I've found that the most helpful thing we can do for new investigators is to
NOT overwhelm them with "how to" information.  For your initial seminar with
them, I suggest that you might spend the time discussing on-campus resources,
where to get help, who can answer which type of questions.  Also procedural
kinds of things -- what things is the investigator is reponsible for, what
things the department does, what your office does, other related offices.
This is a good opportunity for the new folks to see you as advocates rather than
adversaries, as the "experts" in navigating the institutional maze.

When we do these kinds of workshops, we take the whole darn staff.  We each
spend five or ten minutes talking about our areas of responsibility.  We talk
about the services our office provides, hand out our research policy manual,
tell them how to request funding searches, discuss proposal routing, etc.  We
also try to tell a few jokes along the way for entertainment value.  Our point
is to familiarize new investigators with the resources they have
available so that they can get on with their work, which, we hope, includes the
whole area of external funding.  We spend about an hour or hour and a half,
with plenty of time for questions.

You could, of course, follow this with the more traditional "how
to" workshops.

-Marcia Zuzolo
Sponsored Research Services
Indiana University