September 8th, 2011
by Maan Laxa
This is the 4th and final post in Pepper’s Virtual Teams Series. In case you’ve missed the first three posts, you can check out What is a Virtual Team, How to Effectively Work with a Virtual Team, and Online Collaboration Tools for Virtual Teams.
 Everything has an upside and a downside, and this includes working with virtual teams. Being part of one, I can objectively list down the benefits and challenges of doing things the virtual way.
Benefits of working with a Virtual Team
- You can work with the best set of skills – Because virtual work is not limited to a geographical time and space, you can choose to hire the best person for the job, no matter where they are in the world. Even if they are scattered all over the globe, your team members’ skills and expertise are still available to you.
- Lower overhead costs – Since your staff is not physically in the office or your place of business, you can save on office space, rent, equipment, utilities, and other costs that go with renting, leasing or owning physical property.
- Flexible team scheduling – Work hours are more flexible for those who work with virtual teams. Members can choose their hours as long as they deliver on the tasks assigned tot hem. As long as schedules, leaves, and days off are pre-arranged and agreed upon, team members can enjoy the benefits of flexible work scheduling.
- Reduced Commute Time – You and your virtual team need can avoid the rush hour commute to work. Since less time is wasted on commuting to and from the office, you can devote more of your day to actual work. On top of this, you get to save on gasoline, parking, and other transportation costs.
- Work life balance – Your team can have a better quality of life with a balanced work schedule. The flexible schedule allows them more quality time for themselves, not to mention their spouses and children.
- Work measures become more reliable – Since there is minimal to no actual physical interaction, work metrics need to be used to determine just how much work is done. This is a more accurate way of measuring work results than the showboating that sometimes occurs in offices because you see results that are based on set quantitative metrics.
Challenges of a Virtual Business
- A lot of room for misinterpretation – Since interaction is done in a virtual work environment, it is harder to express and read emotions accurately. Emotions and expressions that cannot that we usually read well during face to face interactions are not as easily read through messaging, email, or phone conversations.
- More challenging to visually represent thoughts and ideas – Let’s face it – gathering people in front of a whiteboard is one of the most efficient methods of brainstorming and communicating ideas. With no (or limited) face to face conversations, we have to rely on online programs or tools, and sometimes, these limit the visual presentations that an excited team member may have regarding a project plan or idea.
- Team members may not be as transparent – Team members may not readily level with the other members regarding their project issues or difficulties. Granted, this is also a problem with physical offices, but it’s a lot easier to hide when your interaction with others is limited to online tools.
- Time Zone Management — This is almost a given. While working in different time zones allows you to work around the clock, having people spread across multiple time zones also poses a scheduling challenge.
- Fewer Opportunities to Bond Away From Work – Team rapport is harder to build when there is no option for the members to have a bottle or two for the road when the work day ends. Activities that build camaraderie such as break time conversations or meal breaks that serve as bonding time are not available to virtual teams.
- Over communication becomes a work standard – In the virtual environment, it is better to communicate, clarify, and confirm everything to make sure that all members have the same understanding about the task at hand. This produces of ton of paperwork and files that could quickly fill your archives.
We’ve walked you through the what, the why, and the how to make virtual teams effectively work for you. If you ask me, the biggest advantage of having a virtual team is the resource pool of talent, skills and varied expertise that each member of the team brings with them, that you can readily access from behind that virtual work space. Perhaps you can add to our list of pros and cons, or share with us your personal experience of having worked with a virtual team.
Having read this series, and maybe even some more of Pepper blogs and client testimonials, do you think a Pepper virtual team can help you do your business better and faster?
Tags: pepper, productivity tools, series, virtual teams
Posted in Outsourcing, Productivity Toolkit | 9 Comments »
August 17th, 2011
by Maan Laxa
This is the 3rd post in Pepper’s Virtual Teams Series. In case you’ve missed the first two posts, you can check out What is a Virtual Team and How to Effectively Work with a Virtual Team.
 An important aspect of effectively managing virtual teams is the collaboration that goes into the work. Many online tools are available for seamless communication and coordination so that the virtual team manager is always on top of every team member’s tasks, schedule, and work results.
