Voicemail:  can’t live with it, can’t track down the guy who invented it to kill him.  Just kidding. Voicemail is wonderful, until you find yourself wasting time listening to someone’s lengthy VM greeting, lengthy messages left on your voicemail, or messages in which the caller didn’t bother to leave a callback number.

Here are a few quick tips to make voicemail a bit less tedious:

1.  Skip others’ voicemail greetings

Why wait through someone’s entire (outgoing) message?  You don’t have to!

Business / Office Systems:  most corporate voicemail systems let you skip the voicemail greeting by hitting 1, #, or * during the greeting.   You’ll have to experiment to determine which works for the system you’re calling.

Here’s a related tip:  when recording your voicemail greeting (or “outgoing message), consider adding a brief phrase at the end of your message along the lines of, “If you’d like to skip this greeting in the future, hit the (1, #, or *) key.”

Cellular Systems: the same technique works here –

• Sprint:  1
• T-Mobile: #
• Verizon:  *
• AT&T:  7

Hitting these keys will enable you to skip the VM greeting of whoever you’re calling, as well as the accompanying automated message from the cellular provider.

Here’s a tip, if your friends utilize a variety of carriers: consider modifying how your frequent contacts are listed in your cell’s address book.  For example, Rupert uses T-Mobile.  Instead of listing him in your address book as Rupert, list his name as Rupert #.  When you get his outgoing message / greeting, hit # and you can leave your message.

2.  Clean up your own outgoing message

Years ago, a flight attendant on a Southwest flight offered the following during the safety briefing:  “…and for those of you who’ve never ridden in a car, here’s how you can fasten your seatbelt…” Underscoring the inanity of telling a group of people how to do something 99.999% of them had previously done thousands of times, it was wonderful.

I only wish everyone had this sort of common sense when they record their voicemail greetings.

It’s not as though answering machines – and by extension, voicemail – were invented yesterday.

Everybody gets it:  you aren’t going to answer the phone.  I need to leave a message.

Whether you’re “away from my office, busy, in a meeting” is moot:  you ain’t answering, period.  So there’s no need for a lengthy explanation.  (There’s no need for ANY explanation, actually.) Taking this a step further, if someone can’t figure out what to do when they get any sort of voicemail message, I’m not sure I want to call them back.

Here’s what I’d recommend:

You’ve reached Bob’s voicemail box.  To skip this message, hit #.  Please leave a brief message.

Alternative:

Hey, you’ve reached Stan’s voicemail.  You know what to do at the beep.

What if you’re on vacation?

I’m out of the office this week. This is Kevin; I’ll be back on the 24th and will respond then.

You get the picture.  I think the bare minimum is:  identify yourself, in case your caller mis-dialed.  Other than that, see the seatbelt story above.  Just about everything else is fluff.

3.  Leaving messages

4 rules:

1. Be brief
2. Leave your number – even if the person you’re calling has called you dozens of times.  Don’t make them look it up!
3. If the message you’re going to be leaving is really important, hang up before the prompt, write your message on a piece of paper, practice it, and then redial
4. Be brief

I hope these tips help; if there are others you’ve discovered or developed, please share them by commenting.

Have you ever fumbled between PowerPoint and a web browser during a presentation? Every once in a while I’ll need to demo a redesigned website or an online catalog during a PowerPoint presentation, and have always toggled back and forth between the two – or, perhaps even worse – just put an image of the site into my PowerPoint presentation.

A few days ago in a rare moment of lucidity, I thought, “There must be a better way.” And of course, there is, and it’s free.

(That sound you hear is my right palm slapping my forehead.)

A developer named Shyam Pillai developed a PowerPoint Add-In called LiveWeb which let’s you insert live web pages into PowerPoint.  It’s simple, easy to install and use, and works perfectly.

Installing LiveWeb is simple:

• First, before you do anything else, open PowerPoint and go to Tools/Macros/Security and set security to Medium. I’ve installed LiveWeb on a few computers, and found this was necessary on all, including my home PC:

• Go to Shyam’s site (link:  LiveWeb) and download the zip file and extract its contents
• Move the “LiveWeb.ppa” file to a folder to which you can easily navigate:

• Go back to PowerPoint and click on Tools/Add-Ins and click on “Add New” -

• Navigate to the folder where you saved LiveWeb.ppa, highlight the file, and click “OK” -

• NOTE:  if prompted, click on “Enable Macros” (this is why we set Macro Security to medium) -

• Then close the dialog box by clicking, well, uh, what else, “Close”…

• …and you’re ready to rock!

