Techie Tips: Does Microsoft Ignite a Spark in You?

Microsoft Website Spark is designed to ignite the success of professional Web developers and designers. The program enables you to get software, support and business opportunities from Microsoft at no upfront costs for 3 years or exit from the program. For more information on this program and the requirements, please visit: http://www.microsoft.com/web/websitespark/Default.aspx

Software Tip: Conditional Formatting in Excel 2003 and Excel 2007

Conditional formatting is formatting (that you choose) which is applied depending on what is typed in the cell (or the results of a formula). This feature is one of the best things since sliced bread. Take my word for it and take 30 seconds to check it out!!!

For example, if you set up a budget, you could set the formatting to be red if someone exceeds their budget amount. You could also have cells highlight if they are blank but have no formatting if something is typed in the cell if you want to keep track of things that are outstanding (like invitation answers, a column for tracking signatures received, etc.).

Excel 2003
To apply conditional formatting in Excel 2003, first highlight the cells that you want to be conditional, then select Format-Conditional Formatting. Excel will ask what parameters you want to set for the cell. Cell Value or Formula is (fill in the blank: between, equal, not equal, etc.) and then choose either a cell reference (i.e. the budgeted number) or a number that you type. Then click on the Format button and choose whatever formatting you want to be applied to the cells (red, bold, whatever you choose). Click OK.

When you enter a number into that cell, if it falls inside the parameters you set up (within budget) then the text will be normal. If it falls outside (exceeds budget), it will have the formatting you chose.

You can apply up to three parameters (i.e. green color for below 90% of budget, yellow color for 91-100%, red for 101%+).

To remove the conditional formatting, select the cells that have it (or use the tip I discussed in a previous blog posting to select all cells in your worksheet that have it applied: Edit - Go To - Special - Conditional Formatting).

Excel 2007
Conditional Formatting has really been beefed up in Excel 2007 and had some really nifty stuff added. This feature is applied from the Home ribbon. When you select your cells and then click Conditional Formatting, you will soon see that there are a bunch of new options in there. Check them out!

NOTE: On all of these choices, you will see "more rules" on the submenu. This allows you to set even more options on all these various rules. You can also apply more than one set of conditional formatting at a time (i.e. data bars and icon sets together).

Highlight Cell Rules - This is where you go to set straight mathematical rules, like greater than, less than, as well as text based rules, date based rules (great for highlighting past due items), etc. Note the nifty new feature to apply conditional formatting to duplicate values in a column. How handy is that when you want to see at a glance if anything has been duplicated in a long list? :)

Top / Bottom Rules - These are designed to highlight your top or bottom "x" in a column (top 10, etc.)

Data Bars - This applies colored bars to the cells, where the length varies based on the contents, relative to each other (in other words, four cells with the values of 0,2,4,6 would have 25%, 50%, 75%, 100% bars)

Color Scales - This applies colored bars with different shades applied based on the contents, relative to each other (see above).

Icon Sets - This applies colorful icon sets to the cells, based on the contents. Some of these are really cute. Most are based on the green/yellow/red color scheme or black/grey/white.

New Rules - This brings up the same submenu as clicking More Rules on the other submenus. It allows you build a rule from scratch and tweak the settings.

Clear Rules - Go here to clear all rules from selected cells or from the whole worksheet.

Manage Rules - Go here to clear selected rules. If you have more than one conditional formatting format applied (like the previously mentioned data bars and icon sets for instance), you can select the rules individually, reorder them, and/or delete them. You can also edit individual rules from this submenu.

Tips for Using Google Alerts

Google Alert is a powerful tool that can instantly let you know about any topic being mentioned on the Internet. If you are too busy to spend your time reading websites, blogs, and news channels to find specific information, you can use Google alert to, in effect, watch them for you.

