Greetings! As Cary mentioned in a previous post, I accepted the Executive Director position with the Center for Arts Management and Technology; and after three weeks on the job, I couldn't be more thrilled. I love the mission; the staff is fantastic; and the work environment has been wonderfully inviting. There's just one thing...relearning Microsoft Office. I know that part of changing jobs involves learning new policies, procedures, systems, and (in this day and age) software; but this is Office I'm talking about here - the backbone of administration, right? At my previous organization, I grew to be an "advanced" user with Office 2002. I had a gold star and everything; but now, I have to learn Office 2007, and I'm right back in the novice seat.

Sure, I have transitioned between previous versions of Office, but this is different. For example, they took away my trusty standard toolbar in Word - you know the one with File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools, Window and Help - and replaced it with a Fluent user interface featuring Home, Insert, Page Layout, References, Mailings, Review and View. Okay, okay...maybe that's not such a big deal.

But what about this? They changed the file extensions. Now, when I send a MS Word document to a colleague, they receive a .docx file instead of a .doc file. That's four letters instead of three. What were they thinking? Of course, I can save my files in an Office 2002-compatible format before sending them, and Microsoft does offer a series of converters allowing users of previous Office versions to open 2007 files.

Hmmm, maybe this transition isn't going to be that difficult after all.

Click here for more information on the improvements built into Office 2007