For a few days between last week and yesterday, I was away on an annual trek (something like a mini-vacation). I was able to hold court with great, loving friends. You know the type: brilliant minds, compassionate, supportive. Like sisters and brothers. And very much like what I've always experienced in the virtual assistance field.
The idea for this post came from that trip, and the reason has to do with distance ... or lack of it.
While the formal, corporate business model has been somewhat successful in adapting to what is truly a wave of many magnitudes in terms of how we now communicate with everyone else, that world is still in many ways entrenched in distance and geography (oh yeah, and in no small amount of angst).
On the plane on the way down, two gentlemen came by where I was sitting. One asked me if I wouldn't mind switching seats, as he was with his business partner, and, of course, no more explanation was needed. Nothing wrong with that; at least not on the surface. And nothing wrong with having to travel a couple of thousand miles in order to 'do business'. Plus, there can't be anything wrong with spending gobs of money to travel on business. OK, sorry, I'll drop the sarcasm and get down to my point.
Our industry, and our dynamic minds, and the ways in which we've embraced technology in very passionate, user-friendly ways has done much to destroy distance. And when you destroy distance, you are 'this much' closer to truly understanding what a person--say a client of a virtual assistant, or another VA--is really all about. We know how to do this very well, whether or not we ever get on a plane and go somewhere else to have our business meetings.
So geography is an interesting metaphor to pick on (one of many) when describing the impact that VA's have had in turning the traditional business model upside down. And boy, did it need it!
It's not that we don't travel--just this year, in terms of AssistU (and other) VA's, a lot of traveling has gone on. There was FoVA 2009, and the AssistU Community Recognition Awards (and associated events prior to and right after the CRA's). And that doesn't even touch on the many personal trips various VA's took to be with their friends and colleagues.
Our brand of distance destroying has everything to do with relationships, and little to do with geography, company expense accounts, or the stress that goes along with typical business travel. The beauty of our industry is this: in every form of communication we employ, we never loose sense of the commune part of communication. And our industry is ... us.
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