In addition to presenting a series of social media and free web-based tools workshops, I was able to attend several other technology workshops at the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP) Education Forum and Annual Meeting (EFAM) in Montreal, Quebec, Canada last week. Here are my top 10 tech tidbits that I am super excited about and wanted to share with all of you right away!
- Welcome to the future of video conferencing! Cisco Telepresence Magic – Holographic Technology. Take a couple of minutes and see where virtual meeting technology is headed next: http://youtu.be/rcfNC_x0VvE
- Ever wanted to be a virtual admin? Now you can be! Cisco Telepresence – It’s All About The Experience. Check out this video: http://youtu.be/X28-XVxYeAc I encourage you to watch the ENTIRE video…but if you’re short on time, cue it up at about the 2 minute mark and watch it from there! One of your fellow Administrative Professional colleagues is featured in this segment.
- Online software training videos that REALLY work…available 24/7…Lynda.com. If you’re looking for a quick, low cost, easy to access format for brushing up your software skills, Lynda.com is the place to go! There’s no excuse for not knowing how to use the latest version of new software or learning a new program that may enhance your resume. Thanks to Gini Courter from Triad Consulting, you can receive a FREE WEEK of trial membership to Lynda.com when you use this link: www.lynda.com/trial You will have to enter a credit card in order to access the free trial. But you can cancel it when your week is up and your card will not be charged. Special thanks to Gini Courter for allowing me to share this with the All Things Admin audience!
- VisibleTweets.com This is the coolest way to turn your presentation screen into a revolving conversation about your event if you have a Twitter hashtag or key term you type in to the search results. Go to VisibleTweets.com and type this in the search field: #IAAP #EFAM. You can choose the type of animation in the upper right corner to have it randomly display all of the tweets in the tweetstream that have been shared regarding your topic or event. This makes a great screensaver to run in between sessions of an event or conference or during certain keynotes if the speaker is promoting tweeting about their session. And it’s completely FREE!
- AnyMeeting.com A FREE webinar platform that is 100% web-based which will support up to 200 attendees on a webinar. It is ad supported, but the functionality is outstanding. This makes a great resource for companies or individuals on tighter budgets to still be able to present and share their content visually across the web.
- Google Sites is a FREE Google application that makes creating a website SUPER EASY…no prior web design experience required…in less than 10 minutes! You can use these sites as public sites or as private collaboration sites for projects you’re working on or organizations you may be working with. This is another great option for administrative professionals who want to create an electronic professional portfolio with samples of their work. Give it a try and see what you think!
- Google Cloud Connect is a FREE Google application toolbar that allows you to automatically sync files that you work on within your Microsoft Office Suite programs such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc. to your Google Docs folder. So you no longer have to download and upload files to Google Docs to make updates to them when you are sharing files online. It will automatically sync the updates or changes you have made to the file when you update it from your Microsoft Office Application with this toolbar installed.
- Share your Outlook calendar by email. You can send your calendar – or any calendar you manage – in an email message as a calendar snapshot. The calendar appears in the body of the email so the recipient can easily print and review it. You get to choose how much information they get to see – event details or just your free and busy times. If your recipient uses Outlook 2007, they can open the attached calendar as an Outlook calendar. They won’t be able to make changes to your calendar, though. You are simply providing them with a snapshot at the moment you send it. With the calendar open, click the Send Via Email link in the Navigation pane to open the dialog box. This box will appear:
The email that is created will look something like this: 
How cool is that?!
- Share Your Outlook Calendar Online. Use the Microsoft Office Outlook Calendar Sharing Service to share calendars online with other people. You control who views the calendar. But this option has syncing capabilities so you and those you share the calendar with see your current schedule at all times.
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- Open or click on the Calendar you want to publish.
- On the toolbar (or Home Ribbon), click on Publish Online, then choose Publish to Office.com NOTE: If this is the first time you have published a calendar to Office Online, you must register for Office Online by using your Windows Live ID account. If you do not have a free Windows Live ID account, you can create one. Follow the instructions on the site.
- In Time Span, select the number of days of calendar you want to share.
- Click the arrow and choose the amount of Detail you want to share. Enable the Show Time Within My Working Hours Only check box to only share your working hours.
- To set working hours, choose TOOLS, OPTIONS. In the Options dialog box, click the Calendar Options button on the Preferences tab.
- In Permissions, choose whether your calendar information can be viewed only by specific people or searched and viewed by anyone using Office Online.
- By default, the calendar will be periodically updated. Changes to the calendar are published to Office Online during the next manual or automatic send/receive. Calendars are updated every half hour. If you don’t want to update this calendar, click the Advanced button and choose Single Upload: Updates will not be uploaded.
- Click OK to close the dialog box and publish your calendar.
- After your calendar is successfully shared on Office Online, you can invite people to view and subscribe to the calendar. Click YES when prompted to send a sharing invitation.
- Natural Date Language in Outlook. Did you know you can just type the day of the week you want to schedule a meeting and Outlook will automatically populate the date field with the next date on the calendar that would apply? You can do the same thing with certain holidays such as “Christmas” or “4th of July” and things like “1st Wednesday” or the “2nd Thursday.”
You can also type in 8A in the time field and it will auto populate 8:00 AM instead of you having to type it out. Give it a try! And save yoursel f a few more keystrokes every day!
In the spirit of full disclosure, ALL of these tips I’ve shared with you here I learned from Gini Courter and Annette Marquis from Triad Consulting. They are some of the BEST software and technology trainers around! And they have given me permission to share with all of you a link to ALL of the training handouts from the sessions they presented at IAAP EFAM in Montreal. You can learn more about these top 10 tech tidbits and dozens more by downloading their handouts here: http://www.triadconsulting.com/events/IAAP/2011_EFAM/2011_EFAM.htm Affordable professional development doesn’t get much better than this!
© 2011 Julie Perrine International, LLC
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Julie Perrine, CAP-OM, is the founder and CEO of All Things Admin, providing training, mentoring and resources for administrative professionals worldwide. Julie applies her administrative expertise and passion for lifelong learning to serving as an enthusiastic mentor, speaker and author who educates admins around the world on how to be more effective every day. Learn more about Julie’s books — The Innovative Admin: Unleash the Power of Innovation in Your Administrative Career and The Organized Admin: Leverage Your Unique Organizing Style to Create Systems, Reduce Overwhelm, and Increase Productivity. And request your free copy of our special report “From Reactive to Proactive: Creating Your Strategic Administrative Career Plan” at www.AllThingsAdmin.com.
