Dot Connector Blog

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If you have a Blackberry, chances are you picked it up, and started emailing right away. If you have a personal email management system, your Blackberry can be a real asset to your productivity.

Did you know, there are several time-saving features built in, and several tricks you can do to make your Blackberry even more useful? Here are 5 of my favorites…

#1: Master the Keyboard Shortcuts

Just like on a computer, the keyboard on a Blackberry is full of time-saving shortcuts. Here are my favorites:

• “I” - Hit the letter “I” when looking at email in your “inbox view,” or when reading an actual email to file it. If you’re already using my plan for getting control of your email, then you know the importance of filing email to achieving an empty inbox.
• “0″ - Hold down the “0″ (i.e. zero) button and then use the thumbwheel to select multiple emails when in your “inbox view.”
• “Del” – Use this to delete email you don’t need after highlighting it in “inbox view” – to speed this up even more, you can also remove the delete confirmation.
• “C” - Hit the letter “C” when looking at your email in your “inbox view” to compose a new message.

Be sure to check out my “6 Blackberry Tips for Reading Emails” post with additional keyboard shortcuts too!

#2: Setup Your Blackberry to Work Well with Voicemail

• In my 10 Tips to Improve Your Voicemails post, I discussed setting up speed dial hot keys (Tip #6), making logging into voicemail easier (Tip #7) and forwarding your voicemail (Tip #8) to one voicemail box.
• If you use your Blackberry as a phone, be sure to put all of these to work for you!

#3: Get Google Maps for Mobile

• One of the most useful apps you can download for your Blackberry is Google Maps.
• With a simple search (i.e. “breweries in Duluth, MN”), you will get results on a map, turn-by-turn directions, and one-click to call the business you looked up.
• If you do any business travel at all, it’s an absolute must. I’m sure it will quickly become one of your favorite apps!

#4: Reorder Your Apps in Order of Most Popular

• If you hold down the “Alt” key (below “a”) when clicking on an app, a pulldown menu will appear where you can select “Move Application.”
• Then, you can order the apps in any way you want! I put my most used apps right next to each other to minimize scrolling.

#5: Update Your Blackberry Email Signature

• Your email signature is a valuable “one stop shop” of contact info so people can get a hold of you.
• Make sure you always use the same signature on your Blackberry that you do in your main email (usually MS Outlook).
• That way, readers of your email are less likely to pre-judge your message (“Oh, she’s stuck in an airport and dumping ideas again!”), and they are less likely to know where/how you sent it.
• It’s also a great idea to remove all “Sorry if this is misspelled, I’m on a Blackberry” messages. That’s like a website having an “under construction” page – it’s just not necessary. Plus, it makes you look like you can’t spell.

Bonus Tip!  #6 – How to Dial “Letter-Based” Phone Numbers on Your Blackberry

Ever want to call one of those alpha-numeric phone numbers, like 800-QUICKEN, but can’t find a “land line” dial pad to figure out what numbers to hit?  Fear not!  Thanks to Ron O’Connor, at Quicken Loans, you now have the answer: use the “alt” key + the letter to dial the numerical equivalent of the letter!  For example, to dial the letter Q, just hit “alt-Q” and your Blackberry will show you the Q, but enter a 7.

I hope these tips and tricks prove useful for you. If you’re reading this and thinking, “but he didn’t mention…” then please, leave a comment!

I recently finished Leading with the Heart: Coach K’s Successful Strategies for Basketball, Business, and Life by Mike Krzyzewski the highly acclaimed Duke University basketball coach. In it, he covers many of his formulas for success with managing basketball teams, something that can be directly applied to managing teams at work. Here are a few highlights of my “favorites” from the book…

3 Favorite Quotes:

1. When you get better, we all get better
2. You hear, you forget. You see, you remember. You do, you understand.
3. It’s not what I know, it’s what you do that matters most.

5 Components of a Successful Team:

1. Communication (Ask for advice, conduct “huddles” with no BS)
2. Collective Responsibility (Foster the idea that we win and we lose together)
3. Trust (The team leader is the truth, he/she will tell you what you are doing right, and what you are screwing up)
4. Caring (As the team leader, spend time with each person on the team no matter what is competing for your attention)
5. Pride (Put your stamp on everything your team does)

3 Questions for a Team Leader to Ask:

1. How do you see our team? Our strengths? Our weaknesses?
2. Do you see any problems?
3. What do you think we need to work on?

The following “I promise…” statements were sent to me by a colleague some time ago. I find this quote to be a very valuable read from time-to-time.

• I promise to be so strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind.
• I promise to talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person I meet.
• I promise to make all of my friends feel that there is something in them.
• I promise to look at the sunny side of everything and make my optimism come true.
• I promise to think only the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best.
• I promise to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about my own.
• I promise to forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
• I promise to wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature I meet a smile.
• I promise to give so much time to the improvement of myself that I have no time to criticize others.
• I promise to be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the persistence of trouble.
• I promise to think well of myself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words, but in great deeds.
• I promise to live in faith that the whole world is on my side, so long as I am true to the best that is in me.