Here are some of the useful online collaboration tools for virtual teams:
Basecamp – Pepper uses Basecamp, an online collaboration tool which can be used to effectively manage projects, tasks lists and team communication. Less complicated than other collaboration tools, Basecamp is easy to use to optimize workflow and project management. For the virtual team manager, the dashboard feature of Basecamp is useful for tracking work progress, messages, file uploads, and work time logged by each member.
Skype – Another communication tool staple for Pepper is Skype. With its simple and easy to use features, not to mention, FREE features, it has now become the standard for voice calls over the Internet, as well as chat, video conferencing and file transfers. Skype is free to use for just about every operating system and mobile device. Skype can be used for training, client calls, daily meetings, and screen sharing.
Google Docs – If you have a Gmail/Google Account, you can make use of Google Docs for free online spreadsheets and document management. The spreadsheet feature is particularly useful when you need to have multiple people working on the same spreadsheet at the same time. It may not have all the features of Microsoft’s Excel, but it’s very useful for collaborative editing of documents (including text files). Work files that need collaborative work by multiple members such as domain management, financial reports, feature suggestions, performance appraisals, directory lists and online resources can be managed with Google Docs.
Dropbox – Dropbox is tool that allows online file sharing. Team members can create their own accounts and invite other members for file sharing. Whenever you add something to your Dropbox folder it will automatically update to the other people that you shared the folder with (or another computer that you might use at home). Sharing training materials, files and back up documents is made easy, and is readily accessible from multiple computers.
Jing Project – For collaboration that needs screen or video capture, Jing allows voice annotation that can help you easily explain something. All you have to do is upload the capture to Screencast.com and it will send a link for the members to view. Just like Skype, Jing is free to use except when you want to make use of advanced features. This online tool is perfect for graphic or design collaboration or any communication that needs visual and vocal instructions.
There are many other online collaboration tools and programs available for virtual team management, and you may choose to use tools other than the ones we’ve recommended here. What tools do you prefer, and why? Please share them with us in the comments.
Before we end this though, we’d like to remind you that there is another post in the series. We hinted at it in the last post, and now we’d like to introduce the next topic: The Pros and Cons of Working with a Virtual Team. Come back soon to learn more!
Tags: Basecamp, Docs, Google, Jing, pepper, productivity tools, series, Skype, virtual teams
Posted in Outsourcing, Productivity Toolkit | 11 Comments »
August 10th, 2011
by Maan Laxa
This is the 2nd post in Pepper’s Virtual Teams Series. Before reading on, we suggest you check out the first post in the series, What is a Virtual Team. You can also read the next post in the series, Online Collaboration Tools for Virtual Teams.
 Communication and collaboration are two key success factors of effectively managing virtual teams, and ultimately, making the team work efficiently for you.
Virtual teams are linked together by communication technologies that allow them to interact electronically by email, instant messaging, and Voice over IP technologies like Skype. For US based businesses, an internet-based telephone service (VoIP) is an essential tool for real time communication. Conferences can be done through telecons and video conferencing as well.
Managing virtual teams effectively and efficiently
If you’re the leader of a virtual team, keep in mind that you’re managing a set of individuals with different personalities and eccentricities. More often than not, they will be working from different time zones, at different hours. For virtual teams to work effectively, the virtual team leader should:
Set clear team goals and objectives – make sure that each team member has completely understood and accepted project goals.
Define work responsibilities and accountabilities of each member – team members should be clear with each member’s role, and how a member’s inaction or delay can affect the work that the other members are responsible for.
Supplement team conferences with one-on-one time with each member – regular online meetings should be followed up with individual discussions with each member of the team. This ensures that each member is clear with project goals and timelines. Individual issues and questions that are of a more personal or confidential nature can be addressed during this time.
Make each team member feel his or her ownership in the project – A sense of ownership leads to commitment and focused action. Allow collaborative effort for team members by involving the whole team in the decision making processes that need consensus and commitment. Set group goals and do regular group discussions of possible solutions and outcomes.
Ensure seamless communication lines – make sure there are no blocked lines of communication and each member of the team is kept fully informed of all developments at all times.
Strengthen team rapport and camaraderie within the virtual team environment – make it a point to incorporate team building activities and opportunities for extra social time with each other into your schedule. The benefits for your team are invaluable. Among other things, this smoothens relationships among team members and encourages open lines of communication.
