The gap between IT and the rest of us has turned into a cavern as IT has become more and more intertwined with our daily lives.  In this clip from the British version of  The Office, the tension comes from lack of communication and understanding.   The computer is often our only way of actually working so it can become a very sensitive issue.

From a management perspective, and employee perspective, and from an IT perspective better relationships would improve productivity, full stop.

Here are five tips to get your office started:

1.)  Even the Dress Code

Why does the IT guy get to wear a t-shirt and jeans while everyone else has to be in business casual.  Encourage an even playing field when it comes to dress code.  The IT guy may not like it, but explain that this will enable him or her to fit into the culture of the company and ultimately make the job easier.  Obviously this is a management decision and one for management to implement.

2.)  Get to Know the Lingo

Knowing a little bit about computers, viruses, programs, downloads, etc. is going to help with communication and understanding.  Gone are the days when computers are a special thing that only special people know about.  You work with a tool every day so get to know its basic functions.

3.)  Hold an IT Summit

Having everyone meet to discuss the IT needs of an office as well as to find out about IT’s plans for an office is a good idea.  This is a chance to exchange ideas and convey information.  Be sure to make this a two-way street, however, so it doesn’t turn into a complaint session that could have IT running for the hills.

4.)  Don’t Download Stupid Stuff

We all use computers for personal purposes, but don’t make an IT guy’s life harder by downloading hundreds of apps and files from random sources.  Ask if about installing software before you do it.  Even something that may seem harmless can bog down your computer with Spyware.

5.)  Don’t Let IT Dictate Every IT Move

At times it can seem that IT can be overly protective.  Banning social media sites, for example, for fear of viruses.  There are certainly risks out there to computers from various sources.  Have IT appraise those risks and weigh them against benefits.  For an office involved in communication or marketing, for example, social media is not just a personal toy, it’s a vital component of communications.

Here are five tips to taking full advantage of all that Prezi has to offer

1.)  Use Sparse Words

Prezi is great because it lets you emphasize how ideas are connected.  So big ideas are big and smaller ideas around that big idea are small.  You can present your big idea and then zoom in supporting points.  But, like PowerPoint, you’re in control of the amount of information presented.  Too many words can make your presentation difficult to follow.  One Idea=One Slide still holds for Prezi.

2.)  Think In Layers

Prezi lets present 4 or 5 big ideas, and then zoom in on each one.  Take advantage of this feature to create layers within layers.  So within idea 1, reveal 5 supporting points that can be zoomed in on as well.  A good rule of thumb is to ask if each layer would support itself on its own.  If you’re able to do that three or four layers deep, you’ll have a compelling presentation visually.

3.)  Cut Up Large Backgrounds

Some more sophisticated Prezis use large backdrops behind the presentation.  Picture zooming around a desktop or a parking lot and you’ll get the idea.  But because images flicker as you zoom too close, this visually stunning idea can fall flat on its face.  Any large, cohesive background should be very high resolution and cut up into pieces.  These pieces can be sized down and put together like a puzzle within Prezi.  It will give you a few more levels of zoom without the flicker.

4.)  Save Often

Working with Prezi online, save often.  There are glitches in the program that will allow you to work happily for hours without an ability to save work.  Save after every major step of your content creation.

5.)  Trial and Error to Get an Image Really Small

Some image just won’t shrink small enough for you needs.  Zoom in as far as you can and then import your image.  It will be tiny.  The only problem is that when you try to resize it, the image will jump to a much larger size.  Trial and error is necessary to get it right.

6.)  Record and Narrate

Right now you can embed Prezi’s and share them, but you can’t really share the full content of your presentation — namely your voice.  It’s kind of an odd omission by Prezi, but there’s a work around.     Create a Prezi and then record it using screen grab software.  You can add a narration track later or do it ‘live’ during the screen grab.  Now you have a narrated Prezi you can share through YouTube.  Prezi, are you listening?  Wouldn’t it be better to have that sharing happen on your network?

