Friday, March 1, 2002

Software Tips & Tricks Keeping Phrases on the Same Line In Word

By Laura Noble

Dates, Names, City, Province/State are examples of phrases that should not be split over two lines of text.

To maintain these types of phrases on a single line, a non-breaking space needs to be created.

Pressing Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar after all words that are part of the phrase, except the last word, creates a non-breaking space.

  • This is an example of a line without a non-breaking space when a name – Noble Software Solutions – is typed.
  • This is an example of a line with a non-breaking space inserted when a name – Noble Software Solutions – is typed.

  • For dates, the non-breaking space also comes in handy, for example, December 25, 2002.
In the second example above, the Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar was pressed after typing "Noble" and then after "Software," which forces the phrase "Noble Software Solutions" to be on a single line versus two.

In the third example, Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar was pressed after "December" and "25," to force the date to be on a single line.


Stay tuned to Networking Today in the coming months for more Software Tips & Tricks from Noble Software Solutions.

Laura Noble is the owner of Noble Software Solutions. Laura can be contacted at 519-680-2689 or by e-mail at lnoble@noblesoftwaresolutions.com. www.NobleSoftwareSolutions.com

Published in Networking Today, March 2002.


It’s Better to Network, Than Not Work

By Barbara Bartlein

A friend of mine recently lost her job after twenty-two years at Kinko’s. Twenty-two years! She informed me, “It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t retire at that job. I don’t even know where to start looking for my next position.”

The problem for most people making a job change in the middle of their career is that the “old” ways of obtaining a position no longer work. That is, you usually don’t find a higher-level job from the paper or sending out resumes. You find it by networking and connecting with people. Networking is really the marketing of YOU. Savvy career folks work hard at networking throughout their careers to build a “power rolodex” that they can access for advice, referral, and services.

In the fun book, How to Work A Room, Susan RoAne (the mingling maven) outlines several remedies for those that find it difficult to network for business and personal success.
  1. Redefine the term “stranger.” Yes, I know, you were told to never talk to strangers. But when you are at a professional meeting, you already share interests or background with the other people in the room. Use the common denominator as an opener for the conversation; “How long have you attended the Garden Club events?” “How do you know the award winner?” “Have you attended meetings here before?”

  2. Practice a self-introduction. What you say depends on the type of event that you are attending. At a business function, it is customary to give information about your career and position. At a social event, it is common to talk about your relationship to the host/hostess or your involvement in the event. A good introduction includes your name, a bit about you and why you are at the occasion, for example, “I’m John Jones. I am related to the mother of the bride.” “Hello, I am Susan White, I am from the NY office.”

  3. Move from “guest” behavior to “host” behavior. Guests at an event wait for someone to greet them, take their coat, and initiate conversation. Hosts are much more active and make an effort to start conversations, meet people, and introduce others. In other words, hosts have something to do. Volunteer to help; staff the registration table, direct people to the room, hand out information. You not only will meet people, you will be popular with the planners.

  4. Respond to rudeness as you would the flu…fly the coop! You may be afraid that some people will be unfriendly or openly rude. Well, that might happen. You may extend your hand in friendship and have them turn away. The best response is to simply move on. It’s more about them than you. Quickly initiate a greeting with another attendee.
Some Additional Strategies:
  • Avoid the Grand Entrance. There is no such thing as being “fashionably late” to a meeting. Base your arrival time on the starting time of the event and avoid a conspicuous entrance.

  • Use the buddy system. Make a deal with a friend and go to the meeting together. You can introduce each other to people, which will help break the ice. Brush up on your introduction skills and use openers that make people ask more questions.

  • Read the nametags or ask for a card. Nothing makes people feel more special or more comfortable than when folks use their name in a conversation. Make a conscious effort to find out the name of whom you are talking to and then sprinkle it liberally in the exchange. You will also be much more likely to remember their name that way.
Practice working the room at every business and social event you attend. Remember: It’s not who you know; it’s who knows you.

The author wishes to thank Susan RoAne for her assistance with this article. For more information on How To Work A Room, see www.susanroane.com.

Sign up for Barbara's FREE email newsletter at www.barbbartlein.com. Barbara Bartlein is the PeoplePro™. She helps businesses sell more goods and services by developing people. She can be reached at 888-747-9953, by email at: barb@barbbartlein.com or visit her We
b site at www.ThePeoplePro.com. Published in Networking Today, March 2002.

Creative Risk-Taking for High Performance

By Mark Gorkin

As a public speaker, it's not surprising that risk-taking is a subject dear to my heart and ego. It's well known that most Americans would rather contemplate their own death than face an audience.

This self-conscious majority apparently associates public speaking with a classic definition of social risk: "The estimated likelihood of being embarrassed, shamed or humiliated, or of experiencing a loss of valued affection or respect of others." (Zuckerman).

Of course, some of us platform performers have had to deal with both demons: as a speaker, believe me, I've died many times. And while skeptical about reincarnation, I'm still alive and talking…but not just talking. Over the years, I've transformed my share of humbling learning curves into a modus operandi for risk-taking. Now, drawing upon my experience as a speaker and mass media communicator, I'll show how grappling with the need for control and perfection can stimulate more productive and innovative performance in a variety of settings.

Humbling is the right word, for when you experiment and explore as a speaker you are spotlighting personal anxieties and defenses, flaws and foibles, as well as narcissistic illusions. Even with some calculation, you are still throwing caution and control to the wind. So let's hope we are not just talking hot air. When coming out from a bunker of notes or stripping away the armor of a too practiced and predictable "canned" program or lecture, the public presenter's learning environment rapidly becomes both vital and vulnerable.

Clearly, a myriad of roles and undertakings, not just the speaking arena, can become a creative, double-edged crucible for quickly challenging your cognitive, emotional and interpersonal strengths and vulnerabilities as a high performance risk-taker. Anytime you: a) break away from conventional thinking and knowledge-building, b) pursue new, uncertain or still fluid models, methods and mediums, or c) generate "a process that is extended in time and characterized by originality, adaptiveness and realization" (MacKinnon), you are into the creative risk-taking adventure.

What lets risk-takers mine primal sources or soar with creative currents? These "on the edge" individuals:

  1. Are not overly preoccupied with making mistakes or with social disapproval; they are able to tolerate the anxiety of separateness.

  2. Have a strong enough ego to admit when they are wrong or in trouble.

  3. Analyze, emotionally experience, and learn from trial and error.
And with this foundation, "creative persons are precisely those that take the cards that make them anxious" (May).

Four Steps for Creative Risk-Taking

Here are key steps and strategies for developing your "Creative Risk-Taking" potential:
  1. Aware-ily Jump in Over Your Head. Only by jumping into the fray can you quickly discover how adequate your resources are with respect to the novel challenge ahead. This approach precludes a strategy that eliminates all risk in advance. You may need to encounter realistic anxiety, exaggerated loss of control and even some feelings of humiliation to confront your "Intimate FOE." But often the reward for the risk is a unique readiness to build knowledge, emotional hardiness and skills for survival, along with evolving imaginative mastery.

  2. Strive to Survive the High Dive. There's no guarantee when grappling with new heights or depths, but four fail-safe measures come to mind:

    a) Strive high and embrace failure – failure is not a sign of unworthiness, but a learning margin between perfection and achievement, especially as one explores the fine line between vision and hallucination

    b) Develop a realistic time frame – recognize that many battles are fought and lost before a major undertaking is won

    c) Be tenaciously honest – continuously assess the impact of outcomes, changes within yourself and your environment, and the rules underlying your operation

    d) Establish a support system – have people in your life who provide both kinds of TLC: Tender Loving Criticism and Tough Loving Care

  3. Thrive On Thrustration. Learn to incubate or be stuck between thrusting ahead with direct action and frustration. Creativity often requires being more problem-minded than solution-focused. Increasing tension or "thrustration" (Rabkin) can shake the habituated, settled mind and may transform a dormant subconscious into an active psychic volcano – memories, novel associations, and symbolic images overflow into consciousness. You're in position to generate fertile problem-solving alternatives. Problems are not just sources of tension and frustration, but are opportunities for integrating the past and the present, the conscious and the unconscious, the obscure and the obvious. Here lies creative perspective.

