Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Ken Goad — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:58:50 GMT

Since the title of this blog relates to using Office, and I have no idea how to submit an idea otherwise, I will throw in my two cents here. A new Outlook calendar category is needed, namely Working From Home. When you are working from home, you are not Out of Office, but you aren't working at "the office" and it can lead to problems. Primarily, when someone sets up meetings based on your schedule, assuming you are in the office. While you are available you are not available for face-to-face meetings. They need to know you will have to participate by phone. There are other good reasons but you get the idea. Working from home is very mainstream, but has not been addressed in Outlook. It's time to address it.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Robert — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:23:33 GMT

I'd like to second what Ken just said! Sounds like a very good idea and I really need that too!

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Joffrey — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:37:32 GMT

Aww… I use only one 13" display. :D

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Jack Stitt — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:41:02 GMT

I have often thought that SharePoint would suit the company I work for, which is a large industrial gas company with lots and lots of internal web sites. Currently, each internal web site is maintained by a content coordinator and the overall intranet is watched-over by a set of skilled web developers. Unfortunately, the content coordinators, who are not really coders, often break the web page code. It's a constant struggle to keep the intranet functional as well as current. Interestingly, SharePoint is already used for document revision. How can I make the push from document management to intranet management?

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Nik Sargent — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:11:54 GMT

I guess in response to Ken, I would say this: the problem really is cultural.

Working from "home" need be no different technologically than working from the "office". I worked at a company that used to say "work is a thing you do, not a place you go". They had 12,000 permanent home workers and 80,000 mobile workers.

The problem is most people still think of "work" or "the office" as a place, so fall into the trap Ken has outlined. And yet the technology solutions we have in place can make your place of work seamless - esp. with IP telephony, softphones, integration with mobile, IM/Video etc. In fact, I've found some meetings are even *better* not done face to face - where, for example, we wish to work through and collaborate on a document and can see the same thing on all our individual screens. (I'm like Bill, I work on multiple screens in my office - at home).

I admit, though, changing this culture is like the tail wagging the dog. So in the meantime, maybe we do need some sticking plaster of the kind Ken describes. :)

nik

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

LUIS — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:32:26 GMT

Would love to see screenshots of Mr. Gate's computer setup!

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Lazaro Romel — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:43:19 GMT

I agree with Luis, a screenshot of computer setup would be great. Regards

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Mike Pegg — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:10:33 GMT

Something like this then...

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/images/bill_gates_400.jpg

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Greg — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:19:22 GMT

Another second for working from home status. It would also be nice to have the option to auto create travel time appointments. For example, when scheduling a meeting that is marked out of office, prompt for the amount of travel time to allow and create appointments before and after scheduled meeting.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Joe IT — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:25:44 GMT

Nik, I think Ken's comments aren't at all contradictory to your comments. He was merely suggesting that Outlook needs to dump its outmoded notion of work place. Logicaly, a worker is either absent or present. The literal "in the office" doesn't really apply, and neither does the literal "working at home". For me, working from home really means teleworking, or telecommuting as some might call it (which I think is less accurate than teleworking since I'm not on the move). This feature shouldn't be a fixed label, but something the user can enter to indicate active or inactive. It's all labels, guys, so let's not get literal here.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Nick — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 20:21:59 GMT

While I agree completely about the notion of "work" and "the office" as not a place, there are still things that you can do *at* the office that you can't do anywhere else. People looking to visit your desk to discuss a project or bring you a document would sure appreciate knowing that when you said "I'm at my desk", you meant the one in your house.

There's a place for technology to bring people to meetings via voice and video, as well as for electronic documents and websites, but "Working from home" is still not quite the same as "In the office".

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Mr. Obvious — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:14:15 GMT

Uhh, isn't that stating the obvious?

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Chris Brown — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:32:18 GMT

This is a re-post from almost two years ago (November 20, 2007) ...

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/HA102402071033.aspx

Here's a very similar article from April 2006, when they only had 50k employees...

http://money.cnn.com/2006/03/30/news/newsmakers/gates_howiwork_fortune/

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Arif — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:59:08 GMT

My office at home is laid out more efficiently than the one at my office desk. More desk space, bigger monitors and more of them.

So I find that I actually get more done working from home than at the office; where you are prone to interruptions and other distractions. Plus saving 2hrs of commute each day is time I can use for other things.

Finally, I prefer to call it "working off-site", where "site" implies your main work location. Because some companies have multiple offices and data-centers. So if you are working from a satellite office, home or a client's site, you are in fact available but off-site. The only time that you are really "out of the office" is if you are not able, or choose not to, to connect to your company network a perform your duties.

-Arif

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Drew — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:16:18 GMT

Wow. Sad that they just reblog what he wrote once upon a time. I wonder if he even knows how unoriginal they are. Keep reblogging minions!

re: Office Hours: Outlook "out of office" status

Grant — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:17:21 GMT

Following on from what Ken and others have said I agree that Outlook needs to be able to show your different work places. When I am in the office I have a large monitor and fast connection, when I am on the train to work I have a laptop, a mobile modem and many tunnels, when I am off site I may only have a phone - each of these situations affects how I can communicate and interact with colleagues. If Outlook could show these different "Connection" states it would be easier to schedule the best means of meeting.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Denise Lau — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:16:35 GMT

What Mr. Gates fails to mention is that for 25 people in an office to run all those highly integrated applications, it costs $75K in software licensing, $60K in hardware and you'll need 4 full-time professionals to keep them patched at $100k/yr each.

