Category: Development and Training

Training, education and ongoing professional development is very important to your ongoing success at MSU. This category highlights professional development news, views and opportunities.

Click, scroll and MS Word tips for Windows or MAC

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We all know know that double-clicking highlights a word, and some of you might know that triple-clicking highlights the whole paragraph.  But what about selecting entire columns of text in a Word document, without getting all of the text to the left and right of it? Here’s a quick tip – Hold down the Alt and left mouse button (on a Mac, option + left mouse), and drag the cursor over the section you want to select. The best part is that the text you are selecting does not even need to be formatted as a column for this to work!Man using keyboard and mouse

Scrolling up and down a  document is probably something you do every day.  Did you know you can also scroll sideways? In many versions of Excel, holding down the Shift key while scrolling will take you sideways – this is really helpful with a wide spreadsheet. In most browsers, if you hold the Shift key while scrolling backwards, you will go back through all the sites you’ve recently visited. Holding Ctrl and scrolling zooms in or out on the page you’re viewing; scroll up to zoom in, down to zoom out.  This trick will zoom the whole screen on a MAC, not just the current document.Continue Reading… Click, scroll and MS Word tips for Windows or MAC

Can Twitter be useful to me?

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With the number of users increasing every day (over 500 million and counting), it’s obvious Twitter is here to stay, at least for a while. Here are a few reasons why having a Twitter account can benefit you in your work life and your personal life!

1.  Connecting with your Peers

Although they have similarities, Twitter and Facebook are two completely different platforms. Twitter allows you to connect with coworkers on the latest news, whether it’s work-related or not. It’s also a great place to look for a job if you’re still looking. If you are, @msujobs and @HelpingSpartans are two worthwhile MSU accounts to follow.Continue Reading… Can Twitter be useful to me?

Don’t Let Change Stress You Out

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Avoiding stress in times of change and transition tends to be easier said than done. Whether it be at work or at home, those changes can be difficult to cope with. Organization and Employee Development Consultant Carrie Galdes is offering a new class, “Don’t Let Change Stress You Out,” on Tuesday, November 6. Although it’s new to Human Resource Development (HRD), Galdes has been teaching classes on stress for many years. People who have taken it in the past have told her the class is like taking a break from life.

“It’s taking a time-out to reassess your priorities in life,” she said.Continue Reading… Don’t Let Change Stress You Out

MSU Teams with New Horizons on Microsoft Training Package

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Libraries and IT Services Training has partnered with the East Lansing New Horizons training location to offer a reduced-cost Custom Microsoft Technical Club Membership for MSU staff. This membership enables participants to attend any Microsoft Technical Class listed on the East Lansing New Horizons training schedule.

The class categories include:

SourceLive Email Subscriptions: a step-by-step guide.

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How to subscribe to the SourceLive blog via email

Get connected and stay connected by subscribing to receive SourceLive posts in your email box, rather than visiting the blog. Follow these steps to subscribe via email:

1. Go to the SourceLive blog’s home page at www.sourcelive.hr.msu.edu.Continue Reading… SourceLive Email Subscriptions: a step-by-step guide.

“How do I respond to THAT?” Writing effective and efficient emails

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Niki Rudolph is the new Director of Student Affairs at the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities. In this guest post, she offers some tips on how to avoid unnecessary office quarrels over common email mistakes.

Most likely, an email brought you to this post. You were plugging along, answering emails, filing others, and clicked on this link. As you read this, other emails are pouring in. I feel your pain. I would like to offer a few tips to make the entire process more efficient. In the interest of getting to the point, here are some quick tips to make email a more pleasant experience. That’s right; I said pleasant.Continue Reading… “How do I respond to THAT?” Writing effective and efficient emails

What Does Leadership Look Like? Part 2

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Last week, we shared with you the first two tips in the four Fs to great leadership. Director for Organization and Employee Development Dawn Hecker helped us finish this list with the remaining two tips. As she said before, there are hundreds of tips for becoming a respected and effective leader.

1. Firm Firm

Being firm means maintaining accountability. Have respectful and direct discussions about a problem in order to give proper feedback about your expectations. Start with the facts of the event that occurred, make sure there’s an understanding among all parties, explore possible solutions, try one out and then evaluate. If you are firm with what you want, employees will respect your expectations.Continue Reading… What Does Leadership Look Like? Part 2

What Does Leadership Look Like? Part 1

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Entering a new leadership position may be intimidating if you’ve never been in one before. Director for Organization and Employee Development Dawn Hecker says there are probably hundreds of tips on how to be an effective leader, but here are two of four simple and easy-to-remember tips to start better communicating with and leading your coworkers.

1.       FirstFirst

Before you begin working with a group of people, you must model the behaviors you want in them first. Set some standards and expectations at the pace you want before delegating anything. Focus on the mission at hand rather than a specific task and remember to keep a positive attitude.Continue Reading… What Does Leadership Look Like? Part 1

More Windows 7 Tips (until Windows 8 is upon us)

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  • Did you know that you can “pin” your most used applications, folders, More Windows 7 tips screenshotwebsites or files to the task bar at the bottom of your screen? For an application, right click the application and choose “pin to task bar.” For websites, files or folders, drag them to the task bar and let go. Then to access your “pinned” items, right click the pinned program used to create them (for example, Word or Internet Explorer) to show a “jumplist” of your pinned items along with the most recent or frequently accessed items.
  • I know we have all done this: in the middle of composing an email, you realize you accidentally hit caps lock? All caps are like YELLING in an email so you delete it all and start over.  An easy way to fix that is to highlight the text and hold SHIFT then hit the F3 function key (in the top row of the keyboard that few ever use). This will change the text from upper to lower case or vice-versa, and a third time changes it to title case, capitalizing the first letter of each word. This works in most Microsoft programs.Continue Reading… More Windows 7 Tips (until Windows 8 is upon us)

How to Be a Better Listener

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Disagreements can stem from anything, but many of them could be avoided with better listening. HRD Facilitator Rosemary Ward explains how being a better listener with your co-workers, or any other peers, may keep you from misunderstanding each other and help you find better solutions to problems. Check out the video here.

To learn more, consider attending Rosemary’s new class, Listening Communication Link on Tuesday, July 24. Visit the EBS Portal to register or view other course offerings.