Archive for June, 2010
Cisco Cius Compliments Virtual Office Space
Apple isn’t the only company to launch an intriguing tablet device…Cisco is aiming at mobile workers with its Cisco Cius.
Cisco is billing Cius as a first-of-its-kind mobile collaboration business tablet that delivers virtual desktop integration with anywhere, anytime access to the full range of Cisco collaboration, and communication applications, including HD video.
Weighing in at just 1.15 pounds, the Android-based Cius aims to battle the Apple iPad in the quest to win the hearts and minds of business users. Cius offers full telepresence interoperability, HD video streaming and real-time video, multi-party conferencing, e-mail, messaging, browsing, and the ability to produce, edit and share content stored locally or centrally in the cloud.
The Cius won’t be available until the beginning of 2011, but it promises to turn the heads of road warriors that demand a business-minded tablet.
The Cius is a strong compliment to the virtual office. A virtual office lets road warriors travel from a business meeting in New York to a business meeting in Los Angeles, for example, without missing any important calls through call forwarding services. A virtual receptionist can enhance the virtual office experience with live answering for a more professional edge.
Davinci Virtual’s virtual office solutions include add-on services such as Cisco’s WebEx Meeting Center at a special price. That means a Davinci virtual office space user could use the Cius to tap into the WebEx from anywhere. Together, a virtual office space and Cisco’s new virtual office technology help road warriors and mobile workers accomplish more no matter where they are.
At the end of the day, it’s about productivity—and communications are an essential ingredient in boosting productivity. A virtual office space helps you keep your communications professional when you can’t answer calls—and the Cius helps you keep your communications professional when you are traveling. It’s a great combination.
Check out this video on the Cisco Cius:
Thinking about setting up shop in Connecticut? Cities like Cheshire, Danbury and Darien would love to have you as their newest business resident.
Connecticut bills itself as a business-friendly state that’s dedicated to helping businesses grow. Connecticut has developed industry clusters that aim to attract companies in specific industries. Connecticut’s industry clusters include aerospace, agriculture, bioscience, insurance and finance, plastics, software IT, and tourism.
Connecticut has one of the best-educated, most productive workforces in the nation. Employee productivity is at an all time high, with worker output at more than 33 percent of the national average. Of course, Connecticut also has a strategic location in the heart of New England’s business corridor. Companies like Aetna, ESPN, GE and Pitney Bowes are located in Connecticut.
Whether you are starting a new business in Cheshire, looking to expand into Danbury, or just looking for ways to be more productive in Darien, a virtual office offers strategic solutions that save money and set the stage for greater productivity.
You can get a virtual office in the Cheshire Business Center at 615 West Johnson Avenue for as little as $95 a month. In Danbury, you can tap into a professional image at the Danbury Business Center at 100 Mill Plain Road for $135 a month. And in Darien, you can rent a virtual office at the Darien Corporate Center for as little as $40 a month.
Each of these Davinci Virtual office spaces gives you a prime business address, mail and package receipt, access to a business support center, a lobby greeter, a client drop off and pick-up point, a lobby directory listing, and other services that will help you work more efficiently. If you need to rent a conference room or a day office by the hour or by the day, Davinci Virtual also gives you that option.
Virtual offices offer a means for companies to test the waters in Connecticut before renting physical office space. Virtual offices also open the door to telecommuting for employees without sacrificing a professional business image by having various phone number for each employee. And for road warriors that call Connecticut home, a virtual office can help keep business moving while you are on a plane, train or automobile.
Did you know many products were invented in Connecticut? Check out some famous business start-ups from Connecticut i this YouTube video:
Employer optimism in the global labor market is improving. Employers in most major countries plan to hire more than they did a year ago, and a majority are reporting stronger quarter-over-quarter hiring plans. So says the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey.
Will hiring companies turn to virtual office space before they expand their physical office space? It’s a strong possibility, and a wise move—for two reasons. We’ll get to those reasons in a minute. First, let’s hear more from Manpower.
Despite uncertainty in the European market, fewer employers are reporting negative forecasts for the quarter ahead. Meanwhile, employers in China and Taiwan indicate their most robust hiring plans since the Manpower survey began in these markets in 2005, and the forecast from U.S. employers is similar to three months ago but notably improved from last year at this time.
“Across the world, there is improved optimism towards hiring, which is typical for this phase of the recovery,” says Jeffrey Joerres, Chairman and CEO of Manpower Inc. “The majority of countries are emerging from the downturn, but still have a way to go as companies are feeling demand for their products and services, but it has not accelerated enough to excite hiring prospects. The U.S. is in the beginnings of a hiring recovery; however there is still economic uncertainty, which is going to bridle stronger hiring.”