Here’s how it works. Google alert is free and easy to use. All you need is an account with Google and you’re ready to go. You tell it which key words and descriptive phrases to search for and it sends you emails when these words are buzzing through the Internet. Here are a few short steps to set yourself up:

To start trying these tips for using Google Alerts, log in to your main Google account page and click on “Alerts.” You’ll be led to a page that asks you to enter search terms, types of places to search, and frequency of searches. Say you are trying to find a particular person or hot topic in the news, such as “Facebook Privacy.” You simply type that name or phrase and as soon as it is used, Google notifies you instantly.

Google Alerts can keep you on the cutting edge of what is happening without you being a slave to Internet research. You can also use it for your business as a way to see who is linking to you or your website. Just like big companies keep track the mention of their business name, you should too. If you are a prominent figure, such as an author, coach, or speaker, you definitely want to keep up with what your readers or listeners are saying. Try these tips for using Google Alerts yourself and let me know how it works for you!

Twitter - Not a Waste of Time for Small Business Owners

Social networking has changed the way we do business and the biggest change has been for small business owners. Small businesses usually have one person who makes a great representative for the company in the social networking arena. And this makes small businesses a perfect fit for a social networking tool called Twitter.

Twitter is a micro-blogging tool in which you have 140 characters to answer the question "What Are You Doing?" At first I was reluctant to join in on Twitter and wanted to make sure I would see business results from it. Since connecting through Twitter I have seen these results: more Website and Blog traffic; product ideas from my target market; and an increase in expert status. Another bonus, Twitter makes working from home not so isolating and I feel as if I'm in an office talking around the water cooler.

So how can you obtain these results for your business?

1. Create a Compelling Twitter Profile - Add a professional photo to your Twitter profile, because no one will follow you without a photo. Include a link to your main website and create an interesting bio that entices people to find out more.

2. Create Interesting and Useful Tweets (a Twitter message) - Don't just write about your personal life, but also include blog posts, links to articles and anything else your target market would be interested in.

3. Follow Others - Start off by following others in Twitter and return the follow when they follow you.

4. Automate It - Use your cell phone with Twitter and update your status while you're on the run. Within Twitter click on the settings tab and then the devices tab. Within this section you will be able to add your and setup your cell phone to work with Twitter. Also, I have my blog set up to automatically post new posts to Twitter. This is a great time saver and generates a lot more traffic to my blog.

5. Is Your Target Market on Twitter? Before jumping in on Twitter I would consider if your target market is there yet. If you target small business owners then, yes, Twitter will work great for you. Also the younger generation is very involved in Twitter.

Current Industry Trend: Cloud Computing

Imagine your PC and all of your mobile devices being in sync—all the time. Imagine being able to access all of your personal data at any given moment. Imagine having the ability to organize and mine data from any online source. Imagine being able to share that data—photos, movies, contacts, e-mail, documents, etc.—with your friends, family, and coworkers in an instant. This is what personal cloud computing promises to deliver.

Whether you realize it or not, you're probably already using cloud-based services. Pretty much everyone with a computer has been. Gmail and Google Docs are two prime examples; we just don't think of those services in those terms.

In essence, personal cloud computing means having every piece of data you need for every aspect of your life at your fingertips and ready for use. Data must be mobile, transferable, and instantly accessible. The key to enabling the portable and interactive you is the ability to synch up your data among your devices, as well as access to shared data. Shared data is the data we access online in any number of places, such as social networks, banks, blogs, newsrooms, paid communities, etc.

Ultimately, your personal cloud, which includes everything from your address book and music collection to your reports and documents for work, will connect to the public cloud and other personal clouds. Everything connects. That means every place on the Internet you interact with, as well as every person you interact with can be connected. This includes your social networks, bank, university, workplace, family, friends, you name it.

Of course, you will determine what you show the public and what you keep private. Clusters of personal clouds will form new social networks that will likely have a lot more privacy settings than Facebook, especially if these clusters are family or business oriented. (Privacy will be a huge issue as personal clouds hit critical mass.)

Eventually, like the smart house in the TV series Eureka, your devices will learn about you and eventually intuit what you are doing, where you are going, and what you intend to do when you get there. Think of all this as helpful… not creepy.

