The Virtual Wire

Moving on...

This is my last post before moving on from The Virtual Wire and making room for some new voices. I've enjoyed connecting with so many of you over this last year, and look forward to continuing to read posts from our current bloggers and new bloggers that join the team. This is a wonderful gathering place of ideas, opinions, and sharing things deep and things that are just plain fun.

"Young" is a state of mind and heart and spirit, and I'd like to leave you with words of Dylan that express my wish for all of you…

May God bless and keep you always,
May your wishes all come true.
May you always do for others,
And let others do for you.
May you build a ladder to the stars and climb on every rung..
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true…
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you.
May you always be courageous,
Stand upright and be strong…
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy,
May your feet always be swift..
May you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift.
May your heart always be joyful,
May your song always be sung…
May you stay forever young.

Keep it simple!

Sometimes I'm amazed at how a service or tool or vendor I use can mess up a good thing by "improving" the product. No matter how many bells and whistles you add, if you also make things too complex or ruin the basic functionality, it was time and effort wasted.  This scenario happened recently with two companies/products I use daily, throughout the day.

1 Shopping Cart – Under various re-branding names, all of my clients have accounts with this company (and so do I) and I spend a fair amount of time every day working in many areas of the cart. A couple of weeks ago, they made an "upgrade" to the products section which had this almost-always-mellow VA livid at the idiocy of what they had done. It was obvious that they didn't consult anyone who actually USES the cart. One brilliant change took the product details page and turned it into about 10 different sections, each of which had to be clicked on so you could either get information (like grabbing a product URL to use on a web page) or add information. Which means all day long my clients would be paying me to click on links to get to where I need to be. They also took the nice basic product URLs and turned them into an "add to cart" version which meant each time I needed a straight link for various reasons I had to strip the code from either end. There was much more, but if I say more my blood pressure will rise again! The good news is that after getting feedback, a week later they gave us a "Show/hide all" link for each product page, and gave us back the basic URLS…but it shouldn't have been a painful experience like it was. There are still things they need to fix, but now I can acknowledge that there are other aspects of the upgrade that improve that section.

Work styles and preferences

I was part of a discussion recently with a group of  VAs talking about our practices and the way we work with clients. One VA mentioned how she really prefers getting things in place for her clients – start up work rather than ongoing projects and tasks.

My feeling is different. Although there are some routine tasks that can be tedious, these are things that come up infrequently for clients, not things I do regularly (or I'd help the client find someone else to do the task). One thing I really love about having a long term partnership with a client is getting to know the client and their business so well that we've developed a kind of short hand. Brief email instructions will do, some ongoing tasks are just handled and not discussed, and we can very quickly get on the wave length of where a project is going without everything having to be spelled out. If the client asks me to send out a broadcast from "fake me" or "real me" I know exactly what he means. Most of the time with a long-term client I don't stop and think about how far we've come in this regard, but sometimes I'm suddenly aware of it, and delighted to recognize it.

During the course of my VA practice I have done some project based writing work (and at one point considered opening a copywriting/writing aspect of my business) but realized that I just don't like starting cold and doing a project without having that deeper relationship with the client and more in-depth knowledge of the business.

I am a person who likes change and a variety of work, but I find that my clients are often pursuing new projects and new directions for their businesses, which keeps things interesting for me as well.

Kind of like having the best of both worlds!

An unexpected tool for my practice (and life)

When I moved back to Colorado five and a half years ago, I stayed with family for awhile until I could build my practice to the point where I could support myself. Being single, and leaving behind my "corporate" job as a Child Care Licensor with the State of Florida, I really was stepping out in faith that I could make this all work on my own (and it has – wonderfully!).

Although I had my own little corner of the house to use as my office, the rest of the household was in fairly close proximity and it was difficult at times to concentrate on my work. The best tool for allowing me to focus came in an unusual form – a set of Bose Noise Cancelling headphones.  At $299 this wasn't exactly an easy purchase when I was far from having steady client income. But the ability to make low monthly payments with no interest sealed the deal.

And those headphones that allowed me to a large extent to shut out all household noise made a huge difference. The soft leather felt (and still feels) like a guilty pleasure for my ears. I considered it a worthwhile investment at the time (although I didn't think the IRS would buy it as a business expense) and several years later when I have no need for them in the office, I still use them often. When I'm at home I always prefer the headphones to the ear buds for my iPod, and the plug will fit any standard music jacks for sound systems, computer or TV. One good thing led to another and I've since purchased a couple of Bose sound systems for the house.

Absolutely one of the best purchases I ever made!

To Twitter or not to Twitter...

As I talked about in a previous post,   I haven't been ready to jump into the social media arena as far as using it for my own business ventures, but I know the day will come, and probably not too far in the future. I'm just not quite there yet.

One service I haven't seen much personal use for is Twitter - but I suspect it's something that you have to use to fully appreciate. The simple description of Twitter on their website is: "Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?"

I often see it used in a way that's closely aligned with blogs and websites, which is a bit farther afield from "friends, family, and co-workers." Then again, in our virtual world of work, those who find us online even in a larger audience are in a sense our co-workers.

One of the most interesting places I've seen  that uses Twitter is the Prime Minister's office at 10 Downing Street.  It's fun to picture just who is sending in the Twitter updates from that office.

