Office 2007 Discussion

Washington Trainers’ Forum May 19th, 2009

  Productivity through Software Training

  End-User Training and Support

  Pre-rollout Consulting

  Train the Trainer

  Documentation and Curriculum Development

  Project Management

  Software Reseller

About EncoreTech

Stacy Gittleman

Throughout her training and executive career, Gittleman has focused her sharp business acumen on satisfying the stringent requirements of large law firms and other demanding corporations, by providing customized technology training solutions that are crucial to every firm’s long-term success. As CEO of EncoreTech, Gittleman has won the respect of this demanding industry for her flexibility and inventiveness, and has built a stellar reputation for quality, reliability and integrity.

Stacy Gittleman | Chief Executive Officer EncoreTech (p) 212.835.9450 (m) 516.521.2293 sgittleman@encoretech.com

Jeffrey Roach

Jeffrey Roach has been working with law firms for the last 20 years designing and delivering learning strategies. Currently the President of EncoreTech, he works with top law firms and training departments around on the country on maximizing the value of their training and support dollars. In addition, Jeffrey also works the executive team at EncoreTech on the long-term strategic direction for the company. Jeffrey holds a B.A. degree from Depaul University and an M.A. from New York University.

Jeffrey Roach | President EncoreTech (p) 404.549.5750 (m) 404.394.9072 jroach@encoretech.com

  A quick update from Stacy and Jeffrey—who is upgrading and when.

  How do I stay relevant if my firm isn’t upgrading?

  What are some of the best Tips ‘n Tricks for Office 2007?

  What are some best practices as I prepare for the rollout?

  How can I shrink my training down to 10 minute nuggets and my documentation down to 1 page handouts?

  How can we WOW the user?

  What are some good topics for attorneys?

Discussion Topics

How is Office 2007 Tracking?

Based on a comprehensive survey ILTA conducted last summer, our best guess is that firms are a year to eighteen months behind their original deployment schedule.!

  A number of firms had originally planned on being done by now.

  Integration issues with the DMS and other add-ons caused most of the delays.

  Most of these “early adopters” are still in pilot and hope to begin their rollout in the next 60 days.

  There are some success stories of firms who have completed the rollout.

  We are forecasting a lot of activity in the last quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010.

  The Office 2010 technical preview begins in July and may impact firms who are still two years out.

A quick update from EncoreTech

The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Remember, even if your firm has no immediate plans to upgrade, they still need a strategy for dealing with Word 2007 documents and clients. This strategy should include in-house expertise.!

  Lobby for a train the trainer course now, the new UI isn’t going anywhere.

  Insert yourself in the middle of the firm’s strategy on dealing with Word 2007 clients and documents.

  Network with trainers who are currently supporting Office 2007.

  Consider an early awareness program that focuses on the new look and feel of Office 2007/2010.

  Invest in eLearning and materials to help prepare a core team that will support Word 2007 until the firm makes the change.

How do I stay relevant if my firm isn’t upgrading?

Our Best Tip

Embrace the new UI and leverage it to promote features that support your best practices. In other words, emphasize what’s important and try to hide the stuff that scares you.!

  Prioritize your styles.

  Use (but don’t abuse) the Quick Access Toolbar.

  Move the QAT below the Ribbon (trust us).

  Consider a custom tab for the Firm.

  Understand the implications of XML file format.

  Plan for compatibility and sharing documents internal and external.

  Beware of templates created in previous versions of word, and documents based on those templates. Do they still work?

  Test, test, test all of your add-ins—separately and together!

What are some of the best tips and tricks for Office 2007?

What can I do today?

The greatest impact you can have on your learners today is to shore up their core skills. This will allow you to use your limited classroom time in the rollout to focus on what’s new, rather than what’s old that people still don’t get.!

What are some best practices as I prepare for the rollout?

  Promote the technologies that you believe to be important.

  Ask yourself if the environment is optimized in such a way that doing it the right way is also the easiest way.

  Educate your engineers on what works fine “out of the box” and what doesn’t.

Tick, Tick, Tick

The days of 5-day immersion classes are over. The training for Office 2007 is typically two ½ days for secretaries and a couple of hours for attorneys. Choose wisely.!

  Classroom time continues to shrink, while the number of applications and the complexity of those applications continues to expand.

  Try to focus on what really matters to the learner—not you.

  Pick one path and follow it.

  Offer learners lots of opportunities to learn in lots of different ways.

  Always ask yourself, what can I cut from this class/content?

  Align your messages across your classroom, content and eLearning.

How can I shrink my training down to 10 minute nuggets?

Ain’t it cool?

Don’t just focus on what’s new and cool, but take a moment to remind people how much of the product has not changed. There’s a fine line between anticipation and anxiety. Don’t cross it!!

  Wow them with how much they already know.

  Show them how they can tweak the environment to work better for them.

  Impress them with what the firm has done to anticipate the way they work.

  Showcase the features that are crowd pleasers, such as attachment preview, searching in Outlook and building blocks.

How can I “wow” the users?

It’s Just A Means to an End

Don’t forget that attorneys are paid to practice law, not turn out beautiful documents. They probably won’t share your zeal for well-structured documents.!

  Look for opportunities in Outlook to grab the attorneys attention.

  Piggyback on Outlook—Outlook uses Word to compose emails!

  Be practical when you choose topics.

  Keep your expectations reasonable—these are attorneys, not word processors.

What are some good topics for attorneys?

Jeffrey Roach

If people use anything that is flawed or broken long enough, they will complain bitterly when you get around to fixing it.!