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Coffee and Wifi Spots in LondonJuly 3, 2010 – 4:41 am
If you find yourself between meetings with nowhere to go, then it’s always handy to be able to grab a coffee and get online. I recently came across this Time Out list of places in London where you can get free wifi and a coffee or something stronger. http://www.timeout.com/london/aroundtown/features/6187/Where_to_find_free_wi-fi_in_London.html Virtual assistants featured in Mayfair PAJune 15, 2010 – 11:03 pm
We were recently contacted by the magazine, Mayfair PA, looking to do an article on virtual assistants. We’re always happy to talk about the many great benefits of virtual working and the lovely people at Mayfair PA let us rabbit on about it. Check out the article here: Get The Most out of The Working DayMarch 29, 2010 – 1:28 am
Time is money the old phrase goes, but actually it’s more valuable than that. Regardless of how organised you are you’ll only ever have 24 hours in the day. You can’t ‘make’ more time, you can only make the most of what you’ve got. Try our five simple tips to maximise your day: 1. Start off with a plan – If you sit down at your desk with no clear idea of what you want to achieve in the next few hours, the chances are you’ll spend the morning checking your emails, jumping from task to task and not getting much done. So have a to do list for each day that sits on your desktop or your notepad, or anywhere visible and make sure you tick off each of the tasks on it. Live in Portugal, Work in London – the extremes of remote working…March 23, 2010 – 11:34 pm
We’re big fans of remote working. So when our IT guru, Ben Taylor, decided to head off to live in Portugal and keep his IT support business, Responsive Computing, running in London – we were interested to see how it panned out. Ben’s been in Portugal for 6 months now, we caught up with him to see how it’s going. Q: So, Ben, before you left London what plans did you put in place to make sure you’d be able to do business as usual? Ben: I decided a while before I left that I would change the focus of my work a little and try to get in more web-based business that would be easier to do remotely (and give me some much needed variety). I also had to be very honest with myself and the clients in the situations when my physical presence was required too frequently for remote working to be a viable option and manage peoples expectations of what can and cannot be done from a distance. Operationally, a lot of thought had to go into the flow of phone calls, emails and post – I now use hosted services for email etc rather than running my own server, and make extensive use of Skype. Q: How did people react when you told them your plans? Ben: I had to tell some clients I wouldn’t be able to look after them any more due to the distance, and some were disappointed. 75% of people thought the idea was great and were very excited for me. The other 25% just didn’t get why we would want to do it. Q: What have you found most challenging about remote working between two countries? Ben: A few things still require snail mail so I always have to make sure I allow extra time at both ends for things to arrive. Also, some of my projects are triggered after trips back to the UK so the cashflow is a bit more erratic. Q: What would you say are your most important tools when it comes to remote working? Ben: My hosted Exchange Server, so my email, calendar and contacts are available wherever I happen to be. I couldn’t live without Skype, and GoToAssist has come to my rescue a few times when I unexpectedly need to remote in to a random PC in the UK. Q: Have there been any elements of working in this way that you’ve found unexpected? Ben: It IS a bit harder sometimes to motivate yourself when you live in a place with a Mediterranean “manhana” culture (I’m not sure if that is good or bad!). The huge amount of effort and planning that went into this move has meant I am a lot more protective of my own free time than I was in the UK – if my phone rings at dinner time I won’t answer it now – I was too soft when was in the UK and I now realise just how off my work/life balance was. Q: So, overall how would you rate life in Portugal? Ben: Pretty fantastic. At times it’s been a lot more complicated than I expected, simple things here can be a lot more difficult than they need to be, but it’s worth it for the slower pace of life and clean air. You can read more about Ben’s move to Portugal on his blog:
Large Files via EmailJanuary 28, 2010 – 10:46 pm
There are countless ways to share and collaborate on documents online. However, many of us still need to email files, and why not, it’s quick and easy. Usually. The problems start when you try to email things like presentations or documents containing images which can be huge. Try out www.yousendit.com which allows you to send files of up to 100mb for free. This can be done from the homepage with no need to sign up, it’s super quick and easy. Recipients then receive an email from You Send It giving them a link from which to download the file. It’s perfect for occasional use. If you regularly send large files then you might want to consider subscribing, there are various levels of subscription with added benefits which allow you to send files of up to 2gb to multiple recipients, track who has downloaded the file, etc, etc. There are also additional security features such as delivery receipts, certified delivery and password protection all of which can be used on a pay as you go basis. It’s a good service which offers flexible pricing – definitely worth checking out. Other similar services include www.dropsend.com or www.sizablesend.com. There are plenty of others out there and they all offer a certain amount of free file sending (usually with size limits). Our Top Five Tools for Virtual WorkingJanuary 27, 2010 – 10:52 pm
