Victus pro Scientia Opus -- Food for the Knowledge Worker

Tip of the Week: Windows Search Advanced Query Syntax

I have espoused David Weinberger's views and approach to storing information for quite some time ("Everything is Miscellaneous"), and as I get more used to Windows 7 and Office 2010, I'm finding that I'm using metadata and searching more than ever to quickly find content stored on the web, my organization's network, and my own computer.

I recently came across an excellent article from Microsoft about Advanced Query Syntax.  It captured my interest, and I expect to use it frequently to make my search queries more precise in the future.

The article contains query syntax to limit results by:

• common file properties (e.g., author)
• date ranges
• file size
• data store
• assorted file types (contacts, e-mails, calendar entries, documents, media)

So if I want to find, for example:

• PowerPoint presentations
• longer than 20 slides
• stored as attachments to my last week's e-mail messages,

I could use Windows Search, right from the "Start" button, to enter:

"store:mapi isattachment:true modified:lastweek slides:>20"

and get those precise results (see below). 

This precision will save me so much time that this article, for me, achieves "print-worthy" status, and will be tacked to my office wall for frequent reference.  I hope you find it similarly useful.

 

How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?

I am working on a separate post about attrition and knowledge management, and was reminded of a favorite story from CompuWorks, a partner of KMA’s who specializes in training.  They were discussing with a client the value of having employees well-trained in the latest version of Microsoft Office, and the attendant increase in productivity it would bring.

The client asked, “What if we invest in training these people, and they leave?”

My quick-witted colleague from CompuWorks countered, “What if you don’t invest in training them, and they stay?”

Office 2010 Web Applications Preview

In this window between Microsoft's July Worldwide Partner Conference (with many Office 2010 previews) and Microsoft's October SharePoint Conference, I'm working to learn about Microsoft's Office 2010 applications.

A recently posted video shows an interesting aspect of Office 2010:  Office Web Applications that are positioned as an on-line companion to the richer Office client experience, for users with only a browser and needs for high-fidelity collaboration around Office documents.

Office Web Apps Video

Office 2010 Preview Site

Late addition:  ZDNet blogger Mary Jo Foley wrote a great article recently summarizing Ten Things To Know as Microsoft Office Web Apps go to testers. 

Office 2010 -- First Impressions

At last week's Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference, I learned a bunch of things, to wit:

• Microsoft has a HUGE wave of technologies poised to hit the market over the next 12 months (Windows 7, Office 2010, and many others)

• Microsoft LOVES to compete with the likes of Google, VMWare, Cisco, Apple, etc.

Notwithstanding these big, obvious themes, I was pleased to get my first look at Microsoft Office 2010.  Here are a couple of first impressions, formed via Chris Caposella's value keynote, some executive roundtable meetings, and a hands-on lab session with Office 2010 at WPC:

Outlook:

  The ribbon finally shows up in Outlook 2010, eating up some valuable screen real estate but also providing access to some interesting new features.  One is a "conversation view" that allows the user to group messages by conversation, and expand or compress conversations, very easily. 

My favorite new Outlook feature is a "Clean Up/Ignore" function that allows the user to quickly and systematically re-direct or delete messages in a thread -- it's also known as the message "mute button."  For example, once a thread gets unwieldy (5 reply-all's, 5 "please remove me from this thread" messages, 3 "me too" messages, etc.), a user can systematically trim out the chaff, keeping only the messages where a decision was made or action required. I remain curious, however, how this feature will handle branching of messages outward from a thread, and look forward to testing this feature in more depth.  

Another useful feature is the addition of a small, relevant snippet of a calendar view added to meeting requests so that the user can see his/her calendar from within the meeting request.

Excel: 

I'll likely write more about this in the future, but the addition of sparklines and a feature called "slicers" add more BI and data visualization capability to Excel, and the keynote demonstrations included a user easily working with a data set containing 1.5 million rows of data in a workbook via the SQL Server 2010/Excel 2010 integration previously code-named "Project Gemini."  

