eSoup

Need To Share Passwords With Your Virtual Team? PassPack.com To The Rescue...

How many of you have a gazillion passwords that you have stashed in documents or sticky notes all over your computer? 

Or maybe you've tried to make things easy on yourself (and easy on anyone who wants to gain access to your accounts) by doing the same password over and over again.

I know, it's not easy. I have tons of logins and passwords to keep track of, and the password sharing site PassPack.com has really made my life a lot simpler. In fact, it's one of my top 5 most used online tools as a virtual assistant. 

It's the first site that I log on to every day. In fact--it's the only site that I have to remember password info for...

Virtual Work: 5 Unique Challenges That Web Workers Face

People who work in traditional office settings usually envy the unique and flexible work lifestyle that web workers enjoy.

They may imagine us sitting around in our pajamas, eating ice cream and cheerfully working along without any of the hassles that life in a cubicle can bring.

People new to virtual work may be a bit surprised at how hard it is to adapt to this less structured lifestyle.

I've put together a list of some of the top things that web workers have to get used to in learning to work unattached to a physical office:

The Virtual Company: What Is It?

People ask me this all the time, and it's a great question.

If you're not used to working online, then the idea of something being real and invisible (not right before your eyes) can be a hard concept to wrap your brain around.

A virtual company can take a few forms:

It can be an internet business where the team of staff work from their own locations.

Not sure what an internet business is?

Think of Amazon.com, Woot.com, any online membership site, and tons of other types of sites where the website itself is the "marketplace".

An internet business can survive without a brick and mortar store--the "store" is the website.

Can Using A Bigger Monitor Increase Your Productivity?

  My Current Setup 
  Originally uploaded by lannadelarosa

The Wall Street Journal says a larger monitor can increase productivity by up to 52% (!) for certain tasks  according to a recent study. I'm not that surprised.

Last year when I bought my iMac, I decided to go for the biggie--a 24 inch monitor. My reasoning is that I am looking at the computer for much of the day 5 days a week, so why strain my eyes?

I never thought that having a bigger screen would affect my productivity, but the bigger screen is quite addictive.

I do a lot of work that combines emails and internet, and I can have my email open on one side of my screen and right beside it the website that I'm working on. And any other little screens I need (documents, spreadsheets, etc) I can have them open too, and my screen is big enough to accommodate the crowd.

How To Get Your Blog (or Yourself) Featured In Newspapers

Within just a few months of starting eSoup back in 2006 I was fortunate enough to be featured in an article by Boston Globe career columnist Penelope Trunk, which ended up being published in The Boston Globe and syndicated in several other newspapers. Here’s how that media windfall came about:

Penelope and I came into contact with each other through our blogs– I had written a post responding to one of her posts and linked back to her, then she came to check out my blog, saw what I did for a living, thought it sounded like a cool job, and found a way to include me in one of her articles.

That article led to me being interviewed for this article by Emily Shartin, which led to a few other interviews, the most recent of which came out just a couple weeks ago.

My first media blitz was the result of being in the right place at the right time, plus having a blog that established me as a credible resource. The other times the journalist contacted me either through being referred or through finding a relevant post on my blog while doing internet research for a story.

As someone who just started blogging a couple years ago (and before that I didn't even know what a blog was!), I am astounded at how having a blog has made it really easy to reach journalists without even trying.

Actually when you look at the numbers, it's shouldn't be that hard to believe--over 75% of journalists refer to blogs when doing research for stories.

I really think that if you have a blog and if you write on timely topics, it's just a matter of time before a journalist calls you up or emails you asking for your expert opinion.

How can you get ready? How can you inspire journalist to want to talk to you? How do you give a good interview?

If I could give just a few pieces of advice for getting mentioned in mainstream print, they would be:

Is Anyone Doing TV Turnoff Week?

  Dinner on the Porch 
  Originally uploaded by shinyrobot

If you are, please let us know how things are going.

Each year I do this my reaction never ceases to amaze me. The first day I'm thinking "Do I really need to do this? I don't watch that much TV."

But I do it anyway, just because I like to deprive myself sometimes ;-) and several times during the first couple days I find myself automatically planning some of my daily activities around favorite TV shows.

But then I catch myself.

When TV is taken out of the equation it's amazing how much time opens up, even when you think you don't really watch that much TV to begin with. You start to notice that the birds chirp throughout the day, not just in the morning. You dig out that old "books on tape" set that you started a while ago and never finished. You sit outside to eat dinner on the patio. You think "I might as well mow the lawn" (and it isn't even the weekend!).

