sacha chua living an awesome life

There are two interesting projects I’d like to get going for April. One will be a guide on making remote presentations that rock, and another will be a guide on managing virtual assistants. I would like to put together blog posts and perhaps a nicely-formatted e-book. For the presentation project, I’m also planning to run a couple of seminars at work, and maybe even offer one-on-one coaching too.

What do those projects look like?

Making remote presentations that rock

Possible topics:

• Technology tips and screencasts
  • Sametime Unyte
  • Audacity
  • Camtasia Studio or some other video/screencast software
• Challenges and opportunities of remote presentations
• Tips on information organization
• Tips on visual presentation design
• Delivery techniques
• Preparation and follow-up
• Virtual conferences – when you’re part of a bigger event

Coaching opportunities:

• Give feedback on title, abstract, and bio
• Give feedback on outline, navigational structures
• Give feedback on design and organization
• Evaluate delivery (in person or with recordings) – maybe swap with people? =) – to help people learn more about how to do presentations even more effectively

Possible tasks to delegate:

• Transcribe my presentations and audio recordings on the topic
• Edit audio to remove ums, ahs, and repeated words
• Compile presentation tips from the Internet
• Find illustrations for slides
• Create draft slides
• Format the blog posts into an e-book
• Follow up after coaching

Managing virtual assistants

I’d like to focus on documenting lots of processes so that we can come up with something like a manual. =) Possible topics:

• Web research
• Product search
• Calendar management (meetings, phone calls, and get-togethers)
• Writing and content development
• Everyday tasks (wake-up calls, concierge services, etc.)

Each post will have the following structure:

• Why outsource to a virtual assistant
• Sample requests and time saved (Examples for 15 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours)
• What information should be included?
• What milestones are useful?
• Example step-by-step process, similar to the ones I’ve shared
• Sample output template so that both the client and virtual assistant know what results are expected

Possible tasks to delegate:

• Compile sample requests and templates
• Find me other bloggers interested in collaborating on an e-book
• Draft the text
• Document step-by-step processes, including screenshots
• Find client testimonials
• Format the blog posts into an e-book

I asked Joy Soria (another virtual assistant from the Philippines) to put together some career advice and stories to share with students around the world. Her first draft was okay, but generic; I challenged her to bring her own experiences and insights. I’m thrilled by the results, which I’ve shared below. I would never have discovered those facets of hers in the normal course of work, and I really appreciate getting a glimpse into her world. I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did! - Sacha

Passions, Strengths and Goals

Maria Victoria (Joy) Soria

Your passions and interests motivate you to be your best in whatever endeavor you are in.

When I was three years old, I used to listen to my older sister every time she played the piano. When she practiced her musical pieces, I found myself interested in knowing how those pieces were played. I really enjoyed listening to the melodies. I became curious and I asked my mother: I ran my fingers on the keys, could I make the same music played by my sister? My mother asked me if I would like to learn how to play the piano, and I eagerly answered yes.

I was so excited about starting right away. When the piano teacher came to our house, I was overwhelmed with joy. Thus began my passion for music. I learned to play the piano quickly, because even at the very start, I was fascinated by it. I easily memorized the musical pieces the teacher taught me, and I began playing them by heart.

As I grew up, piano playing became a part of me. My colleagues noticed my talent and passion for music, frequently asking me to play for occasions and even contests which needed live accompaniment on the keyboard. So even when I was teaching computers, I was able to share my passion for music.

It is also important to examine yourself objectively and be bold enough to identify your strengths and weaknesses.

When I was a teacher, I used to encourage my students to join school organizations in order to further develop themselves and enhance whatever talents and skills they had.

One student named Melba asked my advice on what organization to join, because she was so shy. I told to her to write down her strengths and weaknesses so that we could identify what she needed to develop and what she could enhance.

After examining herself, Melba found that she had a very good voice for singing. However, she was too shy to sing in front of people. I recommended that she join the school glee club where she could sing with a group. This enabled her to gradually overcome her shyness, build up her self-confidence and became bold enough to join singing contests.

Melba won almost all of those competitions.

She was so happy and grateful. Aside from being able to share her talent in singing, she had also successfully conquered her shyness, come out from her shell, and become a winner–not only in singing contests but also in acquiring self-confidence to discover and to explore more of her hidden talents.

Don’t be afraid to find and develop your strengths.

Define your goals.

The goals we set become the targets we aim for as we face the challenges in life.

I set personal goals for my teaching career. When I was assigned as an adviser for a graduating class, I aimed to have no student drop-out from my advisory section until the end of the school year. My desire to really have all of my students successfully graduate at the end of the school year made me set this as one of my personal goals so that I could prove that I could be a very effective class adviser.

