Administrative Sparkle

Have you ever had something staring you right in the face and you just don’t get it. It happens when you buy a car. All of a sudden the car you buy is everywhere, before, you rarely saw it. Now they are EVERYWHERE.

Let me just say, I didn’t mean for this to be so long. After going through the information, I really wanted to provide the details of what you would see and get. So with that said, I hope you enjoy the post and check it out for yourself.

That brings me to my challenge for today. I work on three different computers: the office, home, and the laptop. I don’t lug my laptop around with me wherever I go. So I was looking for technology that met three criteria:

• My work has become more collaborative, requiring the necessity to be able to share documents with people who are not on my network or server;
• I would need access to the documents when working on a different computer, once again, not on the network or server; and
• I need to be able to work the document in the program I created it in and others can use as well.

There you have my dilemma.

It dawns on me that I have been reading a lot in my “feeds” about Google Docs. So I dove in to see if this was the answer I had been seeking. I work on resumes and require access to the most current version of the document when preparing a mailing series. The document is in Word, complete with graphic lines and WordArt Text.

Google Docs failed my qualifications. Google Docs strips it down to its basic elements. Looks nice, but anything graphical is eliminated. I suggest this as a simplistic method of sharing information. One great use is for students. Kids who are living between two houses and juggling homework between the two. This option eliminates carrying a flash drive in a bag full of books.

My conclusion for Google Docs is a glorified word processor and hard drive in the clouds. Nothing fancy, but it does store your documents for retrieval wherever you are and available when working on various computers.

My second option, Office Live Workspace. As soon as I executed the desired workspace, the Job Search Workspace, loaded the Word document, and then executed the saved document, I got exactly what I wanted. Microsoft Word executed and the exact replica of the document slid onto my desktop. Now I had to test the second criteria: sharing the document. I sent off the invitation to my client to see if she was able to access her documents.

She was floored with what she was presented. She had her resume and cover letter, but she was also greeted with the following: Interview Preparation Notes, Interview Schedule, Interview Thank You Letter, Job Contacts, and Informational Interview Request. I had just prepared her with the perfect “workspace” to keep everything organized, managed, and manageable. And, she could access all this information anywhere.

She divides her time between the office, the place she lives at during the workweek, and her home 100 miles away. She prefers to keep her travel light, so eliminating the need to transport her computer back and forth every week definitely simplifies her life. However, she does travel with a plethora of flash drives and my work doesn’t have to be included when she is searching for all her job search documentation. I just made her computing life easier, arrangement of all her job search information in her workspace environment, and now whenever she needs changes, I have access to all the necessary information at once.

Needless to say, our previous method of manipulating the information was emailing back and forth. When the next round of resume submissions came, I had to request her most recent information. There just had to be a better way. The “cloud.” Now, we are on the ground running.

In the Workspace I have provided her the following documentation:

• Resumes;
• Cover letters;
• The Interview Schedule, listing the company, job position, the event the company is attending or attended, location, the start time, the end time, job description, the interviewer(s) name(s), the interviewer(s) title(s), and the interviewer(s) phone number(s);
• Interview Preparation Notes where she can contact the department in advance to prepare for her interview. She works for the State and is seeking a promotional position. If you have been asked for an interview, you can request their interview questions in advance and they will email it to you. I know, that was weird for me when I first found out.
• The Interview Thank You Letters;
• Job Contacts where she can enter information from their business cards to send their Thank You Letter and follow up; and
• Information Interview Request. It was an option that she had not even considered and may consider in researching what it might take to get the position she wants.

Office Live Workspace comes with a variety of workspaces that preload with various templates just for that subject. Here are the choices of workspaces and their preloaded templates you have to choose from:

1. Class Workspace
   • Class List with Contact Information
   • Class Notes
   • Essay Outline
   • Important Dates
   • Syllabus
2. Essay Workspace
   • Paper Milestones
   • Team Paper Outline
   • Term Paper Template
   • Thesis Template
3. Event Workspace
   • Business Event Flyer
   • Directions
   • Event Agenda
   • List of Invitees
   • Notes
   • Party Invitation
   • To-do List
4. Household Workspace
   • Announcement Board
   • Emergency Contact List
   • Grocery List
   • Household Event List
   • Household To-do List
5. Job Search Workspace
   • Cover Letter
   • Informational Interview Request
   • Interview Preparation Notes
   • Interview Schedule
   • Interview Thank You Letter
   • Job Contacts
   • Resume
6. Meeting Workspace
   • List of Attendees
   • Meeting Minutes
   • Meeting Notes
   • Meeting Presentation
   • To-do List with Owners
7. Project Workspace
   • Participants
   • Project Notes
   • Project Overview Presentation
   • Project Post-mortem Presentation
   • Project Proposal
   • Project Schedule
   • To-do list
8. School Workspace
   • Graduation Requirements
   • Notes
   • Semester Schedule
   • Sports Schedule
   • To-do List
   • Useful Contacts
9. Sports Team Workspace
   • Announcements
   • Directions
   • Season Schedule
   • Snack Schedule
   • Team Roster
10. Study Group Workspace
    • Announcements
    • Event List
    • Meeting Notes
    • Report Template
    • To-do List with Owners
11. Travel Workspace
    • Business Trip Itinerary
    • Packing List
    • Personal Data Form
    • Travel Checklist

On the left sidebar you have “My Workspaces” where you can view and select from the various Workspaces you are working with. On the right sidebar you can view “Activity,” “Comments,” and your list of “Shared” persons for the selected Workspace. The preloaded templates use the various Microsoft software applications, but Workspace is not limited to just Microsoft applications. Because you can upload your own documents, you can have access to any of your program documents as long as you have the program application on the computer.

It’s easy and it’s free.

If you found this article interesting, I hope you will share your thoughts and ideas of what you do in resolving sharing issues in an age where sharing information has become essential. How have you simplified your sharing challenges? I look forward to hearing your experience.

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