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Virtual Assistant (occupation)
A virtual assistant (typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant) is generally self-employed and provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients remotely from a home office. Because virtual assistants are independent contractors rather than employees, clients are not responsible for any employee-related taxes, insurance or benefits, except in the context that those indirect expenses are included in the VA's fees. Clients also avoid the logistical problem of providing extra office space, equipment or supplies. Clients pay for 100% productive work, and can work with virtual assistants, individually, or in multi-VA firms to meet their exact needs. Virtual assistants usually work for other small businesses. but can also support busy executives. It is estimated that there are as few as 5,000 to 10,000 or as many as 25,000 virtual assistants worldwide. The profession is growing in centralized economies with "fly-in fly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intelligent Agent
In artificial intelligence, an intelligent agent (IA) is anything which perceives its environment, takes actions autonomously in order to achieve goals, and may improve its performance with learning or may use knowledge. They may be simple or complex — a thermostat is considered an example of an intelligent agent, as is a human being, as is any system that meets the definition, such as a firm, a state, or a biome. Leading AI textbooks define "artificial intelligence" as the "study and design of intelligent agents", a definition that considers goal-directed behavior to be the essence of intelligence. Goal-directed agents are also described using a term borrowed from economics, "rational agent". An agent has an "objective function" that encapsulates all the IA's goals. Such an agent is designed to create and execute whatever plan will, upon completion, maximize the expected value of the objective function. For example, a reinforcement learning agent has a "reward funct ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Google Voice
Google Voice is a telephone service that provides a U.S. phone number to Google Account customers in the U.S. and Google Workspace (G Suite by October 2020) customers in Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. It is used for call forwarding and voicemail services, voice and text messaging, as well as U.S. and international calls. Calls are forwarded to the phone number that each user must configure in the account web portal. Users can answer and receive calls on any of the phones configured to ring in the web portal. While answering a call, the user can switch between the configured phones. Subscribers in the United States can make outgoing calls to domestic and international destinations. The service is configured and maintained by users in a web-based application, similar in style to Google's email service Gmail, or Android and iOS applications on smartphones or tablets. Google Voice provides free PC-to-phone c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual Team
A virtual team (also known as a geographically dispersed team, distributed team, or remote team) usually refers to a group of individuals who work together from different geographic locations and rely on communication technology such as email, instant messaging, and video or voice conferencing services in order to collaborate.Gibson, C. B., and S. G. Cohen (2003). Virtual Teams That Work: Creating Conditions for Virtual Collaboration Effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Martins, L. L., L. L. Gilson, and M. T. Maynard 2004 “Virtual teams: What do we know and where do we go from here?” Journal of Management, 30: 805–835. The term can also refer to groups or teams that work together asynchronously or across organizational levels. Powell, Piccoli and Ives (2004) define virtual teams as "groups of geographically, organizationally and/or time dispersed workers brought together by information and telecommunication technologies to accomplish one or more organizational tasks." As ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual Office
A virtual office is part of the flexible workspace industry that provides businesses with any combination of services, space and/or technology, without those businesses bearing the capital expenses of owning or leasing a traditional office. Virtual office services started in the 1960s as serviced offices and have evolved with technology to include a wide variety of personnel, physical space, digital storage and communication services. Customers pay a contract fee for these services which may be offered à la carte, as packages or membership subscription. The concept is popular with companies of all sizes, including self-employed entrepreneurs. One of the primary allures of the virtual office is the flexibility it offers for employees and freelancers to work from a satellite office, home office, remote location or even on-the-go via a mobile device. At the same time, a company can offer its clients and employees a stable home office with access to amenities such as receptionist, co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual Volunteering
Virtual volunteering refers to volunteer activities completed, in whole or in part, using the Internet and a home, school, telecenter, or work computer or other Internet-connected device, such as a smartphone or a tablet. Virtual volunteering is also known as online volunteering, remote volunteering or e-volunteering. Contributing to free and open source software projects or editing Wikipedia are examples of virtual volunteering. In practice In one study, over 70 percent of online volunteers chose assignments requiring one to five hours a week and nearly half chose assignments lasting 12 weeks or less. Some organizations offer online volunteering opportunities which last from ten minutes to an hour. A unique feature of online volunteering is that it can be done from a distance. People with restricted mobility or other special needs participate in ways that might not be possible in traditional face-to-face volunteering. Likewise, online volunteering may allow people to overcome so ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digital platforms to attract and divide work between participants to achieve a cumulative result. Crowdsourcing is not limited to online activity, however, and there are various historical examples of crowdsourcing. The word crowdsourcing is a portmanteau of " crowd" and " outsourcing". In contrast to outsourcing, crowdsourcing usually involves less specific and more public groups of participants. Advantages of using crowdsourcing include lowered costs, improved speed, improved quality, increased flexibility, and/or increased scalability of the work, as well as promoting diversity. Crowdsourcing methods include competitions, virtual labor markets, open online collaboration and data donation. Some forms of crowdsourcing, such as in "idea compe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tim Ferriss