These are just some tips that can help you effectively manage and get the most out of your virtual teams. Working with virtual teams can be a challenge, but also provides several benefits, both tangible and intangible – but this is a topic for a future post.
For the next post in the series, we’ll discuss collaboration programs or software that can further help you manage your teams and ensure seamless coordination on project goals and timelines. Until then, do you have any tips for effectively working with a virtual team? Share them in the comments.
Tags: pepper, productivity tools, series, virtual teams
Posted in Outsourcing, Productivity Toolkit | 6 Comments »
August 3rd, 2011
by Maan Laxa
 Purpose, people, and links – these are the three main aspects of a virtual team. Purpose, being the most critical aspect among the three, is what links the virtual team together. This purpose is defined by individual tasks that result to a common goal.
The number of organizations and businesses that choose to work with virtual teams is growing. This is primarily because virtual teams defy time and geography, providing continued productivity across multiple markets and varying time zones.
If you’re considering hiring a virtual team for your business, this series of posts will walk you through the whats, whys, and hows of making your virtual team work effectively for you.
WHAT is a Virtual Team
A virtual team, or what some call a GDT (geographically dispersed team), is a set of people working on the same project but not in the same physical location at the same time. With many companies going global and doing business in multiple locations and time zones all at the same time, setting up virtual teams is fast becoming a reliable way of ensuring that projects get done in a timely and efficient manner.
WHY work with a Virtual Team
Put simply, the main benefit of setting up a virtual team is increased productivity with the use of expert skills at a cost lower than having a physical work force.
Benefits of a virtual team to your business
- Increased productivity – with a virtual team, work on the project is not limited to the traditional 9-5 work day schedule. In fact, your business will never have an off hour because the team member on the other side of the globe can simply pick up where the other team member left off. You are assured of round-the-clock coverage by team members working across different time zones. This translates to faster time to market for new products and services of your business.
- Extended market opportunity – with work teams located in different parts of the globe, your business is able to directly access different market opportunities in a wider scale. Your business will be able to establish worldwide presence to customers and markets. For small business owners, this is added competitiveness on a global scale, without being limited to a particular customer base.
- Knowledge transfer – a virtual team is a pool of skills and talents from around the globe. You are able to choose and work with the best talents and skills you need regardless of your business’s physical location. With uninterrupted communication and online interaction, each member provides easy access to a virtual pool of knowledge. Members from the west can benefit from what the easterners have to say. Definitely, each member of the team brings along with him or her all the competencies and know-how from his or her part of the world.
- Lower overhead costs – You cut down on office overhead costs when team members work from their own locations. With a virtual team, you need not invest on office space, rent, utilities, equipment, and even the usual employee compensation and benefits. Additionally, you have the benefit of cost effective and flexible resource scheduling – you can scale up or down depending on what your business needs.
Having a virtual team that you can rely on allows you to focus on the more important aspects of your business’ development. Of course, this only holds true if you can work with your virtual team effectively. We’ll tackle this in the next post in the Pepper Virtual Teams Series. Stay tuned!
Check out the next posts in the Pepper Virtual Teams Series: How to Effectively Work with a Virtual Team and Online Collaboration Tools for Virtual Teams.
Tags: pepper, productivity tools, series, virtual teams
Posted in Outsourcing, Productivity Toolkit | 10 Comments »
July 4th, 2011
by Pepper
 This summer, we want to give you time to do whatever you want. Whether you want to spend more time with your family, go on vacation, attend a conference, or simply get more sleep, Pepper VA wants to help you do it.
One of our goals at Pepper VA is to help you make the best use of your time. Let us take care of your administrative duties, web development, and other tasks, so you can focus on other aspects of your business. Let us become your allies in business, so you have more time for yourself.
Getting more time for yourself is simple. Just sign up for Pepper’s services before the 15th of July, and you’ll automatically get our standard 5 hours of trial VA services for free. That’s half a day for you to pamper yourself at the spa, visit the park with your kids, host a barbecue, or do anything you want, absolutely free.
But wait, there’s more!
Sign up for our Mild Paprika or Bit Hot Jalapeño packages, and you’ll get 10% discount for July, August, and September. Opt for our Red Hot Chili or Super Hot Habenero packages, and you get a whole 20% off. Whichever package you choose, we’ll make sure you have a lot of time to enjoy the summer heat.