This might all sound a bit like science fiction, but this is exactly where we're headed with cloud computing. We're not quite there yet, though. We're all still creating our personal clouds.

10 Mistakes Managers Make During Job Interviews

Hiring is one of the hardest parts of managing a team. A lot is riding on the initial meeting, and if you're nervous or ill-prepared—or both—it can make you do strange things. The following mistakes are all too common, but they're easy to avoid with some advance preparation.

1. You Talk Too Much
When giving company background, watch out for the tendency to prattle on about your own job, personal feelings about the company, or life story. At the end of the conversation, you'll be aflutter with self-satisfaction, and you'll see the candidate in a rosy light—but you still won't know anything about her ability to do the job.

2. You Gossip or Swap War Stories
Curb your desire to ask for dirt on the candidate's current employer or trash talk other people in the industry. Not only does it cast a bad light on you and your company, but it's a waste of time.

3. You're Afraid to Ask Tough Questions
Interviews are awkward for everyone, and it's easy to over-empathize with a nervous candidate.
It's also common to throw softball questions at someone whom you like or who makes you feel comfortable. You're better off asking everyone the same set of challenging questions—you might be surprised what they reveal. Often a Nervous Nellie will spring to life when given the chance to solve a problem or elaborate on a past success.

4. You Fall Prey to the Halo Effect (or the Horns Effect)
If a candidate arrives dressed to kill, gives a firm handshake, and answers the first question perfectly, you might be tempted to check the imaginary "Hired!" box in your mind. But make sure you pay attention to all his answers, and don't be swayed by a first impression. Ditto for the reverse: the person with the tattoos might have super powers that go undetected at first glance.

5. You Ask Leading Questions
Watch out for questions that telegraph to the applicant the answer you're looking for. You won't get honest responses from questions like, "You are familiar with Excel macros, aren't you?"

6. You Invade Their Privacy
First of all, it's illegal to delve too deeply into personal or lifestyle details. Secondly, it doesn't help you find the best person for the job. Nix all questions about home life ("Do you have children?" "Do you think you'd quit if you got married?"), gender bias or sexual preference ("Do you get along well with other men?"), ethnic background ("That's an unusual name, what nationality are you?"), age ("What year did you graduate from high school?"), and financials ("Do you own your home?")

7. You Stress the Candidate Out
Some interviewers use high-pressure techniques designed to trap or fluster the applicant. While you do want to know how a candidate performs in a pinch, it's almost impossible to recreate the same type of stressors that an employee will encounter in the workplace. Moreover, if you do hire the person, they may not trust you because you launched the relationship on a rocky foundation.

8. You Cut It Short
A series of interviews can eat up your whole day, so it's tempting to keep them brief. But a quick meeting just doesn't give you enough time to gauge a candidate's responses and behavior. Judging candidates is nuanced work, and it relies on tracking lots of subtle inputs. An interview that runs 45 minutes to an hour increases your chances of getting a meaningful sample.

9. You Gravitate Toward the Center
If everyone you talk to feels like a "maybe," that probably means you aren't getting enough useful information or you're not assessing candidates honestly enough. Most "maybes" are really "no, thank you." (Face it: He or she didn't knock your socks off.) Likewise, if you think the person might be good for some role at some point in the future, then they're really a "no."

10. You Rate Candidates Against Each Other
A mediocre candidate looks like a superstar when he follows a dud, but that doesn't mean he's the best person for the job. The person who comes in tomorrow may smoke both of them, but you won't be able to tell if you rated Mr. Mediocre too highly in your notes. Evaluate each applicant on your established criteria, don't grade on a curve.