This, along with a new report that consumer spending is on the rise, is good news for companies around the world. But cautious companies should consider virtual office space even as they return to hiring mode. A virtual office space can give employees the ability to tap into the company’s phone system without being in the physical office space. This can save the company money in traditional office rentals while they wait for a full recovery and the budget to add more space.
A virtual office space is also strategic from a recruiting perspective. As the economic recovery continues, companies can recruit talent from well beyond their local region, plug them into virtual office technologies, and even see increased productivity. By employing virtual office space, companies can attract talent that is not willing to relocate, but finds the idea of working from home attractive from a work-life balance perspective.
Just as virtual office space gained momentum as companies looked to trim overhead in a down economy, virtual office space is poised to continue that momentum as the economy recovers. The benefits of virtual offices are no longer a secret. Companies large and small are acquainted with the cost-savings, productivity increases and other advantages virtual offices offer.
Need confirmation of Manpower’s survey? Check out this video from competitor Randstad:
Houston claims to have an unbeatable entrepreneurial spirit. With so many young professionals there, it is not hard to believe the claim. The Texas city also bills itself as the new global gateway with the most cost-effective opportunities for your success. It becomes even more cost effective when you set up shop in Houston with a virtual office.
Houston ranks sixth among US. metropolitan statistical areas, with a population of nearly 6 million. The Southwestern city is strategically located, geographically centered between the East and West coasts. Houston has an international airport, a deep sea port and intracoastal waterway, multiple major railroads and intermodal facilities, and a strong highway system.
Houston also has some impressing ratings. Forbes.com rated Houston number one on its “Best Cities for Young Professionals” list. Manufacturer’s News rated Houston number one on its “Top U.S. Manufacturing Cities” list. The Daily Beast gave George Bush Intercontinental airport the top rating in its “America’s Best Airports” list. The list goes on and on.
Whether you are already doing business in Houston or you are considering establishing a presence there, a virtual office is a smart way to keep overhead low.
As a young professional, you can work from a home office in Houston and still maintain your privacy while boosting your professional business image by renting virtual office space. That’s because you get a prestigious business address. Davinci Virtual has six strategic Houston virtual office locations, including the Houston Uptown Business Center, Park Ten Business Center and Houston Westheimer Business Center. You can meet clients at these and other virtual office locations when you need to make a presentation, and the client will find your name on the lobby directory.
If you are a young professional expanding into Houston, or just need a business address there, a virtual office is a better solution than a P.O. Box or a suite number at a pack and ship center. A virtual office gives you more than a business address. You also get a phone number with a local area code that clients can call, which offers a stronger first impression to potential business partners, vendors and customers in Houston as you prepare to enter the market.
Want to get to know Houston a little better? Check out this YouTube video:
Forget the swine flu for a minute. There’s another potential pandemic starting in California. On Wednesday, health officials gave the whooping cough—a disease of the respiratory mucous membrane—epidemic status in the Golden State. Also known as pertussis, it’s called whooping cough because the disease brings severe coughing spells that end with a whopping sound when the person breathes in.
Los Angeles County alone has confirmed 148 cases of whooping cough. Another 55 cases were reported in Orange County. Across the state, that figure rises to 910 cases. Five babies have died from the disease in California this year. This isn’t the first time whooping cough has reared its ugly head there. In 2005, there were 3,182 cases and eight deaths.
When epidemics like the H1-N1 or the whooping cough—or even when during regular flu season—it’s wise to have alternative working arrangements such as virtual offices for employees. Children are most at risk, but 38 percent of children diagnosed with whooping cough got it from their mother and another 17 percent got it from their father, according to Dr. Mark Horton, director of the California Department of Public Health.
With a virtual office, employees can reduce the risk of contracting and spreading whopping cough. A virtual office allows the employee to work their home in Los Angeles, for example, and still appear to clients as if they are working from the office. The virtual office system is complete with virtual office technologies like Cisco’s WebEx, along with virtual receptionists who answer and route calls seamlessly.
A virtual office can also make it possible for employees to get some work done at home while suffering from whooping cough. The employee may feel well enough to work but may still be contagious. A virtual office quarantines the employee, if you will, from other employees so the pertussis doesn’t spread across the organization. Yet the company reduces productivity loss by making it possible for the employee to continue working from the virtual office.
Whether it’s airline strikes, natural disasters or epidemics like the whooping cough, the virtual office can help mitigate the risks. Avoiding lost productivity and stemming the spread of disease don’t depend on virtual offices alone, but this tool is part of a larger solution that comes with many additional benefits. Davinci Virtual has virtual offices available in major California cities, including Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Irvine, Burbank and beyond.
Check out this newsbyte on the whooping cough epidemic in California:
New research from the National Opinion Research Center and the University of Chicago reveals 16 percent of respondents have lost a jobs because they had to take time off work to deal with a sick family member—or their own illness.