I wanted to make a positive difference in my students’ lives. This goal paved the way for me to establish open communication not only with my students, but also with their parents and guardians as well. I made myself approachable and accommodating whenever they needed me. I made it a point to always monitor each student in my class, especially their attendance and class performance, so that I could keep track of their progress and spot potential problems.

I noticed that one of my students seemed to misbehave in almost all of his subjects. His other teachers complained about how  annoying he was and even threatened to drop him from the course because he habitually cut classes. I called him to my office so that I could talk to him privately and find out the core of his problem. I was concerned that he might not graduate. In the course of our talk, he shared what made him so defiant and stubborn. He told me how his parents would always quarrel violently in front of him, that his father was a drunkard and would hit his mother when they fought.

I assured him that I would help him anyway I could. I told him that if he did his best in school, he’d have a better chance of building a better future and becoming financially independent. He could graduate and start his own career, rather than allowing himself to develop anger and hatred that could destroy his whole life. I told him to pause for a while and listen to himself and his heart so that he could find out who he wanted to become in the future.

We stayed in touch. I helped him think about his personal goals in life, combining his talents and interests with his strengths and determination. I also went out of my way to invite his parents to school so that I could talk to them about how we could team up to help their son in his studies, helping them understand his needs–not only financially but also psychologically and emotionally. As parents, they were touched when I told them of the effect of their constant fighting on the school performance of their son. I told them that if they went on, unmindful of their son’s needs, he would be the only one who would not be able to graduate. All of his classmates and their parents were cooperating with me. This challenged them. They promised to do their best to avoid fighting and to provide their son the support he needed to succeed.

Their son passed all his subjects and graduated. I could see the happiness and fulfillment in the parents’ faces as we celebrated the success of my students, their children, who were proud of all the challenges they had conquered. I had helped all of my students graduate during that school year, fulfilling the personal goal I had set as a class adviser.

What are your passions, strengths, and goals?

Thanks to Ana Conception-Macatiag for documenting this process and including screenshots! =)

Setting up appointments:

1. Log in to http://www.timebridge.com, see Accounts and Passwords section for the login information.
2. The screenshot below shows an example of the personal Timebridge Home Page.  To set up an appointment, click on Schedule a meeting at the left side of the screen.

   

3. Fill in the fields.
   1. Type in email address of the attendees in the “Send Invite to” field.
   2. Indicate subject in the “Meeting Topic” field.
   3. Meeting Location (Note unless specifically specified on my meeting details, here are my venue preferences:
      • Lunch during weekdays
        • Ichiriki – Japanese – 120 Bloor Street E, Toronto – Hours: 11:45 – 2:30?
        • Camros Eatery (http://www.camroseatery.com/) – Vegan – Hours: M-F 11:30am to 7:30pm (no travel time necessary)
      • Weekends: Linux Caffe (http://www.linuxcaffe.ca) – 326 Harbord Street, Toronto. – Hours: M-F: 7am to 11pm, Sat 10am to 11pm, Sun 10am to 5pm
   4. Click the “More Meeting Options” and make sure the meeting reminder is set to 1 day before the meeting and that TimeBridge should automatically confirm the meeting time is also checked.

      

   5. Click on the button “Propose Times” to propose meeting times.  The calendar as shown in the screenshot below is linked to my Google Calendar so you will know when I’m is available. Highlight available times or as instructed by me. (Orange highlights below are the highlighted proposed times.)

      

      Additional Information in selecting time:

      • Offer 3-5 choices. Conflicts and double bookings will not be a problem with Timebridge because it is synchronized with the Google Calendar.
      • For in-person meetings, I prefer lunch (12:00 PM – 1:00 PM) or coffee/tea/hot chocolate (any time between 3:00 PM and 5:00 PM), preferably on a Thursday or Friday
      • For work-related phone meetings, I prefer calls on Wednesday to Friday afternoons (3:00 PM – 5:00 PM).
      • For personal phone meetings, I prefer calls on Saturday or Sunday (9:00 AM – 9:00 PM), preferring Saturday afternoon

      My Google Calendar will be automatically updated as soon as invitees send back their confirmations.

   6. Click DONE.
   7. Check if the proposed times are as correct. Click Edit if you need to change anything.
   8. Make sure the cc myself on this invitation box is checked.
4. For the personal message, refer to instructions below. Then click Send.
   • For phone appointments, include the following segment in the Personal Message box:
     

     If the automatically-detected timezone is incorrect, please click the Edit button (under the Help Button) to set your timezone.

