Last month I attended an Office 365 immersion session with the Microsoft East Africa team in Nairobi, Kenya. The immersion session was specifically designed to educate bloggers like myself on some of the richer and not so obvious features that are available within their Office 365 offering. The Office 365 feature that really caught my attention was that you could create a video that includes animations and audio narration using Powerpoint and then export it as a video for upload to YouTube or any other preferred online video distribution platform. How cool is that?!

As a blogger, one of the challenges I find with content creation is finding the time and the right tools that can improve my capabilities without having to invest an inordinate amount of time and effort given that there are often many other tasks that demand my attention on a day-to-day basis. I am fairly conversant with Microsoft Powerpoint having used it for well over a decade as a valuable tool for pitching sales and other propositions in a myriad of roles and businesses throughout my career. Therefore, the Office 365 immersion session with the Microsoft team in Nairobi opened my eyes to possibilities that I had hitherto not considered.

During this weekend, I decided to try out the video creation capabilities for a smartphone unboxing that I had been meaning to do for well over a couple of months. You see, part of the challenge of doing video content for online distribution as a blogger is that unless you are a professional videographer you almost always need much more time and make lots of mistakes to produce what is often a modest outcome – even if you have the latest state-of-the-art DSLR camera and audio recording gear. Its just too much work and can be intimidating even to the most seasoned. Therefore, the workaround for me was to do the unboxing using still images and then piece these together into a Powerpoint deck with all the requisite copy and audio narrative captured.

I was actually surprised at how easy it was to do the whole process using Office 365 and Powerpoint in particular. All I needed to do is to record the presentation as I did the audio narrative using my regular run-of-the-mill smartphone headphones. In addition, was able to make the required edits once done and then export the completed video as an MP4 file ready for upload this evening to my YouTube account and blog. The super easy process of creating a video using Microsoft Powerpoint suggests to me that I will be doing this again (and again!) as its quick and highly effective! Indeed, I am super chuffed that the Microsoft team shared this feature with me at last month’s Office 365 immersion session as it will certainly make my blogging life easier!

You can find out more about Office 365 here. You can also view the outcome of the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2 unboxing video that I created from the sequence of screen shots above as below:

The Microsoft Office 365 Home Edition Giveaway Quiz

So. Here is the really fun part of this blog post! Microsoft have partnered with me to give away a one year FREE subscription for the home edition of Office 365 to the one lucky winner we choose who can answer the following three questions correctly in the comments section of this blog post:

1. On how many devices can can each user install Microsoft Office 365 when you sign-up for the home edition?
2. How much OneDrive storage space do you get per user for the home edition of Office 365?
3. Which mobile operating systems does Office 365 home edition work on? 

Once you post your answers to these three quiz questions below, we will post the correct comment and select the winning entry within one (1) week of the date of this blog post. Thats it! Nothing complicated. So, get cracking and you could win big with Microsoft and their Office 365 home edition prize! Remember, you can also find out more about Office 365 here.