If you’re starting a new business or planning your business’s future, there are plenty of things you should take into account. Strategic Planning For Dummies covers everything you need to know to develop a plan for building and maintaining a competitive advantage – no matter what business you’re in. Written by Erica Olsen, founder and President of a business development firm that helps entrepreneurial-minded businesses plan for a successful future, this handy guide covers all the basics, including: How a strategic plan is different than a business plan Establishing a step-based planning process Planning for and encouraging growth Taking a long-view of your organization Evaluating past performance Defining and refining your mission, values, and vision Sizing up your current situation Examining your industry landscape Setting your strategic priorities Planning for unknown contingencies If you’re in business, you have to plan for everything – especially if you intend your business to grow. Whether you’re planning for a small business, large conglomerate, nonprofit, or even a government agency, this book has the planning specifics you need for your organization. Step-by-step, you’ll learn how to lay the foundations for a plan, understand how your plan will affect your business, form planning teams, discover what your strengths are, see where you are, and, finally, plan where you’re going. And there’s much more: Learn to analyze business trends that will determine your business’s future Set measurable, realistic goals that you can plan for and achieve Make strategic planning a habitual part of the organization Prioritize multiple strategies that you can implement simultaneously Set a defining vision for the organization that guides all your planning and strategy This friendly, simple guide puts the power of strategic planning in the palm of your hand. For small businesses that can’t afford to hire strategic planning consultants, it’s even more imperative. Careful, constant planning is the only way to handle an uncertain business future. With this book, you’ll have all the step-by-step guidance you need to ensure you’re ready for anything that comes.
New and inexperienced PowerPoint users will discover how to use the latest enhancements to PowerPoint 2007 quickly and efficiently so that they can produce unique and informative presentations PowerPoint continues to be the world's most popular presentation software This updated For Dummies guide shows users different ways to create powerful and effective slideshow presentations that incorporate data from other applications in the form of charts, clip art, sound, and video Shares the key features of PowerPoint 2007 including creating and editing slides, working with hyperlinks and action buttons, and preparing presentations for the Web
If you want to diversify your portfolio and lower your risk exposure with hedge funds, here’s what you should know: Hedge Funds For Dummies explains all the different types of funds, explores the pros and cons of funds as an investment, shows you how to find a good broker, and much more. Authored by Ann Logue, a financial writer and hedge fund specialist, this handy, friendly guide covers all the bases for investors of all levels. Whether you’re just building your first portfolio or you’ve been investing for years, you’ll find everything you need to know inside: What a hedge fund is and what it does How hedge funds are structured Determining whether a hedge fund is right for your portfolio Calculating investment risk and return Short- and long-term tax issues Developing a hedge fund investment strategy Monitoring and profiting on macroeconomic trends Evaluating fund performance Evaluating hedge fund management If you’re investing for the future, you definitely want to minimize your risk and maximize your returns. A balanced portfolio with hedge funds is one of the best ways to achieve that sort of balance. This book walks you step by step through the process of evaluating and choosing funds, incorporating them into your portfolio in the right amounts, and making sure they give you the returns you expect and deserve. You’ll learn all the ins and outs of funds, including: What kind of fees you should expect to pay Picking a hedge fund advisor or broker Fulfilling paperwork and purchasing requirements Performing technical analysis and reading the data How to withdraw funds and handle the taxes Tracking fund performance yourself or through reporting services Hedge fund strategies for smaller portfolios Performing due diligence on funds that interest you This friendly, to-the-point resource includes information you can’t do without, including sample portfolios that show you how to invest wisely. Hedge funds are an important part of every balanced portfolio, and this friendly guide tells how to use them to your best advantage. With important resources, vital information, and commonsense advice, Hedge Funds For Dummies is the perfect resource for every investor interested in hedge funds.
Featuring updated charts dealing with the most common situations welding workers face on the job , this comprehensive, pocket-sized reference is based on recommendations from working professionals and covers welding symbols and definitions, types of joints and welds, typical welding station configurations, oxygen cylinders, arc-welding charts, U.S metric measures, and more.
"Best-selling author Gookin…keeps readers laughing while he takes them from being a ho-hum user to an advanced Office maven." —Charles Carr, ComputorEdge Magazine, www.computoredge.com Just about anyone can slap together a Word document or fill an Excel grid with numbers, but power users understand how to tap into the full functionality of these applications. Best-selling author Dan Gookin skips what you already know and takes you directly to the best and most useful parts of Word and Excel–the commands, shortcuts, and combinations of functions that will give your creations that extra-added wow factor. The only book to focus exclusively on these two critical applications, Power Excel and Word teaches you how to harness their power and avoid their pitfalls in one compact volume. By following step-by-step tutorials, you'll discover how to work faster, easier, and smarter. Learn essential techniques you'll use every day, including how to: Precisely format a paragraph in Word Manipulate drawings and pictures in a document Create your own custom tool bars Know when to use a table in Word and when to insert an Excel worksheet Embellish your documents and reports Generate sophisticated charts and graphs by importing Web-based content Use styles and templates to save oodles of time Protect your documents against unwanted changes Employ Excel as a database manager Share your work with others Produce a list in Excel as a mail merge database for Word And much, much more! Most Office books are boring and quickly go out of date. Dan Gookin takes a uniquely entertaining approach designed to increase your skills, whether you're using Office 2003, Office XP, or Office 2000. And many of these tricks are even effective in Office 97!
