If you’ve read The Gold Mine over the months, you know that we believe that it is possible to use Powerpoint well.  Earlier this month, I used Powerpoint to enhance a talk I gave to a group of colleagues in my professional network.  Valuable lessons were learned—by me.  And now, I share them with you.
Get Ready
I mapped out the overall message, and the component sections, of my talk. Then, I got it ready on Powerpoint. That part was so much fun! Too much fun! What a monstrous time suck!

I’d start searching through istockphotos.com. Let’s find photos of typewriters. Oh, goodie, …

Call them memory crutches or call them mnemonic devices, they can help you remember to turn right at Maple Street, and which planet is closest to the Sun. Don’t we all need that?!

Most mnemonics are verbal—a word, phrase or rhyme—but they can be visual, auditory or kinesthetic: I still move my right hand if I want to double-check left from right.
Why do mnemonics work?
We could just learn the order of the planets:  Mercury Venus Terra Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune Pluto.  But it was easier for me to learn them by remembering: Mother Very Thoughtfully Made Jelly Sandwiches Under No Protest.

That …

In Part Two of my series on writing clear e-mail messages, we’ll consider good word choice.

I’m obsessed with words, I know. I’ve got Merriam-Webster’s homepage not just bookmarked, but on my bookmarks toolbar.  Most of you are more relaxed than that, but using the right word correctly matters if you want your e-mails and other business writing to be (a) read all the way through and (b) understood.

So let’s look at a few words that confuse and how to use them correctly:

Literally and virtually are not superlatives

Virtually means nearly, almost, and for all practical purposes. …

Let’s look at ways to write e-mail messages that get results.

When you are sending information that you want your readers to act upon—and that’s the reason for most business e-mails—you want your readers to understand the message as you mean it to be understood.

First, always read your e-mail before you hit the Send button. Re-reading helps you correct typos and spot inaccuracies so that you’ll make at least a neutral impression rather than a bad one.

While re-reading your e-mail, consciously look for words that you can delete. Deleting unnecessary words gives your message the simplicity that increases clarity.

(Not …

Your web site and marketing materials are protected by copyright.

Copyright is a form of intellectual property law that protects the authorship of original works of fiction, non-fiction, music and lyrics, poetry, plays and screenplays, computer software, and architecture. On your web site, copyright protects original text as well as original artwork, music, sound recordings.
Instant copyright: Just add ink
You own the copyright on your work as soon as you put it into a perceptible, tangible form. As soon as you jot it onto notepaper or type it up on a MS Word doc, the copyright is yours. It doesn’t …

Online Content Management Systems allow you to consolidate the entire back-end of a website into a single secure yet easy to access location.

Traditionally any time you wanted to make an alteration to a website you needed to contact your Webmaster, who would in turn render your changes into code and and then use specialized programs to upload this code onto the servers which shared your information with the rest of the world.

No matter how responsive or dedicated your webmaster, the need to work through an additional person would build in a lag - one which would only be exacerbated by …

In medical terminology, a stress test (or exercise test) can be any of a series of tests designed to measure how your your heart and lungs hold up as you put greater and greater demands upon your body.  As a result of the Wall Street bailout, it has been increasingly common to hear of such tests being applied to various corporations.  Mostly we hear about outside agencies performing these tests, but it is possible to conduct them upon your own organization regardless of its size.

For example, if someone takes a day off or is sick, either some tasks go undone, …

Play ball! I took an afternoon off last month, and spent the afternoon at the Oakland Coliseum watching the Oakland Athletics take on the Minnesota Twins.

The fun of going to the ballpark starts on the BART train, feeling a kinship with the other A’s fans on board. And, at the ballpark, there’s the ritual purchase of hotdogs, fries and soda. For this game, I indulged myself with pricey tickets; I got to sit three rows behind the visitors’ on-deck circle.

Being at the game is quite different that watching it on TV. The whole field was before me! …

Watching baseball teaches me about business.

I love running my own business and being my own boss. I also love baseball.  Oh, I hate to play it (“Don’t hit it to me, please don’t hit it to me…”) but I truly love to watch the game.

From baseball, I’ve learned some excellent business practices:

Barry Zito taught me to consider one batter at a time. Barry’s doing well this year: I read that he’s taking a batter-by-batter approach,  rather than letting his mind wander to how badly the game is going, …

We do a lot of maintenance work for our clients at MB/I. Maintenance is key in keeping a site fresh and up-to-date. Depending on the site and the client, maintenance costs can become substantial. Here are a few tips for keeping these costs down:

• Group your requests so you’re not sending several separate emails during the same day or even week. Each time your web developer gets one email from you, he has to locate your project, open the right file, make the edits, upload the revised file to the server, test his work, and move on to his next task. …
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