Word: 

One exceptional thing I saw demonstrated in Word actually applies to several of the Office products:  the ability for multiple authors to concurrently author the same document.  This is a frequently requested capability, and I look forward to demonstrating this when the SharePoint beta is set up in our lab environment.  For now, you can see this process via the demo in this video (note: fast-forward to the 54-minute mark).

 
[BP0VK] The Business Productivity Opportunity: The Next Wave, Your Customers, and You

PowerPoint:  

Other than the co-editing capabilities which I saw only in the context of Word but which I expect to be most valuable in PowerPoint, the most interesting new features I saw related to new tools for editing of pictures and videos from within PowerPoint.

In all of the Office products, the "Backstage" view replaces the combination of the Office button and the Document Information Panel as the place to see and manage metadata and other document properties.

There were several new features in Office applications like Access, One Note, etc., that I saw in demos but have yet to take for a test-drive.  KMA has the bits installed in our lab, so watch this space for more updates as we continue our testing and learning.  Meanwhile, check out this excellent image gallery that shows off the new user interface and other key features in Office 2010, and this overview [Download OfficeOverviewFS].

Integrating Search with Office Applications -- New from Office Labs

I discovered a great tool recently thanks to a colleague at Microsoft:  an add-in from the Microsoft Office R&D group known as Office Labs called Search Commands.

It's a tool that uses search to simplify navigating the new user interface in Office 2007 by dropping a "Command Search" tab into the ribbon in the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint applications.   This will be another useful tool in helping users make the transition to the new version of Office by allowing them to easily search for and find commands that may be hidden or in an unfamiliar place.

Here's how it works: 

1. Download a small (< 3 MB) file from Microsoft Office Labs. [direct link to download]

2. Install the add-in.

3.  Fire up Word, Excel, or PowerPoint 2007.

4.  Click on the "Search Commands" tab in the toolbar.

5.  Enter in the search window the command or function you are looking for.

6.  Select the command you want from the results, shown in the ribbon.

7.  Extra bonus:  note the little flyover that provides details about where on the ribbon to find the command in the future.

Between this tool and another Office Labs tool called Community Clips that allows you to create, find, and share screen recording videos to create on-the-fly tutorials for colleagues or others, Office Labs is working hard to smooth the way for broader adoption of Office by enterprise customers.

Office 2007 in "Classic Mode"

In celebration of this week's release of Service Pack 1 for Office 2007, half-jokingly referred to by some jaded IT people as the first viable release, I'll start with a story...

Over a year ago, at the very first presentation to customers of Office 2007, at "Sneak Peek" events we put together, the very first question I fielded from a customer after demonstrating the new user interface was:  "Is there a 'Classic View?'"  I can recall being taken aback: "Why would anyone want to go backwards?"  "Can't these people see how much better the new interface is?"  "Was this a bad demo?"  "Am I in the wrong career?" And so on.

As it turns out, the cost of learning the new user interface has been a common theme in the succeeding months, especially for power users of Office.  They know where everything is (even if it's not intuitive or even rational) in their existing version, they are highly efficient in using Office 2003, and they don't want to change.  Now that a new calendar year is bringing with it a new budget cycle and a new Service Pack, Office 2007 migration looks to be a more immediate promise/threat than ever for many people who let others be in the "first wave" of Office migration. 

Well, these migrating users are in luck.  In addition to the excellent training offered by your friendly neighborhood Microsoft CPLS, there are several tools to help make the transition from Office 2003 to 2007, including:

1.  Mapping workbooks.  Have you ever wanted to know what the equivalent ribbon function is in Office 2007 to something buried in Tools --> Options in your favorite Office 2003 application?  These workbooks exist for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, and Outlook.

2.  Interactive guides.  Similar to the mapping workbooks, but even richer, these interactive guides literally show you, via split screen, how Office 2003 functions are performed in Office 2007.

3.  Add-In Tools.  If you're stubborn and just can't let go of those old menu structures, there is a lovely set of add-ins you can install over Office 2007 that overlay Office 2003 menus into the applications, like the following:

[disclaimer:  I haven't tried these, use at your own risk.  Thanks to my colleague Sergey for showing me these!]

So, clearly, the "classic mode" question has been asked more than once.  Fortunately, it's been answered more than once as well.