How To Deal With Slow Paying Customers

During an economic downturn, customers are usually slower to pay your invoice. You may have called, sent letters, faxes and emails without getting them to pay anything for a while. You’ve considered calling a lawyer but you might not have done so because you might have been concerned about the additional costs for the lawyer’s time. Determining whether litigation (going to court) is necessary is most times a very difficult decision because of the money involved in hiring a lawyer and the prospect of disintegrating any chance of settlement. But, unless instructed by you, lawyers don’t necessarily jump to go to court right away. Rather, a good lawyer simply puts your interests paramount and does what’s best for you, which usually involves discussing and implementing some type of settlement strategy.

Here are some tips on resolving such disputes with customers:

1. Offer to lower the amount due by an acceptable discount amount, say 20% or maybe even up to 40% (depending upon whatever you can afford) off of the amount due (set a deadline date for the offer to be accepted and the manner in which it can be accepted).

2. Offer to set up an acceptable payment plan, perhaps even without charging interest. If possible, couple the promissory note with a security agreement so that you have a lien against the customer’s assets and can preserve your right to get paid in the event of a customer’s refinancing, sale, liquidation or bankruptcy. It’s very important that you perfect the security interest by filing the appropriate documents and paying any applicable fees with the state; otherwise, you’ll still be an unsecured creditor. Automatic payments from a credit card would be mutually advantageous so as to eliminate the need for writing, delivering and cashing checks.

3. Offer to forgive a small amount of principal each time the customer pays a large amount of the principal balance. The customer will likely want a written agreement for this alternative.

4. Write a very reasonable and articulate demand letter offering to settle the matter with various settlement alternatives. I recommend you at least use a lawyer to review it but having it on a lawyer’s letterhead (stationary) gets more prompt attention.

5. Write a demand letter threatening to sue the customer by a certain date if no payment or response is received. Again, having this letter coming directly from the lawyer’s office is usually more conspicuous (less likely to be thrown in the trash) and effective.

Each of the above methods has worked for my business clients at one time or another. Each case is different because each customer may have different ability to pay. It is important to know when to use your lawyer to write the letter and get involved directly with the customer. Most importantly, seek counsel so you can be advised of your rights and strategies under the particular circumstances.

Most lawyers will write the demand letter for either or both an hourly fee and/or a contingent fee. There should be a pre-litigation contingent fee that is less than the contingent fee when litigation is necessary. For example, the lawyer might only charge a 15% contingent fee for a pre-litigation settlement but a 33.33% (one-third) contingent fee if the lawyer has to go to court for you, which means that if the matter is settled prior to filing the complaint, then you only pay the lawyer 15% of the amount recovered but once the complaint is prepared and filed, the lawyer is entitled to one-third of the amount recovered. Also remember that negotiating the details of the settlement agreement may take some time, possibly a few days or longer, which may add some cost to you if the lawyer is charging an hourly fee.
However, remember, getting some money now is better than some more money two years from now or never. Always try to work with the customer to get some payments coming in, even if they are very small payments. Helping to keep the customer in business goes a long way to generating the goodwill that might be fruitful in having that customer use your services or buy your product in the future. And they just might refer you some other business in the meantime and in the future.

If you cannot resolve the matter prior to litigation, you might have no choice but to sue the customer. And, never forget, you can always maintain the opportunity to negotiate a settlement even after you’ve filed the lawsuit against the customer. Starting the lawsuit starts the clock ticking in your favor and gets you closer to a judgment, which makes you closer to becoming a secured creditor. Don’t quit after you get a judgment. You need to docket the judgment in order to get a state-wide lien against the assets of the customer by filing the judgment with the county clerk and paying the required docketing fee. Only then can you become a secured creditor.
There’s no telling whether a customer will go out of business or file bankruptcy. If the customer files for bankruptcy protection, make sure you file your proof of claim to preserve any rights you might have in collecting at least some money from the customer notwithstanding the bankruptcy. As mentioned above, a payment plan that gives you a secured lien (remember to perfect the security interest) on the customer’s assets and docketing the judgment are the best ways to preserve your rights to collect because secured creditors are much more likely than unsecured creditors to get paid from the bankruptcy. Take action now to start collecting!