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Microsoft’s latest release of Excel has some powerful updates. Our latest 2016 highlight is the popular Power Map add-in. This feature can plot geographic and temporal data on a globe or custom map in a three-dimensional presentation. You can view data changing over time and create animated presentations called “tours”.…

Like most activities, preparation is the key in public speaking. Here are four questions to ask when you are preparing a talk that can help you maximize your impact with any group. Who is my audience and what is the context? These are basic questions, but too often, presenters are…

I was 26 years old and had just learned that my presentation was selected for a large conference. There would be 200 people in the audience, the organizers told me, "so, be prepared." I was so excited! As the sun rose the day of the presentation, my excitement changed to…

A few years ago, the following conversation ensued between me and a colleague at work. Me: Hi Kate! I’ve not seen you in about a month. You must have been traveling. Kate: Yes, I was at three of our plant locations this past month. Me: Really! What were you doing?…

In this video blog, Lisa Smith discusses some employee retention strategies. Transcript Do you sometimes struggle with recruitment and retention issues in your organization? Well, if you do, I have a survey that you'll enjoy. Recently, the Society for Human Resource Management surveyed a variety of workers across the United…

If you have two data series that are related, but not comparable, it might be tough to chart it. For example, let’s say you have data representing the sales of products. You also have the production costs. When you subtract the production cost from the sales data, you get the…

You might think you need some fancy add-ins to create charts that look like a speedometer. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create this snazzy image from a pie chart and a doughnut chart. Download CreatingGaugeChart.xlsx to follow along. The Steps Create the data for the speedometer. If a…

Does your organization currently have a written FMLA policy? In the short video below, Lisa Smith discusses the Department of Labor's new FMLA requirement. Transcript Well, it looks like the DOL is at it again. In June of 2016 the Department of Labor released a 76 page guide regarding the…