For our current clients, you can also enjoy our summer discounts by upgrading to a higher subscription plan.
Ready to have some fun in the sun? Sign up for Pepper Virtual Assistant services today!
Tags: discount, pepper, promo, virtual assistants
Posted in Announcements | No Comments »
May 27th, 2011
by Luis Cruz
 The most important element of any web page is the content. Let’s face it: content is king. You can have the best designed site in the world, but if you have nothing worth reading or listening to, nobody is going to care. Worse, if you do have something worth saying, but nobody understands it, it’s all going to waste.
Watch what you say
We don’t want to give you a grammar lesson, but we do want to emphasize corect speling and proper grammar. If you’re readres can’t undrstand what your saying, their not going to waist they’re time on your site. Its probably a good idea too brush up in your English skills every so often.
Having said all that, here’s a pop quiz: the last paragraph is riddled with errors – how many can you spot? Stay concise We admit, our writers sometimes have a tendency to get a bit wordy. That’s why, after writing something, we always ask ourselves if we can say the same thing in half as many words. The heading really says it all though, so as Forrest Gump says, “that’s all I have to say about that.”
Avoid Jargon
Unless you’re writing a technical report, there’s probably no need to include technical jargon in your writing. Here’s a tip: if you don’t use the word in your regular conversations, it probably doesn’t belong in your writing.
Give them bite size chunks
We try to keep our paragraphs down to five sentences or less, but we don’t really count the number periods we tack on. Instead we try to limit our paragraphs to one thought each.
For this paragraph, for example, the main point is to keep paragraphs short. Since we want to emphasize the idea of having one thought per paragraph, we’re dedicating a separate paragraph for it.
The idea is to allow readers to skim through your page and still allow them to pick up the gist of what you’re trying to say. Splitting different thoughts into different paragraphs does just that.
Use your head(ings)
This ties in with the previous point in that it also allows readers to skim through your content and pick up important points. Using headings allow you to clearly define different ideas and organize your content. Using heading tags (<h1>, <h2>, etc.) lets you hit two birds with one stone. It not only organizes your content for your readers, it gives you the added benefit of optimizing for search engines.
Don’t get too bold
Highlighting everything highlights nothing. The point of highlighting something, whether by italicizing it, making it bold, changing its color, or anything else, is to make it stand out from the rest of the page. If you highlight too many things, they all just start blending into each other, and none of them stand out anymore.
Talk with me
We stated in one of the points above “if you don’t use the word in your regular conversations, it probably doesn’t belong in your writing.” We try to apply this idea, not just to the words we choose, but to the general tone of our writing. We don’t want to lecture you or preach to you – we want to have a conversation with you.
Yes, there are some cases where a conversational tone doesn’t really fit with the content. For the most part, however, a conversational tone is what engages your readers. Speaking (or writing) using your own voice tells your readers that there is a real person behind the words on the screen, and that makes them more likely to connect with you.
This is the fifth and final installment of Pepper’s Web Usability series. You can check out the other posts in the links below. We’d like to know before you go though, how do you make sure you get your point across? Share your answers in the comments.
- Keep it simple: the basic philosophy for web usability
- Don’t be a snob: make sure that everybody can access your site
- Identify yourself: don’t make it hard to figure out who’s behind your site
- Show me around: make it easy to navigate your site
- Say it, and say it well: make sure you get your message across
Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments »
May 20th, 2011
by Nikki Romero
Technorati is a real-time search engine concentrated on tracking blogs. This will not only drive more traffic to your blog, but also help position you as an authority in your respective field. So, if you’d like to get more exposure for your blog, make sure to get it listed there.
It took us a while to figure it out ourselves, so I thought it might help if we show you how to do it step-by-step.
So here goes . . .
1. Sign up for an account in Technorati.
2. Once you’ve activated your account, go to your profile by clicking your name on the upper right-hand corner.
3. You can customize your account by adding a profile image and entering additional information about you.
4. Just below the option where you add an image, there’s a section that says ‘my claimed blogs’. You need to enter the URL of your blog in the field and then you also need to add some information such as the RSS URL, meta-tags, keywords, etc.
5. Once you have finished filling out those fields, the site will then advise you to wait for a few days as they verify your blog.
6. Aside from that, you will also receive an email that will provide you a unique code that you need to include in a new article that needs to be posted in your own blog.
