Meet Darren McSweeney  (Twitter: @DumbWitness)

Darren resides in Barrow-in-Furness in the county of Cumbria, England where he works for McBride as an engineering manager, writes a newspaper column for the North West Evening Mail, and runs his own Social Media Management Company, Click Furness.

Darren began using CloudOn in June 2012 after he stumbled upon the application while searching for an office suite to use on his new iPad.  He mentions being “instantly attracted by an app that could seamlessly integrate with [his] Dropbox content.” Now, Darren turns to CloudOn whenever he is out of the office, highlighting that the application was extraordinarily useful at a conference that he recently attended. 

Read more of what Darren had to say when we asked him about how he uses his iPad and CloudOn to stay productive.

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CO: How frequently do you use CloudOn?
DM: With my newspaper column being weekly, and subject to normal print deadlines, I tend to use CloudOn every day – even during my lunch break at work. I make notes and create drafts in a Word document, pick it up later from Dropbox and then submit articles to my editor by sending a link to the document.

CO: What is your favorite CloudOn feature?
DM: My newspaper writing is done very much “as and when” time allows. The ability to shut my iPad case and then resume at the same place in the document I’m writing, from a different location is an absolute Godsend.

I also really appreciate the familiarity of the Office graphical user interface (GUI) – other apps try to do this, but fail.

CO: What file types/applications do you use most?

DM: The majority of my work is in Word documents. I predict that my Social Media work may make more use of PowerPoint in the future, but for now Word is my go-to. 

CO: What advice do you have for other CloudOn users?
DM: Try and use CloudOn in every situation – you’ll be surprised at how powerful certain uses of the app can take you by surprise. 

I was recently at a business conference in another country and I was able to take notes throughout the conference using CloudOn and share them with the team back at base. My colleagues were able to access the notes daily through a link to the documents and provide me with their feedback. This kind of collaborative working is very powerful – CloudOn is extending my office.

CO: Finally, do you think you will ever be able to ditch your computer for just a tablet?
DM: I think this day is a lot closer. CloudOn has made a quantum leap here – usage of my Toshiba laptop has dropped significantly since I discovered CloudOn.

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CloudOn has become a daily part of Darren’s life – transforming how he composes his newspaper columns.  

“Those spiral bound notepads have been committed to history – CloudOn is a fantastic step forward in productivity for me.”