     Sacha Chua’s contact information

     Skype ID: XXX

     Mobile number: XXX

     Work number: XXX

     E-mail: sacha@sachachua.com

     Please send your contact information (phone number and Skype ID if available) in the “Send message to host” box.

   • For in-person appointments, include the following segment in the Personal Message:

   Sacha Chua’s contact information

   Mobile number: XXX

   Work number: XXX

   E-mail: sacha@sachachua.com

   Please send your phone number in the “Send message to host” box so that I can contact you if something comes up.

5. Unless instructed otherwise, click No, thanks on the “Share Availability” message to be sent to meeting contacts.

   

6. You should see your created meeting in the home page as encircled in the screenshot below.

   

1. Visit http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca and click on Your Account. Sign in with the provided library card number and PIN.
2. Click on Your Account, and then click on Checkouts. You will see a list of checked-out books sorted by due date.
3. Click on the checkbox beside all items due by the following Saturday, and then click on Renew Selected Items.
4. You should see a list of items that were renewed and items that failed to be renewed (maximum number of renewals, other users have placed holds). Copy the titles of the items that were not renewed into an e-mail under the heading “TO RETURN“, one title and date per line. Keep this list sorted by due date.
5. Click on Holds. If there are any items under the heading Ready for Pickup, copy the titles and expiry dates to the e-mail under the heading “TO PICK UP”, one title and date per line. Keep this list sorted by due date.
6. Click on Sign Out.
7. Repeat steps for any other library cards indicated, summarizing the books to return and pick up under the same headings you’ve created.
8. If there are books to return, log on to Toodledo.com. Click on Add Task in the upper left corner. Set the subject to “Return library books”, the due date to today, the context to Errands, and the note to include all the text (return and pick-up) from the e-mail. Add the task.
9. Send me the e-mail with the title Toronto Public Library Report.

After I gave a talk at the Toronto College of Technology on how IT students can get ready for the workplace, I asked two of my virtual assistants (both educators) to follow up with some advice that they could share with their students and with students around the world. This post was contributed by Rose Andrade-Calicdan, who connected with me on oDesk. I think it’s not only an excellent insight into how IT courses can help one prepare for life’s twists and turns, but also a glimpse into the lives of wonderful people who offer virtual assistance.

In total, it took her 1.5 hours to write, and about .5 hours of my time to give her feedback and polish the results. My conclusion: I think it was worth investing that time in bringing this story out, and I learned a lot in the process.

Also, I feel tremendously unqualified to be delegating tasks to her, but that’s okay; I can think of it as making excuses for her to develop her skills, gain even more experience (and have more anecdotes to share with her students!), and teach me something cool. =)

Advice to IT students: Learning to love what you might hate right now

by Rose Andrade-Calicdan

Teaching is a rewarding career, but it can be frustrating if your students are unmotivated and uninterested in their course. Many students registered for courses they hated, because of their parents’ demands. Some just tagged along with friends. Others had no other choice or had no idea what to pursue. Many of these students are in my class. My challenge is: how can I motivate these students to like my programming course (which they despise) and teach them the skills they need for work?

Even during the first few days of classes, I could feel some students’ boredom. They wouldn’t participate in discussion or join the classroom interactions. I needed to encourage involvement in my class as part of the student-centered approach to class management. I love sharing my knowledge, and I also enjoy growing this knowledge by collecting others’ ideas. My personal belief is that the more you share what you have, the more you learn and gain.  

How could I stimulate interaction and participation? Initially, I tried to let them see the significance of each lesson, demonstrating how those lessons related to their lives. If they understood how something affects them personally, they would be more likely to pay attention to the lesson.

How could I enthusiastically share my own experience in order to heighten their interest in continuing learning? I shared how I started working in the academe, how I had experienced working on various IT-related and non-IT related jobs, and how I learned the skills to compete with other applicants.

I told my students about my first non-IT related job, which was at the hospital. I was in charge of receiving and filing health forms submitted by patients in order to claim medical benefits. Although this task was not directly related to my course, it was my first stepping-stone to more work opportunities. Even though the job was simple, I tried to find ways to gain more experience and get the ‘know-how’ of real work scenarios. By keenly observing how the hospital generated related information, I was able to study the ‘ins and outs’ of real computer-based information systems, which during my studies were all theories and intangible concepts.

Later, I had my first break: my first programming job. At the same hospital where I had worked, I was asked to create a database of patient information that could record medical treatment received by patients, monitor doctors’ consultations, and generate relevant reports. That was my first real taste of IT work.