*This step is essential as this will be their basis before they start verifying your blog. You can remove the post once verification is completed. Here’s mine – B3FQRMYKMRHF
7. Check back with the site and go back to your profile and click on ‘Check Claim’ to tell Technorati that your blog is ready for verification.
8. Once done, you need to wait for a month or two to have your blog verified.
That’s all. Now let’s see how long it will really take to get our blog verified.
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
May 11th, 2011
by OJ
The key to success is finding what you love to do and to making a career out of it. It’s definitely easier said than done. There are people who took years taking up medicine, law or a master’s degree, putting all of their efforts and time into honing their craft, only to get into a job outside those fields. Clearly, figuring out and going after one’s passion, plus making money out of it, is not as simple as ABC. It requires thorough assessment, honesty to one’s self and focus.
The Right Way
Even professionals or businessmen who already have a steady source of income still second-guess whether they have taken the right career track. When they discover that they have been pursuing a career opposite of their realized interests and skills, they go back to zero to start pursuing another which they guess is their true passion. If you want to waste your life in a series of trial-and-error, feel free to do so.
Meanwhile, if you want to make the best decision for your life while you still have plenty of time to start and rebuild your career, invest in self-assessment. There are several self-assessment tools available online for free. All you need to do is focus, contemplate and stay honest as you answer each of the guide questions. Self-assessment can either reinforce what you already believe your passion is or can also help discover more and new things about yourself. These will give you a clearer direction on the career you should pursue.
Zeal that Radiates
When you do what you love doing, people see it through you. Days of pretending to be busy at work or settling for mediocrity will be over because your passion drives you to give your best all the time. If you love making customers happy and satisfied, you find joy in attending to their requests and fixing their concerns immediately. If you find fulfillment in seeing your designs become reality, you’ll do everything to impress a client so they will agree to construct or fabricate your design. If you like the challenge of convincing either a crowd or a decision maker to purchase or invest, you won’t go wrong when it comes to sales, public speaking or presentations.
Essentially, going after your passion is tantamount to feeling without any doubt that you are on the right track. Such an assurance pushes you to do whatever it takes to achieve the goal. All your actions will revolve around it. Your engagement and drive will lead you to always go for the extra mile. In addition, as you better yourself, you also inspire other people to work passionately.
Genuine Happiness
More than being effective in your job or being able to maximize the potential of your business, being passionate makes you happy. If we all pursue our passion, no one will feel like they’re being bossed around. Why? Because there is no need for it, you feel driven to produce results simply because you want to. You need not be forced or pressured because you already feel rewarded just by enjoying what you do.
In addition, being passionate also means that you bank on your interests and constantly improve your skills. Driven by passion, you look for more efficient ways to fulfill your tasks. You look for opportunities to educate yourself because you want to be the best in the field you are passionate about. Should there be problems, you don’t feel burdened, but instead, challenged – and you know that the taste of success will be sweeter afterwards. Passion keeps the fire burning and no hurdle can ever bring that down.
As H. Jackson Browne said, “Find a job you like and add five days to every week”. Why settle for a job that only pays the bills? If you pursue your passion, not only will you find work enjoyable, monetary compensation should come easy. Clients always look for service providers (i.e. photographers, writers, managers, coordinators, assistants, etc.) who are passionate about what they do as shown in their work output. If you want to be compensated and regarded as an expert in your chosen field, there is only one thing to do – build a career that is close to your heart and use that to add value not just to yourself but most importantly to the people around you.
Posted in Life Management | 6 Comments »
May 9th, 2011
by Luis Cruz
 Hey gang, we’re back, and this time we’re tackling another aspect of web usability. This week’s topic: navigation and information retrieval – specifically, how to make that simple and easy. Before we get to that though, let’s discuss something pretty important: the fold.
Stay above the fold
The fold is the imaginary line where your web page meets the bottom of your browser window. What your readers see on your page without scrolling down is above the fold. Anything that requires scrolling before showing up is below.
Different experts may disagree on the origins of the term, but we like the one that compares it to a newspaper. The top half of the front page is the very first thing you’ll see on a paper, and this is where you find the most important items: the name of the paper, of course; the headlines, weather updates, and other things the paper wants to highlight. Items on the bottom half, below the fold, sometimes get lost or just glossed over.
