March, 2013

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Global Coworking Conference Recap

Small Business Labs

The 3rd Annual Global Coworking Unconference Conference (GCUC) was held March 5th and 6th in Austin, Texas.  Reflecting the strong growth of the coworking industry , there were well over 300 attendees this year - more than triple the number attending two years ago.   My major takeaways were: 1. The Mix of Attendees : GCUC attracted a wide range of folks this year.

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So you’ve been asked to organise an event… now what?

Practically Perfect PA

How often do you organise events? Considering this task is not the staple part of our profession I can still imagine your answer to be ‘quite often’. We are asked to arrange all sorts of events including anything from a team training day through to the company Christmas party and other large scale conferences, exhibitions and dinners. Many of us are asked to organise events without much thought from the person that has asked you to organise the thing… sometimes the best you can hope for is a goo

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33 Unwritten Rules of Management

Ian's Messy Desk

These rules are credited to Bill Swanson. In a news story several years ago , it was revealed not all the rules are original. Whatever the source, they are useful aphorisms for life management. The handbook has become an underground hit among senior executives and management thinkers. The Unwritten Rules of Management is part Ben Franklin and part Yogi Berra, with a dash of Confucius thrown in.

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Is working from home really more energy efficient?

Eco-Office Gals

There are some pretty conflicting opinions on this subject. On the one hand, working from home can reduce your carbon emissions through a lack of commuting. But, on the other hand, around 17% of the US workforce is now at home all day, every day, causing an increase in energy consumption. It doesn’t have to be that way though. If you’re a contractor and you choose to work from home, you can make it a much greener option just by reassessing your working environment.

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Best Practices to Streamline Compensation Management: A Foundation for Growth

Speaker: Joe Sharpe and James Carlson

Payroll optimization can be one of the most time-consuming and complex factors of small business management. Yet, organizations that crack the code on streamlining employee compensation often discover innovative avenues for growth. With the right strategies in place, outsourcing and streamlining payroll processes can result in substantial time and resource savings.

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5 Questions to Ask Before Recommending Someone for a Job

Eat Your Career

Your “stamp of approval” is precious. When you recommend someone for a job—whether a friend, family member, colleague or anyone else—your professional reputation is on the line. Your contacts trust you and you’re essentially asking them to transfer that trust to another person. If that person loses their trust for any reason, it transfers right back to you.

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Is it an Opportunity, a Challenge or a Problem?

Stephanie LH Calahan

Have you ever thought about the words you choose when presented with a situation that you don't really care for?  Have you thought about the emotions that you release?    Oftentimes a problem is also an opportunity.  Let me give you an example. Say you are working on a project and the client calls and is very upset with something.  Apparently, you had a mis-communication and had been moving forward on a project with different expectations and now your clie

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More Trending

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20 do’s and don’ts for team building events

Practically Perfect PA

Over the years I’ve organised a variety of team building events from week long forums to after work drinks in the local pub. I would imagine that most assistants have been asked to arrange something for their team as we do tend to be the focal point for social activities in the office. It is such a great achievement when we manage to create something that works well and everyone had a great time. it is also so important that we get team building events right.

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The African way of doing business

The Small Business Blog

As a general rule, I detest the over simplification of a continent with over a hundred nations, thousands of ethnic groups, and millions of cultures into a single guild with uniform precepts and perceptions as to how things operate. Yes, there are challenges faced by many states in Africa but they are better itemized as… Read the full article here: The African way of doing business on: THE SMALL BUSINESS BLOG.

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Top 5 eco-friendly office supplies

Eco-Office Gals

Being eco-friendly is at the top of the list for a lot of entrepreneurs at the moment, as lowering their carbon footprint can help them to save money in the long run. Being green can boost brand image as well, especially as a lot of people are choosing to only work with eco companies these days. Every aspect of your office will need to be switched out for an eco-friendly alternative if you really want to go green.

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Habits That Limit Your Productivity

Productivity Bits

We all have our little habits; the routines and rituals that we adhere to on a daily basis, or the day itself just doesn't feel right. Many of these are rooted in our activity before and after work: that morning cup of coffee, that evening glass of wine and even certain clothing that we like to wear on certain days.If we miss any of these little rituals out, it can affect the way we feel and even the way we behave.

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Mastering Remote Onboarding: Proven Strategies for Seamless New Hire Integration

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

Join this brand new webinar with Tim Buteyn to learn how you can master the art of remote onboarding! By the end of this session, you'll understand how to: Craft a Tailored Onboarding Checklist 📝 Develop a comprehensive, customized checklist that ensures every new hire has a smooth transition into your company, no matter where they are in the world.

