Decrease the time spent using the Start menu
At first use, the Windows Vista (and now Windows 7) Start menus are a bit odd. I thought it was short-sighted of Microsoft to make the menu so small and require scrolling, but what it did was force me to use the search feature. Just type the name (or even part of the name) of the program you'd like to launch and press enter. That's it, you've launched the program. You may think that it's a small thing, but when you're constantly opening new applications it gets to be quite the time save.
On to the point of this article, Launchy. Launchy takes the search capability a step further by not requiring you to use a mouse. Again, another seemingly small task to move your hand to your mouse and click the Start button, but when your hands are typically on the keyboard it's another bit of saved time. 
Simply press Alt+Spacebar and you have access to the Launchy window.
Type in the name of the application you'd like to launch and hit enter. If there are applications you typically use, you can alter the configuration to only have to type in a certain key command to launch that application.
Another perk of having Launchy is the ability to completely clear your desktop. You no longer need shortcuts!
6 degrees of (insert your name here)
A fairly common social circle concept is that any one person is connected to another person by at most 6 people. It was made famous by the game 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Now let's apply this to business, networking, and job hunting. The number one reason for getting a job or catching wind of an opening is by who you know. What if you could connect yourself through your social network to the person hiring? What if I want to work for a certain company and don't know how to gain an audience?
These questions pose an interesting challenge easily solved in the digital age. 
While researching ways to improve sales leads and sales in general, I stumbled upon PeopleMaps. It's a way for you to say, "show how you're connected to me". Or how you're connected to the president. It's quite accurate and the more information you allow PeopleMaps to see, the greater the tool performs.
As a child I wanted to be an astronaut. Well I wanted to be many things, but my main fascination was (and still is) around space. To this day I would volunteer in a heartbeat to go to Mars. I decided to see if I could meet or get introduced to someone at NASA. I figured this would be an impossible task for PeopleMaps to perform. Amazingly I am connected to a few NASA employees within 3 connections at an 86% strength. Who would've known?! You're beginning to see the importance of this tool in your sales generation and job hunt.
After signing up, you are asked to include log in information for a few social networking sites. I did both LinkedIn and Facebook. These seem to represent my professional and personal networks and by combining them PeopleMaps is able to determine weighting and relevancy of your connections.
Here is an example of the resulting map. Hover your mouse (on the site, not on the image below) over each connection line, bubble, or icon to see contextual information showing its relationship and strength.
The last piece of the puzzle is CRM integration. PeopleMaps provides integration into SalesForce as well as potential expansion into SugarCRM.
Give it a test drive and let me know what you think!