There’s no getting away from it. Change is everywhere right now – in business, finance and almost everywhere else. Eventful and unexpected changes like these are a reminder that nothing is set in stone. Yet many businesses are run on the mistaken belief that we can predict and control the future. So how can organisations get better at adapting to shifts in the marketplace?

In his new book, Survival is Not Enough, marketing guru Seth Godin argues for the importance of evolution in business survival. Far from being something that belongs just in classrooms or nature documentaries, evolution is vital to every successful organisation. It’s not simply a case of being open to change – it’s about constant development

Change – the only thing you can be sure of

In his book, Godin highlights how change is happening more and more quickly in our world. But businesses still resist it. This resistance is often built right into the way an organisation works. However, in unsettled times like these, set ways of working can become a serious barrier to success. As Godin points out, a business is not an isolated being. It’s an organism that interacts with many other organisms and which is affected by its environment. So we need to take a different view.

Evolution – the answer to a better business future

Instead of hanging on to tried and tested business strategies, Godin argues that evolution is the most powerful tool we have for dealing with change. And that means accepting – not fighting – change. His innovative approach, called zooming, is about training people constantly to make small changes. This in turn creates a more effective organisation designed to go with the flow of change.

Zooming, penguins, and the big idea

Penguins do it. Most businesses don’t. Godin argues that the majority of organisations are based on the assumption that we operate in a stable world, where we have some control over happens next. That’s why so many organisations fail to respond positively to change. But for the humble penguin, evolution is an everyday thing. They’re constantly adapting. Unlike most businesses, which get to a certain point where they’re satisfied with their successes. And stop growing. That’s when change leaves them behind.

Godin’s zooming idea is simple and very smart. Build in an overlying strategy to create a business that is so highly flexible and responsive that it is truly prepared for whatever might happen. Right now, are your people ready to adapt to the demands of the next few years or even months? How could embracing change help you stand out in your marketplace?

Change is here to stay. Are you ready for it?

Get your business better prepared for the future with a half day Change Management business training in Nottingham.

Timing, teams and resources – a project is a complex mix of these aspects in any setting. That’s why it takes the right tools to manage projects effectively. Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007 is a powerful resource for more successful projects. It puts you in control of the workload, the finances and the people. And it’s designed to work seamlessly with other Microsoft programmes. Now it’s been updated, Microsoft Office Project is even more equipped for getting projects done – from the first task to the final outcome.

Advantages for your projects include:

See the impact of change

Now you can see every potential consequence of change – before you make it. Change Highlights automatically points out all the items that move as a result of the most recent change you make.

Add eyecatching highlights 

Make your information stand out even more by changing the background colour of a cell or row with Background Cell Highlighting.

Get right to the source of the issue

Now it takes less time to work out what’s affecting your task dates. Whether it’s schedule date or holiday time, Task Drivers help you understand what’s behind the start date of a task. Any delays and you can track back and work out exactly what’s holding things up!

Look ahead for your project

Ever wished you could see into the future? Well, you almost can with Multiple Level Undo. It allows you to view the implication of every possible change to your project. Just by undoing and redoing changes to views, data, and options.

Stay in control of your money

We all want more control over our finances right now. With the budget field, you can easily assign budgets to projects and programmes. The new “Cost” resource type gives you a strong grip on your cost estimation and tracking. Other advantages include more predefined fields that map to financial fields in project accounting systems!

Create customised charts and diagrams

Get your point across with impact. With the Visual Reports feature you can create customised PivotTable views, charts, graphs, and diagrams based on Project information. This smart feature uses Microsoft Office Excel and Microsoft Office Visio Professional to produce powerful visual information. You can also create your own customised report templates and share these with other Project users.

That’s a lot of advantages for better business or personal project management! And now you know the difference Microsoft Office Project Standard 2007 can make, why not boost the power of your projects with a short Microsoft Project 2007 training course?

Suppose you have some text which you want to convert to a table.