In this TED video, Tom Wujec explains the Marshmallow Challenge and why kindergartners perform better at it than CEOs or business school grads.  Wujec focuses on it as a design process, but it really applies to any business situation.

Basically, The Marshmallow Challenge gives teams some sticks of spagetti, string, tape and a marshmallow that needs to be supported by the structure.  The tallest structure wins.  It’s one of those fun, team building excercises.

But Wurjec’s analysis of many different teams reveals something innate in how we approach achieving goals in the business world.  The reason why most business school grads perform below average is that they tend to plan meticuolously, execute hastilly, and then deal with a crisis (fallen marshmallow) with no time to fix the problem.  CEOs perform better than average, but still below the Kindergarteners.

Why?

Kids create many more prototypes and allow themselves to fail.  No one is jockeying for leadership and they are used to playing.

When was the last time you said “Let’s try that and see what happens.” or “Let’s give ourselves some time to play around with concepts before we commit.”

Many times we try to emulate children’s play habits as a way of relieving stress.  But here it seems that there is a very real business case for trial and error play with no real plan.  And another interesting point?  Participants who are offered a hefty reward universally do worse than those who are offered nothing.  Sometimes a big prize only causes more stress induced failure.

So this could be the shortest post in the history of The Job Shopper:  ban Blackberries in meetings.

There, I said it.  Well, a lot of people have said it.  There’s a whole New York Times article about it. Here’s a quote that kind of sums up the signal that tapping sends:

It’s a not-so-subtle way of signaling ‘I’m connected. I’m busy. I’m important. And if this meeting doesn’t hold my interest, I’ve got 10 other things I can do instead.

But what does Blackberry or iPhone use really mean?  We can talk about changing cultural mores, scold rude people, lament the passage of time and pine for a day when people wore hats, but are we really getting at the reason why people are tapping away during meetings?  Is it possible that it’s not the technology, or ego, but the meeting itself?  Your meeting?

Making your meetings Blackberry-proof is impossible, but here are 5 things to cure both the symptoms and the root cause.

1.) Keep it short

In the last post I championed the short, fast presentation. That may well be part of it.  If someone knows that you’re going to drone on and on for an hour, taking 15 minutes to check emails seems doable.  Even if they get only 50% of what you say, that’s a half hour of time.    The reasoning is that if you’re going to take an hour, they’ll only give you a half hour.

2.) Create Time Limits

Revealing your time limits will help set people at ease.  “I’m going to talk for 10 minutes and then give you 10 minutes to ask me questions.”  That tells people that they’ll be back at their desks in 20 minutes.  Most emails can wait.

3.)  Invite Only

You don’t have to invite everyone to a meeting.  Inviting people who have no skin in the game and are there just to observe is like inviting a giant Blackberry into the room.  If someone doesn’t need to be in your meeting, don’t invite them.  And if they spent the whole meeting tapping away, consider not inviting them next time.

4.)  Be Up Front

Many companies ban Blackberries and iPhones during meetings.  The problem with this is that it holds people hostage rather than really engaging them.  If you’re up front and say:  “Look, I need your full attention on this for just 15 minutes.  I’d appreciate if you could hold off on responding to emails during that time.”  You’re not banning it, but just making a human appeal.

5.)  Give In

There are some meetings that are going to last a long time.  Telling people that they’re in this for the long haul and checking email is perfectly OK, and it may just diffuse the situation.  You’re still in control of the situation because you’ve given permission and blackberry usage won’t be as distracting for others.

So why go through all this?  Why not just ban them from your meeting?  The problem with bans, is that they just encourage us to break the rules and further adds to the mystique of being ‘too important to miss an email.’  Instead, look at ways that you can structure meetings to engage the right people, for a short period of time and let them get on with their day.

