Hi, and a happy new year to you all.
The Red Box Virtual Office blog has moved to http://www.redboxvirtualoffice.com/blog
That’s right, we have our own blog on our own website.
Welcome to the 21st century Emma!
January 6, 2008
November 7, 2007
What’s on Your Nightstand #2
This time around I have three books on the go.
Top of the pile is Lisa Butler’s Networking Exposed a great but simple guide to making you feel comfortable in networking situations.
Next is Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth. Three quarters of the way through this book and I’m still not sure about it. Labyrinth has a very ‘Da Vinci Code’ feel about it in that it’s reasonably well written, you want to keep reading to find out what happens, but you have to suspend your belief (or in my case non-belief) system and go with the flow. Most of the time I do want to yell, “Get a grip,” but I keep turning the pages, so Mosse must be doing something right.
Finally, although most belovedly, is Alan Bennett’s ‘Untold Stories.’ Alan Bennett is just great and I can hear his voice all through this compilation of stories and diaries. So far, my favourite entry has to be from September 1997:
“4 September. ‘God created a blond angel and called her Diana.’ This is one of the cards on the flowers outside Kensington Palace that the BBC chooses to zoom in on. It purports to be from a child, though whether one is supposed to be touched by it or (as is my inclination) to throw up isn’t plain. HMQ to address the nation tomorrow. I’m only surprise Her Majesty hasn’t had to submit to a phone in.”
About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, a off-site business support service. Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Find out more
Networking Exposed – A Plug
On top of my current reads next to the bed, taking over from Alan Bennett’s Diaries and Kate Mosse’s ‘Labyrinth’ (really not sure about this, we will have to see) is a business self help book by Lisa Butler called ‘Networking Exposed – Discover the Secrets of Business Networking.’
This is an unadulterated plug for Lisa’s book. As a networking phobic, I feel as though I come across badly in groups, especially in groups where one really ought to impress. As a result, I avoid as much as possible situations where I feel I have to be ‘on’.
However, with Lisa’s book under one arm, I am feeling more and more confident that I can actually go out there and conquer my fears and actually make a positive and lasting impression on those I meet.
Go girl!
About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, a off-site business support service. Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Find out more
Moving On
We’re moving house and, therefore, office, later this week.
It’s chaos.
But I will be getting my own dedicated office space, so all the carboard boxes and bubble wrap has to be worth it.
Bear with me while I organise myself at the other end. I’ll be in touch again shortly.
About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, a off-site business support service. Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Find out more
The Cost of Hiring a VA
There has been some chatter within the VA community of late regarding posts from business people looking to hire VAs, but at $5 an hour. Within these posts, it is usually stated that these VAs are ‘overseas’. It’s something that perturbs me.
As an overseas VA, (i.e. most of my clients aren’t in Portugal) I’m astounded that someone within the business community would suggest even THINKING about paying someone $5 an hour, regardless of the work that they would be doing. It smacks of ‘righteous’ west dolling out their little titbits to the ‘poor’ of the developing world.
I wonder what the business people of India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh etc.
(as this is where the $5 is aimed at) would make of learning that they were part of someone earning a “5 figure monthly income” while they were being paid what the rest of us would consider a slap in the face?
It is the misinformed and greedy that continue to peddle this twaddle.
For further reading, go to http://www.vadirectory.net/blog/
About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, a off-site business support service. Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Find out more
August 29, 2007
How Spam Has Ruined Your Chances of Email Success
I subscribe to regular emails from Drayton Bird, copywriter to the stars (well, UK political parties) and manic blogger. In his latest email, he picks up on some work from Jordan Ayan of SubscriberMail.
In his work as Email Marketing Guru, Jordan lists the top 100 words or phrases that can stop your messages getting through.
Here are just the top 5. If you’d like to read more, click the link at the bottom of this article.
1. 100% free
2. 50% off
3. act now
4. all words that relate to sex or pornography
5. all words that related to cures or medication
About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, a off-site business support service. Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Find out more
July 15, 2007
A Word from Desmond
A friend recently brought out some English language magazines for me, bless her. Amongst them was July’s edition of Vanity Fair. I have the George Clooney/Oprah Winfrey cover, one of 20 taken by Annie Leibovitz for a special Africa edition, guest edited by Bono.
Amongst the many excellent articles, is an interview by Brad Pitt of Archibishop Desmond Tutu. He is Cape Town man, and having been in that city, if only briefly, can say how well loved he is.
Here are some of his words. Thank you Vanity Fair. A job well done.
