Hello Everyone,

Wow, it has been a busy spring. We kicked off the year with the Microsoft Mastery Academy, and following that, I have been traveling extensively for a number of really cool client events all over the United States and, on the side, as time has permitted, I have been working on a home flooring project (2 1/2 rooms completed so far). Wanted to see if I could do it myself, and was pleasantly surprised! We used the Mohawk "UniClic" flooring, and it was pretty easy (no glue!) It still takes quite a bit of time though to do it right -- skilled trades people deserve every dollar they get.

To give my knees a bit of rest from the flooring work, I have also been studying AI tools on the side. And that is what I will talk about in this issue:

More Tips on Copilot and Gemini

I actually created this image to the right that I'm now using on my promo doc for my new program:

Microsoft Moved My Cheese!

As I said, I have continued testing and practicing with these AI tools. They are fun, amazing, and even a little bit scary, but I do see how they can be very useful as time saving tools in an office environment. I even made this little video showing how you can use Microsoft's Copilot to craft the text of a thank you email -- this same tip works in Google's Gemini too (and Gemini can also create images like above).

I really see quite a bit of opportunity using these tools like this. Asking for their assistance in helping to craft a first draft of a document or email could really be a timesaver and help you get by any writer's block. I could also see them being quite useful on what I call "web-scraping" type activities – what that means is a set of data that you know is out on the web somewhere, but would require numerous searches to gather all of the different pieces of information. AI can do in seconds or minutes what it would take a human to do in hours. An example would be looking up the contact information for people with your same job title within your industry or association. Or, you could ask it to compile a list with contact information of all of the conference centers on the north side of Chicago. I cannot verify that the results will be fully complete, or that the contact information will all be up-to-date, but I can guarantee you it will save you a lot of time in your initial research activities.

And, as you get better with creating "prompts" (the text queries you type into the AI tool), you will get even better results. You can even ask follow up questions to modify or refine your results. It looks like Copilot is now standard in the new Windows 11 devices, so start practicing now, as these tools will change everything.

Cool New Button in New and Web Outlook:

The "My Day" Button -- You Will LIKE This!

By the way, not only am I doing AI demonstrations now in several of my programs, but in my Microsoft programs specifically where I reference Outlook (Taming E-mail, Optimizing Outlook, Finding an Extra Hour, etc.), I am now showing both the "Old" Outlook ( the local client version that many of you are still using) as well as tips in both the New and Web Outlook.

People keep asking me if I have a preference. I actually think I could use any of the three just fine. And New and Web Outlook are remarkably similar. I may still like the task views in the old Outlook a bit better, but I could certainly work with the views in Microsoft To Do. And by the way, if your company has switched completely to New or Web Outlook, I could absolutely lead a program for your team with demonstrations in the new software. Microsoft has most definitely been keeping me busy, but I should probably thank them for all of the job security!

Yes, I've been busy. And I hope to make quite a number of new videos in coming months as I keep exploring New and Web Outlook and reexploring Gmail and other Google tools. If you haven't subscribed to my YouTube Channel yet, this might be a great time to do so! You could also follow me on LinkedIn, as I typically post all new videos there too.

App of the Month: Google Gemini AI Assistant

(Plus a Tip on Gemini for iPhone/iPad Users)

This is interesting -- you can definitely get the Google Gemini app if you are using Android devices: https://gemini.google.com/app/download

However, if you want to access Gemini as of this writing on an iPhone or iPad, you can access it through the Google app on your device -- just go up to the very top and click on the tiny icon that looks like a 4-point star. (You can use the link above to access a QR code to get the Google app for your Apple device.)

I'm fully betting that an iPhone app specific to Gemini will be out very soon, so watch your App Store in coming weeks.

But how about a bad dad joke? You won't believe this, but this silly video has almost 20,000 views on Facebook/Instagram Reels and nearly 4,000 also on the YouTube link below -- I'm quite proud of this as I think it is a joke of my own making:

Randy Dean, MBA

The E-mail Sanity Expert ®

https://randalldean.com/

https://www.youtube.com/c/RandyDeantimelyman

https://www.linkedin.com/in/randydean/

https://twitter.com/DeanTimelyman