Event write up by Sue McNulty, regular attendee
From jazzy socks to Word Perfect memories to Scottish humourism – the Document Excellence Day did not fail to deliver, as always.
The first session by Simon Ellis-Hughes (nice socks, Simon!) showed us some new features of 365. He also clarified why Outlook rebranded it’s colour to blue, which apparently was done to bring Outlook under the umbrella of “Communications Blue” which Skype also falls under – who knew?!
The breaks in between sessions gave us enough time to mingle with other peers and I enjoyed bumping into former colleagues (one from 20 years ago – we must have been around 6 years old when we first worked together!).
I picked up some really good tips during the seminars and one presentation which stood out was by Fiona Donkin on BLearning for the Scottish firm, Brodies – it was great to see how she got the Brodies elearning project up and running (although she did mention alcohol quite a few times – maybe Captivate/Articulate should come with some form of alcohol subscription too?!).
Adrienne Mansfield presented her case study on Paper Reduction and gave some really good tips on reducing the paper in the office, one of my favourites being the Open Archive policy to get files off site which are unable to be fully archived because they still have balances on them. And the thought of having 5 linear miles’ worth of paper in the office… well…!
The Evolution of the Matter File presentation was interesting and thanks go to Simon Elven for bringing back wonderful Word Perfect memories to the audience. A collective Ahhhhhh went around the room when he showed his Word Perfect screenshot.
Although Clare Waller wasn’t ‘hosting’ the event this year (Marianne did a fantastic job stepping in), Clare did make an appearance with Rod Lambert to discuss themes and it was surprising how much you can do with them. I’m guilty of being one of those people who just think of them in terms of PowerPoint branding, but there is so much more to them.
Although I had to leave early to travel back to Manchester, I believe the rest of the sessions were equally interesting and as always, Ryan didn’t disappoint with a meerkat appearance!
To sum up, the day itself was “Pure, dead, brilliant” (Scottish for excellent, apparently).
Sue McNulty
IT Trainer
Brabners