Three in four respondents say paid sick days are a basic worker’s right, and 75 percent favor a law that guarantees paid sick days for all workers, and most support pro-rated paid sick days for part-time workers. What’s more, 86 percent back a plan that would require a minimum of seven paid sick days per year, and 33 percent say smaller employers should provide the same number of paid sick days as larger employers.
Congress is considering the Healthy Families Act, which would allow workers at businesses with 15 or more employees to earn up to seven paid sick days annually. The good news for your small business is that when you work with virtual receptionists, you don’t have to worry about sick days—and you also don’t have to worry about lost productivity or covering the phones because your receptionist is out sick.
A vital part of a virtual office package, a virtual receptionist helps you make a good impression on clients without having to hire, train and employ a receptionist on-site. And since you aren’t employing the virtual receptionist, you aren’t responsible for dealing with sick days. If one of Davinci Virtual’s virtual receptionists call in sick, the company simply shifts the calls to another available virtual receptionist. It’s a seamless transition. Your clients will never know the difference because all of Davinci’s virtual receptionists are well-trained.
Davinci’s live receptionists are equipped with advanced answering systems so they don’t miss a call. And since your virtual receptionist only answers the phone for you and up to four other businesses, the call volume is always manageable. Davinci offers a pay-as-you-go phone plan, so you only pay for the virtual receptionist minutes you use. And, again, you never have to worry about your virtual receptionist calling in sick.
Davinci Virtual is making headlines again. The leading virtual office provider has landed in the Salt Lake Tribune in an article entitled, “Welcome to your virtual office. Desk not needed” by Tom Harvey.
Harvey begins his story chronicling the experience of Child Care Insurance Professionals. When you call there, you’re greeted with a pleasant voice. But, as Harvey explains, it’s not really a Child Care Insurance Professionals employee. It’s a Davinci Virtual virtual receptionist.
As the story goes, the virtual receptionist asks the caller to hold so she can see if Child Care Insurance Professionals’ president, Patrick Treend, is available. Behind the scenes, the call is routed to Treend at another location. The caller never knows that the receptionist isn’t in sitting at a desk in his office space.
Here’s an excerpt from Harvey’s article:
“Davinci Virtual provides communication services and can help book a conference room in all 50 states and several foreign countries, while Davinci Suites offers office and meeting space, and services such as a mailing address locally and in Las Vegas and Albuquerque.
“The companies are separate entities that grew out of a company jointly operated by Sam Souvall and Bill Grodnik. They split the company last year. Souvall’s interests were more in the real estate end of things and he operates Davinci Suites. Grodnik had a vision for taking the services model national and even global in the form of Davinci Virtual.”
Davinci Virtual offers virtual offices in Salt Lake City for as little as $95 a month. For that price, you get a premier business address, mail and package receipt, access to a business support center, a lobby greeter, a client drop off and pick up point, a lobby directory listing and access to a conference room you can rent for an hourly fee.
Davinci Virtual has two virtual office locations in Salt Lake City. One is at the Cottonwood Corporate Center at 2825 East Cottonwood Parkway. The other is at Sugarhouse Parkview Plaza 2 at 2150 South 1300 East. The virtual office company also offers Utah locations in Sandy, Provo, Murray, Draper and St. George.
Want a glimpse of Salt Lake City? Check out this video tour.
Thinking about a business start-up, expansion or relocating to Philadelphia? The City of Brotherly Love would sure like to have you there.
Philadelphia is strategically located between New York City and Washington, D.C. and is home to many Fortune 500 companies. If you are in the alternative energy, life sciences, information technology, education, defense, logistics or financial services industries, you’ll find clusters of like-minded businesses there. But there are plenty of other opportunities for companies in the Greater Philadelphia area as well.
Greater Philadelphia is the fifth largest metropolitan region in the U.S. population with more than 6.1 million people. And the cost of living there is lower than other major northeast metros like New York, Boston, Washington, D.C. and Baltimore. In fact, Greater Philadelphia offers one of the lowest office rents among major northeastern U.S. metros.
Greater Philadelphia is there to help with site selection assistance and plenty of other economic development incentives that turn you head, including grants, loans and tax abatements. Davinci Virtual is also there to help with virtual office space that offers you a risk-free way to enter the market with a professional image, whether you are a bootstrapping entrepreneur, a global corporation or somewhere in between.
Davinci Virtual has two prime Philadelphia virtual office locations. There’s the Philadelphia Office Center at Two Penn Center and the Philadelphia Business Center at 1800 JFK Blvd. Both locations offer you a prime business address, mail and package receipt, a business support center, lobby greeter, client drop off/pick-up point and more.