People often ask what sort of tools we use for working virtually. As I spend most of my waking time online (yes, it’s sad I know, I should be out in the fresh air running or something) I’ve built up a reasonable list in the last few years. These are my top five tools at the moment. 1. Google Calendars – Yep, it’s an oldie but a goodie. Google calendars are really versatile, so easy to use and they seem to do just about everything you want to do with them. You can access them from anywhere with an internet connection, send out invites, share your calendar, schedule recurring events, get a countdown time to your next meeting, get SMS and email reminders for events. 2. www.smartsheet.com – When we started using this site it took a while for me to get into it. Now it seems that every time a new project comes up I think “ah, we could do that with a smartsheet”. It allows you to create and share online spreadsheets that are so flexible you can use them for just about anything. We use them to keep track of tasks and projects amongst ourselves and also with clients. They completely take away the need for endless emails back and forth with attachments. Anybody who is able to view the sheets can instantly see what the status of tasks is and you get an email notification when any updates are made so you don’t miss what other people are doing. 3. www.timeiq.com – We used to each have a desktop timer for recording time on client projects. It used to mean that at the end of the month I would have to get everyone’s timesheet and waste time collating into one report for clients. With Time IQ we keep all our timesheets online so it doesn’t matter if we are working on our desktops or our laptops we can still record our time as we work. When it comes to the end of month reports it’s a 2 click process to pull together all the info I need to bill clients. It’s not free but it’s low cost and the time it has saved me is more than worth it. 4. www.dropbox.com – This is a great file sharing tool, it’s so convenient to sync and share files and you get up to 2gb of online storage free. 5. www.popfax.com – I rarely need to send or receive faxes, probably once every 2 or 3 months. so it doesn’t make sense to have a fax machine cluttering up my office. I use this service which provides an online fax number with a geographical prefix. People can fax from a regular machine to your number and it just ends up as a PDF in your inbox. You can also fax documents straight from your PC to any fax number. Small Business Owners Work Too Hard…January 22, 2010 – 5:47 am
A recent study by the Alliance and Leicester indicated that 33% of small business owners are working more than 50 hours a week and 15% over 65 hours a week. It’s confirmation, if you need it , that running your own business is very hard work. But if you’re working 65 hours a week on an ongoing basis, you have to ask yourself – why? Is it simply because there is so much work to be done? Or because your business is undergoing an incredible growth phase? Or is it because you can’t quite bring yourself to delegate as much as you should? If the answer to any of these three is yes, then you might be able to find a more sustainable work pattern by either delegating more if you have staff, or outsourcing some of the things that are taking up your time. Most business owners find it hard to let go of things but the reality is that if you want your business to succeed you simply can’t do everything yourself. So if you’re slogging away putting in a 12 hour day everyday, then take half an hour out to list some of those tasks that are taking up your time. Then take a look at the list and consider what you could realistically have someone else do for you. It might not be easy starting to delegate, but start small and build up some trust with those carrying out the work for you and you should gradually find that you feel more comfortable handing over tasks or projects. Save Time with RSS ReadersDecember 7, 2009 – 9:43 pm
I’m a huge fan of Google and gradually it seems to be taking over my working day, rather than logging straight into Outlook in the mornings, I’m logging straight into my Google account. Here I check my own and client calendars, check my emails, create maps to go with client itineraries, get distracted, etc. Now I’ve started using Google Reader as well and it’s great. Go to www.google.com, click on ‘Reader’ and get started. All you need to do is subscribe to content updates, or ‘feeds’. To do this click on the ‘Add Subscriptions’ icon on the top left of the screen and type in the url of the site you want to subscribe to. If there is an RSS feed from the site Google will automatically add it to your subscriptions. The other option is to subscribe directly from the site you want to follow by looking for the orange RSS icon. Now instead of browsing the web seeing if there’s anything new on my preferred blogs and sites, I can just log in to my Reader account. It’s also a great way to store articles that you want to keep or refer to again. If you come across something you really like, just tag it with some appropriate words and then you can quickly find it when you need it. Customer Service Done RightNovember 2, 2009 – 9:03 pm
I recently experienced excellent customer service and it amazed me. It’s a sad reflection of today’s wired world that we are all so accustomed to automated responses and shoddy customer service that when we do get served right, it is a unique experience. This particular experience was unique from beginning to end. I started off only wanting to change my internet provider but ended up switching my home phone service and adding digital T.V. From the time I talked to a real person who actually gave me her name and a guaranteed install date, to the charming individual who came round to do the work, I felt happy to be giving my business to this company. If you run any kind of business dwell on this – the customer may not always be right but customer service should always be done right. It’s not just about the service you provide and the price point, it’s increasingly about the approach and attitude of your staff. So forget the vision statements and lofty goals; if people are giving you money to do something for them do it nicely and make them happy about handing over their cash. Handy Little Tool for Virtual WorkingNovember 1, 2009 – 9:21 pm
I’m a big user of Skype, despite it’s many detractors I find it’s pretty good for the majority of my outgoing calls and I love the IM facility on it as well. So I’m always delighted to find nice little extras to go with it. Recently, I’ve needed to record a couple of phone calls and I found this little add on www.pamcorder.com which records Skype calls of up to 15 minutes duration for free. Download it onto your desktop and from there it’s super simple to use. 
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