2010 Churchill Fellow Tracey Clarke embarked on her five week journey to the USA at the start of September to research the growing US Virtual Assistance Industry.
Her immediate love of the place and impression was the overwhelming first-class hospitality and incredible friendliness from everyone, an insatiable appetite to learn, succeed and the infectious entrepreneurial vision and spirit of those she met. Drawing a comparison between working cultures in the US and UK was found to be highly intriguing.
Tracey’s visit to Washington, DC during the record high temperatures was a wonderful experience. The opportunity to meet up with two professors at VCU Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia, who were concentrating on developing further teleworking projects was fantastic. An impressive visit to Capital One’s hub of operations in Virginia provided a wealth of new ways and options in which employees are empowered to work in a much more productive, inviting and enjoyable environment.
Meeting with the VADFW group of professional Virtual Assistants offering their expert virtual office services to businesses was a real treat enabling Tracey to make new great friends and gather important VA research in the areas of Dallas and Fort Worth in Texas.
Northern California taking in Sacramento and San Francisco opened up opportunities to visit Sierra College spending time with Professor Cyndi Dunn who created and delivers the Virtual Office Professional Degree Course which constantly fills its online class places of eager learners to become home working Virtual Assistants.
The biggest impact from this fantastic journey was the American attitude to work, a deep desire to strive and do well, a very strong work ethic and such impressive customer service and communication skills wherever visited, providing Tracey with a worthwhile experience and insurmountable wealth of research.
Tracey Clarke - Churchill Fellowship 2010
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Saturday, 16 October 2010
Thursday 7 October – live presenting at the IVAA 2010 Online Summit
This was good fun and a new experience for myself. Taking part along with Prof. Cyndi Dunn we talked about the Virtual Office Professional Degree Course live online for the IVAA (International Virtual Assistants Association) 2010 Summit. Using a software platform called ‘GoToMyWebinar’ this allowed us to present to a live audience while showing a PowerPoint Presentation and taking questions from people who had subscribed to the Summit. I was so glad we each had a moderator to guide us and hold our hands throughout the telephone conference session. It went very well and very quickly along with offering a door prize for the winner to receive a one hour mentoring session from myself on running a VA business.
Wednesday 6 October – VA gathering at Julie Fuqua’s home in Sacramento
This was a wonderful opportunity to meet up with some of the students I had previously assisted teaching early in the year as part of their Virtual Office Professional Degree Course, along with meeting other fellow VA’s early in their business start up and those who had been going a good while.
Julie very kindly hosted the event at her home and provided great food and drinks for everyone. It was a good experience to chat and interact with everyone to find out how they were progressing.
Sharon Broughton, an implementation coach in Virtual Assistance was really interesting to speak with. She runs different courses and specialises in the shopping cart creation and online marketing targeting top end larger corporate companies, allowing her to charge much higher prices for her expert services.
It was so good to finally put faces to names from the emails and Skype phone calls previously made over the last year.
Julie very kindly hosted the event at her home and provided great food and drinks for everyone. It was a good experience to chat and interact with everyone to find out how they were progressing.
Sharon Broughton, an implementation coach in Virtual Assistance was really interesting to speak with. She runs different courses and specialises in the shopping cart creation and online marketing targeting top end larger corporate companies, allowing her to charge much higher prices for her expert services.
It was so good to finally put faces to names from the emails and Skype phone calls previously made over the last year.
Wednesday 6 October – Lunch time gathering with guests from Sierra College
Luis Sanchez, Dean at Sierra College invited us to a lunchtime meeting along with Prof. Cyndi Dunn and Prof. Denise Bushnell from Sierra College, Michelle Ulrich from Virtual Business Marketing and Patricia Beckman from Cybertary.
We all shared information about each of our businesses/occupations discovering how each started and grew their exciting careers in the virtual world.