But I still wanted to teach. Taking advantage of time flexibility, I applied as a college instructor. It was difficult to adjust to working in the academe and going back to the same routine of studying and learning new lessons, but I got used to it. During this time, preparing lessons for my students was a burden. The Internet wasn’t available then, so I had to bring home several books from the library. Even though it was difficult, I gained a lot from the experience. I improved my ability to write course manuals specifically designed to suit my students’ needs and enhance their learning. And as an IT graduate, I had an advantage: I could use tools to help me develop these materials. Combining my new technical writing skills with my IT knowledge, I wrote an IT textbook and prepared modules for IT-related courses.

The biggest break in my IT career took place when I was teaching. I wanted to personally experience real IT work. During my first summer break, I took a big programming job at my own risk! I was given a deadline to develop the application in less than two months. With guts, brainstorming sessions, and careful analysis and design, I completed a school program for assessing student fees. I found it quite complicated as the school had different schedules of fees for different type of students: government scholars, siblings discount, and various types of installment programs. This really tested my expertise. I remembered all my classes in database and programming concepts, system analysis and design knowledge, project management and software engineering. I conducted several stakeholders’ meetings, gathered users’ requirements and specifications, developed, debugged, constructed and tested–all by myself!  Whew! I not only survived the six-week project, I delivered what the school needed just in time for their school enrollment.

When I had several years of experience in the academe, I was given the opportunity to manage a school as the College Dean. My position called for greater responsibility. I had to run the school, implementing policies while ensuring that quality education was being provided to our students. Schools face very stiff competition. Most of the time, I needed to ensure that we had updated curricula and course materials, well-maintained school facilities, and qualified professors. Even as a college dean, I still needed to keep myself up to date with new IT trends. I learned more about various e-learning and IT technologies, and I continued writing tips and advice for my students.  

Due to some personal constraints, I needed to go back to teaching. To maximize my use of time, I’m working outside school as well, accepting simple home-based jobs that use my skills in IT: data entry, research, writing, website quality assurance, document specification, virtual assistance, and so on.

My experiences showed that with an IT course, jobs are indeed unlimited! There are a lot of job opportunities that, in the beginning, you might have never imagined to be your means to earn a living.

With these stories, many of my students who had been thinking of shifting to a different course were inspired to imagine themselves in various IT work opportunities. In fact, I think that among the accomplishments in my career are students of mine who landed their dream jobs, whether in the IT industry, the academe, or elsewhere: students who have learned to love the course they hated in their first few days of college.

There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.

Peter Drucker

I’m a couple of weeks into my experiment with outsourcing to and managing virtual assistants, and I’m thinking about how to take it to the next level.

After I had cleared my backlog of lots of little things I had been thinking of delegating, I found myself mostly outsourcing trivial tasks. There’s nothing wrong with delegating trivial tasks. Although I might not get as much leverage on time, I can minimize distractions and avoid getting frustrated with interfaces. But I’ve never been the kind of person who’s happy just reacting to the numerous things that come into my inbox. I like thinking about my own projects and planning what I can do to make them happy. The difference between reactive and proactive is the difference between doing only things other people want you to do, and doing things that you enjoy doing. Reflecting on what I want to accomplish in the long run will let me identify further opportunities to make the most of virtual assistance, whether it’s the 15-minute trivial task model favored by Timesvr or the more in-depth tasks favored by the other assistants and companies with whom I’m working.

On a related note, one of my virtual assistants in the Philippines has asked me if there’s anything else I’d like her to do. Yay taking the initiative! By thinking through and sharing what the big picture is for me, I can help assistants proactively find ways we can help each other succeed. I may even be pleasantly surprised in the process. =)

So, what do I want to do? Long-term is a good place to start looking. I’ve got a good idea of my current strengths and some ways I can get even better at them. Here are some broad themes in my life:

Energy and enthusiasm: I’m good at motivating other people with my energy and enthusiasm about technology and life. I’d like to someday be able to motivate thousands of people to make a difference, make a change, or make something awesome. =) I can get closer to that by:

• learning from great speakers
• learning from great coaches and practicing motivating other people through presentations, writing, and coaching, and
• continuing to explore what I’m passionate about in order to expand my breadth and depth.

