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Are We Losing a Free Internet?

Have you heard the bit about how the telco/cable companies want Congress to give them the keys to the Internet so they can decide who gets top billing on which sites load fastest? 

OK, this might not be what it's about at all.  I couldn't begin to tell you because I don't have the hours and hours it would take to study the issue and figure out just exactly what's going on. 

What I DO know is that I really don't want the telephone or cable companies having any more of a hand in what happens to MY Internet than they already have and that may actually be more than I want them to have.  There may be tons of good reasons for them to have control.  There may be tons of good reasons for them not to have control.  In the final analysis, I don't care about how many good reasons there are one way or the other.  I care that the Internet is supposed to be a place where I get to have as much of a chance to be noticed as anyone else and that the playing field is totally level. 

Sure the big companies can have very flashy sites and mine is pretty basic but no one gets to tell me what I can put on my site.  Oh, I can feel the cranky comments coming already--do I really like porn?  do I really want children to be able to access instructions on bomb building? do I really like sites promoting sexual exploitation?  No, of course I don't.  What I DO like is the right to boycott those sites for myself rather than have someone else choose which sites I can and can't see. 

Might I feel differently about this if I had a teenager living in my house?  Maybe but I still think I'd rather figure out ways to monitor and/or discuss Internet content with a teen rather than have big business dictate what I see or when I see it.

Now that I've gone on and on (as I am wont to do), check out this post and then the whole blog letting us know what is going on so that if we really do want to spend hours and hours figuring out what's up we can.  Personally, I would just rather go for the broad brush strokes and tell Congress to keep big business out of MY Internet. 

Until next time...

More Musings on A Rapidly Changing World

I can't seem to get this whole idea about how rapidly the world is changing out of my head.  Don't get me wrong, I love the new technologies and concepts we have come to accept as a part of our everyday lives.  It's fabulous.  Without it, I wouldn't have a career.  After all, that's what Virtual Assistance is all about.

So, back to the changing times thing.  I'm 55 so I have a little more "life experience" than some of you may have (and perhaps a little less than others) so I can draw on a few more changes than some but I recently discovered that even teenagers have "I remember when" stories to tell.  My 16-year-old granddaughter recently put together a PowerPoint presentation on the 1990s and discovered just how many things had changed in her short life.

Remember when marketing used to mean whether to advertise in the newspaper or on the radio or both?  Or when all your customers/clients lived within 50 miles of you?  How about when local companies couldn't think of a good reason to have a web site?  Or, if you were an administrative support staff (that would have been a secretary) all you had to tell an employer was your typing speed rather than the programs and operating systems you could navigate?

Now, even one-person businesses are trying to figure out how to market globally, how to build a web site, and how to get cross-platform systems to work.

This little meander down memory lane has caused me to think of some of the milestones and shifts that have occurred over my lifetime.  Feel free to add your own. 

• First television set--1954
• First color television set--1969
• First time I had cable--1974 and it was a set top that had to have the channels changed at the set box (no remote) and we got the three network channels, one independent channel, one public television channel, and HBO.
• Learned to use a computer--this is a little more complicated.  I worked on a dumb terminal at a utility company I worked for in about 1980 but it was their own proprietary system.  I learned on a Wang (a dedicated word processor) around 1985.  I didn't learn how to use WordPerfect for DOS until 1990 and I had never touched a mouse until 1992.
• Oh, and speaking of such things, when I took typing in high school, we spent half the year on electric typewriters and the other half on manuals because the school didn't have enough electrics for all of us to use one for the whole year.
• I remember when copying was done with carbon paper or a professional printer unless you worked in a huge company and, even then, if you wanted a copy of something you used carbon paper.  Have you ever tried to find carbon paper these days?  It's now sold in the craft department.
• I remember when correction fluid came out and we all thought it was a miracle.
• I remember learning how to use a fax.

Isn't technology grand?

Until next time...

A Rapidly Changing World

We live in a rapidly changing world.  I can’t keep up with the number of new companies that pop up, the number of new blogs posted, the number of new products on the market, the variety of training opportunities available to me and my clients, and the list goes on.

Even the way we think has changed.  We have become global thinkers.  We no longer isolate ourselves in our own little communities.  I was just doing a little blog research and the four blogs I looked at (through a Technorati search) took me to Canada, the US, the UK, and Nairobi.  All of them were discussion Virtual Assistance.  The best part was that it didn’t make any difference where in the world we were.  The issues were the same—does using a VA make work easier, can I make money as a VA, where do I find clients?

I sometimes wonder if my thinking is changing quickly enough to keep up with the changing time and then something happens that makes me laugh out loud and reminds me that my ideas have changed right along with everyone else’s (though a bit slower than those younger than me who seem to have been born hard-wired).

This may seem to be a strange way to discover that I’m changing along with the rest of the world but, what can I say, I’m a strange person.  I was getting a fresh roll of toilet paper out of the linen closet (I told you this was going to be strange) and realized I only had eight rolls left in there.  I nearly dashed to my coat tree, grabbed my coat and purse, and headed for Costco at that very moment.  Then I laughed out loud because I had a flashback from a time in my life when I would go to the grocery store and purchase a four-pack of toilet paper and take it home to join the one lonely roll in the linen closet.  Yep, four at a time, not an entire case.  Oh, I might have gotten two packages if they were on sale but I didn’t panic until I got down to the last roll in the closet. 

When did that change?  I have no idea but when that was followed almost immediately by discovering the first four sites I visited were from four different countries and I started thinking about how quickly the world is changing, it all seemed to come together in a strange sort of way.

One of the things I learned during my AssistU VA training was that, if I learned a new thing every minute for the rest of my life, I still wouldn’t know everything my clients might need.  By the same token, my clients can’t possibly know all the things they need to know to do their work, either.  That’s what makes our collaboration so important!  We share our knowledge and skills to make something better. 

