One fascinating result that emerges from Microsoft research is the picture of Office 2010
users.
Think of one of those amazing mosaic portraits, which—when you look closely—you see is actually made up of thousands of tiny, individual photos. Office 2010 users represent an amazing, diverse, multitalented global group that uses Office to accomplish just about every possible productivity task you can imagine. Their needs and interests vary greatly, and their use of the different Office applications runs the gamut from the very simple to the incredibly complex.
Today’s Office 2010 users often move back and forth among applications, depending on the tasks they’re engaged in at any given time. Here are some typical scenarios:
Meredith is a customer service representative in a large company. Her job includes fast-paced communications: she receives and sends e-mail messages to dozens of customers, prepares and sends proposals, updates Web information, and tracks campaign results in the customer services database. Occasionally, Meredith gets to lead brainstorming sessions for new campaigns (she loves that) and compiles the notes for the team. Printouts of colorful SmartArt diagrams she created in Word and PowerPoint—as well as her favorite “The Far Side” cartoon—are hanging on her cubicle walls. Her daily tasks require a whole palette of applications: Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, Publisher,
OneNote, and occasionally, Access.
Ian is a mid-level manager in the communications department of the same company. As team leader, he is in charge of planning, budgeting, and managing all reports and support materials that are eveloped to support the company’s product line. He uses Outlook for scheduling and task management, and works with Word, Access, and Excel for reviewing and working with important data. Ian’s team also prepares company reports and public relations materials using Word and Publisher. Dominik is marketing coordinator—she is responsible for messaging campaigns, running
budgets, hiring contractors, working with the board, maintaining a database, conducting webinars, providing online training, and more. She uses Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Publisher, and Access, and she needs to be available for decisions and updates continually. Because she manages a department of five, she uses Microsoft SharePoint 2010 to keep the team organized and working efficiently. Kamil is an Office power user who has a long commute to and from his Washington
office each day. He has reduced the impact of his travel time by telecommuting two days a week, but he also wants to be able to get a start on work—or wrap things up for the day—when he’s on the train. Whether he’s working from home or he’s in the office, he uses Outlook, Excel, Word, and SharePoint to run his department, keep the team on track, host meetings, review and sign off on documents, and make the calls that impact the bottom line in his department. xiv Introduction
n Todd is the IT manager for the business. He is in charge of upgrading, deploying, and training staff on Office 2010. He also secures and backs up all files, writes custom utilities for the Web portal, and works in customer and staff support. He is a programmer and power user of all Office applications, but he has a small staff, so he needs to be able to offer training and support in a cost-effective and productive way. Office 2010 includes a range of features that will support the daily activities of each of these users. The consistent look and feel of the Ribbon helps ensure that users are comfortable and
confident working with any of the Office applications. Changes in each of the applications make it easier to produce and share professional results in a variety of ways. And not only do the Office applications work together smoothly as an integrated system, they provide easy collaboration, anywhere access, and all the productivity tools users need as their work tasks change and grow.
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