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I Don't Like Computers...
The following account is
based on a true story. (Only names, places, dates and all the
facts have been changed.)
Dave was frustrated,
big-time. He'd spent the whole morning putting together a
32 page proposal using Word, incorporating product prices,
service rates and estimated service hours, and investment
summaries with illustrative ROI percentages. He'd carefully
checked and cross-checked all calculations.
Just then, his
supervisor ("Mary") emailed him a brief note asking him to quickly
revise the numbers - the hourly rates were being
increased, a few prices were being discounted, and the
assumptions underlying the ROI were being tweaked.
When Dave
finished banging his head violently against the desktop, he
calmly assessed the situation: first look up "tweak" in the
dictionary, then modify each section in the document
individually, using his calculator to re-work the numbers; and
finally visually cross-check to ensure that detail sections
tally with the investment summaries.
Fortunately, this only
took him three hours. Sadly, it took just 90 seconds
for Mary to email him some further
changes to the numbers.
During visiting hours at
the hospital, as the concussion wore off, Dave and I calmly
assessed the alternatives - what could he have done differently
to make the revision process easier? Now I can virtually hear
you yelling "Excel", and of course you're correct - all
calculations and underlying assumptions should have been placed
in a spreadsheet, with any variable (such as hourly rate) only
defined once; then he could have simply linked sections of the
spreadsheet into the appropriate spots in the Word document.
Each time Mary (not her real name - that's "Linda") sent modifications,
he'd make a few changes to the
spreadsheet, and the document's updated automatically.
However (and herein lies the
rub), Dave does not know how to use Excel for anything more
complex than the simple addition of numbers. He's not sure how
to insert multiplication or division formulae, and when we got
to the part about linking to Word his headache returned with a
vengeance.
So the next logical
question was: why not get some training, invest some time, and
upgrade your Excel and Word skills? Dave's response: "But I
don't like computers, so why would I want to spend time learning
how to use them?". The irony here is that lack of training
causes him to spend many more hours at the computer, every
day, than he would if he knew how to use it efficiently.
Moral of the story: the
less you "like" computers, the more important it becomes to
obtain the skills necessary to use them in the most efficient
and productive manner.
Tech Corner
Windows XP - Service Pack 2
If you have not already upgraded your Windows
XP machines to service pack 2, we highly recommend that you do
so, after reading up on the appropriate documentation. Please
visit the following site for more information:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;windowsxpsp2
Pay particular attention to the "Using
programs and hardware with Service Pack 2" link on that page.
Note to Blue Link users: if you try install
Blue Link Elite 10 on a computer with SP2, you may encounter an
error message about "MDAC" or "Jet" - if so, just ignore the
message and click on "OK" - the installation will proceed
anyway.
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