Luis and Denise were incredibly friendly and very keen to keep in touch. We had previously met with Michelle on an earlier occasion and were glad to learn her thoughts around the growing VA industry especially covering the topic of people with disabilities and illnesses that stopped them getting work in the traditional office setting. Still seen as a huge barrier to employers, they felt that employers were still wary of working with disadvantaged people due to fear of recriminations. When asked about details on current and past students attending the Virtual Office Professional Degree Online course, there was no information available about the number of people who may have had disabilities and what made them choose this particular career path.
Patricia was very interesting to chat with, her company Cybertary offers Virtual Assistant Franchises throughout the USA. It was intriguing to discover her journey taking the business to the next level with a highly successful team of VA’s providing professional hourly rate services to businesses.
It was highlighted that many Chambers of Commerce were still unaware of the Virtual Assistance Industry and there was very little connection with government regards promoting Virtual Assistance as another career option to the unemployed. The VA term is still unheard of within many industries in the US and doesn’t have a recognised title on business listings for internet directories, still recorded under ‘secretarial services’.
There was a definite feel from the colleges and education in the US that qualifications were deemed more important than experience. The higher degree gained the better options on the jobs/career ladder would be open to you. Where as in the UK it seems to be the opposite way round, solid experience in the relevant role is more preferred, with experience of knowing that some employers don't always have time to train a new comer.
We all shared information about each of our businesses/occupations discovering how each started and grew their exciting careers in the virtual world.
Luis and Denise were incredibly friendly and very keen to keep in touch. We had previously met with Michelle on an earlier occasion and were glad to learn her thoughts around the growing VA industry especially covering the topic of people with disabilities and illnesses that stopped them getting work in the traditional office setting. Still seen as a huge barrier to employers, they felt that employers were still wary of working with disadvantaged people due to fear of recriminations. When asked about details on current and past students attending the Virtual Office Professional Degree Online course, there was no information available about the number of people who may have had disabilities and what made them choose this particular career path.
Patricia was very interesting to chat with, her company Cybertary offers Virtual Assistant Franchises throughout the USA. It was intriguing to discover her journey taking the business to the next level with a highly successful team of VA’s providing professional hourly rate services to businesses.
It was highlighted that many Chambers of Commerce were still unaware of the Virtual Assistance Industry and there was very little connection with government regards promoting Virtual Assistance as another career option to the unemployed. The VA term is still unheard of within many industries in the US and doesn’t have a recognised title on business listings for internet directories, still recorded under ‘secretarial services’.
There was a definite feel from the colleges and education in the US that qualifications were deemed more important than experience. The higher degree gained the better options on the jobs/career ladder would be open to you. Where as in the UK it seems to be the opposite way round, solid experience in the relevant role is more preferred, with experience of knowing that some employers don't always have time to train a new comer.
Friday 1 to Monday 4 October – Visit to San Francisco
A great opportunity to visit the area of San Francisco, driving over Golden Gate Bridge was fantastic, the bay area around Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39 were wonderful to see.
The Trolley Bus tour was a fun ride through the city, up and down the really steep streets just like the film clips from the Steve McQueen film Bullitt.
China Town was exciting to see, so different to the rest of the city with so many different kinds of shops to visit.
On Monday we visited the ‘Hub – Bay Area’ in downtown Berkeley in San Francisco.
Very similar to the Hub in London’s King Cross but on a smaller scale, this was an interesting organisation to visit. A nice young man called Hai Vo showed us around the building and explained how the ‘Hub’ system worked. The project was a socially run organisation that enabled businesses to use the premises as required on a flexible basis. So for example they offered the use of the facilities for 5 hours for $25 per month, so you could literally come along with your laptop and plug in as and when you want to.
The Trolley Bus tour was a fun ride through the city, up and down the really steep streets just like the film clips from the Steve McQueen film Bullitt.
China Town was exciting to see, so different to the rest of the city with so many different kinds of shops to visit.
On Monday we visited the ‘Hub – Bay Area’ in downtown Berkeley in San Francisco.
Very similar to the Hub in London’s King Cross but on a smaller scale, this was an interesting organisation to visit. A nice young man called Hai Vo showed us around the building and explained how the ‘Hub’ system worked. The project was a socially run organisation that enabled businesses to use the premises as required on a flexible basis. So for example they offered the use of the facilities for 5 hours for $25 per month, so you could literally come along with your laptop and plug in as and when you want to.