The biggest difference I'm noticing is that there is a calmness to these days. It's like your brain has room to roam and spread out. I've also gotten much more work done, because for some reason as I've ruled out television, I'm also naturally not doing as much online socializing stuff. There is an abundance of time now, and I'm filling it with things that I've been meaning to do for a while, and also fun stuff (like shopping), and chores too. The days just feel more productive, more calm, and more satisfying.

Ahh, now I remember how I ended up giving up TV for an entire year the first year I participated in TV Turnoff week! The feelings of calmness are almost addictive (in a good way).

If you forgot about TV turnoff week or if you just decided today that you'd like to do it, just go ahead and start tomorrow, and abstain for a week. (Shhh-I promise that I won't tell the TV turnoff people that you're doing at an off-time :-) )

How Artists Do The Web Differently

I know that most of us are on the web because this is where our work is, but for a lot of us there is an artistic element to our online aspirations that gets stifled when we follow the herd who tells us all the stuff we should be doing and worrying about technology-wise.

This is why Robert Bruce turned me upside down (in a good way) with his guest post on Problogger called 27 Thoughts On Blogging For The Artist.

He doesn't pull any punches, and his points just made me think and acknowledge--are my activities/ways of approaching the internet leading me closer to or away from what it means to be an artist?

My faves of Robert's thoughts on Art and the Web:

6. If you’re spending more time on Twitter than on your novel/painting/film/poem/play/sculpture, you’re dead.

7. The creation of great art has nothing to do with Community.

9. If you’re the real thing, you’ll be around in 30 years, still working. Most of these services and sites you now admire will not.

13. Aim for Greatness, not the front page of Digg.

15. Though tempting, you’ll never crush your own mediocrity working only four hours a week.

Reuters Interview: Thou Shalt Unplug

I'd like to give a big thank you to Jill Serjeant, journalist for Reuters International Newswire, who interviewed me a few weeks ago and included me in her article about the new movement that is sweeping the tech world--the Secular Sabbath.

A little excerpt:

"Sharon Sarmiento knew it was time to unplug when she realized she was blogging in her dreams and hearing imaginary instant messages.    

For Ariel Meadow Stallings, it was the hours lost while surfing the Internet that left her feeling like she had been in a drunken blackout.

Both women are part of a new grass-roots movement in which tech geeks, Internet addicts, BlackBerry thumbers and compulsive IMers are deciding to wrest back control of their lives by daring to switch off -- if only for a day."

Read the rest of the article...

HowTo Create A Work Schedule That Feels Like A Vacation

  Young spring love 
  Originally uploaded by mormoralice.

The NY Times has come out with a downer of an article siting a few web workers who died due to lifestyle related health complications.

It was implied that the desk potato lifestyle of these folks contributed to their premature demises, but I know of many, many, many virtual workers who have healthy, well-balanced  lifestyles that anyone would be jealous of.

Being healthy is something we are all challenged with, no matter what our jobs are, but we web workers are strategically positioned to create lifestyles that promote an extremely high quality of life. We can work the hours that we want to, we can arrange our day around what we enjoy most, and we are entirely in charge of how we organize our lives so that we have time for playing outdoors, spending quality time with family, and having diverse interests (outside of the computer).

Let's focus on the positive folks, and harken back to last year's Springtime Workday Remix. At this very time last year I told y'all about a seasonal change in schedule that I came up with that made it so that I felt like I was on a continuous vacation. Let's review:

Painless Social Networking For Newbies: Twitter 101

  twitter_03 
  Originally uploaded by netwalker100

I know, I know--there are too many "must-do" things online, too many social platforms that all your friends are waxing poetic about, and for those of us that are not tech heads, it can be more than a little overwhelming (and actually kind of intimidating).

You have no idea how much I've resisted all the "must-do" things that almost everyone is participating in, such as Facebook, Linked In, MySpace, Second Life, Digg, Reddit, Naymz, and about a hundred other social apps that most of us don't really feel like we have the time for and feel totally out of place doing.

I know, I'm with ya. But let me tell you something--if you are working online, if you are marketing online, you pretty much need to start getting involved in some aspect of online social networking. This is what the internet is about these days--community, meeting people, connecting in some informal way, almost effortlessly building friendships and connections with folks around the globe who you thought you'd never be lucky enough to meet.

I know it can be overwhelming to think about the sheer number of social networking outlets available, setting up accounts and profiles, adding friends, and wondering "what exactly am I supposed to be doing on this thing?"

I know because this is me too, but I've learned a very painless, easy way to dip your pinky toe into the social networking waters that your friends, competitors and colleagues are probably already knee-deep in. I promise, this won't hurt a bit--this is the big secret for us non-techy, non-MySpace-y types: