With the holidays approaching, your office will be abuzz with lots of activities, many of which may fall under your supervision. You may be planning activities ranging from your office holiday party to overseeing the mailing of holiday cards to the coordination of gift giving. For busy people such as yourself, this can be a particularly stressful time of the year but you can overcome many of the organizational headaches that come with these tasks by turning your Microsoft Office Suite into your Virtual Holiday Elf!

For instance, you can use Microsoft Word or Publisher to help you create the perfect newsletter, holiday card, party invitation or firm announcement. If you are in the mood for something fancier, Microsoft PowerPoint can be used to create a unique and innovative electronic holiday card or announcement that can be easily emailed to recipients for a more dramatic effect. Try using PowerPoint’s rich graphics, sounds and animation schemes for something that’s sure to make a great impression.

Microsoft Word and Excel can be extremely practical for tracking all the back-end details such as spending, budgets, checklists, and gifts received as well as those given. Microsoft Outlook can be useful in keeping track of important dates, times and deadlines as well as leveraging tasks to other employees and keeping track of milestones with your party planning etc. For example, meeting requests in Outlook distributed to all users within your firm can easily add items to everyone’s calendars to remind them of holiday milestones such as the Firm holiday party, holiday card deadlines, etc.

And then there are the holiday cards, you can combine the power of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word to efficiently address labels or envelopes for your card announcements or newsletters. See detailed instructions on one specific scenario for doing this.

In this case, a Public Contacts folder has been created in Microsoft Exchange to serve as your Firm’s holiday card mailing list. (For large organizations or firms each department or practice group may have its own public contacts folder.) Any employee within the firm can copy existing contacts into this list for inclusion in your mailing. This reduces the need for manual data entry and allows for a faster and more efficient collection of data. Microsoft Word will then be merged with this list in order to turn your contacts into data that can be printed directly onto envelopes or labels. The resulting merge document can also be saved for future uses. And as a reminder, the steps outlined may vary slightly depending on your version of Microsoft office, integrations, etc.

Workshare is a tremendous utility that should be a key component of any attorney's workflow, if it isn't already. Workshare Professsional provides document comparison, review and security, available "right-out-of-the-box" as they say. SAGE can help to get the most out of this valuable tool, from purchase through to training and support.

Know what to buy. What is the right product for your firm and for the way you work? Do you need to Professional with all of its features, or just Protect for metadata removal or Compare for document comparison? What payment option makes more sense for you - a subscription license, or a one-time fee. Based on your needs, SAGE can advise you which product and licensing scheme would be best for your firm, factoring in cost, need, and return on investment.

Configuration. At the heart of Workshare are policies – policies are settings that determine what Workshare does and under what conditions. Getting those policies right is vital to getting the maximum benefit from Workshare. At SAGE, we work closely with firms to craft Workshare policies to meet specific needs. We then provide documentation on those policies for reference, review and future revision as necessary.

Training & Support. SAGE provides group and one-on-one training in Workshare so users are well versed in the features and workflow to make them highly productive. An attorney with a quick question can call SAGE's OnSight Support Center every business day from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and most holidays.

Getting the most out of Workshare is easy with the right help. SAGE is always prepared with expert staff and our keen focus on doing what is best for your firm.

As long as there have been law firms, there has been some form of document management system (DMS).NetDocuments takes DMS onto the Internet, marking the next evolution of the concept. Instead of residing in a number of servers in your firm server room, NetDocument stores your documents in secure datacenters, all interfaced via the web, a web browser, and your Microsoft Office applications. Being an online solution, NetDocuments' provides clear advantages in availability, search, and backup.

Everywhere you go these days there is Internet access, whether through wi-fi at the coffee shop or through a 3G cellular connection and card. With NetDocuments, your documents are available securely anywhere you have Internet access, such as at home, at the client, or even the park outside the client's campus headquarters. Lose your wi-fi connection, no need to worry if you have "echoing" turned on. With echoing, NetDocuments keeps a local copy of recent documents and syncs it once Internet access is restored.

NetDocuments not only encrypts your documents stored in its secure datacenters; but uses the same encryption methods for transmitting documents across the Web that are used in security operations.

But accessibility means nothing if you cannot find your documents, and search is another area where NetDocuments excels. Too often we encounter clients who have abandoned searching their DMS system because the complex and delicate search engine (specifically, the "indexer") has broken. The client lacks the expertise to fix it, so the attorneys go without search. NetDocuments uses the excellent FAST search engine on your documents, and maintains a staff whose sole job is to make sure the search engine is operating at maximum performance. Therefore searching is always available, without any upkeep on your part.

