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Had an interesting discussion with one of my clients just recently. She asked me about a particular service available online and it is one I’ve been using personally for some years. I had mentioned it some time ago to her, as I do to all my clients, but it was dismissed at the time as something not of value.

She’s recently been reading material from someone else who promoted this particular service and the client emailed me, asking what I knew about it. I had to smile and reminded her I had mentioned it some time ago and that I use the service constantly.

That’s when she said to me something that is important for us all to remember ‘it depends on when you’re ready to receive the information’. I should have mentioned it to her again perhaps - I neglected to do so and so she found the information elsewhere.

If you’re a service provider to a client base it probably is a good idea to regularly let your clients know about various services you can provide to them - after all, it’s almost like ‘do you want chips with that?’ Sometimes they’re going to say ‘no’ but one day, when they’re ready, they’ll say ‘yes’.

We all get into ‘information overload’ and so there are always going to be times that aren’t the right time and other times when we are ready. Much like I’d been planning to find a new template for this blog - I just hadn’t gotten serious enough to do the research. I’ve found one I like now so if you receive this post via email, do click on the subject heading link and come for a look! Also, if you receive this via the old feed (Feedblitz) please re-subscribe at the Feedburner (email feed) or RSS feed links on the blog - I’ll be closing off the old feed sometime soon.

Oh! And what was the service I’m referring to? Google Alert! I posted about it just last month on this blog. I’ve since got my client to subscribe to my blog so she can read my material!

Going back to ‘being ready’ - if you have services you haven’t promoted to some of your clients for awhile, why not go back to them now and remind them? It’s still close to the beginning of the year and now’s as good a time as any to reconnect with your clients!

Tags: Technology by Kathie Thomas
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The ‘paperless’ office is pretty much a joke these days. Email seems to generate much more of it, but even if we don’t print it off, we still have lots to read and catch up on - if we want to keep up to date with the world. The world has grown ’smaller’ but with it the amount of stuff we want to know and read has increased considerably. This leads us to being on lots and lots of lists and it’s easy to lose control of what we’ve subscribed to and where those things are on the web.

I started subscribing to lists back in 1997 or perhaps even earlier, definitely before spam became a problem and so every man and his dog seemed to end up with my address as it got passed or sold from one person to another. Of course spam legislations and other rulings now make that a ‘no no’ but it doesn’t change what has taken place in the past. The end result is that people tend to get an email address that they use for subscriptions only and then change it if the spam gets too much. And that’s where a new challenge comes - to the owners of the lists you want to stay on.

I frequently get emails from people asking me to change their details on my, or my clients’ broadcast lists. Or autoresponders that say ‘Johnnie doesn’t use this address anymore, please update your file to xxxx’. I guess that seems fair enough to the owner of that address but what about the list owner when they get this multiple times? Suddenly they’re faced with having to set aside time to update addresses on their lists.  Not to mention all the old addresses that need culling.

Many lists I belong to (and those I use) allow you to click on a link and update the listing yourself and I encourage you to do so.  Or if you want to get off a list, use the Cancel link rather than emailing the people who own the list to ask them to remove you - much less time and keystrokes involved for all.  And it’s easier.

And if you’re sick of changing addresses constantly, consider using a good spam filter online and then add the addresses of the lists you want to stay on, to the safe list so they can get through.  I use spamarrest and this has worked well for me for several years now.  KMT

Tags: Productivity Tips, Technology by Kathie Thomas
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I became aware today of a new conference taking place in September of this year. The topic is about Embracing Your Virtual World but the conference is on site in California with no mention of any virtual participation. I went and checked out their website with the hope of filling out a form or making contact - no contact information on the site at all - unless you register. What is this? A website (virtual presence), a conference about the virtual world, but no way of contacting these people virtually (or even by phone or fax) and no mention of any virtual participation. I emailed them care of their newsletter address so hopefully someone will get it!

I was recently made aware of your forthcoming convention but there is no contact information on your site promoting this and no way of making contact, unless you register.

I was interested in finding out why this isn’t being held virtually since it is about embracing the virtual world? And I am serious. I am a Virtual Assistant and belong to a fast growing worldwide community of virtual business operators. We’ve been holding annual conferences for two years now, over a 3 day period in May - all entirely virtual with speakers from 7 different countries or timezones.

I’m sure the topic of your convention would be of interest to people globally but because of airfares, accommodation and global unrest, many would not want to travel all the way to California.

What do you think? Shouldn’t a conference about something of this nature have a virtual component for virtual attendees? For those of you who aren’t aware, the Online International Virtual Assistants Convention was held online with attendees from many countries with a total of 23 speakers from different countries and timezones and was a fantastic event. Whilst the OIVAC focused on the Virtual Assistant industry anyone was welcome to attend as the variety of topics presented applied to anyone in business. KMT

virtual business, virtual assistant, starting a business

Tags: Business Operations, Technology by Kathie Thomas
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As a Virtual Assistant, I love exploring new programs but am sometimes skeptical towards some until I hear from others of their own personal experiences. Free programs I do view warily until proven otherwise, I don’t want to get caught with something I wished I hadn’t downloaded.

However, recently my team were discussing a photo storing program called Picasa which is a free download from Google and it is worth checking out. It does a full scan of your computer or will only scan the sections you specify. So, if you have photos you don’t want suddenly exposed using this program, it would be best if they were not in your My Documents folder or any of the folders you want the program to go through.

Once it’s collated all that information you can view them in year order or alphabetical order and sort them into categories, or whatever. It has this great facility for collecting your chosen pictures for emailing them, or create an html file which you can upload to a webspace (your own webspace that is) for sending out to anyone. It has 3 different background colours (grey, black and white) and 2 different layouts. I expect since it converts them into html you could fiddle with them afterwards and make changes - I haven’t done that yet, but I like how easily it creates the thumbnails with a viewing screen.

This program could save you a lot of time if you work with images for clients and need to quickly upload images in a suitable format for viewing. If you also work with photo blogs or other sites that have a lot of images in it, this would be a worthwhile tool to work with. I had a bit of fun with it as you’ll see if you click on this link. KMT

Picasa, images album, photo blog, free download

Tags: Technology by Kathie Thomas
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Who’s to say whose time is more important?

I am really fed up with the amount of telemarketers who call, using the predictive dialler method. I mean, telemarketers at the best of times aren’t my favourite callers but when I answer a call only to be left with a dead line and having to wait to find out who called me is a gross disrespect for my time and I don’t like it. I know they might think it’s only a short period of time but it adds up over the days and the weeks and is disruptive. I don’t care if what they are calling about is important and perhaps I might be interested in what they have to offer, but it starts them off on the wrong foot immediately and I usually let them know that. I mean, why should I answer a call and then have to wait for the other person to come to me? I feel it’s rude and a disrespect for my time - and I am a prospective client, aren’t I?  What do you think? KMT

predictive dialler, waste of time, telemarketer

Tags: Business Operations, Technology by Kathie Thomas
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