So this "twittering" is on my list of things I want to learn more about, but like so many other things I keep looking for enough time to really see what it's all about and how I would use it. If someone has reasons why Twitter is something you just can't do without, I'd love to hear about it.

P.S. After posting this, I read a blog post on Twitter by the the always interesting Tim Ferriss. He used Twitter and blog comments to steer a recent trip, and shares 3 simple guidelines (“Twittiquette”) for Twitter posts. Both are worth a quick look.

Cool, free website analysis tool

I recently learned about a neat no-cost tool for a quick and helpful website analysis - HubSpot's Website Grader (www.WebsiteGrader.com).

The algorithm this utility uses is a "proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data, website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others."

There is lots of solid, detailed information given. Major areas of analysis are: On-Page SEO, Off-Page SEO, Blogosphere, Social Mediasphere, Converting Qualified Visitors to Leads, and Competitive Intelligence.

Looking at the results for my own website, the analysis tells me pretty much what I was already aware of, so I know it's on target. Reviewing the suggestions about what is needed to improve the site in the areas analyzed is a good review about recommended elements for all websites.

From My Yahoo! to iGoogle in one fell swoop

There is a lot going on with Yahoo! these days, and the company is dealing with some big issues that affect its survival. And closer to home (my computer) they've made other changes that I'm not happy about. I'm not deeply involved with Yahoo! – I have an email address that I use for limited purposes that are likely to result in bulk email, and I've been a member of a few user groups on their forums; but for many years I've used a My Yahoo! page for my home page. I've customized it to include a great list of bookmarks, weather for places where loved ones and friends live, and other tools that I use frequently. And as of Monday it's pretty much useless to me!

Several months ago Yahoo! came up with a new design for My Yahoo! pages that looked awful, and I wasted no time  switching my home page back to the previous "classic" format. On Monday, using the old design became an unavailable option for anyone, and the whole mess appeared again when I turned on the computer. Among Yahoo! users there are mixed reactions, but my home page looked so bad I really can't stand to use it, and in my irritation, I started setting up iGoogle for my home page. I've meant for a long time to customize a Google page – I use Google's toolbar and search engine, have Gmail addresses and use other "G" tools,  so I'm much more connected to Google's services. It was just easier to stick with the home page I already had set up on Yahoo!

What does your font choice say about you?

Judging from some of the emails and documents I see, I think many people really don't care what fonts they use. Some people have to move the furniture around frequently, and I find that I reach a point where I can't stand the font I use for most things, and have to change it. I get bored. The fonts chosen for websites, books, documents, email – all are an integral part of the way the information will be perceived. They help set a mood and feeling.

Years ago I loved Comic Sans and used it everywhere I could. I went through a Georgia phase, and for quite awhile used Trebuchet MS (still do for many things). But of late I've been drawn to Century Gothic, which has a much lighter feel than the name implies. I am definitely not a fan of Times New Roman.

When I first took classes in Photoshop Elements and we played around with design, I was amazed to discover the number of fonts available.

The Software Usability Research Lab at Wichita State University did a study on "Perception of Fonts: Perceived Personality Traits and Uses" to determine if certain personalities and uses are associated with various fonts. You can read it here.

I don't know that I agree with some of their findings, but I wonder what it says about me that the top results don't include my Century Gothic font favorite.

Gas prices and innovative ideas

It's hard to escape all the gloom and doom stories about gas prices, and often I think how lucky I am that as a VA working from home I'm spared too much pain from the higher cost of having to fill my gas tank often. Of course we're all still paying the price on the personal side as we take care of life, and prices for everything, including business costs like supplies have gone up due to transportation costs.

Painful though this experience is, we're going to see many interesting lifestyle changes as we look for solutions. Many companies and government agencies are mandating four day work weeks to save energy costs, more people may be working from home, and some people are giving up their cars and using services like ZipCar or I-go – renting cars by the hour, no gas, no insurance.

And a seemingly small change can have a large impact. A recent CBS news report featured a new milk jug design that has yielded huge savings at Sam's Club stores. The new jug is square, and unlike the 'standard' jug can be stacked and shrink wrapped in large quantities on pallets rather than shipped in milk crates. 50% more jugs per cubic foot can be carried in trucks, reducing delivery trips and fuel costs, and millions of gallons of water needed to wash crates will no longer be needed.

Some Sam's Club savings:

• 11,000 fewer delivery trucks on the road this year
• 2 milk deliveries per week instead of 5 at each store
• 224 gallons fit in store coolers vs 80 of the old style jugs

Some people have complained the new jugs are difficult to pour, but that seems a small price to pay for something that can save in so many ways.

It will be interesting to watch other ideas that come along as we deal with the gas and energy situation as a nation.

Microsoft news and a whole lot more

I'd like to share a resource for all things Microsoft that I find really valuable. For quite awhile I've been receiving Paul Thurrott's WinInfo Daily Update as a weekly digest, with occasional separate emails on breaking stories related to Microsoft products, the company, their competitors, and computing in a global sense. I believe there are multiple ways to receive the updates and podcasts, but I've stuck with email to my inbox. A list of free newsletters available for subscription can be found here.

As a PC user, this is an easy way for me to keep an eye on new products, problems with current software and systems, legal issues and more – a big dose of Microsoft in concise format with some Apple, Google, Yahoo etc. thrown in. If you're a Mac user, there's still a lot that will interest you. Paul gives straight talk, and his newsletter is a source I trust.