“We have the capacity to feed everybody on our planet. We have the capacity to ensure that everybody has clean water. We have the capacity to ensure that everybody has affordable health care. We have the capacity to ensure that every child gets the inoculations that they ought to have as children. We can prevent many of the diseases to which our children in the poorer parts of the world succumb. For goodness’ sake. Why don’t we wake up to the fact that you can’t have an apartheid security. You can’t have an apartheid prosperity. If you are going to have security, it’s going to be security for all. If you are going to have prosperity, it is going to be prosperity for all. If you want to be free, you can’t have a quarantine freedom. It’s going to be freedom for all. And if you want to be human, we are not going to be able to be human in isolation. It will be that we are human together.”
About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, a off-site business support service. Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Find out more
Transcriptions… Excuse me, sorry, what did you say?
Don’t you think it’s great what technology can do for us? I remember the days when you were given a little micro tape to transcribe off; backwards and forwards, stop, start, oh, no, stop again. Chunky, little tapes in the bottom of your bag and that awful machine that you had to use to transcribe everything off. Ah, they were the days.
But now, every man and his dog, or at least his mother, has an MP3 player, or a gadget in his bag on which he can record his thoughts, events, meetings and interviews. Download that file on to his computer at a press of a button, another ‘click’ and away it goes for transcribing and in less time than it will probably take me to type this (transcriptionists are great!) that great, all important meeting is there for all to read.
However, in my experience, it’s sometimes not that simple or straightforward for those of us typing out what’s on the tape. So, for all of you out there that love your MP3 player, but wonder why you get your file back with time stamps* all over it, here are my top tips for getting the most out of your transcriber:
- Choose your venue wisely. Background noise is picked up by your recorder better than you may think. Coffee shops are a no-no (all that espresso machine noise in the background is enough to drive a girl to drink), as are train stations and children’s play areas (I kid you not…)
- Try and get a venue where you are not going to be interrupted. If you’re taking a recording in your office, divert your phone and tell your secretary/co-workers that you are not to be disturbed. Unless you remember to pause your recording each time you are disturbed, you will be billed for those recorded minutes, whether there is anything to transcribe or not!
- If you are interviewing someone, make sure that both of you come across loud and clear. Test your recording before you go on, replay your voices to make sure that what you have said can be heard and, therefore, transcribed.
- On this theme, ask your interviewee to speak normally and clearly. They may be in a stressful situation, like a job interview, or speaking about something quite personal, but if they can remember that they are being recorded, then the final document will be much more worthwhile.
- If you are taping a number of people at the same time, place microphones strategically around the table. The guy sitting next to you will probably be recorded, but there’s no guarantee that the person 6 feet away will be heard.
- Advise on the tape or in an accompanying email any strange words, names or places. This can be especially valuable if your transcriber is from out of town.
- Speak at a normal rate. Okay, so you may be paying your transcriber per recorded minute (my preferred way), but speaking normally is much easier for the transcriber to type to instead of rewinding the tape every 20 seconds to try and figure out what you said. You may want to get as much out of your transcriber as you can, but you may just end up with a document full of time stamps* where we’ve been unable to understand a blooming word you said.
*Time Stamps – those annoying little asterisks that will undoubtedly crop up from time to time in your transcribed document if you haven’t adhered to the above!
About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, a off-site business support service. Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Find out more
July 9, 2007
Al Gore, Madonna & Metallica – Have they saved the planet?
Don’t you find it just a little bit strange that to ‘get the message over’ Al Gore arranged the multi-continents, 24 hr pop-fest featuring Madonna, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica, to name but three, to save the planet.
Will their performances persuade any one, perhaps excepting those at the concerts, to turn off their tvs, switch to energy efficient light bulbs and buy hybrid fuel cars? Especially as the carbon front print to host such concerts in Sydney and Wembley must surely be enormous.
http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2121713,00.html
We shall wait to see what Price Waterhouse Coopers comes up with (and how many trees are chopped down to produce the report…)
Global warming is an issue that we all need to be aware of and to act on. With news that China has over taken America in producing carbon emissions and that India isn’t far behand, this is an issue that all continents and all governments need to act upon. However, when some western governments wont sign up to world wide environmental agendas, why should developing nations comply?
I also read that these new technologies for LCD and plasma screens, digital radios and the like are using more energy than your standard telly. Shouldn’t we as consumers be telling the corporations that this isn’t satisfactory and along with new technologies, greater fuel efficiency is a must?
About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, an off-site business support service. Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Find out more
June 18, 2007
I’m in Pain
I’m not much of a gym bunnie, but I do occassionally bounce around to some exercise DVDs at home.
Yesterday morning was one such occassion.
And I pulled a tendon in my calf. Painful, but no writhing around like some overpaid footballer.
That’ll teach me.
About the Author:
Emma Crabtree is the owner and sole-operator of Red Box Virtual Office, a off-site business support service. Red Box Virtual Office can enable you to free yourself from the day to day admin of your business so that you can focus on what you enjoy and what makes you money. Find out more