On your web page, items that show up immediately on your web page attract more attention. The links up here – the ones your readers see immediately – are the ones that your readers are most likely to click through. This is where you want to keep the things you want to highlight, like your navigation bar, subscription options, and recent comments, among others.
Don’t get me lost
Since we mentioned it already, let’s talk about navigation. Some of the things most websites have in common are: a link to the home page, an about page with information on the owner of the site, and a contact page. Though some try to come up with creative names for these links, they are usually labeled “home,” “about,” and “contact,” respectively. The main reason they’re labeled this way is to avoid confusion – not everybody will understand, for example, that “Take me back to Kansas” means take me home, or “Gimme a holler” means contact me.
On a similar vein, many sites use the main banner or header lead back home. Clicking on that blue pepper up top, for example, will send you back to our home page.
Walk with me
You don’t want to limit readers to just a few pages on your site, do you? To help them navigate around your site, you need to give readers an idea of what else you have to offer. One suggestion is to put a list of related topics at the bottom of each post or article. You don’t have to do this manually, by the way – this function might be built into your CMS already.
Another way to help your readers get around is to add links for your categories, tags, and archived posts. This helps them find other articles related to the page they’re on, or quickly find posts from a specific time frame. Of course, another great navigation aid is a search bar – they’re often (though not always) found on the upper right corner of a page.
Put up some signs
Yet another way to help your readers navigate your site is by adding descriptions to your page titles. Our page title, for example, suggests what you can do (or what we want you to do) if you need an assistant. Indirectly, it also describes our company and what we do.
Adding descriptions to your titles tells your readers about you even before they land on your page. Your page titles show up in search-engine results pages (or SERPs, as they’re commonly called) – having a description there means your readers know a bit more about you immediately, making them more likely to click through.
Lay out a map
You can’t plan every single action your readers make on your site, but you can definitely make it easy for them to get around. Even better, you can nudge them to certain pages by highlighting certain paths or locations on your site.
The main point is to help your readers find what they want on your site. The navigation options, archives, search bar, and other elements on your site serve as a map that helps your readers get around your site.
This part four of Pepper’s Web Usability series. You can check out the other posts in the links below. Before you hop away though, we’d like to know: how do you make sure your readers don’t have trouble getting around your site? Share your ideas in the comments section.
- Keep it simple: the basic philosophy for web usability
- Don’t be a snob: make sure that everybody can access your site
- Identify yourself: don’t make it hard to figure out who’s behind your site
- Show me around: make it easy to navigate your site
- Say it, and say it well: make sure you get your message across
Tags: fold, navigation, pepper, web usability
Posted in Creative Toolbox | 1 Comment »
April 27th, 2011
by Pepper
 Yup, you read that right. We’re giving out FREE HOURS of Virtual Services. Are you interested? Details are on our Facebook Page.
As a token of our appreciation for your continued patronage of our services, we are thrilled to announce that we will be offering FREE HOURS of Virtual Services to everyone who will write a Review of our services!
- For our New Clients – 5-hour free trial + 2 more hours for a total of 7 FREE HOURS.
- For our Current Clients – 5 additional hours for their current month’s billing.
Excited to get started? Here’s how:
- Post a Comment on our FB Wall that you are interested.
- You will then receive a Private Message from our Company with the Promo Code (for new clients) and instructions (for current clients) in exchange for your commitment to write a review of our services on our FaceBook Page after your free hours.
- Once you get the code, you can sign up in our website.
Let’s get your free virtual services started!
This offer is available to the FIRST 20 PEOPLE who will be posting on our wall only. So what are you waiting for? Start posting now! And get ready to have a FREE Virtual Experience!
We’ve already had 5 people sign up, leaving only 15 slots open. If you’re interested, hop over to Pepper Virtual Assistants on Facebook and tell us before the rest of the slots disappear!
Of course, whether or not you end up as part of the lucky 20, we’d still like to hear from you. If you’ve already worked with us, please head over the Reviews Section (also on our Facebook Page) and tell us (and the rest of the world, too) what you think. We’d really appreciate it.
image: Gift Box by Ken’s Oven via Flickr — Creative Commons License (CC BY 2.0)
Tags: pepper, promo, virtual assistants
Posted in Announcements | 3 Comments »
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