A Memoir - This Month Last Year - April 2013

Hi Guys,

I always wanted to share what has been the stepping stone to my blog and what happened in this particular month last year. It's only today I got the inspiration to actually create and write one and from not onwards it will be a monthly feature where I share my good posts and what happened with those posts. It's a sharing of journey as I can now connect the dots looking backwards.

April 2013 was the month when I was an approved member of Indiblogger community and started writing for their various contests and Indimeets. They organized various meets in April and as I started blogging only to be a part of Indiblogger community, I was very much excited to join all of those meets and make a lot of friends in those meets. It was one of those months when I got serious about pursuing this hobby to blog on www.thelifesway.com and bought this domain also with the help of a friend Murtaza Ali from ApotpourriofVestiges whom I met at my first Indimeet.

1. Sunsilk Perfect Straight - Gentleman's Experience - It was my first Indistuff contest entry on Indiblogger community. Receiving free shampoos to write about was a lovely experience. My family members still miss this shampoo. 

2. My tryst with Indiblogger Microsoft Office 365 - It was my first Indiblogger meet at Delhi. I kept my tweets going for the day and finally at the end of the day, I came home with Rs 1500 cash along with Microsoft Arc mouse, Indiblogger tshirt and a lot of memories. It felt really great to meet the whole Indiblogger team and meet a lot of other fellow bloggers. 

3. #HPCONNECTEDMUSIC - Me Myself and Music- This was the most defining post of my life as I won the HP laptop for writing about the music I love. We all love music and I love Bollywood music a lot. HP appreciated it by making this post won their prestigious Sleekbook with Windows8 and Connected Music subscription for an year. I still remember writing this post and asking my friends to read it and provide comments. They didn't liked my song choice but I was adamant to keep what I love in there. I think that paid off and I got the amazing new laptop.

4.  My Dream Business – The Microsoft Office 365 Way - Microsoft launched another contest after Indimeet to write about your dream business using Office 365 package. I won the runner up prize and received free Office 365 package and also an invite to see one of their event at The Lalit Hotel in Delhi. This at that time gave me immense happiness to be recognized from many brands and companies. 

5. Soldier for Women - What I learned from my dad?- I also became member of Blogadda and wrote several contest posts with sure shot vouchers and prizes. This is one of those entries and even before participating in Indiblogger meets and contests, Blogadda sent me a book RIP to review along with a personally signed letter from their CEO Nirav. It really meant a lot and I have treasured that letter in my file at home. Some other entries for the same contest are Soldier for Women - It's us all - Father of daughters!

& Soldier for Women - Guards at our offices

All other posts are simply about all the contests I won on twitter and facebook and the goodies I received during that month. Twitter gave me an opportunity to test myself with a lot of other young people playing all the contests. I do miss those contests now as I am not able to play them and win.

Cheers!!!

Contact me for your product's review on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com

My tryst with Indiblogger Microsoft Office 365

Hi All,

I started blogging on 27 Dec 2012 and thought that I will make it a photo blog. Same day I relogin to Twitter account and found out that there is different world out there & I am missing on all the fun. To make short story more short I got approved by Indiblogger after I wrote 15-18 posts & my twitter tweets picked up too. Since that day I was wanting to attend the meets organized by the IB team and was going through all the earlier events and what people experienced at the events with lot of free goodies, wins along with entertaiment and laughing their hearts out! But yes a LIVE experience is required to know what blogging is all about and what IB meets are like...several quotes coming to my mind but let them rest in books! :-) You got them in your minds what I was about to say! LoL

Why I am talking about Twitter also? You will come to know by the end of this post. :-)

I was all set to leave for the Blue Frog, Mehrauli on my bike & I did reached the venue before time and found a place to park my bike just outside the premises helped by security guards.

Finally, I entered the hall to see Mr. Arvind Passey with his wife Sangita. It was great to see him though I didn't had a chance to interact with him. I did met Aditya Pranav at the gates where we took some photographs with the posters. I made it to the registration desk and got my FIRST INDIBLOGGER TSHIRT & that was the moment of joy and happiness. The interiors of the Blue Frog was awesome with Orange posters and neon lights. It was heavenly feeling as eyes could not capture all the beauty.

We did chose a seat near the stage as it will give us more visibility and we will feel more closer to prizes. We because I had Aditya Pranav with me throughout this meet to accompany. We sat near a person whom we talked to  & he turned out to be a prestigious movie blogger with all the movies he reviewed were Classics & European Cinema. APOTOFVESTIGES explained us about his blog and we too shared our blogs with him. Got several new ideas that I will be implementing in my blog soon. We all met Ramit Narang, a blogger with 10 years+ experience and running his own US firm. He has taken social media to another level and gave us all great tips & tricks of the business.

Ali & Aditya were nice fellows and we became a trio of new friends. Time flew away till the time meet started with Aroop taking the stage. He started with applauding for all of us for making it to the meet. The best thing that I liked about the guy is the NAMASKAR pose he did several time to appreciate all the love showered by all the bloggers on him during the meet. It was a small gesture but I noticed it dude!

Receiving Cash Prize of Rs. 1500/-

Started off with a game to choose numbers between 1 to 10 and people started raising hands and the first number chosen turned out to be a Stone procured from the surroundings. People won random prizes in that round with cash prize of Rs500, Microsoft Arc Mouse & Microsoft Tshirts. Finally the lady luck did shine on me as last number left was number 10 and it has the cash prize of Rs. 1500/- associated with it. I was jumping with joy. Wow! Awesome my first ever meet and I have cash prizes to take back home. Thanks.

After that there was a 30 seconds of fame for bloggers where prizes were given to all who's blog url was displayed on the screen. It was a nice feeling to know what people are and have achieved in their lives and what they are passionate about? My blog didn't passed the lucky draw test there. 

Microsoft 365 India Director Ms. Ritu Chaturvedi walked us through the features of the package with a video presentation of Mr. Steve Balmer, CEO, Microsoft Inc. Ritu explained to us about all the features of the package as it's based on 4 pillars i.e. Devices; Social; Cloud

& Control. This package was available across all devices no matter which one you are using as you just need internet connection. By Social it meant that all your social profiles will be displayed from Facebook, linkedin and others in a single timeline. All your data will be saved on Cloud and you could access it anywhere any device limited upto 5 just like Kindle app. Control is the security and other features that protects your business and important data from theft and risks. Overall it was a great presentation and I did bugged her a lot with my queries. Airtel too has to show some slides as they tied up to make the bundled package available for all types of users. The pricing of the product suits all types of businesses.

There was one benefit of using this new Office 365 that you can write it offline and it will automatically post to your blog. It has Skydrive features to store your files in Cloud and Lync to have an online meet with other people via IM/Chat & video chat too. A game was played with all who wore Striped clothes and was given Microsoft Tees. A booze break was announced immediately after this. There was a Microsoft stand to change your extra large sizes tees and get them replaced with right sizes of your choice & pick up extra tees if you want them.

During the break I got to meet Karthik and came to know how and why Indiblogger was created? It was a nice concept and really I felt that entrepreneur feeling all kicking inside me. While writing this blog a googling to check the spelling of Aroop's name brought me to a link to be shared with all you guys! - http://yourstory.in/2011/08/our-community-has-been-growing-at-close-to-around-80-yoy-vineet-rajan-indiblogger/   I came to know that there is no Wikipedia page for the Indiblogger team or it might be the case that I could  not google enough.

Booze Break

Microsoft Team did organized some contest there under the sun and a lot of people won Rs. 1000/- cash prizes. A lot of non-veg snacks was served with various Mocktails and Beers. I could not find any veg snack & didn't put effort also to get them. At that moment I was busy talking to other people and drinking Coca Cola.

Microsoft Arc Mouse

In the final part of the event we all returned to our seats as the numbers of bloggers got reduced. Many of them travelled from places like Nainital, Chandigarh, Muzzafarnagar which were more than 200 kms away. Aroop initiated the Twitter contest and started reading tweets with lot of MS Arc Mouse to giveaway. After a long ordeal he noticed my tweets and complimented me that "Man you have been tweeting since morning and you deserve it". I was elated as I always had a dream to hold the curved ARC mouse in my hands. Thanks a lot Indiblogger and Microsoft team. Now you all know why I was talking about twitter? It pays to have an account on twitter, this Blue Bird is always chirping. :-)

One of the luckiest tweet did win NOKIA LUMIA 820 and that was grand. She wrote amazingly great tweet by virtue of working in the publishing industry; she catched the nerve perfectly and got paid for the same. Kudos! :-)

 

Finally it was the time to say Goodbye as we departed for the photograph session outside the premises. We made promises to meet again at the next meet and enjoy ourselves all over again. I am really happy and reliving the time while writing this blog. Finally a video to say thanks all! 

Contact me for your product's review on twitter @araijain or @thelifesway or email - thelifesway@gmail.com

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