Vanya Wryter Consulting Services

Tag: Technology

  • Online Publishing: Watch Out for Google’s Upcoming Changes

    Online Publishing: Watch Out for Google’s Upcoming Changes

    An article by Forbes announced new changes to Google that affect how the search engine presents results using artificial intelligence. This news is for you if you publish your work online, such as blogs and articles.

    The new change will mean that when you provide Google with a query, it will generate an answer created from all the material that it can find online. This means Google search users don’t need to visit the original pages that contain the information, resulting in fewer eyes on the web pages of content creators.

    You can read the original article here.

  • Best Types of Companies for Remote Work

    Best Types of Companies for Remote Work

    Remote work has been around for as long as we’ve had the technology, but 2020 made work from home (WFH) a household word. Before the worldwide pandemic that forced businesses to close their doors, many startups already offered remote work. Without a physical office, expenses were reduced. Remote work also offers many other advantages to certain types of companies. Let’s take a closer look at five types of companies that offer remote work.

    1 Technology Companies

    Technology companies (tech) are great for remote work because they tend to have the latest technology. Tech companies include software development companies, IT companies, companies that sell electronics, artificial intelligence or computers, and website development companies. These companies have the ability for their employees to communicate through virtual meetings and communications applications such as Slack. 

    During the pandemic, tech workers were more easily able to make the transition to performing work tasks from home, since the majority (if not all) of their tasks were completed using technology. 

    2 Customer Service Companies

    Customer services companies that offer services via online platforms such as chatbots are suitable for remote work. Customer service workers must be familiar with technology and have internet access to perform the tasks. Many businesses that hire customer service workers have customers from multiple time zones. To provide 24/7 service to these customers, they hire employees from different time zones to cover a wide range of work shifts. Similar to tech companies, customer service employees can communicate with supervisors or coworkers with communications software.

    3 Education Companies

    Education companies and companies that provide online education are perfect for remote work. These companies provide e-learning platforms for companies and educators. The course content is designed electronically, and IT programming is also handled online. Educators who use these platforms to design courses or offer tutoring work remotely to provide the content. The education is available at any time to anyone anywhere in the world with internet access. 

    4 Creative Agencies

    Creative agencies offer remote work for those interested in graphic design, advertising, marketing, and content creation. Work is completed through online collaboration and communication tools. Some agencies hire employees from the same city, while others hire freelancers from other cities in the same country or around the world.

    Key Takeaways

    Work from home has become possible because of the collaborative platforms and communication applications that we now have available to us. Many startups start as remote work companies, saving on the costs of having a physical office. In particular, companies that work with technology, customer service, and education, as well as creative agencies are well suited for remote work.

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  • The Cheapest Way to Upgrade Your Home Office

    The Cheapest Way to Upgrade Your Home Office

    At first, it seemed like he was attending the Zoom meeting from an exotic tropic location. The window to his office was wide open, the palm trees behind him swaying to the breeze and his curtains brushing against him where he sat at his desk.

    Technology has become so advanced that you don’t need fancy office furniture to work from home. You need a solid computer to work remotely and a reliable internet connection. Those are the bare minimum.

    These days, even if you can’t afford to work from anywhere in the world of remote work, you can at least look like you can afford to work from anywhere. And you can upgrade your office anytime using the latest features of virtual meetings.

    Back to the office worker working in the tropics. Virtual backgrounds have become so advanced now that the background has movement and sound. It’s harder now to separate you from the virtual background behind you. Curtains can sway forward so close they seem to touch your arm, appearing as if you truly are in the fake room.

    The key to the illusion, however, is to move as little as possible. Movement destroys the fantasy. When you move quickly, people can almost see the real background behind you because technology can’t compensate fast enough. (So sit still while others admire your fantastic office location.) 

    Virtual backgrounds are the new way to upgrade the furniture in your home office. Your computer and internet are necessary for remote work, but you can decide how much you want to “spend” on your office furniture and the building itself. Do you want to be located in an open office space in a building? Hold a meeting in your glass condo with a view? Sit in a coffee shop full of people? The choices are limitless.

