Do you know how to___?

Ever spent an hour cleaning up names in a spreadsheet because someone entered first name and last name in the same column? Me too. And you probably also knew there had to be an easier way, but just couldn't figure it out.

And that, in a nutshell, is why we launched the Tip of the Day last February. We're not all data wizards or masters of Excel, but someone in the community is. So we decided to create a platform to share community knowledge, from technical tips in Data, to New Media strategies, Field tricks, management systems, and much more. 

Sign up for Tip of the Day to get a nugget of organizing knowledge in your inbox each weekday!

Tips are one of the ways we're working to support you and thousands of other organizers across the country and around the world. The tips come from many sources -- our staff, other organizations, NOI community members like you -- and cover pretty much every topic in organizing.

For example, in the last two weeks we featured tips on optimizing your website for Facebook sharing, picking your battles wisely, creating project workplans, and an Excel function that lets you quickly evaluate your data. And tips aren't a big long email (like this one). We keep them to about 250 words so you can grab some helpful info in under a minute a day. A quick intro, some action steps, and you're on your way.

Sign up now for the Tip of the Day!

I curate the Tip program, so I see every tip we send. Even when they're not directly relevant to my work, they help me better understand what my coworkers and peers do every day. I don't know about you, but I like to know how the entire organization around me works. And many of the tips have given me great new tools, skills, or practices that make me a more effective organizer and more capable teammate.

If you're into knowing stuff, I hope you'll join us,

Evan Sutton is Communications Manager at NOI

P.S. To help you solve the problem of First and Last in the same column in your Excel doc, check out this tip on using Text to Columns to separate data.