326 Posts Found

There’s nothing new about requests for proposals (RFPs). Companies have been using them for years to source products and services. But sourcing information products is another matter. While RFPs are customary in government organizations and academia, in other sectors, information products are more often purchased through a process of discussion and negotiation.

Today, however, more companies are becoming smarter about consolidating their spending on information … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Helen Clegg, Susan Montgomery | Sources: information outlook, Kearney | Subjects: Management, Productivity / Work Tips

FormNet® is designed to save you the time and expense of creating business documents from scratch. You can download and customize various business forms according to your needs, and immediately put them to work in your business–all for free.

Content: Online Resource | Source: Entrepreneur.com | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Free Stuff / Tools

Evidence suggests that small firms benefit from business planning as new ventures are assessed and started. Yet relatively few make use of business planning, or go about such planning in an inconsistent way that invites errors and omissions. This paper presents a systemized web-based venture planning model that provides opportunities for entrepreneurs to collect the appropriate information and assess their ventures. This model is based … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Cole Ehmke, Michael Boehlje | Source: Purdue University | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Free Stuff / Tools

Sleeping on the job used to be grounds for dismissal. But now, years after Cornell University psychologist James Maas coined the term “power nap,” companies are beginning to embrace the practice.

Content: Article | Source: BusinessWeek | Subject: Productivity / Work Tips

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason that the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be meetings.

Content: Quotation | Source: Foresight | Subjects: Organizational Behavior, Productivity / Work Tips

Whether you spent all day in Excel spreadsheets or you only launch the program once a month, there’s always more to know about the software. These 50 tips cover these five topics:
* Customizing your workspace
* Editing, layout, and printing
* Entering and working with data
* Working with formulas, functions and code
* Mastering Web tricks

Learn how to do everything from changing default … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Source: BNET | Subjects: Free Stuff / Tools, Productivity / Work Tips

The Marketing Plan is a highly detailed, heavily researched and, hopefully, well written report that many inside and possibly outside the organization will evaluate. It is an essential document for both large corporate marketing departments and for startup companies. Essentially the Marketing Plan:
* forces the marketing personnel to look internally in order to fully understand the results of past marketing decisions.
* forces … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Source: KnowThis.com | Subjects: Free Stuff / Tools, Marketing / Sales

The only thing worse than sitting through a boring PowerPoint presentation is delivering one. Yet death by PowerPoint may be one of the biggest risks of doing business. On any given day, some 30 million PowerPoint presentations are delivered, according to Microsoft. Of course, when it was released for Windows in 1990, the software was an exciting new way of presenting information. But that’s not … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Ellen Neuborne | Source: Inc. Magazine | Subject: Productivity / Work Tips

There are only a few reasons that people are unproductive. They either don’t know what’s expected of them, they need training, they’re in the wrong job, or they need to go. Be careful not to confuse efficiency with unproductivity. Some people get things done so well they have time available to handle more. Whatever the reason, it’s management’s responsibility to address the situation immediately. … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: Kiss Theory Good Bye | Subjects: Management, Productivity / Work Tips

A strategic off-site’s success is largely determined by what happens before it convenes. To make sure the meeting generates tangible results, its designer must do three things. First, answer the most basic questions: Who should be there? Talking about what, when, and why? Second, compile and distribute relevant data. Third, create a structure for the meeting that will compel progress.

Content: Article | Authors: Bob Frisch, Logan Chandler | Source: Harvard Business School (HBS) Working Knowledge | Subjects: Productivity / Work Tips, Strategy

How does responsibility constrain you? The worst thing is that it allows you not to focus on real work. Just as the most dangerous forms of procrastination are those that seem like work, the danger of responsibilities is not just that they can consume a whole day, but that they can do it without setting off the kind of alarms you’d set off if you … [ Read more ]

Content: Quotation | Source: ChangeThis | Subjects: Productivity / Work Tips, Work

Matt Evans has gathered a nice collection of free excel files to download from various sources across the web.

Editor’s Note: thanks to financeprofessor.com (via MoneyScience) for pointing out this site…

Content: Online Resource | Author: Matt H. Evans | Subjects: Finance, Free Stuff / Tools

Would you like to be able to scan your company’s financial operations spreadsheet and instantly see which departments are over budget or behind schedule or which accounts receivable are past due? There’s an easy way to do that in Excel, which can automatically flag cells that meet most any condition you establish. You can set the cells to display different formatting flags-colors, font styles, shading, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Charles Kelliher, Lois S. Mahoney | Source: Journal of Accountancy | Subject: Productivity / Work Tips

After nearly 18 months of work by dozens of CIOs, the IT Value Matrix illustrates the principles and practices essential to creating, identifying and communicating IT’s value to the enterprise. One reader’s praise: “In my daily job which is communicating what technology does for our business partners, our wins, project release status information and creating presentations for executives that mean something to our business partners, … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Author: Richard Pastore | Source: CIO Magazine | Subjects: Free Stuff / Tools, IT / Technology / E-Business

Want to improve your management skills? Tap into the mother lode of coaching checklists and assessment tools at this site, where you will find more than 500 ways to organize and improve in the areas of goal planning, strategy, life focus, action plans, time management, business organization and more. You must become a member of sister site Coachville.com in order to access the forms, but … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Source: Coachville | Subjects: Free Stuff / Tools, Management

You’re about to leave on a business trip. You’ve packed your laptop, PDA, e-mail pager and cell phone. Yet despite all of this high-tech equipment, you feel disconnected from your office. After all, you realize that being on the road significantly increases the possibility you won’t be able to adequately monitor your business even if you can remotely connect to the Internet.

What if you … [ Read more ]

Content: Article | Authors: Anna M. Rose, Jacob M. Rose | Source: Journal of Accountancy | Subject: Productivity / Work Tips

Have a question about using Microsoft Excel? The fastest way to get an answer may be to post it to the Mr. Excel Message Board. At the time of writing, the board had more than 1 million posts and almost 63,000 registered users.

Editor’s Note: you might find the tips and solutions (not all free) on the main Mr. Excel site useful as well…

Content: Online Resource | Source: MrExcel.com | Subject: Productivity / Work Tips

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Business metrics lie at the heart of every important decision you make. Your decisions are only as good as the numbers that inform them and the communication that presents those numbers to you. Are you communicating these numbers well?

Content: Article | Author: Stephen Few | Source: BetterManagement.com | Subject: Productivity / Work Tips

You can speed up the process of having Google index your site – and help Google uncover your hidden, database-generated pages – by submitting a sitemap of your site to Google directly in the “appropriate file format”. You can figure this all out yourself, or you can take advantage of complimentary online tools that will generate the file for you in a Google-approved format. We … [ Read more ]

Content: Online Resource | Source: XML Sitemaps | Subjects: Free Stuff / Tools, IT / Technology / E-Business