There are people who have three, four, even five VAs working with them, each providing a different set of skills, to make their business the very best it can be.  This gives them the support they need without the overhead of hiring those experts in their offices.

I love it when things work out that way.  If you think a VA might be what you need to get your business geared up a notch, let me know and we’ll talk about some of the options you have.

Until next time…

Postage Rates Increase

No doubt you've already heard that postage rates have increased.  The short version is that a single stamp now costs $.39.  No, not a fortune, but as prices in every arena continue to escalate, isn't it time to think about how to use your hard-earned money to its best advantage for you and your business?

So, on this front, I'll let you in on a little secret:  I don't mail anything I don't absolutely have to.  In fact, the reason this post came to mind was that I had to buy a stamp the other day because the stamps I use them so seldom I didn't even have one in my desk.  Actually, I had one a few weeks ago but I used it and hadn't replaced it, yet.    I'm serious.  I have used a total of two stamps in the last year.

I pay my bills online, I send invoices via email, I conduct correspondence electronically, and I make quick phone calls rather than send letters.  I didn't start this practice intentionally, it just evolved as I got more comfortable with the electronic environment and got my cell phone. 

Let technology work for you.

Until next time...

When Saving Money isn't Saving Money

When I bought my computer a few years ago it came with a cordless keyboard and mouse.  It never would have occurred to me to get one.  After all, why would I need cordless?  It's right in front of my computer, right? 

Well, I was having a difficult time sitting with my feet hanging down at one point and I wondered if I could sit in my recliner and still work on the computer.  The desk was fairly close to the recliner--certainly close enough to see my nice, big flat panel monitor--and I did have a cordless keyboard and mouse, after all. 

That was when I discovered why I had that little box that sat on my desk behind the monitor.  It was the device that talked to the keyboard and mouse and translated the information from my fingertips to the computer--just the way the cords would have if I had them.  Well, I couldn't get very far away from it but I discovered that if I put it on the keyboard drawer under my monitor and pulled the drawer all the way out, it was close enough to me to make it all work.

It was great!  I could sit in my recliner and do my work and my feet stopped swelling up to the size of fire hydrants.  When I moved I even arranged the living room (also my home office--living alone has its definite advantages) so I could choose whether I wanted to sit in my office chair or my recliner.

Then one day my mouse failed to work any more and I had to go out and buy a replacement.  I'm here to tell you, get one with a cord was no longer even an option in my book but, being the frugal person I am, I decided to get an inexpensive (read "cheap") one at a local discount store.  The only thing I liked about this one was that the mouse had two extra buttons that I could use to go forward and backward when I was in my web browser--very convenient.  Other than that, it was awful.

I decided to just suck it up and use it until it wore out.  It turned out I didn't have to wait all that long.  I went out this past weekend and bought a keyboard and mouse with bluetooth technology that works wonderfully well and I absolutely love and adore.  If it lasts a year it will cost the same as the cheap one (assuming the second and third ones wouldn't have lasted any longer than the first) and I'm so happy with how this one works.  I am no longer tied to the remote thingy that talks to the keyboard and mouse.  I just plugged this tiny, little bluetooth thing into a USB port and I can wander farther away than I can see the screen.  It's a joy to work with.  Oh, and it may take a year to learn all the things it can do and what all the buttons and scroll things do.

All this got me to thinking about how many people I talk to who try to do everything themselves when what they really need is someone to assist them with the more mundane aspects of their businesses.  I talked to someone not long ago who said she couldn't afford to hire an assistant right now.  I can appreciate that.  In the next breath she told me she thought she was going to have to turn down a speaking engagement in another state because she just didn't have time to go right now.  She needed to do too much in her office or she was going to get too far behind to ever catch up.

So, she turned down a $2000 opportunity because she couldn't afford to have someone else doing the things she needed to get done in her business.  I suggested that perhaps she might want to reconsider whether or not she could afford an assistant.  She could pay for a lot of hours of work with that $2000 and spend more of her newly available time finding additional speaking engagements.

As we approach the new year, think about how you spend your time.  Do you spend as much time doing what you do best or are you spending several hours a day doing the routine work of your business?  Is that work something a trained assistant could do for you?  Where is your time best spent?

I am always happy to help people find the perfect Virtual Assistant to meet their specific needs.  It would be fabulous if I were that person but, when I'm not, I know many other VAs and have great ideas to help you find the perfect VA for your needs.

Drop me a note if you need more information about what a Virtual Assistant can do to help free up some of your valuable time. 

Do You Have a Virtual Assistant?

I was looking over some files yesterday (cleaning house on my computer) and ran across a page that had odds and ends of notes on it.  One of them was a quote that read, "If you don't have an assistant, you are one."  I wrote that over two years ago but I remember thinking how true it was when I typed it.  The quote is, unfortunately, unattributed.  If you happen to know who originally said this, I'd love to give them credit for it--please let me know.

It's an interesting thought--not very deep but profound nonetheless.  I regularly talk to Independent Professionals who, for a variety of reasons,  do everything themselves.   Many Independent Professionals already know about Virtual Assistants (VAs) but have resisted finding one because it's just too daunting a task.

Since I'm a VA, myself, I'm biased but I think it's time to take a look at your objections to see if they are simply justifications for not finding an assistant when and assistant is exactly what you need to take your business to the next level.

If you don't have time to do the important work of earning money because you're too busy doing the business of  running your business, it's time to do a little investigation about how a VA can help you have time to grow your business. 

Drop me an e-mail and I'll help you find the perfect VA for you.  I'll be the first to admit that I hope it's me but we don't have a perfect fit, I'd much rather have you find the ideal VA for you than to have a dissatisfied client.

Until next time...