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Be a Better Assistant, Ask the Expert: Free Q&A Call with Joan Burge

Office Dynamics

Are you wondering how to be a better assistant? Get on this FREE call with Joan Burge. April 16, 2013 at 10:30 a.m. Pacific Time Ask administrative expert, Joan Burge, any question related to your profession! In honor of Administrative Professional's Day just around the bend we'll be holding a FREE Q&A call with Joan Burge. This free teleseminar will be held April 16 at 10:30 a.m.

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The 3-Step Business Success Formula

Office Organization Success

Many business owners just starting out get caught up in the glamour of having an info product, or group training program, available for the clients and customers to purchase or register for. However, what they don’t realize when starting out is that before they can sell products and run group programs that they need a pool of people who are ready to buy … i.e. a list.

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The wonderful world of events – roundup

Practically Perfect PA

Over the last few weeks I’ve been writing a series of blogs on events, well more specifically how assistants can organise and run great events within the context of their role. I wanted to give you a quick round up of the issues discussed and some additional tips that I think you will find useful when running your events. Here are the links to my previous blogs: How to negotiate when planning an event.

Budget 180
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Getting Gobby To Rock Government and Big Business

The Small Business Blog

It’s getting hot in the Enterprise Rockers kitchen Last Friday I had an article published in Business Zone online where I dared to criticise the House of Commons for showing itself up on Budget Day as being clueless about small businesses. It is the ‘Most Read’ and ‘Most Commented’ article on Business Zone and the… Read the full article here: Getting Gobby To Rock Government and Big Business on: THE SMALL BUSINESS BLOG.

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Unlock Your Productivity: Simple Steps for Every Professional

Unlock your full potential with our comprehensive guide on productivity. This detailed resource explores the three fundamental pillars of effective task management: Todo List Mastery, Time Management, and Habit Optimization. Learn to capture and prioritize your tasks effectively, schedule them using proven strategies like the Pomodoro Technique, and maintain your productivity through consistent habit tracking.

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Networking Is Art and Science Combined

Job Advice Blog

Networking has two purposes: (1) to get you your next job, and if that’s not right now, (2) to prepare for when you need to. Networking is the most effective way to secure a job nowadays. Gerry Crispin of CareerXroads—human resources consultant to the largest companies in America—says that if you network your way into [.].

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Buy recycled for environmentally-friendly home printing

Eco-Office Gals

We might want to do our part to live greener, more environmentally aware lives, but for a lot of us, our daily behavior is so firmly en grained in our routines that we carry on unthinkingly, negatively affecting the environment by poorly considered actions – and one of the biggest of these harmful, unthinking actions is printing. Many of us rely on our printers every day – for study or for work – so what can we do to reduce our environmental impact?

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Why Does it Matter to You?

Virtual Moxie

At AssistU , I teach a class called The Greatest Marketing Technique, which is designed to do just one thing: help a person find and connect with a potential client in such a personal way that the potential client responds to the call to action placed in front of him or her. It works for everyone, can be done from anywhere, anytime, and it’s such a slice of awesomeness that it really deserves its name, if I do say so myself. :).

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5 Reasons to Automate and Streamline Your Business

Office Organization Success

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had a conversation with a business owner who has wanted me to help them set up their systems, whether that’s: Creating an automated system to deliver their free report. Having a system in place so that attendees can register for their teleclasses. Creating a system so that customers can purchase products and/or programs via their website.

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Elevating the Virtual Interviewing Experience

Sharing your authentic self in a virtual interview can be an unwanted challenge. How do you break through the digital barrier when conducting a virtual interview and share your exceptional self? Think in unconventional ways to elevate the virtual interviewing experience.

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Joining instructions for company events

Practically Perfect PA

Most of us will be involved in organising an event at some point in our career particularly if your company does not have a dedicated events department. When I first started as an assistant I was helping with events fairly quickly and one of the first tasks I was asked to complete was writing and sending out joining instructions for in-house training courses.

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Largest Cyber Attack in history taking place now

The Small Business Blog

Five national cyber-police-forces are investigating the biggest Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack in history, according to the BBC. The ongoing attack is causing global internet slowdown. The sheer scale of this attack has never been seen before and it has been going on for well over a week. It has been targeted at a… Read the full article here: Largest Cyber Attack in history taking place now on: THE SMALL BUSINESS BLOG.

