She makes food with regular ingredients found in a normal grocery store and she does not apologize if she goofs up on air, which she does. Ray is just like the rest of her viewers, and it is that down to earth nature that has propelled her to the top.
Lesson #3: You Do Not Need to Be a Pro to See Your Business Grow
“My first vivid memory is watching mom in a restaurant kitchen,” recalls Ray. “She was flipping something with a spatula. I tried to copy her and ended up grilling my right thumb. I was three or four.”
The fact that Rachael Ray did not know where she was going makes where she wound up today all the more impressive. Despite never working at a five-star restaurant, attending a single cooking class, or training under a revered chef, Ray has made a name for herself as one of the industry’s most successful cooks. She is one of Food Network television’s most popular hosts, the author of numerous bestselling cookbooks, and editor-in-chief of her own magazine. More recently, Ray stepped out even farther into the limelight with her own hour-long daytime talk show, “Rachael Ray”.
Read the full Rachael Ray story here.
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