Phavanhna Douangboupha submitted her template to the Microsoft Office Make it Great contest. Her inspiring idea of "Urban Forests" captured more votes at our Facebook page, and she walks away with a cool $10K. John Erwin Magno and Jerrit Wolfe took the runners-up rewards.       

Here's Phavanhna's entry:

If you are looking to add some pizzazz to your presentation, we can certainly help. Take a look in the full post at some easy lessons in PowerPoint...

--Doug Thomas

All of you might not read the PowerPoint blog, so I wanted to be sure to direct you over to this post from our Images content manager, Natalie K. Parks, that outlines some great new offerings from our partner Fotolio. So mozey on over and find out about the free videos you can get to use in PowerPoint 2010. Then let us know what you think.

-- Nancy

Anyone who has a profile on Office.com can now share their content with a badge. If you have submitted content to Office.com, grab the code from your Office.com profile page and add a badge to your site! Show your fans or followers what you created. Find out how...

Doug's slides are boring. Ron's are not. Doug started with a blank PowerPoint slide. Ron started with a group of professionally made designer templates from Office.com called PPT165. Watch:

These slides work for PowerPoint 2007 and PowerPoint 2010. Find out more about the program and download the slides at Office.com. You can remember the handy short URL: http://bit.ly/ppt165.

--Doug Thomas & Ron Owens

See more episodes of Top Templates at The Office Blog

Doug has a problem with keeping his notes organized. Ron has the solution: OneNote. With the built-in templates note taking is a snap, along with other fringe benefits, as Doug discovers. See more about OneNote templates at Office.com.

--Doug Thomas & Ron Owens

The planning calendar is a mess. See how Doug and Ron use Office Web Apps and an Excel template to coordinate the year and coauthor the calendar online.

You can download the Excel template 2011 Year Long Calendar now. See more about free Office Web Apps at Office.com.

--Doug Thomas & Ron Owens

Thanks to everyone who entered our 2011 calendar template contest. There were 52 entries this year, and I think you will agree that there are some clever people out there, as the entries are widely varied in functionality and appearance. Your contributions will help the thousands of Office.com customers who come to our site looking for 2011 calendars this time of year.

And the winner is. . .  

Our 2011 calendar template contest closes on 9/30.

 Have you entered yet? Take a look at the submissions so far - there are some very creative approaches to calendars. And if you're counting applications, it's time for some Word and Publisher fans to submit some entries. Excel experts seem to be ahead of the curve. Perhaps they were prompted by Amy's blog entry.  Then again, Word afficianodos, where are you?

If you don't want to enter a template in the contest, how about finding your favorite among the submissions and downloading it and rating it? That's how to cast your vote.

 So, on your mark, get ready, go vote!

--- Nancy

Starting today, September 8th, you are invited to apply your template creativity to our 2011 calendar template contest. Entries will be accepted through September 30th and winners will be announced October 6th - 13th on our templates home page.

How To Win
What do you have to do to win? First, create an exceptional 2011 calendar template for Word, PowerPoint, Publisher or Excel. Then....

Read on for the details

Those of you who fastidiously plan the year ahead will be pleased to see a new set of basic 2011 calendar templates has been published to Office.com. Take these basic calendars and use the design features of each program, such as enhanced image options in Word,  to personalize them for your own use. And consider this - if you create a calendar you are truly pleased with, why not share it with other users? Simply create your own profile on Office.com, then submit your template.

--Nancy