April 21, 2008

Daniel Hintzsche

Each team member has a private fund of priceless tips, tricks, resources, and insights that other members don't know about. Wouldn't it be great if you could share all that scattered expertise, and simultaneously increase the group's sense of community?

Applies to
Microsoft Office Word Microsoft Office Outlook Microsoft Office SharePoint Server

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Working in the information blizzard

I don't know about where you work, but here in the Office group there are about six and a half zillion things I need to keep in mind to do my job while maintaining my sanity.

There are six and a half zillion things I need to keep in mind

Everything from the procedure for ordering a screenshot graphic, to the new location of that darn PowerPoint button that I only need once every two months but that I really do need then, to the Web site where they have that really cool miniature golf game. (Not that I would ever waste company time playing games. Never, ever.) (Ahem.)

I forever find myself asking workmates to remind me of particular processes and rules and resources and locations — Do I save this as media, or as a sample document? Oh, right. Where do we keep that list of fictitious URLs? Oh, right! I knew that, of course. I'd just, um, forgotten. And how do you reserve a conference room, again? Oh, yes, duh, thanks, sorry. Right. (Blush, smile, thank 'em again, sidle away.)

And sometimes, the person answering my question doesn't merely remind me of what I've forgotten, but actually shows me a whole new better/faster/smarter way of doing whatever it is I need to do — or brings me up to date on the fact that we're not actually doing that particular thing, anymore, but this other, more or less similar thing. Or nothing at all. Or something completely different. (Somebody cue up the Monty Python theme.)

No one can retain it all, all the time

In time, I've come to realize that this is just how things work when you live in a blizzard of changing information: no one can retain it all, all the time. We are all always going to be relying on one another to shore up our constantly-overwhelmed rememberers. Eventually, you get less apologetic about asking. It helps that the people on the Office team are mostly extraordinarily helpful ones.

If you're in a blizzard, get a shovel

But about a year and a half ago, I got to thinking. (Hey, it happens.) Couldn't we create a medium by which to exchange the best of our hints and tips and tricks and reminders and resources? Not all of them, of course — not anything like all of them, certainly not at any one time. But could we all develop a sort of a trigger, so that when we noticed that we had just learned or remembered a particularly useful bit of information, we would take just a moment to make a note of it, and then just one more moment to share it with the whole team?

That seemingly innocuous little thought was the doorway through which I stepped to find myself the eddittr-inn-cheef of Nice 2 Know, a monthly e-mail newsletter that my colleagues now use to share tips, tricks, resources, quick fixes, and humor.

Getting started

If you decide you'd like to try this out for your team, it's actually pretty easy to ramp up. Just send e-mail to all of your teammates, telling them about the new publication and asking them to submit any tips, tricks, resources, or other contributions they'd like to share in the first issue.

While you're waiting on their responses, create a template for your newsletter in Microsoft Word. The design can be

The design can be as simple or elaborate as you like

as simple or as elaborate as you like. Then just create an instance of the template each time you're ready to put together the next issue.

After the heading, I always open each issue with a Note from the Eddittr (that would be me), and then a Table of Contents with a link to each article. I keep the editorial voice light and funny, and encourage my colleagues to submit humorous Web sites and other entertaining materials right alongside the more practical stuff.

Up and running

Once you've composed your issue in Word, just copy all of the contents into a new Outlook message. I recommend sending it to just yourself at least once, so that you can review the whole thing looking exactly as your readers will see it, and test any links or other fancy appurtenances. When you're satisfied with the whole thing, send it on out — then sit back and lap up the kudos.

It's a good idea to archive your back issues in a SharePoint site, either as whole issues or as individual articles.

All the news that's fit

For Nice 2 Know, I include as wide a range of articles as possible, and I always encourage my contributors not to be shy about trying new things. We've had articles on:

• How to delete a row and its contents from a Word table — fast
• The location of the practically secret on-campus convenience store
• How to turn Live Preview off and on
• The location of one of the hardest-to-find campus cash machines
• How to add a frequently-used folder to the My Places bar
• A side-by-side comparison of the nutrition labels and ingredient lists of the cocoa formerly provided in the staff kitchen and the cocoa currently provided

Many of the articles cover material that already exists in Office Help. If it seems funny that Office documentation workers would need to be notified or reminded that these

The Office programs have approximately 35 gazillion functions and capabilities

functions and capabilities exist, please remember that the total number of functions and and capabilities of all of the Office programs together is — approximately — thirty-five gazillion. Nobody in the universe knows them all, and one of the most useful functions of Nice 2 Know is as a means by which we can alert one another to the capabilities most likely to be useful but least likely to be widely known or remembered.

Inertia, positive and negative

Here in the office group, I don't seem to have any trouble getting people to read their monthly issues of Nice 2 Know — in fact, the little rag has a significant fan base. The real challenge is getting people to contribute. (Remember the Little Red Hen? Like that.) I do send out a call-for-submissions e-mail a couple of weeks before each issue.

The real trick (and I haven't at all figured out yet how best to perform it, so if you figure it out, please get in touch) is getting people to develop that trigger that trips whenever they notice that they've just learned or remembered something that some of their

There's nearly always somebody else who also doesn't know

teammates might benefit by knowing. One problem is that people tend not to realize the value of what they've just learned, assuming that ‘everybody else must know about this already'. But that's rarely true: If I don't know something, there's nearly always somebody else who also doesn't know it — and my newsletter contribution could be how they find out.

Meanwhile, I have a small group of people who really seem to enjoy contributing, and whom I thank warmly every single time they send something in. At worst, if an issue is looking really scanty, I'll see whether I can't corral a few contributions of my own to beef things up.

By the people, for the people

As I suggested in the title, Nice 2 Know serves at least a couple of purposes. Not only is it a fun and friendly way to share information across the group: it also increases our sense of community and camaraderie. We're a remarkably friendly group by nature, but the demands of our jobs don't allow us the time most of us would like for direct connection and collaboration. In a small but important way, Nice 2 Know functions as a love letter from the group to itself — reminding us that we are all in this together, and that each of us has teammates who care enough to send a little help our way once a month.

It is important to me, and I think to my readers as well, that Nice 2 Know is not a management project — though the managers have been very supportive of the publication.

The newsletter functions as a love letter from the group to itself

They seem to enjoy reading it, and they make some truly excellent contributions. But our newsletter exists not in order to make workers more productive for the sake of the corporation, or to promulgate top-down policy: rather, it exists as a virtual place where the individual contributors on the team can meet to help make one another's workdays smoother and easier — and also where they can share an irreverent cartoon, or a favorite charitable Web site, or an opinion on which of the campus cafeterias serves the best vegetarian pizza. So if your managers try to get a little too managerial about your newsletter, I hope you'll help them (in a kind and gentle way, natch) to back down from that misplaced ambition. And if they continue not to clue in, just show them this paragraph.

After all, the motto in the newsletter heading every month is "Because the user isn't the only one who could use a little help." ("The user" being, dear reader, you.) Nice 2 Know is one of those rare workplace things that we do just for ourselves — and that's a key part of both its value and its popularity.

About the author

Daniel Hintzsche is a Technical Editor in the Office User Assistance group at Microsoft. Since his first Redmond campus contract in 1995, he has written or edited Microsoft exams, courses, and help content for a wide variety of programs and platforms. In his other lives, he teaches and practices creative writing, reads more books than he can afford to store, and acts as general servant for Niko (a black cat).

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