Using LiveWeb is just as easy!

• To insert a live web page into your PowerPoint document, click on Insert/Web Pages…

• You can either manually enter the URL or copy and paste from your browser’s address bar:

• The step by step Wizard guides you through the process.  You can specify several parameters; this is Step 2:

• There are actually just 3 steps, and when you’re finished, your web page is inserted into the slide.  The page won’t display, however, in anything but the “Slide Show” mode.  In other modes, you just see a Windows logo:

• Launch the Slide Show, and you have a live, fully functioning web page within your PP slide show:

A few other important points

At risk of stating the obvious, but LiveWeb needs to be installed on the computer you’re going to use for your presentation.  Versions are available for PowerPoint 97/2003, and PowerPoint 2007/2010.  You can also use the program for inserting pdf’s into PowerPoint.  Also, if you want to add a title to the slide into which you’ve inserted a web page, you can use a text box to do so.

This is a terrific tool if you need to demo a site during a presentation.  Having a fast internet connection, of course, is a must.

Also, I should point out that Shyam has developed a number of useful PowerPoint Add-Ins, including a YouTube video Add-In, and a Word/Phrase Search Add-In; you can reach his homepage from the links published here.

I hope you found this post useful, and that you’ll be able to use LiveWeb to add some additional panache to your presentations!

An unexpected alchemy, certainly.  A week ago I ordered a set of cappuccino cups and saucers from cooking.com, and they arrived yesterday.  I should note, incidentally, that I’ve never ordered anything from cooking.com before.

Unpacking them, I discovered that one of the cups was chipped, and called the firm’s Customer Service department.  (I hoped they’d be able to send me a replacement cup, because I really didn’t feel like repacking everything and sending it back.)

Quickly connected to someone named Marie, I explained the situation, gave her my Order #, and wondered aloud what our options were.  She put me on hold for a few moments, came back and said, “No need to send them back; we’ll send you another set, free of charge.  Sorry for the trouble.”

And that…  is how you turn a cup into a customer, and I told Marie as much before we ended our conversation.

It’s easy to boast of a “100% Satisfaction Guarantee,”  but it’s quite another thing to deliver – without prompting – on that promise.

Whether you want to share photos or videos with family members or share files and collaborate with coworkers at single or multiple locations, drop.io (pronounced “drop ee-oh”) makes it astonishingly simple.  Forget using YouSendIt.com or SendThisFile- this site’s easier, faster, and you don’t even have to create a logon.

All you need to do is click the button to create a drop (the spot where you’ll ‘drop’ your files).  You can customize the URL if you wish:

From there, you can add music, photo, MS Office files, URL’s, and video clips in a snap.  For Firefox users, there’s an add-on that facilitates the process; it’s simple without it as well.  You get 100MB of space per “drop”.  If you need more, upgrades are available.

From a collaboration standpoint, a couple of features are especially handy:  you can subscribe friends or colleagues to the drop so that every time a file is added, they receive an email notification. In addition, voicemail and conference call features are built in.  Want to explain a file or comment on a photo?  Leave a message on the drop’s voicemail – all users can listen in.

Of course, if you want to make the drop secure, requiring logons, you can do so in a matter of moments.  You can also restrict guest’s ability to add, delete, or comment on files.  drop.io’s capabilities are as extensive as you would need, yet it couldn’t be simpler to create your first drop and get started.

Oh yeah – music, video and photo files are viewed/listened to in-browser.  Very neat!

Here’s a relatively brief video which covers the basic features of drop.io –

Check out drop.io by clicking here:  drop.io

If you’ve used drop.io or have questions, please comment!

Late 2010 Update:  the drop.io service was acquired by Facebook in October of 2010, and the site is no longer available.  If you are looking for a similar site, I recommend DropBox.com

So…  you’ve been asked to lead a team on an important project.  This is both good news and bad news!  The bad:  you’ll have to temporarily suspend work on your elaborate plan to impress Heidi Klum by controlling the weather in North America.  Damn it!  Hold on though, there’s  good news:  those merry pranksters you work for have entrusted you with a key project:  this is your chance to wow them with something other than your natty attire and commanding knowledge of 50 Cent lyrics.  (What were they thinking?!?)