Communication: I’m good at writing and speaking, again about technology and life. Aside from what I’m learning because of my passion for developing systems and improving processes, I also bring my energy and enthusiasm. =) I’d like to someday be able to reach tons of people and share what I’ve been learning, and to help them share their stories, experiences and insights with others. I can get closer to that by:

• practicing writing and speaking,
• turning more thoughts and experiences into blog posts, articles, presentations, and maybe even (e)books,
• trying other media, like podcasting or videocasting
• developing tools and processes for organizing information and taking care of administrative details

Developing software and tools: I’m particularly good at figuring out people’s source code, remembering where things are, and writing things that generally fit within that structure, thanks to my open source background. I’m also good at coaching other people along the way, breaking problems down and pointing people to relevant resources. I’m good at improving our processes, too. The automated builds and regression tests I helped my team adopt are saving us lots of headaches. I hope to someday help lots of developers pick up all sorts of great habits and skills, so that they can make lots of great systems. I can get closer to that by:

• working with bigger and more complex systems (perhaps looking into scaling up, too)
• learning how to split up work and coach people
• learning how to communicate more explicitly
• sharing what we’re learning on my blog and in presentations
• looking into even more advanced practices, like code coverage testing

Brainstorming and experimenting: I’m good at generating lots of ideas, at making ideas or processes a little bit better, and at combining wildly different ideas for fun. This helps at work, too – I often get asked to help people brainstorm. =) I hope to be able to look back and say that my life was one of constant learning and teaching. =) I can get even better at this by:

• picking up lots of different experiences and metaphors
• practicing relentless improvement
• developing processes for trying little ideas out, and then growing that until I can experiment with big ideas easily

Connecting the dots: I’m good at thinking of other people, books, ideas, and tools that other people should know so that they can make things happen. I hope to someday have tons of stories about what people did and how I helped them. =) I can get closer to that by:

• developing a contact management system and process that makes it easy for me to keep notes and to follow up
• following up more effectively and in a more timely manner
• finding a way to organize my notes so it’s easy for me to recommend tools, books, ideas, and other things
• finding more opportunities to help
• learning more about how to organize events such as virtual conferences

and I’m also slowly getting better at bringing people together to make something happen, which is why I’m experimenting with delegating to virtual assistants and figuring out how to make the most of their strengths. =)

I’m sure I’ll discover other strengths along the way!

That’s the very high-level picture of where I am, where I’d like to go, and a few ways on how I can get there. The themes are all related to each other, so it’s not like I’m being pulled every which way. Maybe they’re all facets of one thing I still have to figure out how to express. =)

So, what does that mean in the next year, in the next few years?

For communication, energy and enthusiasm: I would love to improve my processes and tools for organizing raw material for talks, and I would love to learn how to illustrate my presentations with my own sketches and photographs as well as material from the Net. I would also love to tweak my speaking style. I need to be able to slow down, use dramatic pauses, or lower my pitch when needed! ;)

A virtual assistant can do web research on how other writers and speakers organize their raw material (some people call it their morgue ;) ), help me get my old notes together, help me look things up, help me clean up my sketches or come up with inspiration, find stock photography and Creative Commons-licensed photos on the Net, give me feedback on my speaking style, edit podcasts, transcribe speeches, and so on.

For developing software and tools: Over the next few years, I’d like to learn how to help the developers on my teams grow even more. I could prepare webinars, presentations, and articles. Most virtual assistants probably won’t be able to help me with anything but formatting, but who knows, maybe the skills I develop during outsourcing will help me get work opportunities to grow teams too. =)

Brainstorming and experimenting: I think it would be fantastic to learn from virtual assistants who work with lots of clients and are exposed to lots of different working styles. I also enjoy helping people improve their processes, and it’s a great opportunity for me to tweak my own. I’d also love to figure out a process or build a system for quickly testing small ideas, like articles or e-books or webinars…

Connecting the dots: Oh, there’s definitely a lot here for a virtual assistant to help me out with! =) Managing my calendar (which I’m relieved to have someone else doublechecking), following up with people, reminding me of things, taking care of little tasks, helping me refine my process, looking for information related to people’s requests…

So I’m pretty flexible, and if a virtual assistant can figure out how he or she can help me create value, I’d be happy to share that learning opportunity with them. =)

What else am I missing? How can I make life even awesomer for people around me and on the Net?

There are plenty of tips out there for becoming a virtual assistant, but not that many for managing virtual assistants. There are also plenty of books and resources about management and delegation, but none of them quite address the quirks of managing a diverse, changing virtual team. So I might as well start putting together useful resources here.

• Productivity 501′s Ultimate Virtual Assistant Guide gives a number of tips for hiring and working with virtual assistants. The comments also contain a lot of information. This is the best guide I’ve come across so far.
• Buzzoodle: 10 Musts in a Virtual Assistant Request notes what information you should provide and confirm when working on a task.
• My “Managing virtual assistants” category on this blog has my experiences, tips, reflections, and processes.
• …

Found any useful resources on how to manage virtual assistants? Share them here!