Office Live Workspace, Google Apps, IBM Symphony, Zimbra: Buckle Up!

Curiouser and curiouser.  There has been a great deal of interesting news in the "Office 2.0" world over the last few weeks, with, for example:

• IBM's recent announcement of the free, Open Source (Eclipse platform) office productivity suite called Symphony
• Google's release of a presentation application to help round out their office productivity suite
• Yahoo's acquisition of Zimbra, a leader in open-source messaging and collaboration technology
• Microsoft's announcement of Office Live Workspace, a blend of desktop software and web services to extend Office into "the cloud" and make for easier collaboration

If I didn't have a day job, I would love to write 1,000 words on all of this. Just within the Microsoft world alone, I can't wait to see how Office Live Workspace, Groove, SharePoint, FolderShare, and Microsoft SharedView all are sorted out and positioned going forward. 

For now, expect lots of rumors (MSFT + FaceBook, anyone? OK, maybe not) announcements, innovation and excitement as contenders push MSFT to continue to invest, extend, and integrate productivity tools information workers use every day.  Get ready for a bumpy ride...

Office Communicator 2007 and Office Communications Server 2007 Beta

Microsoft has delivered the public beta of OCS 2007 (including Speech Server 2007) and Office Communicator 2007 in the form of a 180-day trial edition. You can check out: http://www.microsoft.com/uc for more information about these products.

These products will be interesting to me because of their integration with SharePoint technologies, for example:  I can look up a document stored in a SharePoint document library, then interact with the author via e-mail, instant messaging, phone, LiveMeeting, right from within the portal. The example below shows the rudimentary capability around this right within Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (without OCS installed).

This combination of traditional document-based collaboration with integrated communications will be very exciting for some people seeking richer collaboration.

I received 20 copies of the media (one DVD and one CD-ROM per kit) today, and encourage you to contact me if you're trying to get your hands on it – I will send you a copy (with priority to existing KMA customers, of course).

New WhitePaper on SharePoint and Office Integration, Different Versions

At long last!  A much-awaited whitepaper has been released by Microsoft detailing how different versions of Office work with current (Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007) SharePoint technologies.

In my experience with customers and prospective customers as the latest SharePoint technologies have hit the market, a concern that gets surfaced early in any discussion about SharePoint is how it will work with the version of Office on users' desktops.  This whitepaper does a nice job of summarizing how SharePoint integration differs depending on what version of Office is being used, classifying the integrations as:

• "fair" integration with Office 2000
• "good" integration with Office XP
• "better" integration with Office 2003
• "best" integration with Office 2007,

and detailing features in each. 

In a decidedly unscientific poll, most SharePoint customers to whom we've spoken envision migrating to SharePoint on the server first, then upgrading users' Office versions, then upgrading users' desktop operating systems to Vista.  They perceive this to be the least disruptive approach, and I would generally agree but would counsel IT leaders to also consider incremental benefits of new integration features. 

For example: Your organization has a problem organizing PowerPoint content that could be solved by implementing MOSS 2007 and using slide libraries to manage that content more effectively.  I'd recommend upgrading key PowerPoint users' desktops to Office 2007 concurrently with upgrading to MOSS 2007 to take advantage of this.

Too much SharePoint hype? Not enough!

I found Mary Jo Foley's blog post today to underscore a point that Steve Ballmer brought up at last summer's Gold Partner luncheon at the Worldwide Partner Conference, and one that I've been relating to people at events ever since:  Microsoft is as ambitious with SharePoint on the server today as they were with Office on the desktop ten years ago.

There's been an awful lot of hype about SharePoint in the Microsoft and Microsoft Partner communities, but from messages from Ballmer and others, SharePoint will be critically important to knowledge workers for some time to come.

As someone on the front lines using, selling, and deploying these solutions every day, I don't see SharePoint as an operating system per se, as alluded to in the post, but as an important application layer between users, applications, and corporate data stores, a suite of server products that helps knowledge workers manage information via ubiquitous (web), rich and familiar (Office) tools.  This also reflects Microsoft's "Software + Services" response to the broader "Software as a Service" industry trend.