Will Kelly

Checking Out SlideRocket

The good folks at SlideRocket hit me up on Twitter a few weeks back after reading a blog post I wrote about Acrobat.com Presentations offering me a look at their product.

PowerPoint presentations are just asking to be put online via a service like SlideRocket and Acrobat.com Presentations so I was more than happy to check out their product.

My Impressions about Acrobat.com Presentations

Access to Acrobat.com Presentations is now available through Adobe Labs, a beta site future Adobe Web services offerings including Acrobat.com. You must have an Acrobat.com account in order to access Acrobat.com Presentations.

The True Implications of Google Wave

While I might be a bit late in writing about Google Wave, I've been a long time follower of Web Office productivity suites and Web mail and have been following the news about this upcoming Google service with great interest.

Today's workforce is at the intersection of email, instant messaging, social networking, and online collaboration. Unfortunately, to date nobody has brought forth a business-class communications solution that brings together these mediums into a complete solution.

Buzzword and Acrobat.com Export Options

While I use Google Docs to draft blog posts and rough ideas because I can switch back and forth amongst my home office PCs, I am trying to do more with Buzzword and Acrobat.com.

Choosing a Wiki for your Enterprise

This is probably the first contract hunt where I am starting to see Wiki experience as a job requirement. Nothing could make me happier, because I am a big believer in Wikis and online collaboration tools for the enterprise and glad to see such tools become part of contract and job prerequisites.

Online Collaboration with Acrobat.com

I had the opportunity to get a briefing about  the latest updates to Acrobat.com that was arranged by an old PR contact of mine. It came at an opportune time since I am returning to freelance writing plus I am a real geek for online collaboration tools and Web Office productivity suites.

Adobe is targeting freelancers and SOHOs with Acrobat.com and they deliver with free features that should keep their target base's attention.  The question remains when Adobe can build an addiction to Acrobat.com so they can start offering a subscription-based model of the service.

Checking out Google Sites

I switched  back and forth often between PCs during the normal workday back when I was freelancing. As such, I like to have secure online sites where I can cache documents that I need access to during the course of doing business whether I was  on a client site, in my home office, or sitting with my MacBook Pro down on my living room couch.

Plantronics Calisto

My new job as a director of product management means I spend a lot of time on the phone and learned early on in my tenure the value of having a headset. I am not a big fan of speakerphones unless I am sitting in a conference room of people.

Checking out the MindJet Project Management JetPack

MindJet MindManager 8 has gradually found itself a home as a product management and project management tool in many organizations. Mind maps can help project managers and their teams to better drill down into the project lifecycle. Consider that mind maps can come into play during typical project lifecycle activities including:

• Managing project  information including individual tasks or sub-projects.
• Managing project requirements gathering and solicitation.
• Developing project communications including project kickoff.
• Facilitating project team  meetings and meetings with project stakeholders.

In response to the needs of product managers and project managers, MindJet offers the MindJet Project Management JetPack to help kick start project schedules and add a new visual dimension to typical project planning activities like project process overviews, business cases, software use cases, project scope, issue tracking, and project closure. The JetPack includes mind map templates and white papers. It costs $79.00 and is available for download.

Kelly's Laws of Document Templates

I still see a lot of  value in standardizing even though I've left technical writing and consulting. Document templates make the writer's life easier and help give a consistent and professional look to an organization's internal and external documents.

Why I Check Email in the Morning (and it boosts my productivity)

There are productivity pundits and  mavens who warn against checking email in the morning. Well, I have to check email in the morning. My company's development team is in Israel, my corporate office is in Massachusetts, and I live in Virginia.

OneNote 2007 Rejoins my Professional Workflow

I've always been a fan of Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 and moving into my new role as a director of product management meant I had to collect new ideas and organize projects to a scale I never had to as a writer. OneNote 2007 is now a central collection point for my ideas and questions as they relate to new product management processes, initiatives, and product offerings.

Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies

I've had some cause lately to look back at some of the projects I've worked on as a contractor, consultant, and freelance technical writer and read  Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies by Tom DeMarco, Peter Hruschka, Tim Lister, Steve McMenamin, James Robertson, and Suzanne Robertson because the synopsis from Amazon made it sound like a good read.

Product Management and Mindmaps

Freelance writing was a day to day lesson in how to capture and conceptualize new ideas for articles and new projects and MindJet MindManager became an integral tool as I worked to define new article ideas to pitch to my editors.

The release of MindJet MindManager 8 prompted me to upgrade my license on Windows and  take stock of how I am using MindManager on my Macs. While I was a hard sell at first to move to mindmapping, it took me some time to realize its benefits over my previous brainstorming technique of yellow legal pads.

Are Project Managers Born or Certified?

Project management can be a dark art in organizations large and small. As organizations try to tighten up their delivery processes, they might be considering sending some of their senior staff and managers for PMP (Project Management Professional) certification from the Project Management Institute. However, often times it isn't as simple as just sending staff for PMP certification because a paper project manager can often times be more of a problem versus the solution.

Kelly's Laws of Meetings

I hate meetings. There I said it. Once I even went to a meeting about meetings when I was on a previous contract

While there are times that I'll admit meetings are necessary, I've seen way to many hours burned by needless meetings. There are also personality types that seem to need meetings so they can feel valuable.

Kelly's Laws of Wiki Implementation

Wikis should be a force for good. Unfortunately, my experience on client sites where they've implemented  wikis has always been very black and white. The user community is either craving a wiki or they find it too disorganized and difficult to use.

Checking out Google Presentations

I've been taking advantage of some downtime to go and revisit some Web Office and other applications including Google Presentations.

PowerPoint slide decks are the bane of many meetings and organizations. However, within limits, a slide deck can serve its purpose. Google Presentations is a presentations package with a much lighter footprint than the ubiquitous Microsoft Office PowerPoint. Thus introducing Google Presentations into an organizations means a mandated path to simpler presentations.

The Tao of Audience

I've had some cause to think about the importance of knowing one's audience as of late due to a sequence of unrelated but very telling events.

Audience is important. Whether you are a writer, editor, salesperson, or anybody who faces external customers on an ongoing basis knowing or not knowing your audience is critical. Dismiss the value of knowing your audience then only trouble can happen. It's always important to  ask Who am I explaining things for? Is it for me because I don't have as much of a full grasp on the subject as I am letting on? Or, is it for the end customer to help them perform their job better?

It's important to remove yourself from this equation because if you have limited knowledge. Just because you don't understand something it doesn't necessarily mean the audience isn't going to understand it.

Checking out EverNote Beta

I came across EverNote last year when I had surgery on my right arm which is my writing hand and grew to really like it for capturing notes while I was in meetings and to capture ideas and other random synaptical misfirings on the fly. I especially liked being able to tag notes for later reference.

The latest version of EverNote is still in beta and a major upgrade to this useful note taking application expanding to Windows, Macintosh, Windows Mobile, and the Web. This means I can have EverNote clients on my MacBook Pro, client notebook PC, and my other home office PCs and can sync my notes via EverNote's Web component.