Timothy Ferriss (born July 20, 1977) is an American entrepreneur, investor, author, podcaster, and lifestyle guru. He became well-known through his ''4-Hour'' self-help book series—including ''The 4-Hour Work Week'', ''The 4-Hour Body'', and ''The 4-Hour Chef''—that focused on lifestyle optimizations, but he has since reconsidered this approach. Early life Ferriss grew up in East Hampton, New York. Throughout childhood, Ferriss experienced poor health, sparking an interest in self-improvement. After graduating from St. Paul's School, Ferriss matriculated at Princeton University, earning a B.A. in East Asian studies in 2000. His senior thesis was titled ''Acquisition of Japanese Kanji: Conventional Practice and Mnemonic Supplementation'', under the supervision of Seiichi Makino. After graduating from Princeton, Ferriss worked in sales at a data storage company. Career In 2001, Ferriss founded BrainQUICKEN, an internet-based nutritional supplements business, while still emplo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The 4-Hour Workweek
''The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich'' (2007) is a self-help book by Timothy Ferriss, an American writer, educational activist, and entrepreneur. It deals with what Ferriss refers to as "lifestyle design", and repudiates the traditional "deferred" life plan in which people work grueling hours and take few vacations for decades and save money in order to relax after retirement. The book spent four years on ''The New York Times'' Best Seller List, was translated into 40 languages, and sold around 2.1 million copies. Background Ferriss developed the ideas present in ''The 4-Hour Workweek'' (4HWW) while working 14-hour days at his sports nutrition supplement company, BrainQUICKEN. Frustrated by the overwork and lack of free time, Ferriss took a 3-week sabbatical to Europe. During that time and continued travels throughout Europe, Asia, and South America, Ferriss developed a streamlined system of checking email once per day and outsourcing smal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Office Sharing
Office sharing is a concept that allows companies who own or manage an office, that have redundant office space to share or rent the workstations or self-contained units to smaller companies looking for flexible workspace. This creates revenue for the company that runs the office, and provides a cheap, flexible alternative for companies looking for an office outside of their home. The main benefit of sharing an office is that it provides a more dynamic environment for both companies involved and access to new markets. However, sharing office space does come with some problems of its own: * Higher office management costs (cleaning services, printer ink, office supplies and so on) * Faster wear and tear of office equipment * Potential NDA issues if the space isn't properly divided * Setup costs (dividing the space with fake walls) * Management Software costs (resource management, reception desk software, meeting room management and so on) The arrangement can be particularly sensitive i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
VOIP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet telephony, broadband telephony, and broadband phone service specifically refer to the provisioning of communications services (voice, fax, SMS, voice-messaging) over the Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN), also known as plain old telephone service (POTS). Overview The steps and principles involved in originating VoIP telephone calls are similar to traditional digital telephony and involve signaling, channel setup, digitization of the analog voice signals, and encoding. Instead of being transmitted over a circuit-switched network, the digital information is packetized and transmission occurs as IP packets over a packet-switched network. They transport media streams using special media delivery protocol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Skype
Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, debit-based calls to landline and mobile telephones (over traditional telephone networks), and other features. Skype is available on various desktop, mobile, and video game console platforms. Skype was created by Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis, and four Estonian developers and first released in August 2003. In September 2005, eBay acquired Skype for $2.6 billion. In September 2009, Silver Lake, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board bought 65% of Skype for $1.9 billion from eBay, valuing the business at $2.92 billion. In May 2011, Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion and used it to replace their Windows Live Messenger. As of 2011, most of the development team and 44% of all the division' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Journal Of Productivity And Performance Management
The ''International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering performance management and measurement. The editors-in-chief are Dr Nicky Shaw and Dr Luisa Huatuco. The journal was established in 1952 and is published by Emerald Group Publishing Emerald Publishing Limited is a scholarly publisher of academic journals and books in the fields of management, business, education, library studies, health care, and engineering. History Emerald was founded in the United Kingdom in 1967 as .... It is the official journal of the World Confederation of Productivity Science. External links * World Confederation of Productivity Science Emerald Group Publishing academic journals English-language journals Business and management journals Academic journals established in 1952 {{management-journal-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