Finally, for NetDocuments monthly subscription fee you are also getting a disaster recovery solution included. Your documents are backed up and mirrored between NetDocuments secure and hardened datacenters. Should some disaster befall your local offices, your documents are still safe and accessible. The cost savings compared to a traditional disaster recovery scenario including replicating servers and data in a remote site are substantial. Going with NetDocuments for DMS also means getting a DR solution for your documents at the same time for a very lost cost compared to traditional DR solutions.

So while some may resist the movement to data and applications available through the Internet, "the Cloud" as the current jargon calls it, the benefits from NetDocuments are clear and compelling. Google-style speed and performance in search; practically anytime/anywhere availability and built-in disaster recovery for a predictable monthly cost make managing your documents in the Cloud a better option.

Please join us in giving Stacy Fischbach a warm welcome as SAGE’s new Vice-President of Business Development. Stacy will be heading up both the strategy and execution of our sales and marketing effort. For SAGE, this means enhancing our communication and education efforts. For our professional services community, this means helping them make better technology decisions that improve their bottom line.

Stacy joins us from the sales and marketing consulting company, Entrequest, where she assisted small to mid-sized DC based companies in their business development efforts. Her work there included sales strategy development, CRM system integration, lead generation design; and sales and sales management training. Foremost, Stacy’s customer-first approach fits perfectly with SAGE’s proven commitment to customer care and satisfaction and we are sure she will be a great asset to firms trying to meet their business and technology needs.

Stacy has worked with a number of organizations globally across a range of industries, including finance, technology, manufacturing, telecommunications, and retail. These previous clients include Dept of Homeland Security, Freddie Mac, Disney, Deloitte, and Georgia Pacific. Prior to Entrequest, Stacy led the North American Marketing and Sales organization for DuPont’s Lycra business. Earlier on in her career, she was with the Forum Corporation – a National Training and Development Company -- both as a consulting resource for Sales organizations and as an Account Executive in the North East region. Stacy received her B.S. from the University of Delaware. Her marketing and sales effectiveness work at DuPont-Invista was recognized by the Marketing Leadership Council, with excerpts published in the 2004 Best Practices Marketing Competency Review.

"Without Objectives, You Don't Have a Disaster Recovery Plan," an article by SAGE President George Nicholson, appears on the front page of the May 2009 ALA Capital Connection newsletter. In the article, George gives strategies for jump starting any disaster recovery plan that has been languishing in development for years (and there are a lot of them!) George tells firm adminstrators and management to focus on realistic recovery objectives rather than falling into the trap that "everything needs to be available immediately." There is much more in the full article, including specific strategies for developing recovery time and recovery point objectives.

Let us know what you think of the article in the comments below!

Get your Disaster Recovery Plan out of limbo by developing realistic objectives for how much and how soon to get people and systems back to work.

On Tuesday morning, June 16, join SAGE for a breakfast seminar given by leading experts in law firm IT, this seminar will cover hot topics on how small and medium sized firms can develop affordable and reasonable Disaster Recovery plans and put them into action.

Space is Limited. Register Today. The Seminar only costs $35.

Please email or call Peter von Elling to reserve your seat, or register online at: http://www.sagesol.com/wisdom/register.aspx
or email pvoneling@sagesol.com or call 202-478-7613

SAGE will be hosting webinars this Summer on a number of hot topics. These webinars are free and all are welcome to participate. Each webinar happens between Noon and 1 P.M. EDT, so please spend your lunch with us.

First up is our popular Metadata 101 webinar, "Your Documents, Your Undoing" (7/15) which discusses the risks from metadata and sensitive content in your documents. We discuss methods and strategies to mitigate those risks using tools like Workshare Protect and best practices.

Next is our webinar on Getting the Most From Your IT Budget (7/23). In it, we provide some benchmarks for what your IT budget should be, and how to stretch it to extend your capabilities. During the webinar, we discuss where IT provides maximum value to a firm and how to balance user support, projects, and regular maintenance.

MS Office is more than just spreadsheets and documents. In August, we debut a new webinar on Doing More with MS Office (8/19). For this webinar, we describe new uses for accounting, CRM, and HR from old standbys like Word, Excel, Access and Outlook, and illustrate what can be done with newcomers InfoPath, OneNote, and Groove.

Sign-up for SAGE Wisdom webinars on our web site. If you have any topics that you would like to learn more about, let us know in the comments or drop us a line.