    However, life gets interesting when you always have virtual meetings from the same polished, immaculate home office, and one day you’re too lazy to turn on your background. You reveal your actual home office backdrop: a messy kitchen with items strewn all over the counter and your fancy desk is the kitchen table. The contrast from your usual setup can be jarring and revealing. (Maybe too revealing.)

    Welcome to the modern world of remote work and virtual backgrounds. The magic of technology can save you money. You can really “dress to impress” by finding the perfect work location for yourself. 

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  • How Modern Clocks Replaced Two Jobs

    How Modern Clocks Replaced Two Jobs

    Jobs and Tech

    Which type of person are you? Do you jump out of bed, eager to start the day, when your alarm goes off? Or do you do what it takes to shut off your alarm, curses and hand slamming included? 

    No matter which type you are, you likely had that alarm set because you needed to be somewhere in the morning, and you needed your alarm clock to stop you from sleeping in. Imagine life without your alarm clock. If you forget to set your clocks back or ahead for daylight savings, your computer or phone does it for you, leaving one less excuse to be late for work.

    Now let’s turn the clocks back (so to speak) to years ago, when clocks weren’t as reliable as they are now. Workers needed people, not tech, to help them get up on time in the morning. Back then, people could get a job to help people keep time.

    knocker-uppers

    Years ago, people either didn’t have reliable alarm clocks or couldn’t afford a clock. They also couldn’t be late for work. During the Industrial Revolution, being on time for work was crucial.

    In some European countries, workers paid a knocker-up, also called a knocker-upper, to wake them up on time. The knocker-upper used a baton or stick to tap on the worker’s window to wake that person up. In some cases, they would tap the window several times, and in other cases, they would continue to tap until they were sure their client was awake.

    It wasn’t just the working class that employed knocker-uppers. Wealthy families would employ them to knock non-stop at their window until they woke up. Other knocker-uppers used straws to shoot peas at clients’ windows.

    Shooting peas (and being paid to do so) sounds like fun for people of any age, but of course there’s a catch. A person doing this job needs to be a night owl who is willing to stay up and work at night. Most knocker-uppers were elderly men and women. Some were police constables who took on this side gig during early morning patrols.

    clock keepers

    Another job created because people couldn’t rely on their clocks was the role of clock keeper. Back in Middle Age Europe, clock keepers were paid a lot of money to make sure that the clock or clocks in their care were keeping time accurately.

    A clock keeper may have been employed by one person, such as the owner of a manor, or a group of people, such as an entire town. Regulating the town clock was a huge responsibility. Similarly, maintaining the clock of a monastery was an important job. The church’s schedule and rituals relied on that clock.

    Key Takeaways

    The need for a clock keeper with excellent math skills is no longer required today. We also don’t require someone to tap on our windows to tell us it’s time to get up for work. We expect that our clocks and alarm clocks are reliable.

    Modern inventions have replaced these two jobs, but they have created other jobs for people to create better time-keeping devices.

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  • Best Reasons for Handwritten Messages

    Best Reasons for Handwritten Messages

    Would you feel more comfortable crafting a handwritten letter or sending a quick text? Most likely you answered “text” because it’s fast and autocorrect finishes some of your words! Meanwhile, where is that stationery when you need it?

    Sadly, our writing skills (by hand or keyboard) have declined each generation! A perfect example of this is the tradition of writing letters to Santa Claus at this time of year.

    Good kids (well, all kids) are still writing their wish list to Santa at the North Pole. But over time, people haven’t been handwriting as often as they used to. When was the last time you picked up a pen and wrote a complete letter to someone, such as a love letter or note of thanks after an interview?

    If you’re feeling a bit shaky about your handwriting skills, you aren’t alone. But before we get into the educational and creative benefits of writing by hand, let’s take a quick look at how technology got us to our writing skills today.

    Writing Skills and the Impact of Technology

    These days, our writing skills are at the point where we may need help to write our letters. Blame technology for the decline in our writing. (And then thank technology for saving us, ironically.)