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The Rise of Small Business Crowdfunding

Small Business Labs

I had the opportunity to moderate a panel on alternative financing methods at the Global Coworking Conference. While we covered a lot of topics, the audience was clearly most interested in crowdfunding. Crowdfunding, which is raising money by getting getting small donations of money from a large group of people, is hot. Kickstarter, the best known of the crowdfunding site, has raised over $500 million for a wide variety of projects.   While crowdfunding is best known for raising mone

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How to Quit Without Burning Bridges

Eat Your Career

Ready to quit your job? Don’t make any sudden moves! Your number one concern should be protecting the professional relationships you’ve been building with your colleagues. These people may be valuable professional contacts and references for you in the future…but only if you make the transition smooth and easy for everyone. In my recent segment with Fox 31 Denver’s Good Day Colorado , I address this topic and provide some simple tips for quitting without burning your brid

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Mandatory COVID Vaccination Policy Template

New vaccine mandates and testing policies will affect employers with more than 100 workers. Get Paycor’s free, customizable vaccination policy template to communicate critical details and new requirements to your employees. Get Paycor’s Template today!

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The 5 Eco Gadgets That Will Save Your Money

Eco-Office Gals

Saving the planet is a noble goal, but who says you can’t put some cash back in your wallet at the same time? This selection of cutting edge gadgetry, curated by the team at specialist business energy comparison website Power Experts , will help drive down your energy usage, save you money and go some way towards making the world a little cleaner, one unused kilowatt at a time. 1.

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The Interview: Why Wasn’t I Chosen

Job Advice Blog

From the interviewer’s vantage point, the selection process is about availability and choices. That principle applies to many things the rest of us do, too, throughout the day. For instance, isn’t it interesting that when a group of people dine together in a restaurant, some of them make their menu decisions within a few seconds, [.].

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Event objectives and the questions you should be asking

Practically Perfect PA

Earlier this week I wrote about the initial stages of organising an event , specifically the first meeting you should have with your colleagues involved in the event. One of the issues I said you should discuss are the event objectives. I wanted to spend a bit more time talking about objectives because I believe if you are going to organise an event you do need to make sure you know the objectives before you do anything else.

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When the music fades…

The Small Business Blog

The flow of the rhythm… the rush of the beat… the adrenaline pumping! Oh, the thrill of dancing! True music lovers really appreciate the swell of emotions they have when they find a new song. It would seem at first that you could never get tired of it. You could leave it on repeat for days on end and it would retain its fresh excitement for your delight.

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SME Relationships: Proven Solutions for Seamless Collaboration and Success

Speaker: Tim Buteyn, President of ThinkingKap Learning Solutions

💢 Do you find yourself stuck in never-ending review cycles? Are you wondering if your Subject Matter Expert actually got that last review request? Are you having trouble trying to decipher impractical or conflicting feedback? 💢 If any of these scenarios sounds familiar, you may benefit from a crash course on managing SME relationships!

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Part-Time Employment Keeps Growing

Small Business Labs

Last fall our article Are We Becoming a Part-Time Nation covered the trends leading to the growing number of part-time workers in the U.S.   The recent New York Times article The Rise of Part-Time Work covers some of the same ground.  Key quote: "Compared with December 2007, when the recession officially began, there are 5.8 million fewer Americans working full time.

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Quiz: Are You a Slacker?

Eat Your Career

Every office has one: The slacker who seems to weasel his way out of anything that even remotely involves work. We pick up after him. We cover for him. In general, we all think he’s a waste of space. But, as I said, every office has one. What if—dare I say it— you’re that slacker? Could it be possible? It might be hard to admit, but maybe it’s time to take a good hard look at your own work habits.

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I Can Crack That Password in 52 Seconds.

Virtual Moxie

Do you think your passwords are sufficiently strong? I think most people do. I suspect that the longer a person goes without a problem, the more likely she is to think herself safe.I know that's the case with home security—it's been proven that most folks think their homes are impenatrable, when the reality is that they can very easily be breached, so why wouldn't that be the case with the services and programs we use--that form our "home" online?

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The Worst Thing Is to Be Stuck in Your Career

Job Advice Blog

Many of my clients say they feel suffocated in their careers. For whatever reason, they do not like the profession they have chosen for themselves: they feel they’re poorly fit for their careers, and they dislike everything associated with their jobs, their companies, and their bosses. So, the question is, what to do next? Recently, [.].

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Is Training the Right Solution?

Speaker: Tim Buteyn

Let's set the scene: you’ve identified a critical performance gap in your organization and need to close that gap. A colleague suggests training, but you suspect there’s something going on that training can’t address. How can you determine if training is the right solution before you commit your budget and resources to a new training program? In this webinar, you will learn how to determine if training is the right solution using the Behavior Engineering Model.