T is for Tavasa Forum - VA Tips and Tricks Blogging Challenge

T A V A S A - The Transcriptionists and Virtual Assistants of South Africa

Our group was founded in October 2008 by Gaynor Paynter from Typewrite Transcription and Typing Services cc, Cell: +27834424689, Web: www.typewritetranscription.co.za and Alison Fourie from AMF Typing Services cc, Cell: +270828713452, Web: www.amftyping.co.za. Tavasa was formed as there was a need for a VA/Transcriptionist support group within South Africa.

•           We provide support for people in our industries

•           We bring together a group of professionals who can support each other

•           We advertise job leads and subcontractor positions on the Tavasa forum, you are welcome to apply, see link above

•           We share our VA and Transcription knowledge with you

Because we like to have immediate access to queries that arise from our members, and because many people in South Africa still find it easier to access email on a regular basis as opposed to accessing an internet browser regularly, our main means of communication is an yahoo group online, email discussion forum, and you can join our group at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/tavasa/ free membership.

Our aim is the promote the Transcriptionists and Virtual Assistants industry within South Africa and to guide new Transcriptionists and Virtual Assistants to set up their businesses within the industry.

You will feel by belonging to our forum you have now joined the South Africa family of VAs and Transcriptionists within South Africa. All questions are welcome and we would love you to participate and meet everyone. No questions are too stupid to ask as there will always be someone wanting to ask that question. Join us. Send us an introduction email telling everyone what you do, if you are married or single, have children, what services you offer, how you feel about working from home, you will get lots of response saying welcome, our team is very friendly.

I invite you to join our forum: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/tavasa/ free membership.

Tavasa · The Transcriptionists and Virtual Assistants of South Africa

Website: http://www.tavasa.co.za

Join our yahoo group, online email forum ‘Tavasa’ free membership.

To join go to: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/tavasa/

Tavasa Blog · http://tavasa.blogspot.com/

VA Tips & Tricks Blogging Challenge 2014 - B is for Business Plan

If you want to run/own your own Business, the best way to start, is to create your Business Plan. Sit and write/type down your idea. Write down all the steps it will take to make your idea work, put them into order, and start to organise your Business Plan. Writing down a plan/idea is being constructive and putting your idea into writing, is a positive step to making your business real. You need to list all the steps it takes to start your business, then write down the way you are going to run your business (your procedures), your networking/marketing plans/strategy, your bookkeeping, your goals and values, a mission statement, etc., put it all down in writing. This is your working Business Plan. You will look at this document often, updating it as your plans change and they will, as you learn more and more about running your business. Your Business Plan should be one of your first tools you create, to help you run your business.

Searching the Internet you will find lots of templates and details available about Business Plans, lots of people have written steps that you need/can follow to write up your plan, details that you need to include. Do Internet research about Business Plans and you will find it is not a difficult task but rather an easy task to complete and it is one step closer to running your own Business. I think this is a task that puts people off starting their own businesses, they think it is difficult but once started, it soon becomes easy.

 

You can find templates for Business Plans on the Internet. You need the following within your plan:

·          Goals, Values and Objectives

·          Mission statement, logo, company bi-line

·          Procedures/structures on how you are going to run your business, how you will do your pricing, how you will invoice your clients, how will you collect overdue payments, how will you do your marketing, networking plans, what you will do when a potential clients contacts you, , how will you approach transcription work, typing, data entry etc. Copies of your company documentation (invoices, statements, forms etc.,). How will you work with a subcontractor etc.,

·          Marketing strategy

·          Networking strategy

·          Advertising strategy

·          Products and Services, what services will you offer clients, will you offer products like EBooks for sale on your website!

·          Pricing Structure/Budget

·          Skills, Training, Education, Resources

·          Target/Niche Marketing - which type of clients are you going to market your services to? How are you going to approach clients?

·          Company structure, how you are going to run your company. How will you do your invoicing, banking, statements, how will you do your books, approach clients, actually run your business

·          Contacts, keep database of all your contacts and clients. Build this up over time

·          Company Debt Collecting, procedure. You will come across clients who do not pay on time or simply don’t want to pay and you will need a procedure in place of what you are going to do to recover payments for work you have done.

·          Executive Summary, this sums up your business plan and is the most important piece of information within your plan, this is what you want the Bank Manager to read, is it sums up your whole idea of running your business. Make it interesting, highlight the major structures of your business, stress important points, this part must grab attention and basically sum up your whole business.

 

Determine your budget, you will need to advertise your company, you will need to do networking and marketing. Know how much money you have available to do this. Starting up a secretarial business does not cost too much if you already have the computer/office equipment you need. But you will need to advertise and market your company and attend networking events and joining business groups can cost you but it is part of owning your own business. You need to take these steps to grow your client database and get your company known in the corporate world.