Here’s the thing about internal PowerPoints: they’re just like PowerPoints you give to your customers only worse.  And let’s face it, those are pretty bad.  Bullet points?  Bad clip art?  Lots and lots of words?  Chances are your presentation skills overall could use an overhaul.  And it turns out that there is plenty of advice out there:

1.) Use Big Words

This is a summary of something called the Takahashi Method.  No images.  No bullets.  Just king sized text.  It’s intriguing because it’s so simple.  A little too simple…

2.) Lists

Guy Kawasaki said: “All of my speeches are in Top 10 format, because if you think I suck, I at least want you to be able to track my progress through the speech so that you know approximately know how much longer I’m going to suck.” This is great advice and really simple which makes it even greater.  Top 10.  The 5 Things.  4 Ways.  They all sound simple and finite which are both good things.

3.)  10/20/30 Rule

This is also from Guy Kawasaki and is equally as simple.  10 slides.  20 minutes.  30 point font.  You can read in more detail at Kawasaki’s blog, but you get the gist.

4.)  Photos

Really great intriguing photography is available everywhere.  At iStockphoto you can search for photos by topic and buy one for a buck.  Why use those little figures that Microsoft bundled with PPT back in 1991?

5.)  Other Stuff

There’s a really great post at 43folders.com by Merlin Mann call How I Made My Presentation a Little Better that does a great job at summarizing other tips and tricks out there.

So those are tips on presentations.   Here’s the problem.  They all seem geared toward CEOs presenting their companies latest product.  Or some tech guy speaking at a tech conference in front of techies wearing cool glasses and T-shirts.  What if you’re an accountant who needs to explain the new expense reports.  Or if you’re a manager who needs to explain the new commission system.  Or if you’re the IT guy who needs to explain how the new email system works.  Can you really follow these rules and still have a productive meeting?

Yes.  Yes you can.

Keep in mind that people need to hear the why and how of something.  The point of a meeting is to quickly disseminate that information to a lot of people and then get them back to work with them feeling that they’re better off than when they entered a meeting.  Doing it simply is going to bring clarity to the situation and help move things ahead.  Here’s a take on new expense reports:

Slide 1: New Expense Reports: Why?

Slide 2: Easier to Complete

Slide 3: Faster to Process

Slide 4: 3 Big Differences

Slide 5: 1.) Pull Down Menus

Slide 6: 2.) Client Tagging

Slide 7: 3.) Online Only

Slide 8: Here’s Where They Are

Slide 9: Practice

Slide 10: Help Daily: 1:30 – 3:30 My Office

Is it as good as Steve Jobs?  Are you going to entertain and tell a story and will they presentation end in applause?  No.  Probably not.  This is work and you’ve got a job to do.  But that doesn’t mean that you have to be ineffective. You’ve given information that people need, told them why, told them where, and left things open to move things along.  Could you get these slides done in less than 20 minutes?  Yes, and that’s a good thing!

So make your next meeting better by breaking the mold on PowerPoint.  And we’d love to see your best efforts here!  C’mon, we’ve seen enough PPT’s on new products or motivation talks — let’s see the ones on expense reports, new sales tools, and general company housekeeping posted here…

Because the rhythm and rhetoric of effective email exchange is a critical success factor in business performance, mismanagement of email may in fact be a symptom of other weaknesses in your organization.

But no executive has the time (or obsessive-compulsive disorder) to review and edit their people’s correspondence — it’s not possible and it wouldn’t be healthy. So how can managers quickly and cheaply create the shock of self-consciousness to push their people to take the style and substance of their correspondence more seriously? And how can you find out the interoffice spam actually reflects a deeper issue of employee performance?

I’ve found that the most powerful approach is also the simplest: make email an intrinsic part of performance reviews. Insist that colleagues and subordinates better evaluate their email so that you may better evaluate their performance. There are few better proxies for assessing how well individuals are communicating, on task and on target, than the digital missives they send in order to get their work done.

Email can be a frustrating train of cc’s that mean nothing to most of the people being cc’d.  The important stuff gets lost and the unimportant stuff just wastes time.  This proposal is a good one, but only if a manager is not part of the problem.  Often managers demand to be ‘in the loop’ so much that they cultivate a CYA culture.  In other words, if I hit cc to everyone in the office including my boss or bosses, I can’t be blamed for something going wrong.

In addition, managers often blast out emails to a vague group of people or cc people on a ‘team’ with no real thought to who really needs to read the message.  So how do you really get to the heart of an email inefficiency problem.  Job reviews might be a way for individuals to change, but that won’t quickly change the culture of your organization.

So here’s a tip direct from the Job Shopper: take away email for a week.  Ban it.  OK, don’t ban it.  That’s ridiculous.  We all have people we need to communicate with quickly.  But encourage your office not to use it unless it’s necessary.  Absolutely necessary.  At the end of the week, have a discussion to see what alternatives people found.  Is it possible that 25 cc’d messages were less productive that 1 short meeting?  Is it possible that people had more time to concentrate on the things that really matter?

The irony here is that when email and the Internet first entered our office, the quesiton was how to stop innappropriate use of the technology which would waste time.  Today, appropriate use of the technology is actually the big time waster.  So ban it. For a week.  Then talk about what went wrong and what went right.  It’s possible that more went right than wrong and that you’re whole office may learn how to use the technology more effectively.

You can read the rest of Michael Schrage’s blog post here at the Harvard Business Review Blog

Michael Mauboussinn, on the other hand, urges us to think twice in his book…Think Twice.  Jim Hasket from the Harvard Business School Working Knowledge blog sums it up:

Now Michael Mauboussin, with his book Think Twice, makes the case for a more careful approach, suggesting that we place too much emphasis on intuition and personal experience as opposed to the “wisdom of crowds,” mathematical models, and systematically-collected data. He argues that “blink” serves us well in stable environments where feedback from previous decisions is clear and where cause-and-effect relationships can be identified. Unfortunately, in his view these conditions are more and more rare. As he puts it, “intuition is losing relevance in an increasingly complex world … more is different.”

So the debate is on: is it better to rely on our experience in today’s world, or make decisions based on based on all of the information you can get your hands on.  There’s a saying here that’s handy: Over analysis leads to paralysis.  Must be true, right? It rhymes.  The key to the phrase is “over”.  No one said the Analysis was a bad thing.  Gathering information, weighing the pros and cons and using all the information available to you in a reasonable time frame is just smart.  Just not too much of it.

Here are five tips and strategies to making a good decision in a timely manner:

1.)  You don’t have unlimited time…

When you’re buying a house, you have to weigh opportunity with timing with analysis of the market.  Can you look at every house on the market?  Probably not. You can look at healthy sampling and then make a decision.  As time passes, so will the opportunities to purchase houses you’ve seen.   Spending too much time on decisions can cost you opportunity.  The same applies to any business situation.

2.) Be prepared to back up a decision…

Sometimes things go badly and you have to answer for your choices.  Most successes and failures are made up of a combination of luck and careful planning.  Make sure when things go badly, you can show it was due to luck (or lack thereof).

3.)  Committees generally don’t make decisions…

Gathering together your colleagues to seek advice is a good idea, but these groups can sometimes just bog down the process because you’ll tend to focus on making everyone in the room happy.  You need to gather information, consider it, and then make a decision.  You won’t make everyone happy…except maybe yourself.

4.)  Don’t be afraid to make more time…

While time costs opportunity, time can also help you choose the right path.  Need more insight?  More studies?  More options?  More time to think?  Take it. Or take a reasonable amount of it to make a truly informed decision.  Sometime deciding to put off a decision is a good decision in and of itself.

5.)  See what other people have done…

This isn’t going to help all the time, but there’s no reason why you can’t do a quick search online to see what others have done in a similar situation.  Just remember, their outcomes are particular to their situation.  Yours may be different.  And then there’s always that luck thing…

The following shows Google’s offices in Zurich: Link

Scrolled down through all the pictures?  Feel jealous?

Here’s the real question: would changing your surroundings change your work?  Google’s office is an extreme, of course, and it actually might be going too far, but, here’s the question: are creative surroundings good for productivity?  Is making work look less like work just a ruse or is there anything to it?  Is it possible for a non-google company to create a non-office atmosphere in a plain old office.