One of the biggest challenges project leaders have always faced is getting results from a group of people who do not directly report to them.  Coupled with the fact that today many of us operate in lean environments (this is code for “the organization has been downsized”), the job of the project or team leader has gotten even tougher.

Given all this, how do you keep your team on task and accountable for their individual contributions and results?    I will assume that the team has collectively developed a timeline and in so doing has estimated how much time will be required to complete each key task.  This should be a collective endeavor, and there should be a healthy exchange between team members during this process.  And by “healthy exchange” I mean you should beat the crap out of any sandbaggers (or wild optimists) on the team.  (I exaggerate slightly, but only slightly.)

If Bob from Cost Accounting suggests it’ll take him 3 weeks to provide a costed Bill of Materials for the Super Colossal Fabuticulator and you know that that can’t possibly take more than, say, 15 minutes, you all might want to challenge him a bit.  If you don’t, you’re going to be stuck with an absurd timeline that will be challenged – most likely by the people who asked you to lead the project.  Or, another option:   just accept what everyone says, face reality and admit that President Obama will be in office when the project is completed.  And I am referring to Malia Obama.

Develop a reasonable timeline with an appropriate amount of stretch and risk, and do it collectively.

So…  you have a good timeline, buy-in from team members and your management, and the project is off and running.  And then a funny thing happens.  Pierre in Marketing doesn’t quite have his draft launch plan done on time, and needs another week.  Jody from Finance suddenly announces that the custom report she’s developing will require 3 weeks, not 2  …and so on.  Suddenly your timeline and the project deliverables are at risk.

Is there any way to avoid this? Sadly, no.  Thanks for reading!  Awww, just kidding.  There’s no absolute certainty you can keep your team on task, consistently hitting its deadlines and milestones, but I’ve used variations of the same tool for 25+ years with remarkable results.  In brief:

• Develop a plan as described above
• Make it clear that you and your fellow team members expect everyone to deliver
• Be clear that you’ll regularly report the team’s progress to the team sponsor or champion and everyone’s supervisor or VP – “just so there are NO surprises”
• And then do just that

The third bullet point above is key.  It’s amazing how much people do not want to be the weak performer on the team.  One effective way to track progress and flag issues is to utilize a simple Excel worksheet that instantly conveys what tasks are complete, which are in process, and which are late. If you click on this image you’ll see a close-up view along with a legend which explains the color coding:

I send this out after each team meeting along with any relevant meeting notes.  It always goes out the day of the meeting, no exceptions.  In addition, late in each week I send out a brief email that identifies two types of events:

• Tasks with start dates during the current week (i.e., you ought to be working on these things now)
• Tasks with due dates for the following week  (these ought to be complete or nearing completion)

This email notice is sent to the team (set up a distribution list in your email program) and the project sponsor and everyone’s supervisor or VP, whichever is relevant. Remember:  no surprises.  Composing and sending this email takes about 2-3 minutes.

A word about your tasks:  do everything humanly possible to hit your own due dates.  You need to set a good example for the team.

The spreadsheet shown above becomes the focal point of each meeting.  Completed tasks are ignored.  Tasks in process are reviewed quickly and the person responsible for the task gives a quick update.  Tasks that are late – and there shouldn’t be many – are covered in greater detail.  The individual responsible should detail her/his recovery plan.

If using a tool like this – in a highly public manner – strikes you as overkill or rude, let’s be clear:  you were not asked to lead the project because you’re a nice guy or gal.  You were asked because your management believes you can deliver the project.  On time, on cost, and with the anticipated performance.

But let’s be clear:   you can use this tool without engaging in assholian behavior; instead, you can – and should – use humor, grace, diplomacy and your excellent people skills in managing your team.

You just need to have a very clear, very explicit understanding among the team members that they’ve helped develop the timeline, they’ve committed to the dates, and you all expect one another to deliver.  With this spreadsheet, you are merely reporting the team’s progress.

This spreadsheet is available on the FREE Downloads page.  If you manage projects, I hope you’ll consider giving it a try.  Who knows?  Maybe even Heidi will be impressed!