Your Guide to Essential AutoCAD Techniques Award-winning and best-selling AutoCAD author George Omura has developed this practical reference to help you learn AutoCAD basics easily and efficiently. His straightforward explanations and realistic exercises focus squarely on accomplishing vital tasks. Whether you're completely new to AutoCAD or you're looking for a quick refresher to perform a particular task, Just Enough AutoCAD 2006 provides the authoritative instruction you need. You'll become familiar with the drafting tools of AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT and learn how to: Draw accurately and quickly Effectively edit AutoCAD drawings Create 3D models Get organized with layers, blocks, groups, and external references Efficiently add and edit notes and dimensions Find areas and distances quickly Extract hidden data Set up AutoCAD to work with your printer
Learn What Usability Really Is, Why to Strive for It, and How to Achieve It «Highly useable» software is easy to use. It does what you expect it to. And it does it well. It's not easy to build but as this book demonstrates, it's well worth the effort. Highly useable software is highly successful software—and everyone wins. Inside, an accomplished programmer who has made usability his business systematically explores the world of programming, showing you how every aspect of the work is implicated in the usability of the final product. This is not just an «issues» book, however, but systematic, real-world instructions for developing applications that are better in every way. As you'll learn, there's no such thing as «intuitive» software. Instead, there are just the factors that make it highly useable: simplicity, consistency, the recognition of accepted conventions, and the foregrounding of the user's perspective. With these principles under your belt, you'll quickly discover dozens of ways to make your applications more useable: Making windows and dialog boxes easy to comprehend and use Designing software that is time- and resource-efficient Making your software easy to navigate Reducing the complexity of reports and other presentations of data Understanding how the wrong programming decisions can limit usability Ensuring smooth starts and stops Capitalizing on the usability advantages of object-oriented programming Understanding how usability affects your product's financial success Using the testing process to improve usability Promoting usability in training, installation, and online help Making management decisions that will benefit software usability Some chapters are written primarily for programmers, one primarily for managers. Most are for everyone, and all are filled with illuminating, usually amusing examples drawn from both inside and outside the technical world. A helpful appendix provides information on standards, usability groups, and sources for more information.
Have you thought about signing with your baby or toddler? Parents and caregivers are discovering the benefits of using American Sign Language (ASL) to communicate with children long before they can speak. Some studies show that signing babies talk sooner, have larger vocabularies, and have fewer tantrums! Baby Signing For Dummies gives you the skills to connect in a meaningful way with your hearing baby or toddler. Packed with more than 150 illustrated signs, this friendly, easy-to-follow guide shows you how to use simple hand gestures and baby-specific signing techniques to start interacting with your baby. Every sign is accompanied by step-by-step directions and an illustration—from meeting and greeting, people, and mealtime signs to clothes, animals, outdoor signs, and, of course, bath time and bedtime. You’ll discover how to: Introduce signs to your baby Incorporate signing into daily life Make everyday events easier with signs Overcome stumbling blocks Decrease fussing and crying through signing Help your baby sign combinations of words Keep your baby safe with signing Get the whole family involved Find outside help (Web sites, videos, and signing schools and courses) Complete with illustrations of the entire ASL alphabet, signing dos and don’ts, and ten songs to sign along with, Baby Signing For Dummies is the key to enhancing communication with your child and increasing his/her intelligence in a simple, fun, and rewarding way!
One look at Excel 2007, with its new Office Button, Quick Access toolbar, and Ribbon, and you realize you’re not in Kansas anymore. Well, have no fear— Excel 2007 for Dummies is here! If you’ve never worked with a computer spreadsheet, or if you’ve had some experience with earlier versions of Excel but need help transitioning, here you’ll find everything you need to create, edit, format, and print your own worksheets (without sacrificing your sanity!). Excel 2007 for Dummies covers all the fundamental techniques, concentrating on only the easiest, most user-friendly ways to get things done. You’ll discover how to: Rearrange, delete and insert new information Keep track of and organize data in a single worksheet Transfer data between the sheets of different workbooks Create a chart using the data in a worksheet Add hyperlinks and graphics to worksheets And more! Plus, in keeping with Excel 2007’s more graphical and colorful look, Excel 2007 for Dummies has taken on some color of its own, with full-color plates in the mid-section of the book illustrating exactly what you’ll see on your screen. Whether you read it from cover to cover or skip to the sections that answer your specific questions, the simple guidance in this book will have you excelling at home or in the office no time.
Create music CDs and photo DVDs or even watch TV Move your files to a new computer, or get your old PC ready for Vista The thing that's made Windows For Dummies so successful is that it's packed with the basics you need to make Windows work. This book gets you through all the Windows Vista tasks and tripwires, including starting programs, finding files, navigating the new see-through interface, staying safe while you cruise the Internet, and much more. Discover how to Find files when they're hiding Hook up with another computer Make Vista work like XP Block Internet bad guys Share a PC without sharing your files Fix problems yourself