Category Archives: Skills Guide

Working on some non-fiction writing goals

PolyWogg.ca
March 8 2025

My biggest output to date is my HR guide, in all its forms, going back to 2004 or so. I’m happy people like it, the price doesn’t hurt ($0, downloadable PDF with no friction to access), and there is limited competition in a narrow niche. But I have plans for other guides, and to that end, I’ve been working on some cover pages for the books to serve as inspiration. My list of planned books is growing, though, and I have decided to start working on some of them before I retire instead of waiting.

HR-related books

First and foremost, I’ll update the HR Guide to competitions, aka Be the Duck. It’s relatively given that I’ll update it, and I’ll probably do three more significant updates before I call it quits when I retire.

Secondly, I am doing one called Be the Swan, which is more about managing your career.

Thirdly, I’ll do one called Be the SheepDog about being a manager with some elements about becoming an EX potentially.

And finally, one about “when things go wrong” and you have to deal with conflict, grievances, staffing complaints, etc. I’m not entirely sure what that one will look like. I’ve considered a few formats, but none particularly resonate with me yet.… Read the rest

My brain won’t let a creative idea go for PolyWogg guides…

PolyWogg.ca
February 19 2025

I think I’ve mentioned more than once (hah!) that I think in frameworks. It’s one of the reasons why I wrote my HR guide. I have a framework that works for me, it makes sense to me. More importantly, it lets me make sense of the HR world AND to be able to communicate that approach to others in a way that often resonates with them and let’s them understand it.

I’m not the smartest guy in the room. I don’t have the deepest insights. I’m not the most experienced with the most profound understanding of a topic. But I often can find a way within a framework approach to figure out how **I** understand it, and then explain that same approach to others in a way that they tell me they find helpful.

It works well for HR, but I am confident enough to admit that I know it is an approach that works in other areas too. I might have trouble EXPLAINING the framework until I’ve actually created it or written it down, but once I have it down in some form of written or graphic form, it’s clear. And then I own it intellectually, spiritually, physically, mentally. It becomes part of me.… Read the rest

Lynda.com: PowerPoint 2013 Specialist – Lesson 03: Working with slides

PolyWogg.ca
May 14 2020

While Lesson 03 is only 14.5 minutes long, I started following along with the video and pausing it here and there so I could do the steps myself. It drastically increases the training time, but it really helps with learning the new stuff that goes beyond the simple basics of Lessons 1 and 2. This lesson is about working with the actual slides, managing their order for example, and so it includes adding and removing slides, changing the slide layout, organizing slides into sections, and simply rearranging slides.

I confess, as I mentioned previously, I was pretty confident that I could do most things I needed to do in PowerPoint. Which is apparently not the same as doing them the RIGHT way, which is way faster than my hacked techniques. Take for example where I’m really not sure how I want a slide to look, so I might start with a slide with dual text box layouts. Then, half-way through the slide, I might realize that it would be better for it to be in a table layout for more understandable visuals. So I would then add a table, resize it and play around with it, and make it fit. Not according to the default slide-with-table layout, just me doing it manually.… Read the rest