If you are an owner of a business - chances are you are on the road...a lot. The great thing about Office 365 is that it is extremely flexible AND portable. Something that the other cloud productivity provider can't say. Since I started this series - the things that I travel with have been downsized pretty dramatically. Case in point - I used to carry 4 devices - iPad, Windows Phone, Laptop, and Verizon MiFi. I have since pared that down to TWO. My toolkit now includes a Microsoft Surface RT and Windows Phone 8. I took a day trip to Tampa today and didn't carry a bag...just my Surface and my phone.
Here's what my day looked like:
1) Review of CRM with a partner to look at open opportunities. We updated a few and added several new deals to the pipeline. When I added them my sales team knew immediately (no syncing or waiting to get back to the office).
2) 3 conference calls - all using Lync Online (we also have Enterprise Voice enabled - but that doesn't matter).
3) A Skype call with my wife (Happy Wife=Happy Life).
4) Review of a SOW from our technical pre-sales team. I made comments on the document, a few revisions, and checked it back in to SharePoint Online for final sign off.
5) A quick post to Yammer outlining some of the details of our new partnership to our team (Our employees are using social media every day in their personal lives - it only makes sense to bring the benefits of social into the enterprise).
6) Check in for my flight home (even got on the earlier flight which means I get to tuck my daughter in).
Here's what continues to amaze me as I am out meeting customers. A good 80%+ of them are still running Windows XP and Office 2003. (That technology is AT LEAST 10 years old!) More than half of them aren't even aware that Microsoft has a complete end to end offering that works both on-premise and in the Cloud. When they see the way that we can work, using the same feature rich clients that they are used to OR in the Cloud, they are completely blown away. These tools are instrumental in helping me achieve the work/life balance that I have always wanted...and isn't that why we all start businesses?
