Hire a Virtual Assistant

It will save you time.
"Ultimately, time is the most valuable, nonrenewable resource that we have," Tim Ferriss

clipped from ap.google.com Web sites allow users to outsource virtual errands Most people are hesitant to consider having a personal assistant because they don't think they can afford it, Forker said. But she and others argue that tedious tasks and inconveniences can be eliminated for the same cost as cable TV. Ferriss, who works for a pharmaceutical company, estimates that the services are affordable to anyone who makes more than $30,000 a year. For someone who makes a salary of $30,000 a year, a day of their time would be valued at more than $100 — making outsourcing well worth the investment, according to Ferriss. "It's like having a three-day weekend every week, for the rest of your life," said Ferriss. "The payoff in terms of breathing room to focus on the things you want to do is incredible. according to research firm Evalueserve, which estimated revenue from such sites last year at $250 million and anticipated it would grow to $2 billion by 2015.

Second Life and the Government

I think every effort should be made to allow military members stay in touch with family and friends.

clipped from www.iava.org In an effort to reach out to a web 2.0 world, the VA Health Administration has opened up a branch office in Second Life. While I still find the whole thing creepy and weird, I think that the effort to reach out in new and innovative ways is the important point to take from this.  The VA is genuinely making an effort to improve its outreach and support to the growing and younger veteran’s population.

Second Life used by Studio Wikitecture

It is fascinating to watch the creative uses for technology.

clipped from jonbrouchoud.wordpress.com Wikitecture Wins International Competition: 3D-Wiki Used to Compose an Open-Source Entry Out of 566 registered entries from 57 countries, Studio Wikitecture won the overall ‘Founder’s Award’ <http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/challenge> for their open-source entry to a competition hosted by Architecture for Humanity on the Open Architecture Network. <http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/> In keeping with the collaborative spirit of the Open Architecture Network, their entry <http://www.openarchitecturenetwork.org/node/1434> for a tele-medicine facility in Western Nepal was chosen “for embracing a truly collaborative way of working using online crowdsourcing and Second Life as a way to create a highly participatory design approach.” instead of tracking text documents in a linear history as you see in Wikipedia, the ‘Wiki-Tree’ tracked versions of 3-dimensional models and saved them within a continually evolving 3-dimensional digital tree ‘canopy’.

Client Accountability

because we care

clipped from adayva.blogspot.com Tough Love & Accountability, or Four Golden Rules for working with your Virtual Assistant Golden Rule #1 ~ Pay Your Bill This is a matter of ethics, of respect, and of honor for the value brought to you and your business. Golden Rule #2 ~ Respect Procedures If you do not have time to follow the rules, this does not bode well for the partnership. Golden Rule #3 ~ You are a Client, not an Employer If you need someone solely dedicated to you and on call or under supervision, you probably need an employee. Golden Rule #4 ~ Communication, Communication, Communication Clients must be active collaborators and communicators.

Confidence levels & business success

Thank you Becki Noles for this boost of confidence post.

clipped from www.virtualassistantrevolution.com How Self-Esteem Impacts Our Confidence Levels Abraham Lincoln is a fine example of a man who believed in himself. He lost every election until he went to the Senate and stood for the post of the President. He did not allow his failures in professional and personal life to erode his self-belief. Had he done so, the history of the US would have been different. Nothing will change in your business life until you have self-respect, and the self-belief that you are as good as others. You must realize that you are not the only one who has strong and weak points; others too suffer from the same defects. The only difference is that the others project their strong points whereas you may project your weak points. All that you need to do is refocus your priorities. If you do this, you will find the elusive self-confidence.

Open Innovation

clipped from www.businessweek.com McKinsey's new article on open innovation I just read the McKinsey Quarterly’s just-published article, “What’s New in Open Innovation?” — it’s available online. Most of the article features an overview of what’s been going on in terms of businesses co-creating with customers and consumers. You know, “user-generated content” or “crowd-sourcing.” Sure, it includes some stale news, such as what’s been going on in Second Life. That this example seems so out-of-date a year after the media (BW included, of course) heralded it shows you how quickly what’s hot online, in terms of communities, can fade. Nuggets include the suggestion for establishing clear rules, such as making sure it’s evident who owns what in terms of a co-creation’s IP, and clear roles, in terms of asking certain groups to co-create a specific aspect of a product or service, rather than encouraging a chaotic free-for-all

Business presence in Virtual Worlds

It appears to me virtual world inhabitants expect everything to be free. I have yet to see profit from direct sales as a result of a business' existence in a virtual world.

clipped from www.clickz.com Advertising in the New New Media, Part 1 This hype brings to mind the old dot-com days when people tossed around lines like: "Well, we're on the cutting edge and you have to expect a lot of failures." Reading about the Virtual Worlds Conference and thinking about the utter confusion on the faces of many clients these days, it's time to determine the leading-edge approaches worth pursuing and what's pure hype. The 3-D social spaces promise to enable brands to engage customers by providing a place to hang out, to hold online product demonstrations, even to try out virtual products. Sounds cool, right? Yeah, in theory. An ongoing presence in a 24/7 virtual world, such as Second Life, requires time, money, and human resources. Plus, many folks don't take kindly to commercial invaders. And some may object to unsavory content. Finally, these sites tend to have a high churn rate, with a relatively small number of users making up the majority of the visits.