1. Indicate where you want to divide the text into columns by inserting separator characters (such as commas or tabs or choose your own). To indicate where you want to begin a new row use paragraph marks.
2. Select the text that you want to convert.
3. On the Insert tab, click Table, and then choose Convert Text to Table.
4. Under Separate text at, choose the option for the separator character that you used to separate your text.
5. Make sure in the Number of columns box, the correct number of columns is displayed. If not, you may be missing a separator character in the text.
6. Click OK.

Let’s say you want to format cells, so that you can display preceding zeroes for a number, for example, a phone number will always begin with a zero.

1. Select the cells that you want to format.
2. Right click on selected and from the menu choose the Format Cells
3. From the Number tab in the Category click on Custom.
4. Click in the Type box, delete the displayed content and enter zeroes that correspond to the size of the required number, for example if you want to display 5 numbers, enter 00000.
5. Click OK.

When you enter numbers into the formatted cells, the preceding zeroes will be displayed, for example if you formatted the cells as 00000, when you enter 123 you will get 00123

Unlike Microsoft Excel, Project doesn’t have an unhide feature. When you hide a column in Microsoft Office Project, the column is only removed from view, not deleted from your plan. Also, hiding a column doesn’t remove any information from your plan.

To bring the column back again, you need to insert the column like you would with any new column. Any custom formatting that you applied to a previously hidden column will need to be re-applied to the inserted column.

1. In a sheet view, select the column to the right of where you want to show the column.
2. On the Insert menu, click Column.
3. Select the Field name you would like to display.

Fed up receiving junk email? Then, configure the Junk Email Filter!

The Junk Email Filter is designed to catch the most obvious spam and send it to your Junk Email folder.

The Junk Email Filter analyses each incoming message according to several factors, such as the time when the message was sent, the content and structure of the message to evaluate the message on ‘spamness’. The Junk Email Filter is turned on by default, and the protection level is set to Low. This level is designed to catch the most obvious spam. You can increase the level of protection by changing it.

Follow the following steps if you want to reduce the amount of junk email:

1. In Microsoft Outlook from the Menu bar, go to Tools and choose Options.
2. On the Preferences tab, click Junk Mail.
3. Under Options tab select the level of protection:

• High – If you receive a large number of junk email messages, but do not wish to restrict the messages you see to only those from senders on your safe lists, select this option. However, you should periodically review messages moved to the Junk Email folder, because some legitimate messages may be moved there as well.
• Safe Lists Only – If you receive a large number of email messages, you can alternatively select this option, which will cause any email message that is sent neither from someone on your Safe Senders List nor to a mailing list on your Safe Recipients List to be treated as junk.

Security…communications…information management…finances. We all know IT is an integral part of business these days. But the sad reality is that many of us just aren’t getting the best performance from our software.

But how do you review your systems to improve your own business performance – and make day-to-day work even easier, too? With a Microsoft Certified System Engineer or MCSE. More and more businesses are discovering the advantages of this mark of quality. So how could an MCSE-qualified professional help you?

The business benefits to your company are:

Reduced costs – bringing in a qualified professional will cut the costs of maintaining your workstations and personal computers. And you’ll be able to make your network more reliable with Microsoft Windows 2003 Active Directory – and have the professional support to back it up.

Improved performance – Microsoft’s Active Directory is powerful stuff for business. It could help you simplify your IT management, strengthen security, and boost how well your current systems and software work together. To make the most of this, your organisation needs a professional with the expertise to manage Active Directory and help you plan strategically for what you want your network to do in the years ahead. No one is better prepared to do this than a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) who is certified in Microsoft Windows 2003.

Up-to-date technology – MCSEs lead the way in helping businesses move effortlessly to the Windows 2003 operating system. They can also ensure you get all the potential benefits from Windows 2003 and Active Directory.

Easy progress – A smooth and successful is roll out of technology such as Windows 2003 Server is much more likely with the support of an MCSE-qualified professional. Technology experts IDC recently asked more than 500 Microsoft Certified Partners and Value-Added Provider Partners about the greatest benefit from a business perspective of having MCSEs. Eighty percent responded with shorter time to deploy Windows solutions, lower implementation risk, or an increased sales hit rate.

