This was my first time to attend the IVAA Live Summit, (the International Virtual Assistant’s Association), a group run for and by VAs to strengthen, train and network. I joined the group just last year and while reading through the website, I saw they were looking for speakers for their conference which was held just last week (May 1-3), in Philadelphia.
Since I’m a SkyDrive Insider, I thought I’d like sharing what I know about SkyDrive to the group. So many people just aren’t aware of all the great things SkyDrive offers. So I spent a couple hours filling out my form and found out my application was accepted!
Fast forward to April, and I was working on my presentation and practicing it quite a bit. The conference began on May 1st and my SkyDrive presentation was Thursday, so I got a bit of time to watch the other great speakers and their presentations as well as talk to people who asked me questions about what SkyDrive is. I was happy to share with them what it is, how I use it and outlined how I thought it could benefit them and their teams and clients. Most weren’t aware of the free Microsoft web apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote), neither did they know about the collaboration features.
Before my presentation, I was also asked about Office 2013 and Office 365. Since I use both of these products, I told them how it helps me in my business, i.e. I don’t have to administer my own email, it syncs flawlessly among all my gadgets, mail is backed up and I also get SharePoint storage and Lync. I decided to incorporate a couple slides into my presentation about this and showed them how easy it was to save and share documents right from within Office 2013. The handout condensing my main points is below.
Microsoft SkyDrive-For Your Team, Your Clients, Your Life
SkyDrive – Updated – Apps for IOs, Android, Mobile & Tablets
Key Features
· 7GB storage with options to purchase additional storage per year at a price less than Google or Dropbox
· Access your files from anywhere
· Collaborate on documents at the same time, version history, chat, leave comments, use Facebook chat on SkyDrive
· Use free Microsoft Web Apps to create or revise Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents in the cloud. No need to have Office installed on your computer
· Upload files up to 2GB to SkyDrive (when you have the app installed on your computer)
· Selective sync – want to use SkyDrive on your mobile device, but don’t have much space? Choose to sync only the folders and documents you need on each device
· Upload any type of document including executables, movies, photos, pdfs, etc.
· Easily share an entire folder, or just a document with whomever you wish. Your recipient will not have to have a Microsoft account or have to sign in to access what you share with them
· Get an embed code to share a folder or photos or documents from SkyDrive
· Share Presentations, Photos, documents easily with your social networks via SkyDrive
· Excel surveys – use this free feature to create a survey to send out
· Recycle bin feature-users can put documents in there with the ability to restore them later and it doesn’t count against your storage limit
Bonus Features to Be Discussed
· Time permitting, we’ll go over two options to apply your custom domain name for free with two service providers you may not know about. With Google Apps discontinuing their free service last December, many VAs and clients may be looking for an alternative.
· We’ll look at Office 2013 and how smoothly it integrates with SkyDrive
Other Notes
Thanks to Microsoft for supporting the conference by donating enough 3GB memory cards for everyone attending. When they add this to their existing 7GB, that’s 10GB of free storage. Very nice!
The Ace Conference Center in Philadelphia was our venue. It was a great facility, very roomy and the meeting rooms were up-to-date technology wise and the staff was so accommodating. We had great food and snacks every day. Meeting so many new VAs was a great experience. I went there not knowing a soul and came home with quite a few business cards and hope to keep in touch with many.