Archive for the ‘Networking’ Category

We are not saying that just because it’s a new year you need new technology.

This is a good time of year to assess your tech, though. Now is the time to think about what works in your office and what doesn’t and take some time to think about the future. Do you have a tool that doesn’t work quite the way you want it to, anything from your CRM solution to your mobile phone?

Make a list of all the technology you use in your daily life, both professional and personal. Is it a long, scary list? Resolve to make it shorter. Is the list short and the number of things you still use outdated solutions for long? Resolve to make your list longer in 2009–if that’s your goal. Decide what works and what needs work and carve out some time to research possible options.

Unsurprisingly, we’re not the only ones who think this is the time to think about your 2009 technology needs. Check out some of the New Year’s tech resolutions articles we found around the web–it’s good food for thought.

ArsTechnica’s 2009 Tech Resolutions

One of my personal faves mentions, among other things, cleaning up techno-clutter. Check out these 5 resolutions at PCMag.com

Infoworld’s top tech resolutions for 2009 are interesting, to say the least, but more geared toward large, enterprise operations, although, as open source advocates we especially like #2.

We’re trying to be greener, so Ted Sansom’s Green Tech Resolutions for 2009 is especially appealing.

A little lower tech, but more real-life oriented is this list from the Chicago Tribune’s Eric 2.0 column.

Tell us YOUR 2009 tech resolutions.

We all know times are lean, the news and the government won’t let us forget. Which begs the question, how do you keep growing your business in tough times?

Erica Stritch at RainToday.com has some great ideas in her article, “Forgotten Leads: How to Find a Treasure Trove of Leads Hidden Within Your Firm.”

People need to see/hear your name between 7 and 11 times before they remember you. Even if you are busting your tail to make ends meet, make sure you take the time to keep in touch. You never know when your efforts will be rewarded, but if you never try, they never will.

It’s coming…

IVAA’s 3rd Annual Online VA Summit is only a little over a month away. IVAA members’ early registration discount–a chance to save 20% off Summit registration–ends at midnight Central time on Wednesday, September 24, 2008.

We are virtual assistants, and, for many of us who started our business to be home with children and family, traveling to the in-person summit is difficult, if not impossible. Enter the online summit. A full day of networking, great seminars, and lots of take-homes in the form of full recordings of sessions that you can go over later at your leisure. Heck, if you can’t attend the summit, you can still register and get the recordings–how many professional conferences can you say that about?

Look at the definition of “Summit” in the title bar and you’ll see why we call it a summit and not a conference. The purpose of the IVAA Summits, both in-person and online, is to help VAs reach the “topmost level attainable” in their chosen profession.

FYI, Candy will be presenting a discussion on the personal and professional benefits of volunteering at the online summit this year. You don’t want to miss that, do you?

Hurry up and register today!

If you work from home, whether for yourself or someone else, you know how quiet it can be. Deadly quiet. So quiet, at least when the kids are at school, that the sound of the air conditioner turning on sets your heart racing.

Once the adrenaline rush is gone, you decide you’ve GOT to get out for a little while. You pack up your computer and head to the local wireless hotspot, or a park if you’re working offline. It is undeniably noisier, but you’re still alone. No one knows you and many people will deliberately avoid you, afraid they might be interrupting.

So what do you do? Find a jelly! A jelly is a combination social event, networking and just plain work designed to help the self-employed or remote employee get a little human interaction every now and then.

For more info, check out this spiffy post on The Virtual Legal Assistant Blog. If you’re in Austin, and curious about co-working (another term for people working side by side who do not work together) and the new meeting venue for it here, check out Conjunctured’s web site.

In honor of Candy’s new Twitter addiction (yes, I am kidding) :

Micro-blogging is all the rage. Ad Week has a nifty story on micro-blogging by businesses here.

I have no objection to general commercial use of a service like Twitter, but I am a bit creeped out by the people who “Follow” thousands of people. How can they keep up? It’d be like being a mind reader in a shopping mall, too much information and no way to filter it…

I admit it, I’m on Twitter, mostly to use it as a wide-open IM/whiteboard with friends, but I do occasionally, if obliquely, discuss my work, but it is far more social than networking to me. I also rigorously screen my followers. I’m boring like that.

For more variety, check out Candy (candieb) , Tom (tombeau) , Lanel (lanelt), or our friends at Linux Journal (linuxjournal) on Twitter.

Do you have trouble remembering people’s names? C’mon, it’s just you and me here, it’s okay to admit it, I won’t tell.

Because I do, too.

At the tail end of 2007 Scott Ginsberg, The Name Tag Guy, and accounting web passed along a little holiday gift for people like us. I was just too busy to read it at the time. I took the time today and, if you’re like me and have a hard time with names, you should too.

Check out “10 Effective Ways to Remember Names” at accountingweb.com.