Note – The below post has been exclusively written for contest by ‘Microsoft Office 365′ and ‘Indiblogger.in’ – Link – www.office365.in
“Dreams are not what you see when you sleep; dreams are something that never lets you sleep”
These were the golden words said by our former President Mr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam. One can ponder over these lines and derive strong inspiration from it. I am an IT professional. I thrive on the codes and status calls. Our life is full of stress – coding, designing, testing, reviewing and attending status calls. It is bound by deadlines and to meet deadlines sometimes we have to burn the midnight oil. Everyone has dreams but the one who toils hard to make that dreams come true is something that counts. Being a representative of this IT world, I could say that I hate the ambience especially when you are constantly bombarded with work every second.
After doing the day’s work, you don’t even have time for yourself. People have failed to give adequate time to their loved ones because of this materialistic world. I have a strong desire to be my own boss. Since childhood I had many dreams and gradually the dreams faded away just like leaves fade away during the autumns. The end result is that I am a Software Engineer. I always wanted to have a business of my own. A small business which would give me happiness. It would be a business where I could experiment, innovate, ideate and implement with creative ideas which would give me a satisfaction of doing something fruitful. This would be something which I would term as my ‘Dream Business’.
Bloggers are creative people who use the right part of the brain. After mulling over certain things, I could say that my profession has given me everything. It gives me the ‘bun and butter’ – read ‘Bun’ not ‘Bread’. After some serious Cogitation, I ask myself – what have I done for my passion? All that I want is to get published. Every blogger has this dream of getting published. I have a dream- a dream of starting my own publishing house. A small venture with sufficient number of employees who would give life to my dream. My whole intent of creating this publishing company is different. This would be exclusively for bloggers. Being a blogger myself, I can realize how difficult it is for someone to get published these days. There are over 5 lakhs bloggers in India. I am pretty sure that each one of them are talented in one or the other way..
MicrosoftOffice 365 provides access to several services and each having unique features that would benefit me and my business. A mid enterprise package would suffice as my dream business would be a start up comprising of like minded people. The publishing house would be having a group of editors, designers and SPOC’s who would be the point of contact between the authors and the company. We all know that editing is a tedious task and it requires lots of patience.
It is said that editing of a single manuscript takes around 8 to 12 months. A single license of Office 365 could be used for up to 5 users. It supports a several unique features that were not available with the previous versions. ‘Concurrent Authoring’ is possible with Office 365. So with this 5 editors can work on a single manuscript, thus reducing the total time required to edit a single manuscript. It would expedite the entire process of editing.. All the manuscripts submitted by the writers, bloggers etc for publishing would go through different stages of reviewing, editing etc.
As I have mentioned, it’s not mandatory to employ a full time editor. The job would be done with a freelancer editor as well or someone who is willing to take it as a part time job. There is no need for an office with well equipped infrastructure. All the editors need not be working from a single office or location – they could be from different part of the world. All that they need would be a laptop with Office 365 installed.
All the manuscripts received via submissions could be stored in a highly secure sky drive pro and SharePoint which serves as a central repository. As a manager/ director, I could monitor all the activities of my employees through the features provided in Lync. In case of any doubts I could clarify it at that moment itself through the instant messaging services. In case if we are required to conduct a meeting, then the video conferencing would be implemented thus providing a real time meeting with HD quality clarity.
It is a robust system, skilfully developed to assist and support Businessmen and Entrepreneurs. The concurrent editing done by the editors can be tracked through the SharePoint. It gives an option to see who is currently editing the document and what all changes they have made. In case if we require any review of any changes made in the manuscript, we could use the SharePoint to share the document with the whole team of editors. One could access it from anywhere, of course only if he/she is authorized. I can control the access privileges through the admin page suited to meet business needs. Document editing and viewing is robust and simplified. In case if I am busy with my coding, I could configure Office 365 on my smart phone and would check for updates on my business front. It provides improved usability and better application navigation. I could build a website for my publishing house which comes as a part of the Office 365 suite. It provides different tools which simplifies the work and work would be made more easier especially when a proper protocol is established between the different parties involved in this venture – all thanks to Lync!
A writer may not necessarily belong to the same city where our publishing house would be located. Hence, in case of any queries situations may arise that the author and the agent may physically meet and discuss their queries. But in Office 365, this issue can be averted. We can directly invite the author for a video chat session, thus clarifying the doubts. You can use this feature as the right medium to interview the author. Thus, one can be as flexible as possible. There is no time constraint. You can complete all your personal work and then focus on the editing. Once it is done, with the help of the different software packages, the designers can typeset and design the fonts and the layout of the book, thus garnishing the final product before it is sent for printing.. Once all the editing is completed, we could provide the soft copy to a 3rd party printing house where the book would be physically given shape. After distribution, If the book is widely accepted amongst readers, then we can have an interactive session between the author and the readers through Office 365. Another feature which I failed to mention earlier is the synchronization concept and clouds. It provides a mean by which the editor could edit it offline and it would be stored in the cloud. After network connectivity, you may synchronize it and all the changes would be reflected in the original document. One could integrate social media in it and hence promotion would be taken care of.
The Sales and the Marketing departments could later keep a track of the books sold and other statistics through usual MS Software packages like MS Excel, Word etc with much more improved functionalities.This would be a cost effective business as we don’t require an office. I could set up small office at my home and our team could meet if it is essential. There is no need of well equipped infrastructure, no physical meetings etc. Thus, a large amount of money is saved. Everything would be taken care of with the help of MS Office 365. Indeed! Office 365 can do wonders to my dream business if my dreams really materialize.
I have this dream of creating opportunities for people in form of bloggers, freelancers, aspiring writers, editors etc who would equally contribute to the success of my dream venture. I am an Engineer by choice, but a blogger by passion. I would toil hard to engineer and materialize my dreams. As Mr. A.P.J. Kalam said, let’s not dream without any purpose for momentary dreams without any efforts would be like a rootless tree, a rudderless boat. Everyone has a dream, you me and the billion others. Just that put in your 100% to get it accomplished. I wish you all the best and may all your dreams come true. All my efforts would be implemented and one day I would be a proud owner of a publishing house exclusively created for bloggers – my dream business!
Happy Dreaming, Happy Reading!
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