  4. Design for Error and Opportunity. Innovative and risk-taking individuals and organizations are more attuned to a range of possibilities than to fixed or ideal goals. These systems prefer the risk of initiation and experimentation to preoccupation over deviation or imperfection. Floundering through a sea of novelty and confusion often yields new connections, long-range mastery, and an uncommon big picture. A narrow, safe course creates the illusion of achievement and short-lived control. Of course, limited predesign means opportunity for errors. In open people and systems, startup misplays are vital signs for self-correcting and self-challenging feedback.
Remember, errors of judgment or design doesn’t signify incompetence; they more likely reveal inexperience or immaturity, perhaps even boldness. Our so-called "failures" can be channeled as guiding streams (sometimes raging rivers) of opportunity and experience that so often enrich – widen and deepen – the risk-taking passage. If we can just immerse ourselves in these unpredictable yet, ultimately, regenerative waters.

Mark Gorkin, "The Stress Doc," is a licensed Clinical Social Worker and a national speaker and trainer on stress, communications, team building, creativity and HUMOR. He is the "Online Psychohumorist" (TM) for the major AOL mental health resource, Online Psych, and for AOL's Business Know How. Check his Web site, recently featured as a USA Today Online "Hot Site," at www.stressdoc.com or email StressDoc@aol.com.

Published in Networking Today, March 2002.

Promote Humour in The Workplace

By Barbara Bartlein

Nothing makes work more enjoyable than laughter. Recent studies on efficiency demonstrate that work environments, which promote humour have better productivity, increased employee retention, and less sick time. Some benefits of humour:

  • It makes work fun. When people enjoy what they’re doing, they have increased energy, creativity, and enthusiasm. Good humour tends to become contagious (remember laughing until midnight with old friends?).

  • It helps people trust you. People like happy people. When employees see you take problems in stride, they are much more likely to trust you with disappointing information or challenges. This is the news, of course, that management most needs to hear.

  • It brings your team together. Laughter promotes camaraderie because it is universal. It bonds people together with workplace jokes and stories.

  • It offers perspective and balance. Humour is especially effective when things are not going so well or when employees are frustrated. Looking for the humour in a situation breaks the tension and helps all know that “it could be worse.”
AND MOST IMPORTANT: LAUGHTER IS NOT FATTENING!

Some ideas to laugh about at the next meeting:

  • Play Prairie Dog. This, of course, refers to the habit of “cubies” to look over the top of the cubicle when there is a loud noise of commotion. Create a signal and see who can emerge the quickest.

  • Put your garbage can on your desk and label it “IN.” Make it clear that there is no other option for people to forward work to you.

  • Find out where your boss shops and buy exactly the same outfits. Always wear them one day after your boss does. (This is especially effective if your boss is the opposite gender.)

  • Skip, rather than walk. Make it clear that you are a person of purpose and eager to get to your next appointment.

  • Page yourself over the intercom. Do not disguise your voice, but be quite clear that it is urgent.

  • Send e-mail messages that advertise free pizza, doughnuts, etc. in the breakroom. When people complain that there was nothing there, lean back, rub your stomach, and say, “You’ve got to be faster than that.”
As Tom Bodett says, “The difference between an optimist and a pessimist? An optimist laughs to forget, but a pessimist forgets to laugh.”

Sign up for Barbara's FREE email newsletter at www.barbbartlein.com.

Barbara Bartlein is the PeoplePro™. She helps businesses sell more goods and services by developing people. She can be reached at 888-747-9953, by email at: barb@barbbartlein.com or visit her Web site at www.ThePeoplePro.com.

Published in Networking Today, March 2002.