Many of our clients come to us due to our educational efforts. Freda Ramey, our director of Sales & Marketing, has helped setup a number of educational seminars at local businesses.

The next workshop will be on March 1, 2011 at Bella Victoria’s Vineyard in Old Town Camarillo.

No-cost & Low-cost Technology and Tools to Help You Grow Your Business in 2011
(click the link above to see a list of topics)

Bella Victorian is a beautiful location and light refreshments will be provided.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Here is a PDF Tutorial with some screen (phone) shots.

Also, the document links to the video below:

Send text message with embedded phone numbers from your email.

The Google tutorials below were originally published on my other site, TheSongwriterOnline.com. If you have not checked it out, it is a site with tutorials and information for musicians. However, many of those tools really cross-over nicely to a general business.

If you are not yet using Google, chances are, after this, you will be.

Google Tutorials

Getting started with the iGoogle Dashboard

An overview of how to setup a functional dashboard. This is productivity central.

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Using Google’s Tasks List and Google Calendar together

Google tasks integrate with Google calendar. Together they provide a highly effective planning and task management system.

An Introduction To Google Forms

Google forms allows you to quickly create and distribute forms to capture data, survey customers, or get any other type of feedback. They can also be embedded on any website.

Are you using any of these technologies already?

If you are interested in finding out how your business can benefit by using Google’s application technologies, feel free to contact me.

You know what little the guy says, “15 minutes could save you 15% or more. . .” I might adopt a similar catch-phrase, “15 minutes could save you hours and hundreds or even thousands of dollars.”

Most businesses NEVER take advantage of the many free and low-cost tools available to run, organize and promote your business. Even when they do, many features go underutilized or not used at all. This results in hours of wasted time, costly errors, incomplete projects, and often leads to unnecessary purchases of additional software and services.

I provide group and individual training and consulting on key business applications. The training is typically done remotely and allows me to demonstrate features by showing my screen or by viewing and controlling your screen. 15-30 minutes of consulting or training can result in hours of increased efficiency and a far greater understanding of what is possible with your applications.

To fully understand the potential productivity gains, see the “PRODUCTIVITY PROFILES” below.

If you have any questions on these topics, feel free to call me at:

818-584-6288 or 805-889-8102.

You can also reach me online on google chat at: cbtoolkit ( at ) gmail [dot] com
or on skype at: cbtoolkit

AREAS I AM HELPING PEOPLE WITH MOST OFTEN ARE:

Microsoft Office Assistance and Training:

• Microsoft Word, Advanced Excel Spreadsheets and Automation (Macros)
• Presentation Assistance: Powerpoint without boredom!!
• MS Publisher – newsletters both setup and content

Microsoft Access Database Development

• MS Access to SQL Server (DB Management & Administration)
• Customized Reporting

Social Media Development, Setup, Training

• Blogging (WordPress), Podcasting/Videocasting, Live Video Streaming
• Integrating Facebook, Twitter and Others into your marketing and business.

Google Applications Setup, Migration, Training

• Google has email and MS Office style programs with documents, spreadsheets, and presentations you can work on with others users simultaneously. FREE!!! In many cases.

PRODUCTIVITY PROFILES

Real-Estate Development/Sales/Commissions
The controller and accounting department for a client in Arizona had a complex Excel commissioning system that required several days of input and adjustments each month. The manual process was time-consuming and often resulted in errors. Using MS Access, in less than 5 days, I created a way to calculate and track commissions and even provide a way for sales reps to see 30 day revenue forecast. The system allows input from multiple computers and has been in place for more than 2 years with 100% accuracy.

Legal/Document Assembly/Automation
A law-firm had the need to create more than 200 contracts with specific language requirements based on various criteria. Their initial plan involved a team of associates and paralegals over more than 6 weeks – manually creating the documents. Working with them, I built an Access database to track all the criteria and the language libraries. 14 days after starting the project, we pushed a button and Microsoft Access opened MS Word and created all of the contracts in 20 minutes with 100% accuracy!

Real-Estate Sales/Free Google Apps
A real-estate office in Toledo has employees in an office and working from home. They needed an email solution and a way to easily share documents. I helped set them up and then remotely train them on Google apps where they now have their company email and shared documents, spreadsheets, and presentations – all for FREE!.

Mortgage Banking/Email Marketing
A mortgage lender, in Bakersfield, had been struggling for a couple hours to do a customized email message to selected Outlook contacts. I logged into his computer remotely and in 15 minutes we had his message sent and he has since used what he learned repeatedly to reach out to his prospects and customers.

Tea/Specialty Products/Marketing Materials
An entrepreneur friend and I connected on Facebook where she had posted being in “Microsoft Word hell”. I logged in remotely and 10 minutes later the formatting problem she had struggled with was solved and she had a greater understanding of how to solve several other challenges.

You can take the survey here:
http://bit.ly/bqKZdV

I’ll keep it open for the next week or so but I found some of the results interesting. There is great interest in how to stream video but only mediocre interest in social media.

Top topics:
1) streaming video
2) free utilities
3) how to stay current with technology
4) financial reporting
5) pc performance (surprised me a bit)
6) microsoft office (shouldn’t surprise me)
7) how to create a similar survey (funny)

Least interest:
1) remote access (this surprised me a lot because of how many clients want/need it)
2) networking my office/sharing data
3) social media (found this very surprising given the hulabalu)

Favorite learning method
1) Hands on/one-on-one
2) Live workshops

Least favorite learning method
1) A book or manual

In particular, data analysis, decision support and automated reporting systems, workflow & business process re-engineering, and document assembly are my greatest areas of passion.

They form the crux of what Kreative Knowledge provides our clients.

We focus on utilizing tools that are readily available for most organizations.  Microsoft’s Office Suite (Access, Word, Excel, Powerpoint – and other apps) include Visual-basic for Applications (VBA).  VBA is the underlying programming language to Microsoft Office.  It goes far beyond the simple macro languages of the past.

VBA’s ability to interact with external applications using .NET and other technologies, allowing it to tie-into a variety of internal database systems, provides a tool that if often unused or underutilized in most organizations.

At Kreative Knowledge, we believe the simplest solution is often the best.  The ready-made tools that are already built-into Microsoft Office provide a rapid development and integration platform for automating all types of business process.

For instance, if your organization pulls data from an accounting or sales system and then creates Excel sheets for reporting or analysis, it is very likely that the manual process you go through to create those spreadsheets can be fully-automated.

This streamlines your reporting and removes costly errors and manual labor.

If you would like to find out more about the possibilities of automating your business processes and reporting, contact Kreative Knowledge.

The client actually received a blank spreadsheet each ordering period, filled in their order, and sent it back.  The problem was it left too many decisions to the customer.  Mistakes in data resulted in numerous questions, mistakes, and customer calls.

Here is why technology is really amazing.  She sent me the sheet, we discussed, via a Skype call, what they needed, I created a simple proof of concept in about an hour, and then shared my desktop and demonstrated where I was going.

After some modification and process questions, they had a new solution, using Excel lookup values on a hidden sheet, protected fields, and checks and balances to ensure the client’s order was correct when submitted.

So far, they have had a 95% reduction in customer calls and have had a 100% reduction in errors.

For me, removing manual and tedious labor is a passion.

The fact that tools exist that allow me to quickly assess and then demonstrate a solution – all remote – means I can save my client’s money while providing amazing results.