Thursday 30 September – Meeting with Roietta Fulgham at American River College
I had previously met Roietta two years ago on her visit to Colchester and Cambridge in the UK on an international business convention along with Prof. Cyndi Dunn from Sierra College. Roietta teaches part of the Virtual Office Professional Degree course online at American River College along with being the President for the CBEA California Business Education Association in Sacramento.
She gave us a tour of the college and introduced us to many of her teaching colleagues who were very interesting to chat with, getting a comprehensive insight into what their thoughts were on subjects like education, health, politics in general and how they compare between the US and UK. She explained that over the last few years unfortunately businesses have become less and less involved with colleges and universities, creating less interaction, sharing experiences and knowledge with students. She also felt there was very little interaction with the Chambers of Commerce too.
She gave us a tour of the college and introduced us to many of her teaching colleagues who were very interesting to chat with, getting a comprehensive insight into what their thoughts were on subjects like education, health, politics in general and how they compare between the US and UK. She explained that over the last few years unfortunately businesses have become less and less involved with colleges and universities, creating less interaction, sharing experiences and knowledge with students. She also felt there was very little interaction with the Chambers of Commerce too.
Monday, 4 October 2010
Tuesday 28 September - Meet up with Sarah Herbert and Laura Bumpas at Sierra Commons
We stayed with Laura Bumpas and her family in Foresthill near Auburn in the Lake Tahoe area from Monday 27 to Thursday 30 September and had a most wonderful time.
The area they live in is wonderful, very peaceful, into the woods, definitely need a car for any transportation and beautiful to see the stars at night on the wooden decking which goes all round their house with some fantastic views.
On Tuesday we visited Donna Lake which took us through California and Nevada City and then onto Tahoe Lake which was absolutely magical. We also visited Harrah's Casino and enjoyed walking through the casino watching other people gambling on the card tables.
On Wednesday we met with Sarah Herbert a fellow VA from the local area at Sierra Commons in Nevada City. Sierra Commons is a purpose built building for business ignitors (start-ups) to work from offering numerous different options of working, for example hot desking.
Robert who ran the whole project showed us round the building which had open plan areas as well as closed off office space, a conference room and a sound proofed booth for working in and making telephone calls.
Robert explained how he had obtained funding to get the project off the ground and was currently looking to replicate this business space model in different places.
Robert was looking for a local Virtual Assistant to work on site at the building to look after the reception area dealing with enquiries and looking after requests from other businesses within the building.
Along with the opportunity of working for other clients and sourcing new clients at the same time - giving the VA chance to have more flexibility in working.
We hope to keep in touch with both Robert, Sarah and Laura and family.
The area they live in is wonderful, very peaceful, into the woods, definitely need a car for any transportation and beautiful to see the stars at night on the wooden decking which goes all round their house with some fantastic views.
On Tuesday we visited Donna Lake which took us through California and Nevada City and then onto Tahoe Lake which was absolutely magical. We also visited Harrah's Casino and enjoyed walking through the casino watching other people gambling on the card tables.
On Wednesday we met with Sarah Herbert a fellow VA from the local area at Sierra Commons in Nevada City. Sierra Commons is a purpose built building for business ignitors (start-ups) to work from offering numerous different options of working, for example hot desking.
Robert who ran the whole project showed us round the building which had open plan areas as well as closed off office space, a conference room and a sound proofed booth for working in and making telephone calls.
Robert explained how he had obtained funding to get the project off the ground and was currently looking to replicate this business space model in different places.
Robert was looking for a local Virtual Assistant to work on site at the building to look after the reception area dealing with enquiries and looking after requests from other businesses within the building.
Along with the opportunity of working for other clients and sourcing new clients at the same time - giving the VA chance to have more flexibility in working.
We hope to keep in touch with both Robert, Sarah and Laura and family.
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Where we will be visiting in the USA