 

Barbara Blackburn the World's Fastest Typist

VA Tips & Tricks Blogging Challenge 2104

B is for Barbara Blackburn,

the World's Fastest Typist http://rcranger.mysite.syr.edu/famhist/blackburn.htm

 

Mrs. Barbara Blackburn of Salem, Oregon maintained a speed of 150 wpm for 50 min (37,500 key strokes) and attained a speed of 170 wpm using the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK) system. Her top speed was recorded at 212 wpm. Source: Norris McWhirter, ed. (1985), THE GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS, 23rd US edition, New York: Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

 

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What is the secret as to how Barbara Blackburn could type so fast? The key, so to speak, is in the keyboard design. Blackburn would type on nothing but the Dvorak keyboard, which has vowels on one side and consonants on the other, with the most frequently used letters on the center row. "It makes much more sense than the standard, so-called Qwerty keyboard (named after the first five letters on the top row)," Blackburn said. In fact, it was the Qwerty keyboard that was her undoing in high school typing class back in Pleasant Hill, Missouri.

"Typing was the bane of my existence." She remembered how her I-minus (I for Inferior) typing grade kept her from graduating at the top of her class. As it was, she graduated third in a class of 46 students. In 1938, as a freshman in business college, Blackburn first laid hands on a Dvorak keyboard. She took to it like a fish to water. In only a few years her speed was up to 138 words per minute.

Blackburn had been such a whiz in her other high school classes, it was no surprise that she would attempt to better her record as a typist, given a chance. The Dvorak keyboard was what gave her the chance. When a representative of the Royal Typewriter Co. came to her business college looking for someone to train as a demonstrator of the Dvorak keyboard, she decided to give it a try.

In no time at all she was as good a typist as she was a bookkeeper and stenographer. She had won statewide contests in the latter two fields as a high school student, but the woman who taught all three courses at Pleasant Hill "was ashamed to admit I was in her typing class," Blackburn remembered.

Carrying her own Dvorak typewriter with her wherever she worked after graduation from business college, Blackburn's extraordinary talents paved her way. From 1939 to 1945 she worked as a legal secretary, and when she decided she needed a change of pace and left the law firm, "I left with the reputation as the best legal secretary in Kansas City," she proudly recalled.

Suddenly there was a mad scramble of executives trying to nab her for their personal secretary.

Blackburn next worked at an electronics company, first as office manager and then as a sales engineer. She did speed typing demonstrations at the Canadian National Exposition and the Canadian Educational Conference. It was then that she was clocked for the the Guinness Book of World Records, in which she was listed for a decade as the world's fastest typist (the category has since been removed). Blackburn went to work at State Farm Insurance in Salem, where she was employed in the word processing department until she retired in 2002.

Also, she starred in a television commercial for Apple Computers, which offered a switchable Dvorak-Qwerty keyboard with its Apple IIc model. When she was in New York to tape the commercial, she appeared on the David Letterman Show. But Letterman made a comedy routine out of what she thought was to be a serious demonstration of her typing speed, and Blackburn felt hurt by the experience. In her own words:

"The show aired on Thursday night, after I had returned back to Salem. They had taken my PR photo and blown it up to gigantic size) with the typewriter sitting on a stand (covered with a Plexiglas cover) in front of me and a little to the side with three men seated at a table with a big copy of my Thursday night paper sitting on an easel at the side. My photo took up the entire area behind the men. Letterman was standing beside the typewriter - his opening remark was "No doubt Ms. Blackburn is a very nice lady, but she has to be the biggest fraud and con artist in the world." That he is still running it about every year completely astounds me! I have a complete tape of all of my TV appearances during my publicity reign, but I REFUSE TO WATCH THE LETTERMAN FIASCO."

 

In the intervening years, Letterman's comedy style has become better-understood and we've grown more accustomed to it. Nevertheless, anyone who has seen her whizzing fingers in action, as well as the flawless results on paper (her error frequency is two-tenths of one percent), can have no doubt that Barbara Blackburn will forever hold her place as the world's fastest typist. Mrs. Blackburn passed away in April, 2008.

 

-- End --

Source: http://rcranger.mysite.syr.edu/famhist/blackburn.htm

 

Permission granted to post Article about Barbara Blackburn by Sonya Pulvers (Barbara Blackburn's daughter)

From: Sam Sent: 07 January 2014 22:32 To: Alison Fourie Subject: Re: Feature article on website  Allison, Thank you so much for asking permission. Absolutely that would be fine, my mother was an incredible woman and an icon when it comes to the world of typing. Have a great day. Sincerely, Sonya Pulvers (Barbara Blackburn's daughter) -----Original Message----- From: Alison Fourie Sent: Jan 7, 2014 5:22 AM Subject: Feature article on website Hi I would like to ask your permission to place your article about Barbara Blackburn http://rcranger.mysite.syr.edu/famhist/blackburn.htm on my website http://www.amftyping.co.za. I run a typing company and I found your article very interesting, and would love to display it on my website. Looking forward to hearing from you.   Regards Alison,  AMF Typing Services©® Est 2001