From the Desk of Janet Barclay

Are you finding yourself with a little extra time on your hands this summer? Don’t let this time slip away!

My colleague, Erin Blaskie, is hosting the first annual Summer Speaker Series featuring an incredible line-up of speakers including James Roche, Christina Merkley, Sheri McConnell, Alexis Neely, Allana Pratt, Lou Bortone, Viki Viertel, Lynn Scheurell, Kathie Thomas, Debbie LaChusa, Wendy Weiss, Terri Z, Donna Gunter, Diana Ennen and many more.

Here’s the deal… She’s featuring TWO speakers per day for the entire month of August - not including weekends, because who wants to work weekends, especially in the summertime! There’s one track for virtual assistants, and another track for all business owners and entrepreneurs. You can purchase a seat in either one or both, with or without audio downloads, so what are you waiting for?  I’ve heard there is a cap of 200 people due to the bridge line and with the speakers involved, that won’t last long!

The first 100 people to register will also receive access to bonus sessions in September, so sign up today – you won’t be disappointed! It’s going to be one of the hottest events of the summer!

"One thing you can’t recycle is wasted time."

Anonymous

In June, this blog was mainly devoted to sharing the interesting results of my recent online marketing and networking survey. If you operate an online business or use the Internet to promote your products or services, be sure to check them out!

Last month I also became a monthly contributor to the new Canadian Virtual Assistant Blog where I posted one of my "oldies but goodies" on Working Remotely.

Elsewhere, I’ve blogged about the following topics:

OnlineOrganizing.com - Technology as an Organizing Tool:

• Logging Your Mileage
• "Upcoming" Events
• Another Tool for Finding and Promoting Events Online
• Summertime, and the living is easy…

Introvert Retreat:

• Social Networking: Introversion vs. Extraversion
• Marketing Tips for the Introvert
• Interesting Facts About Introverts

I’ve also posted a new article, Market Your Own Business, and a book review of Time Management for Unmanageable People at OrganizedArticles.com.

Happy Reading!

I received a comment this week from Isabelle Mori of Change Therapy who has enjoyed reading the results of my recent Online Marketing and Networking Survey, and is wondering about the demographics and online behaviours of the participants.

The survey results have been described in the following blog posts:

• The Status of Ezines
• Who Is Blogging?
• Reading Blogs
• Keeping Track of All Those Blogs
• The Wonderful World of Social Networks

This is really all the information I’ve gathered about the participants’ online behaviours, but I did ask the participants, Do you operate a home-based business? The responses were as follows:

I also asked, If you answered "Yes" to the above question, what type of business is it? and received the following replies:

The bolded categories were suggested answers; all others were supplied by the participants who chose "Other" and there is clearly some overlap there. The majority of my clients and regular contacts belong to the suggested professions, so it’s really not surprising that over 70% of the participants with home-based businesses fit into those categories.

This concludes this series of blog posts – I do hope you found it interesting and possibly even helpful as you develop your own online marketing and networking strategy.

It’s certainly been an exciting month, between attending the 3rd Annual Online International Virtual Assistants Convention, and getting involved with the Virtual Assistant Mastermind Speaker Series and the Virtual Assistant and Home Business Blog Carnival! I’m looking forward to many more exciting developments in the coming weeks.

Here’s what I’ve been writing about on my other blogs:

OnlineOrganizing.com - Technology as an Organizing Tool:

• Scheduling Appointments Online
• Using Facebook to Stay Organized
• Maximize Your Time by Optimizing Your Hard Drive
• Desktop Shortcuts for Outlook Functions

Introvert Retreat:

• Earl must be an introvert
• Successful Networking for Introverts - Three Proven Strategies
• Business Networking - Extroverted Web Weaving for the Introvert
• The IntrovertzCoach

I’ve also written a new article called Is Your Schedule Out of Balance?, which you can read over at OrganizedArticles.com.

Be sure to come back later this week to read more results from my recent Online Marketing and Networking Survey!

One of the questions I asked in my recent Online Marketing and Networking Survey was Do you have a blog? I received the following responses:

A couple of people contacted me to let me know that I should have included Yes, but I have not posted to it recently as one of the answers. I realize that lots of people get excited about the idea of blogging, but then lose interest, run out of ideas, or are unable to make the time to keep it up. It would have been very interesting to capture that information, so I‘m absolutely kicking myself for that omission! 6% of the participants skipped this question, and maybe they fell into this category.

What’s noteworthy here is that 44% of the people are active bloggers, and an additional 23% plan to start blogging. This means that the number of people who are not interested in blogging is about half of the number who are! This may of course be due to the fact that at least a third of the participants work in online businesses - I have no doubt that a survey of professionals working in traditional offices, or in retail or manufacturing settings, would yield very different results.

On the topic of blogging, I’ve added a new widget to my sidebar, linking to the Virtual Assistant and Home Business Blog Carnival, as I plan to be a regular participant. Word is starting to get out, with 16 submissions in Issue #2 and 18 in Issue #3. Be sure to check it out for some great tips! If you blog about marketing, communications, blogging, networking, or other topics related to virtual assistance or other home businesses, why don’t you join us?