Some offices approach decor in a simple way: they do nothing.  Beat up filing cabinets and some broken blinds — who needs anything else, right?   But for most of us, the problem is getting past the kind of bland corporate spaces that may be clean and efficient but lack a sense of fun or personality.   While some may decorate a cubicle with personal photos, images, and even lighting, the overall effect can still be…well…boring.

For a distinctly un-conventional but classic take on office design, check out the classical stylings of  Florence Knoll here: Link

Looking through her work, you can see that offices can have style without necessarily going the unconventional route of Google.  Here are a few take aways from her classical design with some practical tips added in:

1.)  Common Area — Create a space that isn’t the lunchroom but isn’t an office either.  It can be a couple of chairs in a corner that are perfect for a quick meeting or a place to quietly review documents.  This gets people out from behind their desks and gives them a place to interact that isn’t a cubicle, office, or conference room.

2.) Artwork — why does your office have to have the typical landscape or motivational posters?  Why not hold a contest and get artwork from local schools?  Or hold a photography contest among employees?  Or dig up some advertisements from corporate archives and reproduce them.   The point is to do something creative that won’t break the bank but will personalize the atmosphere of your office.

3.)  Paint — sounds simple but why don’t more people do it.  Paint a wall a bold color.  Maybe it matches your logo, maybe it doesn’t, but it will be different and will create a special atmosphere in the office space.  Paint is cheap and changing it is easy — so why not?

4.)  Lighting — most offices have overhead fluorescent lighting.  While many people complain about the light quality, they may actually be effected by the amount of light.  Fluorescent lights ‘fool’ your mind into thinking there is enough light with a uniform, shadowless light.  In fact, you may be getting anywhere from 1/10 to 1/100th of the recommend lighting levels.  No wonder people have headaches working under that light.  A quick fix is to place individual desk lamps at each desk (or your own).  It adds an extra element of decoration and relieves more than a few headaches.

5.)  Glass Boards — Most offices use white boards for brainstorming and presentations.  A piece of frosted glass mounted on the wall works just as well and look a lot more snazzy.  It’s also easier to clean, too.  Most markers wipe off clean from smooth glass.

There are probably hundreds more ideas out there  –share yours with everyone here.  Whether you work in an office or run the show, changing your work environment, even slightly, could shape not only what you think about work but how you get work done.

David Pogue, the technology editor for The New York Times, focuses on cell phones and offers up some very cool tips and tricks to increase productivity…and have a little fun with them.

Many of these tips come from frustrations we all have: Why do we have to listen to instructions to leave a message? Why isn’t WiFi available in more places? Why does it cost $2 to call Information on your cell?

Pogue comes up with some clever work-arounds to these issues.  Some of these tips take a fews minutes of set-up but it’s worth the time to make life easier on the road or even if you step away from your desk. Generally, these are services that can balance work and family life and also give you the freedom to be away from your desk and still be effective at your job or job hunt.

The talk is entertaining but it’s also pretty lengthy so we’ve summarized some of the tips below if you don’t want to listen to the entire video.

Grand Central (Now Google Voice)
Google bought this service so it must be pretty good. We’ll have to take David’s advice on this, however, because Google Voice is now being tested by invite only. You can click on the Google Voice page and read more about but here’s the gist: It’s a free service that allows you to forward calls to any number of cell phones and landlines. You can also send certain numbers to certain phones or give them tailored voice mail messages. It’s really a personalized switchboard. Watch for it or sign up for an invite when it becomes available.

Google SMS
This service allows you to text Google a question and recieve an answer. It’s useful for finding local information, flight times, weather and more. You just text message your search query to GOOGLE (“466453″ on most devices) and they text message back your results. Visit the website for more details on using the service with certain phones.

Google Info
This is the voice version of the above service. You call 1-800-466-4411 (that’s 1-800-GOOG-411) and simply say what you’re looking for. The voice recognition works well and it gives you a list of possibilities that fit your search paramters. So if you’re looking for a nearby pizza joint, you can pick one and the service will even connect you so you don’t have to dial the number. It’s easier than dialing information, gets better results, and it’s free.

Chacha
This service lets you text a question and get an answer. The kicker here is that the answers you get are from actual human beings. It sounds weird but it’s a network of people paid 20 cents per answer. The answers are short because they’re texts, but the answers are intelligent and even insightful. It could be useful for finding directions when you’re lost or settling a dinner conversation debate. Just send your question to 1-800-2chacha.

Spinvox

PhoneTag

CallWave

These are all versions of the same thing, more or less. It’s your voicemail converted to text sent to your phone or email. Listening to voicemail can be time consuming and inconvenient while traveling. Getting voicemail in your email is actually something a lot companies have already and it seems like the next logical step in phone protocol.

Popularitydialer.com
This one’s just kind of fun. You set the service to call you at a certain time. You can even select the voice that will “call” you. It’s a good way to interrupt yourself at a meeting that you know is going to go long and you need an out.

“Why apple would never do a cell phone”
Finally, Pogue brings up an article that he wrote (obviously) before the iPhone came out. At the time, cell phone carriers controlled every aspect of phone design. The only way Apple entered the market was by promising exclusive rights for 5 years to AT&T in exchange for free reign over the phone design. This is just an important lesson in fostering innovation. We all talk about thinking outside the box, but we are often married to ideas and conventions based in the past that do us no good today or in the future. It makes you wonder what you or your company are doing to foster or hamper the next iPhone idea in your business.

Some may shrug and continue to hit send on big files.  Email may still go through but even modestly large files are problematic for several reasons:

1. Cumulative Size: This stuff builds up in your send box over time and a big “sent” folder can impact your PC performance.
2. Uncertainty: Did they get it?  Did they not?   If you’re sending over 5MB you don’t know.
3. Immobility: Large files don’t translate well onto Blackberries and iPhones.

Fortunately there are services out there can help.   Here are a few that each approach the problem differently:

Pando –  This works more like a hosting/streaming service.  For sharing video and photos, however, it’s a great way of ensuring you’re only sharing with a small private audience (unlike, say, YouTube).  It’s probably more involved than the occassional user but worth a look if sharing video and photos are often in your daily routine.

Send6 and Yousendit — Both are very really simmilar services.  We like Send6’s interface a little bit better, but they both offer essentially the same functionality.  These are good in a pinch because they are web-based and allow you to instantly send something.  They also offer upgrade service that help you add functionality if you need it.

Tonsho – This is an application that lets you send files from your regular account and magically takes care of the rest.  There is nothing to download or install.  As the website explains: “You send email as normal, all the clever stuff happens on our servers, recipient clicks link in email to download file.”   This would have the distinct advantage of getting around spam filters which is a danger of Send6 and YouSendIt.  However, having a program hover over ALL your email may be unnecessary and could cause some unforeseen problems with your system.  If you have time, give it a try.  But don’t if you’re in a hurry.

TransferBigFiles – Got something bigger to send?  Send it here.  You can send a file 2x bigger than other free services, but it has less functionality although password protection is an option.

Considerations

So which are the best?  Before we get there, you really should look at how you’re going to send a file.   Are you going to create an account or just use the service when you need it?  Are going to send a file or just a link to the file?  Is there a file that you regularly send that you would be better off hosting and sending a link?  Does your company have a policy on this kind of thing?

Finally, many companies already have in place FTP servers which get around the issue by taking on the hosting, uploading and downwloading essentially inhouse.  If this is what you have, you should take another look at if the FTP system is convenient and easy to use.  Some of these outsourced options may be a better choice.

The Bottom Line

For most casual users, YouSendIt and Send6 are going to be the best options.  However, Tonsho seems like a good option if you’re going to put some thought into the whole process.  It may be something to bring to management so a company policy can be created.  Finally Pando is interesting in the age of video where sending a video presentation to a small group of users is possible in just about any work environment.

There are literally hundreds of sites and applications out there that deal with this issue.  If you have a resource we haven’t listed here, let us know.  Also, if you’ve had an experience, good or bad, with these services (or not using one) comment below!