Or you could "outsource" your IT to a service provider and risk all your proprietary data getting released for $300+/month/user.

Why so much Mr. Gates?

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Nikhil Gupta — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:41:21 GMT

My company provided only laptop to work. No monitor at all. Too bad :(.

May be because I am not Bill Gates.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Alex — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:51:54 GMT

Quote: "I seem to discover a new feature or a better way of doing something almost every day"

That is my feeling since I discovered... Mac !!!

Thanks Apple.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

hu — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:50:54 GMT

good idea, but my colleagues his workplace now more important.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:02:35 GMT

He may or may not use this product

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Elaine — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 23:50:41 GMT

Just thinking, since Microsoft's lifeblood is based on Windows, shouldn't that eliminate the need for multiple monitors, since you're supposed to be able to switch between multiple program windows when using Windows?

The reason I keep the windows smaller than the screen is so I can easily switch between programs and documents, so there should be no need for multiple monitors. For an entire monitor screen filled with one program, as in this photo of your setup:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/archives/images/bill_gates_400.jpg

would give me the willies!

Also, the tabbed browsing in IE8 makes switching between e-mail and other Internet documents a snap, so why again are three monitors needed?

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Joan Guerra — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 02:17:19 GMT

have you tried three monitors even Microsoft products being able to swtich between applications it's so much easier and faster to have main applicationes opened on each monitor for faster acccess, also Bill and me likes to see something while were doing something else, for example read an email while we explore a website its easier than just using alt+tab

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Vivek — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:58:16 GMT

Surprised that even you (Bill Gates) didn't find Tasks useful until 2007 was out. I am a great fan of MS products and now Google is pulling me away. We need more 'on the web' work tools which don't force me to use the same PC (or laptop) everywhere I go. Once installed, MS products work awesome, but anything that can assist me in using services on the web, like Google does in thousands of products now can keep me with MS forever!

Viv.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Outlook 2007 Junkie — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:00:07 GMT

> He may or may not use this product

If he really used Outlook as his main application, would Bill really say:

"The advances we made in Outlook 2007 for filtering, rules, and search folders have made it much easier to manage my e-mail than before, especially because so much happens automatically once I've set everything up."

Other e-mail programs have had these features for years, as has Outlook to some extent. But setting up an managing your rules is overly complicated and confusing. Why must two rules be created for EVERY mailbox (in and out)? Why are the rules managed from a MODAL dialog? Why is the tiny little dialog box not resizable, so that you can only see 7 rules at once? And why do multiple other modal dialogs pop up on top of the initial one while trying to manage your rules.

The Outlook Rules interface feels arcane (even in Outlook 2007). Even renaming is confusing (where is it? -- try Change Rule, then rename). You can't just select a rule and rename it like you'd expect.

It's difficult to see how someone as brilliant and ruthless as Bill Gates would put up with this type of interface, given the advances all around him.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

NOTAFAN — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:54:11 GMT

For your comments to ideas to matter, Microsoft would have to care about users. They care about their true customers, crappy IT departments.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Richard — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:25:20 GMT

If he uses outlook 2007 he is a fool, previous iterations sure, why not but 2007 is a step back.

1) hire a decent designer.

2) hire a decent copy writer.

3) stop forcing your brand upon us at every possible interval.

4) add decent rendering engine.

Then we'll talk. kthnxbye.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Yonitg — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 23:24:49 GMT

I am using outlook for work, and Google's gmail for my private mail, thats helps seperating my two worlds.

Also I just tried out share point, and it looks like a fully detailed collaboration software, but I'm looking for an open source project that does the same things, does anyone has a recommendation?

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Yaron — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:47:37 GMT

"I try to bring my Tablet PC to meetings as often as possible so that I can use OneNote 2007 to write notes in ink that can later be searched or converted to text."

I think it would be much easy way to work, if Mr.Gates had work with Mobile Note Taker from Pegasus Technologies Ltd. - it's small, write in every paper and capture your handwriting and when he back to the office, he can download the notes (even to OneNote) and searched or convert it to text.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

ARealFerengi — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:56:13 GMT

I wonder how the 3 flat screen configured and synchronized to act as a big wide screen monitor.

Mr. Gates, please, share with us this secret :)

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Avinash — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:13:06 GMT

i kind of use 3 monitors.one for checking emails and another for digital painting in photoshop and another one for browsing :D

I got idea of using 3 monitors for Mr.Gates

now my work is 10X more faster then before

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Guillermo — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 18:55:49 GMT

Bill soy un gran admirador tuyo,y valoro mucho lo que as conseguido,me gustaria saber que se siente por un dia haciendo lo que tu haces,y lo mismo que tu sueño es estar donde estar,concedeme ese sueño aunque sea un dia solo. Creo te puedo sorprender con algo que descubriras y sacaras una gran conclusion. un saludo y espero saber de ti. 651-62-35-67

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Daniel — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:51:54 GMT

When you say "synchronized so they work like a single very wide display" you mean that your taskbar is three screens wide and when you maximize a window it uses all three screens? I don't see that very usefull.

re: Office Hours: How Bill Gates uses Office

Kanye West — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:52:17 GMT

Yo Bill Gates, Im really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but this guy has the best computer setup http://globetrottingonline.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-computer-setup-at-home.html