WMU News

Making your Palm work for you

Sept. 3, 2002

KALAMAZOO -- Businessmen and women are invited to tote their Palm devices out to a Western Michigan University presentation Thursday, Sept. 19, to learn how to make the most of this handy tool.

Dr. Larry Mallak of WMU will present "Tricks You Can Teach Your Palm" from 12:15 to 12:45 p.m. in the Federal Room of the Kalamazoo County Chamber of Commerce building, 346 W. Michigan Ave. Sponsored by WMU's Women's Business Development Center, the program is free and open to the public. Attendees are welcome to bring lunch to the talk.

Reservations are required. To reserve a seat, contact Patricia Guenther at (269) 387-2714 or <patricia.guenther@wmich.edu>.

Attendees are encouraged to bring along their handheld devices to this interactive workshop aimed at beginning and intermediate users of the Palm operating system. Those considering purchasing a Palm system are also welcome. Mallak will discuss basic functions for managing your schedule, contacts and to-do lists; exchanging information between your Palm and your desktop; and getting Web content on your handheld.

"There are literally thousands of ways to use your Palm device," says Mallak. "Users are really losing out on a great opportunity if they're not using their handhelds as more than just a calendar. I've run entire PowerPoint presentations from my Palm, and you can do anything from tracking expenses to generating forms and editing Word or Excel documents."

An associate professor of industrial and manufacturing engineering at WMU, Mallak just finished a sabbatical during which he worked with a Southwest Michigan hospital to diagnose its organizational culture, identify linkages between that culture and performance, and to formulate actions to shift its culture. An expert in organizational culture, he has worked with the U.S. Department of Energy, Westinghouse and the U.S. Army, among other organizations. A former management engineering consultant for a national health care network, Mallak studies and consults in the areas of organizational analysis, culture management and change, and employee surveying. He is a founding principal of WMU's Engineering Management Research Laboratory.

WMU's Haworth College of Business established the Women's Business Development Center in 1999 to offer support to female professionals and entrepreneurs by providing training, problem-solving consultation, current business information and networking opportunities.

Media contact: Jessica English, 269 387-8400, jessica.english@wmich.edu


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