This is a time of year when many large companies are fully engaged in strategic planning and updates for the coming year. I’ve heard speakers say we over-estimate what we can do in a week and under-estimate what can be done in a year. How are your estimates going?

If you are heading into any personal or business planning, I offer up two interesting questions that futurist Joel Barker and others have used to challenge executives.

· “What is impossible to do today in your business that, if possible, would fundamentally alter how you did business?”

· “If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?”

These are great questions to ponder because they push the boundaries of how we do things today. The great breakthroughs come at the edges – by challenging the rules and assumptions. The first question in particular has sent me down some interesting new paths for how to help people. I share this in hopes it may trigger some new ideas for you as well!

In this issue we share some creativity, presentation, time management, learning and change tips that I hope you will find of use.

Lookout Fall – here we come!

Best,

SIgnature

Jeff Cole

President

JCG Management Consulting

Take a Hike!

Southwest magazine recently profiled a Stanford University study on creativity. Researchers had subjects come up with as many uses for a random object as possible. Half the subjects sat at a table and wrote their ideas. The other half went on a short walk first.

The results? People who first took a walk came up with more ideas than those who didn’t! Walking outdoors or indoors made no difference – they still came up with more ideas.

Getting ready for your next brainstorming session? Tell your participants to take a hike!

PowerPoint Presenter Hacks

Have you ever done this - you use a particular software package for years and by accident stumble across a tip or technique only to realize you’ve been doing things the hardest way possible? Well, this month we’re opening up the PowerPoint vault and showing you several hacks and shortcuts that not everyone knows exist!

· When presenting a PowerPoint slideshow, pressing the “B” key on your keyboard turns the screen black – great for when you want to walk in front of the screen. (Hitting “B” again brings back your slide).

· The “W” key works in a similar fashion turning the screen white.

· Right click the mouse during a slideshow and select pointer options – this allows you to draw on the screen or highlight items.

· During a slideshow you can type a number on your keyboard and press enter – the show will immediately go to that slide in your presentation.

· Lastly, say you are creating a PowerPoint slide. You find a great photo or clipart, but want to remove the background keeping only the foreground image. Simple – add the art to your slide and select it. In PowerPoint 2010, a Picture Tools tab appears on the ribbon. One of the options is “Remove Background”. Select that. Handles will appear around your image. Drag them to select what you want to keep – the rest will be erased!

Pomodoro Technique

What do tomatoes and productivity have to do with each other? Everything if you ask Francesco Cirillo. In the 1980s Cirillo was a student experimenting with different time management methods. He found a great approach that used a Pomodoro (Italian for “tomato”) kitchen timer.

He named the technique after the timer, and it utilizes 25-minute work intervals he calls “pomodoros”. The technique is fairly easy to grasp:

· Determine the task you want to accomplish

· Set a kitchen timer to a 25 minute interval (a “pomodoro”)

· Work on the task until the alarm sounds

· Take a short 5-minute break

· After four pomodoros take an extended 15-30 minute break

The idea is to reduce the impact of external or internal distractions. So, for those of us distracted by all the shiny objects on our screens, chatty coworkers, texts, tweets, e-mails and so on, it has proven to be a simple and effective way to boost productivity. You have nothing to lose – try it this week and send us a note. Let us know how it works for you!

Featured Link

GFC Learn Free is a great site where you can take free online training in a number of topics. Microsoft Office courses cover Office versions 2000 – 2013. Other tech

courses cover everything from android and iPad basics to browsers to digital photography to Instagram and Pinterest and many other topics. Click here to visit this valuable resource site.

Change Lessons from Dogs

If you are a pet lover then you already know we have a lot to learn from our furry little colleagues.

Much as we might teach them a trick or two, they also teach us but in more subtle ways. (It is, for example, extremely rare to see a dog pull out a flipchart or fire up a PowerPoint presentation...)

That said, click here to read a short column on three surprising change management lessons Jeff Cole learned from his family pets. Woof!

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