Great value – Hiring an MCSE makes better use of resources and improves performance. It all adds up to great value.

Stand out from the competition – keep ahead of a crowded marketplace with support from MCSE – and proven experience with Active Directory.

All kinds of businesses can develop with the help of MCSE professionals. They’ll ensure your IT works at its best for you – not against you! To benefit from the knowledge of an MCSE professional, book a course for your IT personnel.

You finally installed Office 2007 and guess what? You cannot find commands you are used to in the Menu!

It will certainly take a while to adjust to a new Menu. So what you can do to locate where your favourite Office 2003 commands are in the new Office 2007 interface?

Microsoft developed visual, interactive reference guides to help you quickly learn where things are. You can download and install them on your computer.

The only downside to it is that you have to download these guides for each of the Office 2007 Applications.

If you are not sure if it will help it, try an online demonstration from one of those listed at Microsoft Office Online.

If you are happy to proceed, use the following links to download command reference guides for each of the Office applications:

Word 2003 to Word 2007 interactive command reference guide

Excel 2003 to Excel 2007 interactive command reference guide

PowerPoint 2003 to PowerPoint 2007 interactive command reference guide

Outlook 2003 to Outlook 2007 Interactive Command Reference Guide

Access 2003 to Access 2007 interactive command reference guide

To ensure optimal performance of your Access database, you can run the Compact and Repair utility within Access. This utility rearranges how the database is stored on a disk if the database is fragmented.

To set an option that automates this process every time the database is closed:

1. Open the Access database that you want Access to compact automatically.
2. Click the Office Button , and then click Access Options.
3. Click Current Database and, from Application Options, select the Compact on Close check box.

As someone wise once said, “Nothing endures but change.” As this comment by the Greek philosopher, Heraclitus  highlights, change is the only certainty in life. Another wise person has done extensive research into the ways we respond to this fact of life.

Everett Rogers’ studies cover the full spectrum of change. His Diffusion of Innovations Model can help all of us identify ways to respond powerfully to change. Rogers’ view is that “The degree that a person is open to change and innovation will seriously affect the rate of change.” He identified five categories of innovativeness. Which one are you?

Innovators – in at the start

According to Rogers’ research, Innovators are the first 2.5% of the population to adopt new ideas. They’re the intellectual risk takers who get connected with other innovators. These are the experimenters who can understand and apply complex technical concepts. They’re also able to withstand a high degree of uncertainty.

Early Adopters – an important influence

Making up the next 13.5% of the population, Early Adopters are usually more integrated into the local system than Innovators. These people are good at influencing friends and colleagues. They successfully put new ideas into practice. This is often the most influential group because others respect their opinions about new innovations.

The Early Majority – sharing ideas

The next 34% of the population is made up of the Early Majority. They’re usually just ahead of the average members of the group when it comes to adopting new ideas. They might not have as much influence as the Early Adopters, but they do help spread ideas and connections.

The Late Majority – a cautious approach

The next 34% features the Late Majority. These people are likely to adopt changes just after the average member of a system. Peer pressure is likely to get them to adopt new ideas, but they usually remain sceptical and cautious! They like to know what they’re getting into before they make a change.

Resisters – taking their time

Resisters are the final 16% of the population to adopt innovative changes. Their decisions are usually based on what has been done before. Resisters are generally suspicious of both innovations and change agents. They often need to be sure that a new idea won’t fail before they can adopt it.

Did you recognise yourself and the people you know? Are you a shaper or a follower of change?  Rogers’ research shows that for change to really take hold, at least 15 or 20% of a target population must accept it. Early Adopters are the most vital group for change because they’re the ones who have links to the innovators and to the more cautious groups. Want to make change happen in your business or personal life? Understanding the people around you and how they relate to innovation is a vital step towards making things happen. Are you going through change? Then join our Change Management for Managers course.