I spent the first three hours doing nothing, absolutely nothing. . . . I was desperate . . . for real I was desperate.
— Maria Valarezo, a 16-year-old from Ecuador, on the pressure felt at this week s annual Adobe and Microsoft Office Olympics in Dallas, where she finished third in her category. It might not have the sex appeal of gymnastics or 100-meter sprints, Fast Company s Daniel Terdiman wrote in an oddly fascinating feature story, but it s something a whole lot more people can relate to. From an original field of 800,000 qualifiers, the competition (officially the Microsoft Office Specialist World Championship and the Adobe Certified Associate World Championship) culled down 145 Office experts and 35 Adobe aficionados to find the best of the best at Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Grueling challenges such as precisely copying formats, modifying paragraph styles and creating pivot tables (exciting!) paid off with cash prizes and, of course, bragging rights. For Microsoft and Adobe officials, the competition was enlightening. The feedback about all aspects of the product [we got], including some stuff that s far more advanced, was really fascinating. Their level of knowledge was really incredible, senior PowerPoint program manager Daniel Swett told Fast Company.