    Why write a note when you can send a text or voice message? Technology is so convenient and easy to access by phone or tablet. Back when we had to write pages of sentences by hand, you could get callouses on your fingers just from holding your pen for hours. You could also buy rubber pen grips to ease the pain on your fingers, but I haven’t seen one of those things in years.

    When writing was a grammar skills challenge, you double-checked your spelling, and you could identify verbs and nouns. Now we spend more time rapid firing messages with abbreviated words on our apps, LOL. (LOL is laugh out loud, if you still like to handwrite things.)

    Despite this trend toward technology, people still value handwritten notes. How much do you treasure a hand-scrawled message on a birthday card? Or a quickly jotted note from a loved one, signed with a happy face or heart? There is something about handwriting that technology just can’t replace.

    The Skills Behind Writing a Handwritten Letter

    Consider how wonderful it would be to receive a handwritten note. Years ago, people cherished handwritten letters a lot more. It was a way to communicate messages that you could keep someplace safe and look back at them time and time again. The early letters to Santa are one example of this way to pass on advice.

    That’s right – pass on advice, not send Santa a list of toys. The tradition of writing letters to Santa has a long history that has evolved over time. At first, the letters weren’t about getting toys. Over a century ago, Santa was writing letters of advice to children. He would comment on their past behaviour over the year and how they could improve for the coming year! Santa (well, the parents) would leave these letters near the fireplace.

    As it became more common to buy stamps in the 1860s, American children sent letters to Santa at the North Pole, where they believed he lived and worked. The tradition evolved to what it is today: children ask for toys they would like to see under the tree at Christmas.

    Technology has also evolved. If you don’t know how to write a letter – or struggle with letter writing in general – you can still be a competent writer.

    Websites such as emailsanta.com make the writing process easy for those who want to write a letter to Santa. You choose a stamp, go to a webpage with the skeletal structure of a letter, and fill in all the blanks. And just like that, presto, your letter to Santa is complete! You will also instantly get an answer back.

    You could say that letter writing programs such as this one is contributing to the decline in writing skills because the process has become so automated. But you could also say that technology can help with teaching writing skills.

    I don’t remember writing to Santa as a child, but I’m sure I would have been impressed that he took the time to write to me, one kid out of millions. I was already content that he could spare a few seconds on Christmas Eve to drop into my home and fill my stockings with gifts.

    As technology continues to advance, what will happen to letter writing in the future? Will children be sending video messages or holograms to Santa in a couple centuries?

    Handwriting as a Marketable Service?

    Chances are, written messages will still be around for a while. Entrepreneurs are constantly devising new ways to answer our desires for personalized content and bridge the writing skills gap.

    If your handwriting looks like a chicken scratched some random ink on the page, digital handwriting services are here to rescue you. Marketing research has found that customers are more likely to read a handwritten message. Just think of the last time you held a pile of mail in your hand and you saw handwritten words on an envelope. Weren’t you assuming a friend or family member had written to you?

    I was surprised when one such envelope with handwriting on it turned out to be a marketing campaign from some company I hadn’t even heard of. However, I’ll give them credit for piquing my interest for a good minute while I opened the envelope to see what was inside.

    Thanks to technology, we don’t need to hire a human to handwrite letters to a potential customer. We’ve got automated bulk mail machines to send the same letter to hundreds of people simultaneously. The handwritten text just adds that extra personal touch.

    With these services, it is even possible to get these digital handwriting services to “handwrite” your annual Christmas letter to your family.

    I wonder what people from two centuries ago would say about our writing skills. Would parents have preferred to use technology to handwrite their Santa letters to their children?

    Summary

    Handwritten letters seem to be a lost art. Nowadays, writing skills aren’t as good as they used to be.

    However, entrepreneurs and businesses have found a way to solve the writing skills gap. A letter to Santa could be composed using technology you find online. At the office, you can employ the services of a website to write your copy for you. Despite these changes, one thing remains the same.

    People still value receiving a handwritten note. It takes creativity, effort, and time. Perhaps you could handwrite a short letter to a loved one this Christmas and see what happens.

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