A recent article on CNN highlighted what a day in the office would be like with Bill Gates. All in all it might be exactly what you’d think, but maybe not quite as high-tech or cutting edge. He basically makes use of Outlook to organize his day. His main office computer drives three separate monitors which he states is the key to productivity:
On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you’ll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.
He uses a tablet PC that is synchronized to his office PC for taking notes in meetings. Outlook seems to be at the epicenter of the organizational pyramid. Bill effectively uses multiple inbox rules and his personal assistant (human, not PDA) to stay on top of e-mails that aren’t directly from someone he knows. Microsoft also employs technology that routes faxes and voice-mails into their Outlook inboxes as well.
Another item that Bill values in his office is his whiteboard. An excellent way of sharing ideas and brainstorming with others in the office, or even by himself. I was surprised to find out that he stated others at Microsoft have digital whiteboards which automatically upload anything written on them to a computer. He doesn’t have one of those yet, maybe this next year (sounds like a kid at Christmas. If any of you are in the situation of needing to buy Bill a present and don’t know what to get the man who has or could have anything, I’d recommend the digital whiteboard).
The ForeverGeek blog posted an article in response to this article as well, but they made the statement that they wonder if it was just one big marketing ploy:
He seems to mention a lot of Microsoft-built software in the article (of course!), such as Outlook, OneNote and Sharepoint, as well as a Microsoft-powered TabletPC. This makes me wonder whether the article was just one big marketing pitch.
Did they expect him to say he used Google and Yahoo and Basecamp for all his daily activities? Of course he uses Microsoft’s own products. Is that to say he hasn’t used the others? Probably not, but I’ve come to find out that Microsoft does a pretty good job of “eating their own dog food”. Expecting Bill not to use Microsoft products would be like waiting to hear Emeril gush about the great meal he had last night at McDonalds.
Source: How I Work: Bill Gates
Source: How Bill Gates Works at Forever Geek
