In the month of February, I am going to be touring Arizona User Groups presenting on OneNote. I will be speaking 38 times in 21 days. Yes - you can probably see the word sucker stamped on my forehead…
I am looking forward to sharing my favorite application with between 1,000 and 2,000 people across the various meetings. I know what I want to tell them, and have known for quite a while. The name of the talk is "OneNote: Software you don't know you need." The description I gave the clubs for the talk is available in the PDF for the presentation description, which is available from the AZACC (Arizona Alliance of Computer Clubs) site. I am not going to be using my tablet as my main machine. I hope to counter the "tablet only" application belief by using a regular desktop as my presentation machine.
I am planning to create new notebooks for each session and present the information interactively. I am going to start by showing how information is organized in OneNote. I will then move to the basics of adding text notes, pictures, drawings, etc. I plan to show how to tag items for classification. I want to be sure to show how to create tables, and how to use napkin math for simple computations.
I have a few different approaches I am considering for adding web content. These range from receipts from web orders to web research results to blog posts and link pages. Most of the groups have seen my SnagIt presentation, so I will probably show how to send a snag to OneNote as well. I suppose I should send a presentation or document to OneNote as well, but haven't decided on that yet. I may even show how to add notes from Outlook (calendar items, emails, contact information).
Once there is some content in the group notebook, I will be showing off OneNote's search. I will show how to search for text and flags all through out the notebooks. I'm hoping to get some reactions when the content in a printout is found by the search.
Because I am taking two computers with me, I will be able to show off shared notebooks from USB drives and (if time allows) live sharing. How much of that I do at each session will depend on the questions I get from the audiences. Another item that falls into the "as I have time category" is recording some audio and/or video during the presentation. This will show how easy it is to take notes during the recordings and find the content later.
Beyond the above, I know there are certain tips and tricks I want to show. I also want to be sure to provide a page of links to OneNote resources on the web. (In fact, I will probably create a blog entry with the resources and point the attendees there.)
My question to all of you is: What are the two or three things that you show off in OneNote that always makes people go "Wow"? What tools and sites should I put on my link page? In other words: What have I missed?
Share your comments with me and the world. Help spread the word about the wonder of OneNote!