The Two Penn Center location costs just $155 a month, and this includes 16 hours of shared office space. The Philadelphia Business Center runs $95 a month, but does not include the shared office space in the price. Both virtual office locations offer you the opportunity to rent a conference room by the hour, if needed.
Davinci Virtual also has virtual offices in other cities across Pennsylvania, including Allentown, King of Prussia, Plymouth Meeting, Bala Cynwyd, Malvern, Radnor, Erie, Exton and, of course, Pittsburgh. So whether you need a virtual office presence for a few months as you settle into Philadelphia or you need a long-term professional office solution, Davinci Virtual has you covered.
Are you a web worker? If so, you’ll be interested in results from the Web Worker Survey 2010.
WebWorkerDaily, along with GigaOM Pro, conducted the survey of web workers, loosely defined as “anyone who works using the web” to discover some keen insights. I wish they had included the use of virtual offices in the study, but we’ll talk more about how these two worlds meet in just a minute. First, let’s look at the survey results.
One interesting finding was that most web workers are actually not freelancers. That busts a myth, indeed. Sixty-one percent of web workers are full-time employees. That said, nearly half (45%) are freelancers (which seems to suggest that some full-time employees are moonlighting).
The survey also explored coworking, and discovered it’s more popular in Europe than in the U.S. Still, about 30 percent of overall respondents are using some type of coworking set up. What’s more prevalent is the use of Skype. A whopping 90 percent of web workers are using this instant messaging and VoIP tool. Another 38 percent are using cloud-based office suites like Google Docs and Zoho.
Virtual Office Takeaways
Again, the survey didn’t look at the virtual office. But here’s some of my takeaways from the survey as it relates to virtual office space and virtual office technologies.
First, nearly half of web workers are freelancers, and, as I mentioned, it seems some of them may be moonlighting. A virtual office can be a smart solution for a full-time employee who’s doing on work on the side. A virtual office gives the moonlighting employee a special local or 800 number where clients can call without disturbing them during their 9-to-5 job. The virtual office also offers the moonlighter a prestigious business address. The moonlighter can also meet with the client in a conference room at the virtual office provider’s bricks-and-mortar campus. This way the employee keeps the freelance operations completely separate.
I also thought it was interesting that coworking is more popular in Europe. Again, the survey didn’t mention virtual offices but we all know that virtual offices are extremely popular in the U.S. I would bet virtual offices are still more popular in cities like Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Cleveland than are coworking facilities.
So far as Skype and Google Docs, virtual office technologies can compliment those offerings. Davinci Virtual, for example, offers an attractive rate on Cisco WebEx technologies to its virtual office customers. There’s also Live Web Chat services that can help moonlighting freelancers stay focused on their full-time job while someone else deals with their clients.
If you haven’t tried Google Docs yet, check out this quick video explaining its benefits:
Thinking about expanding or relocating to Miami? There’s plenty of good reasons to consider the move—and a virtual office space could help you test the waters.
Miami is home to more than 1,000 multinational corporations and thousands of other companies. As an international gateway city, Miami offers you quick access to Latin America, the Caribbean and even Europe and Asia. The multilingual workforce offers you the international edge.
Miami has been ranked the “Best City to do Business in Latin America” by AméricaEconomía. Miami has also been named among “America’s 50 Hottest Cities” for relocations and expansions by Expansion Management Magazine. Of course, it’s no surprise that Miami and Miami Beach rank among vacation favorites. The quality of life is enviable.
Companies thinking about relocating or expanding to Miami, Ft. Lauderdale or West Palm Beach—three of the best-known cities in the South Florida region—are increasingly turning to the virtual office as an option to test the market before jumping in feet first. A virtual office space eliminates the risk of moving or expanding into Miami.
With a virtual office space, a business in Wyoming can have a local Miami phone number (with a 305 area code), as well as a Miami business address that impresses. Davinci Virtual, for example, offers you a choice of South Florida addresses in area cities like Aventura, Boca Raton, and Coral Gables, among others. If you want to be in Miami’s urban core, you can choose an address like 1200 Brickell in the Financial District. If you want a virtual office in Miami Beach, you can choose an address like 1680 Michigan Avenue.
With a virtual office space, you can also have access to a conference room if you need to come down to Miami to have a business meeting. Your company’s name will be listed in the building directory, and you can have mail or packages delivered to your Miami virtual office forwarded to your company headquarters—no matter where that is.
Whether you are setting up a new business in Miami or thinking about expanding or relocating, these are some of the ways a virtual office can lower the risk with services starting at less than $100 a month. Be sure to ask Miami’s economic development arm about incentives for relocating and expanding—there are plenty.
Check out this video on expanding to Miami and see the benefits for yourself:
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