May 2012 - Judy Gregory Writer

Asking the right questions

I've just been given a form for a chess tournament that my son would like to attend It's a classic example of a form that fails to ask the right questions to collect the information that the organisers needThe flyer asks parents complete the application form and send it in via mail, fax, or email In the text of the flyer, parents are told to provide their child's name, rating, date of birth, school, year level, and parent's contact details All logical information that the organisers are likely...

B is for Blank – the answer to a question that I didn’t know existed

Yesterday I learned that, when you press 'b' on the keyboard while using PowerPoint in slide view mode, the screen goes blankThis little bit of information is a revelation to me I've used PowerPoint in thousands of presentations and workshops, and I've always assumed that shifting the screen to blank is a function of the projector, not a function of the keyboardYesterday, as I was preparing to give a short workshop on workplace writing, I asked my client about whether the projector could...

Blind to mistakes

I got another reminder this week of how blind I am to my own mistakes Not that I'm unusual here - we're all good at missing the blatantly obviousMy mistake this week was the simple copying of a number from one spreadsheet to another I couldn't understand why I had money left after a transaction, and I spent time hunting for income that I'd forgotten It didn't even cross my mind to look for a silly typo! Thankfully, someone else noticed itSome mistakes leave me feeling pretty silly, and this was...