Joan Burge's Administrative Blog

In a recent revamp of materials here at the office the question came up, do we use the term BlackBerry’s or BlackBerries … how exactly do we pluralize a BlackBerry?

My husband just brought me an article he received, E-mail Overload Costs Companies Billions in Lost Productivity. It reminded me of something I've been speaking on with passion for about 18 months. It is something that is at the core of my being from many perspectives: as a business owner, a vendor to clients, a client to vendors, and someone who loves and hates e-mail. E-mail has grown into a big white elephant and we are being stampeded by it. The good news is that every one of us can reduce the number of e-mails we send.

Supporting a boss who is in another office, or even another country, can be a real challenge for even the most organized of assistants.  It can be done, though, with a good work plan in place and the right tools.  With technology constantly increasing our ability to stay in touch, supporting someone on the other side of the world is becoming more common place in our industry.  Virtual Assistants have built a whole industry around the idea of virtual support, and they often have clients around the world.

Well, that sentence didn’t make entirely too much sense, did it? As you read it, you probably laugh at me and think I have no grasp of the English language. The ironic thing is though, as I typed that in Microsoft Word©, it didn’t have much of a problem with it either. Every bit of gibberish in the sentence at the beginning was an actual word and was completely ignored by my spell check.

A guest blog post by Kemetia Foley, CPS/CAP. Kemetia operates the blog superppn.blogspot.com I am an optimist and a realist. Let’s face facts: The administrative profession is changing faster than some celebrities go through boyfriends. It doesn’t take a brain scientist to see that more and more firms are counting on employees and middle management to handle their own calls, prepare their own documents and make their own travel arrangements. So, what’s a savvy admin to do to remain relevant AND competitive in our career field?

Will Paccione, today's guest blogger explains the WHY when it comes to Social Media.

I am the proud grandmother of 4 -- 3 boys and 1 girl. Two of the boys just turned 5 and one is 8. We invested in a Playstation3 last fall to keep the boys amused when they came to our house. While I resisted anything remotely close to a Playstation3 for years, I finally caved in realizing the boys needed something more entertaining than the board games and building blocks I provided.

I am so impressed with the caliber of executive assistants I worked with today via an online meeting. This is a new client who has enlisted my services for a live virtual webcast. Today, the team held their first "meeting" to review several items. Attendees were in various geographic locations.

We just added a few new survey questions to the left of the blog and would love to know what technologies you use frequently for work purposes?

Are you in shock? I certainly was when I read my Training magazine September issue. It says, “A company with 100 employees can expect to lose approximately $450,000 a year, or more, because of e-mail blunders, inefficiencies, and misunderstandings, according to The Top 10 E-mail Blunders That Cost Companies Money, a free special report from Creative Communications & Training."