We Dream Business

This is a guest post by Shilpa Dureja Puri, on the #MeetOffice365 IndiBlogger campaign.

I love to talk to people who adore what they do for a living and it’s fascinating to learn how they got there. And I get awe-struck by dreamers, who believe in putting their future in good hands – their own!

Intrigued by the varied set of dream business ideas that got churned out of a simple contest put together by Microsoft India at an event partnered with IndiBlogger, an Indian bloggers community for an Office 365 blogger meet at New Delhi, I began penning this down with a hope to have this reach out to all those dreamy eyes!

It was remarkable to find so many young bloggers with diverse interests, many technology geeks, some ‘home bloggers’ and a few celebrity bloggers! Many of them travelling from satellite towns of Mathura, Nainital, Muzafarnagar and a couple of them from Chandigarh.

In common was the drive to learn more, make their presence felt (30 seconds of fame landed well) and build connections with fellow bloggers. The event did what Office 365, your complete office in the cloud does best, makes it easier to communicate and collaborate and helps you stay connected. Completely connected!

The interactions with Microsoft team were lively, feature presentation, live demo followed by Q&A session kept the audiences engaged while Twitter feeds were running wild with tags #MeetOffice365 #Office365 #Indiblogger and others! Twitter contests and surprise gifts kept the audience buzzing with excitement. Most interesting were some of the participant bloggers conversations where they began concluding about how they’d want to use Office365 even as the event carried on.

To keep the interactions with young bloggers going, a contest inviting bloggers to use story-telling to talk about a dream business they’d like to run and how’d they use Office 365 to transform their business was announced.

In a week or so, what Microsoft received was hundreds of dream business ideas – some bizarre, many real – but most of all written with passion, filled with conviction and an absolutely remarkable description of their application of Office 365 in making their dream come true!

Every successful dream business starts with a great idea. And there were ideas galore! Online Tutoring Business to a College in the Cloud, Online book portal to Coffee Shops, Travel agency to Trading Agency, Automobile Design Studio to Architecture business, Gaming business to Movie-making, Fashion designing to HR consultancy, Blogger’s platform to co-authoring books to online publishing, Dream of a beggar-free nation to Cancer Support Facility, Build a News Channel to Building a portal to help people overcoming their personal loss…

Some focused on Office365 adding power to their ideas, making it easier to communicate and collaborate with others. Others reflected well on Office 365 operating their businesses from virtually with anywhere access to the Microsoft Office tools we’ve always used and rely on, plus business-class IT services that are easy to administer. Many built their businesses on the sole premise of Office365 capabilities of allowing teams to work in a new collaborative way.

Some spoke of sleepless nights they had deciding upon their dream businesses, many worked round the clock to complete their entries and stayed focused how Office 365 would help them build the blogosphere they live and breathe in!

Interestingly each narrative made a compelling description and why, what, when, where and how they would want their dream business to take shape with Office 365 undeniably promises a solution to fit their needs.

The power to change lies in your hands, be it small business owners to transform how they run their business or young entrepreneurs to build their dream businesses. In all, Office 365 empowers you to work ‘like a boss’! Completely boss!

Creative writings made such a convincing read that judging entries became a herculean task! Picking very best from the best wasn’t going to be easy. So, Top 7 were cherry picked for their creativity, product understanding and above all alignment of business needs with Office365. Completely synchronized!

And, understanding the difference between those who set up their own business and those who talk about it, Team Microsoft decided to support the dreamers in building their businesses and rewarded Top 25 entries with Office365 NFR License – Home Premium! Completely rewarded!

I urge to you go ahead, read some top blogs and immerse yourself in young blogger’s dream business ideas! Click here to read winning entries.

In the end, a note to all those dreamy eyes go ahead and do, whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it boss! Your boldness only needs passion, some genius, a bit of magic and power of Office 365 with it!

I would be happy to hear from you! Write to me at:

Twitter: @shilpapuri
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/shilpadurejapuri

Disclaimer: This is a personal blog writing. The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer.