Microsoft Office is one of the most popular software suites in the history of personal computing, boasting more than 1.2 billion active users worldwide. And while many of those users may consider themselves Office experts, only a few can say they’ve been mastering the product since day one.
Diane Poremsky counts herself among that small number.
“Back in the late 90s when Office first came out, the company I worked for used it,” Diane says. “I was in charge of helping them troubleshoot and learn how to use it.”
But Diane was never satisfied with quick fixes and surface-level functionality. Over time, her natural inquisitiveness and passion for learning drove her to develop a sophisticated understanding of the Office suite’s inner workings.
“A lot of what I learned, it was more I was curious how things worked and what we could do to make it work better,” she recalls. “I stayed up to date with my knowledge on it by visiting other forums, and back then mailing lists were very popular.”
By the time Microsoft rolled out its Office 98 Macintosh Edition, Diane had become a freelance Office consultant and a member of Microsoft’s beta program. This gave her a firsthand look at the software’s evolution over the course of the development process.
“I learned a lot just being in the beta program and seeing the new software as they were working on it,” she says.
Diane became an official Microsoft Outlook MVP in 1999. The following year, she took her work to the next level, becoming the founder and CEO of CDOLive, a company offering consulting, private tutoring, and IT services for Microsoft Office.
In the years to follow, Diane would go on to author three books about Microsoft Office, and another three books on Microsoft Outlook. Now she shares her insight, experience, and knowledge as a Microsoft expert through Directly’s support automation platform.
“It’s great that my answers and my knowledge are helping other customers,” Diane says. “It feels great to be part of the solution for Microsoft — to help them power support and help them improve support for their users.”
Thanks to experts like Diane, Directly is helping companies like Microsoft, Samsung, and Airbnb provide a better customer experience. To see how experts like Diane can help enable intelligent automation, schedule a Directly demo today.