~ Christian D Larson
Your Forces and How to Use Them 1912

Effortlessly working with our peers is one of the things that is so hard for many to attain, yet so easy to take for granted. In this post, I’ll discuss my top 5 characteristics for effective relationships at work.

My top 5 characteristics for effective relationships:

1. Proactive and “connecting-the-dots” communication is commonplace. Do you let your peers know proactively about project developments that may impact them? Do you look our for ideas for your peers when reading the sunday paper or watching TV with your family? Do you “see” new ideas and things they might think are valuable? It’s amazing what you can find when you focus on helping your peers. And it’s even more amazing at what will come back to you when you help them out. Just showing that you’re looking our for the interests of those around you is a powerful technique to more effective relationships!
2. Trust (at a personal level) in each other. Trust is way more than sitting in meetings/calls and talking in cubes. Trust is about having faith in those around you, and cultivating relationships with them at every opportunity, especially through breakfasts, lunches, dinners, etc. with them. The single best thing you can do to improve a relationship with someone is to take them out for a meal and ask “what can I do to help you?” and then do it!
3. Collective responsibility. If you have trust in each other, you can share responsibility when times (inevitably) get tough. When a problem occurs, do you jump in together and solve it, and THEN figure out why it happened? That is the true test of the effectiveness of your work relationships.
4. A focus on process. Everyone likes to be successful. But jointly coming up with repeatable ways to have your peers and project teams succeed is an even better goal. If you show others you care about them, especially through creating processes that support them, you will earn their trust. If you involved them in this process, you get new perspectives, new approaches, and even better ways to collaborate!
5. Pride and caring in what you do. The most effective work relationships are also build on a foundation of shared pride in the work being completed. If you’re not proud of it, why do it? Put your “collective stamp” on everything you do together, and your relationships will grow!

In future posts, we’ll cover other aspects to having effective work relationships, which is key to enjoying what you do, and having fun doing it!

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80% of all project issues are communication issues.

Whether we are conscious of it or not, we create our own leadership “glass ceiling” through our communication. Improving our communication improves our connections with others, and ultimately, our ability to grow.

Enter voicemail. Voicemail is one of the most frequently used communication tools within an organization. And, it seems that the more senior the person you are communicating with is within your organization, the more likely they will favor voicemail over email.

If you work remotely, you know that voicemail is often preferred over email because you can “get personal” by injecting emotion and physiology of communication into your message, something that’s very hard to do in email.

To help you grow your communication abilities, here are 10 tried-and-true tips to improve your voicemails:

1. Always stand up and smile before leaving a voicemail. You’ll be amazed at the positive energy you bring to your message – it will definitely come through in your voice! (Be sure to do this when recording your outgoing voicemail message too.)
2. Write out important voicemails before you leave them. When doing this, be sure to simplify what you have written (twice!) before actually leaving the message. Also, be very tuned into how you are leaving the message, so you don’t sound like you are reading from a script.
3. Always start a voicemail with: who you are (“Hi, this is Regis Hadiaris…”), who you are sending the message to (“…with a message going out to Jen, Doug, and Melissa…”), and (in one statement) what your voicemail is about (“…about the decisions that were made in today’s team meeting.”)
4. Always end every voicemail with your phone number (or extension if calling within your organization). It’s a good idea to repeat this number twice.
5. Copy yourself on important voicemails (if possible, usually you can do this when you are using an internal voicemail system) so you can be sure to have a copy.
6. Assign your voicemail call-in number a speed dial “hot key” on your cell phone. The fastest way to dial your voicemail call in number (i.e. the number you use to check your voicemail messages) is to assign it a speed dial hot key in your cell phone address book. That way, if you are driving, etc. you can just hold down one button and it will dial your voicemail!
7. Enter any “login” data for checking your voicemail into your cell phone address book. Most cellphones support a “pause” feature that allows you to put you login data (extension, password, etc.) right after the phone number in your cell phone address book. That way, when you call that number (using speed dial – see #6), you will only have to hit one button and it will automatically dial this info for you. This is priceless when checking messages while on the go!
8. Forward all of your voicemail to one location. To simplify all of the places where you have to check voicemail, you can forward them to one location. Most of the wireless carriers support this functionality (for example, for Verizon you can hit *71, *72, or *73 to activate and deactivate their forwarding functionality).
9. Setup your organization’s voicemail to call you if you get a priority messages. Most voicemail systems support this priceless feature. Just enter a number (like your personal cell phone number) where you should be called when you get a priority message. That way, you will always be on top of your “hot” voicemails!
10. Check and reply to voicemail on “off hours” once in a while. Senior managers are always checking to see how engaged their team’s are. By checking and replying to voicemail during off-hours on occasion, you show your dedication and focus – a great way to build confidence amongst your leadership!

I hope these tips and tricks make you a more effective voicemail communicator!

Need help organizing your email?  Check out Dot Connector’s 3-part email organization series.