Here is this week's gems from around the Web:

"Core" Multiplier: Intel says look for thousands of computing cores on future chips. Intel has staked its future on multiple computer cores on a single chip. While a new 8-core chip will soon, debut, an Intel official tells software developers to "start thinking about tens, hundreds, and thousands of cores now." Now everyone needs to figure out how to program for them.

MS Tests Office Subscription with "Equipt". Microsoft is testing the waters with an MS Office subscription service at the consumer level. For $70/year, consumers can get the Home and Office version of the suite with MS OneCare security software. Could a business version be far off?

Hyper-V makes an early debut, set to turn up the heat on VMWare. In a move surely to presage the coming apocalypse, Microsoft released a product early. MS' new Hyper-V server virtualization looks to take on market leader VMWare. C|Net blogger discusses some ways MS can penetrate the virtualization market. In true Microsoft fashion, one strategy is to throw money at it. Surprise!

Have a happy Independence Day and enjoy the long weekend!

This week, an article reported that law firm Reed Smith had let go 50 legal secretaries in recent months in an effort to consolidate some administrative functions in a central, 24-hour call center in Pittsburgh, PA. Why? Reed Smith now operates around the globe--which means around the clock--and mobile technology like Blackberries give attorneys the ability to easily handle their own messaging and scheduling.

This is instructive on how technology often makes the middle vanish through contradictory forces of consolidation and distribution. Technology allows certain jobs to be consolidated to achieve efficiencies: call centers in less expensive and remote locales are feasible because of the available bandwidth (data, voice, and video) connected to "customers" throughout the world via the Internet and cellular phones. Conversely, technology can also decentralize functions. Handheld devices with increased capabilities like the Blackberry and new iPhone will allow attorneys to accomplish more "in the field, " including duties like messaging and scheduling that were once centralized under the domain of legal secretaries.

Duties and job functions that fall into the middle area are most prone to the centrifugal forces IT unleashes, and the vaunted legal secretary may be the next target.

One constant struggle firms face is spyware, adware and other "malware" infections on computer workstations. Cleaning and removing these spyware infections cost significant time and money that can be better spent on improving IT systems. Barring more draconian measures to restrict the use of web surfing and downloading files and other media, we strongly recommend the following safe surfing practices.

Make sure the web address fits the web site.  The web site address, (or "URL") should reasonably match the web site.  For example, if you on the web site of software maker Adobe, its web site address should be "http://www.adobe.com", or "https://support.adobe.com."  Web sites that claim to be Adobe's but have addresses like "http://adobe.0012441tojay.net" are likely phishing sites or web sites designed to infect your system with malware. You can also find out information about the owner of the web site address by performing a WHOIS ("who is") search.

Know your web address. Misstyping the web address for a well-known web site or organization can lead to web sites expressly built to capture misspellings. Many of these mimic a directory of links that you may find on the site you intended to visit, but are really advertising or meant to infect your machine with malware. Also, be sure you have the domain extension correct -- entering ".net" instead of ".com" may land you on a malicious web site.   

Do not click on any pop-up windows, especially one proclaiming that you may have a virus, spyware, or other malware infection.  In fact, the intention of that pop-up is to infect your machine, not inoculate it.

Did not click on any banners, pop-up windows or web pages saying you have won a prize. Almost always it is a rouse to infect your computer with spyware or adware. At the very least, it is an attempt to get personal information for marketing or more nefarious purposes. In fact, be wary of clicking on most banner ads. You can almost always find the site running the banner advertisement on your own.

Avoid downloading software and applications from the web.  The Internet has made delivery of applications and media much easier, but stick with trusted companies, sites, and organizations. There are a host of blogs, discussion forums, and consumer web sites where people report their experiences with web sites and online software vendors to check their reputation.

When in doubt, search Google. Usually searching on the web site name or organization on Google will provide a wealth of links to let you assess the reputation of a web site and those behind it.

Just like any scam, the common sense adage that "if it seems to good to be true, than it probably is." The Web is full of great discount web sites like Woot.com, but if the price of some consumer item or software is outrageously low, likely the site is trying to scam you for your money, likely injecting some spyware or adware at the same time.  If you are bargain shopping, stick with Ebay or Craigslist.

Following these guidelines should reduce the amount of spyware and other malware. Many of the same rules apply to unsolicited emails.  Don't click on links in spam e-mails or from senders you don't know, no matter what the promises to your financial prospects or "prowess."