Small business: top 10 productivity tips in the Office or on the move

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If you're a small business owner, you're probably always on the lookout for resources to help you run your business more easily. Whether you're a Windows fan or a Mac lover, the following 10 tips and tricks from the Office team will help you get more done whether you're in the office or on the go.

1.     Make your blog pop. Embed a PowerPoint slide show or an Excel calendar into a blog post with just a few easy steps. Share your wares, whether they're delicate earrings or custom bikes, via an embedded PowerPoint slide show in your blog.

2.     Manage multiple email accounts from Outlook.  In a recent survey by MarketTools*, 67% of those polled said they are afraid of overlooking messages as they manage several inboxes. Microsoft Outlook lets you use multiple email accounts  and address books and easily manage all your different folders from a single, centralized view.

3.     Stay on top of your Inbox with Outlook 2010. Save time by using features like Conversation View, Clean-Up Conversation, and Ignore in Outlook 2010.  You'll spend less time combing through email and more time doing the things that matter.

4.     Bring the power of social media to your Inbox with the Outlook Social Connector. The Outlook Social Connector allows you to view your contacts' Facebook and LinkedIn feeds without ever leaving Outlook. This is a great way to know the latest from your customers and colleagues right from your Inbox.

5.     Broadcast your presentation to remote participants with PowerPoint 2010. With the Broadcast Slide Show feature in PowerPoint 2010, you can quickly share your presentation with anyone, anywhere, all directly from PowerPoint 2010. You can just send a link, and in one click everyone you invite will be watching a synchronized view of your slide show in their browser. They don't need to have Office to tune in.

6.     Leverage multimedia with just a few clicks. Make quick edits to photos in Word, PowerPoint and Excel in Office. Also edit audio and trim videos from within PowerPoint.

7.    Use OneNote 2010 to capture and organize all your ideas in one place. With Microsoft OneNote 2010, you can take notes, insert audio clips, videos, screen clippings, conversations and emails into your own digital notebook. You can also share your notebook with others, and you can view your notes on your desktop, on the web or from your phone.

8.    Save time by making Office.com templates and Publisher your BFF. Balancing your business (and your family, and volunteering and chores, and...) can be exhausting. Don't want to create that budget from scratch, or that presentation with a blank slate? Need professional-looking business cards? The Office templates for small businesses have you covered. Consider Publisher for creating your own marketing materials and newsletters as well.

9.     Become a budget maven in less than five minutes with Excel templates. There are some great Excel templates and videos available to show you how to turn your monthly budget spreadsheet into a work of art, all in under five minutes! When you're on the go, try Excel Mobile 2010 on your Windows Phone 7.

10.   Keep your documents at your fingertips with Office Web Apps. We know that your "office" can be a coffee shop or the bench at your kid's soccer practice. The free Office Web Apps give you the ability to access, edit and share Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote documents with colleagues and business partners from almost anywhere via a web browser.

Read about using Office Web Apps and much more with Microsoft Office 365 here: Why Small Businesses Will Love Office 365.

Hope you find these tips useful and happy National Small Business Week!

 -- Celeste Murillo, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Office

Read more about how two small businesses are putting these tips and tricks to use: aNb Media case study and Basic Black case study.  Also, please note that features like Ignore and Clean Up in Outlook, the Outlook Social Connector and OneNote are available only in Office 2010.

*MarketTools, Inc. study commissioned by Microsoft Office, May 2011; online survey of 1,268 professionals and students ages 18 and older.  

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Boost your productivity of working with social media...?

You may find that headline counter-intuitive. The common perception is that social media are only updates posting, images, and connect with friends and family. If you have "social media" in your job title, you might think there is no way it can be part of the working day. However, social tools in the Office are to be adopted. In a recent independent survey of Rwandan professionals and students of age 18 and older social media under the direction of MarketTools Inc., 35 percent of respondents selected as an effective method of communication with colleagues, customers and suppliers. Some other interesting data points from the survey: 25% of respondents use social media to communicate and build relationships with colleagues. This figure was agreed up to 37% of the age group 18 - 24. 19% of respondents that social networking has helped to meet people who have made offline in valuable business relationships online. 89 Percent said their use of social media for personal communication increased or remained the same during the last Jahres.Es is no surprise that people use social media in their personal communication, but here at Microsoft, we believe that social networking can deliver real business value for all types of organizations. We have this with the social connector Outlook and SharePoint enable invested. And we have in cooperation with companies such as LinkedIn and Facebook. How can companies benefit from social networking? When used with a purpose, social tools in the Office with cooperation can help. Companies such as Getronics/Kpn and Catapult Systems have used social Outlook Connector professional social interaction and exchange of knowledge between the staff in different offices to promote that. James Sinclair of On-location advice used to build the social Outlook Connector and LinkedIn better business relationships and stay productive. James shared some thoughts with us recently: "Outlook of social connector (OSC) and LinkedIn work for me because it is an easy way to keep me informed of the people in my network." "I use this tool to interact with potential customers, employees and partners." "Nothing replaces face-to-face meetings, but OSC is part of my natural process of doing business, because it just there made in Outlook." "Often I find a degree of separation from someone I would like to do with business, and I use an introduction of a common contact, I discover by the OSC and LinkedIn."Of course we should take as for any communications platform, with social networking privacy and security to heart. With the social Outlook Connector, administrators can control and configure what networks with connect staff. Also, the social Outlook Connector users can choose which to bring social networks in their Inbox. He respects the privacy settings that have chosen users on social networks. The information that you see above your contacts depends on how much they have decided to share with you on social sites. Therefore, we have seen great examples of user acceptance of the Outlook social connector and social networking at work. You can to know you more, such as the Outlook social connector in this article on Office.com. I believe that social tools are a part of the workplace. With the right planning and the right tools, they can actually increase productivity. I encourage you to check out the Outlook social connector and think about how you use it in your company. Download the social network provider for Outlook social connector. Drop me a note, if you want to share your own experience! -Paco Contreras HerreraGroup product manager, Microsoft Office

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