This year, we’ve scheduled seminars covering topics everyone is asking questions about and discussing on list servs and forums. Here’s an opportunity to “ask the experts” and obtain informative answers from experienced VAs as well as professionals outside the industry that walk the talk every day, and are willing to share their knowledge, experience and skills with you.

Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with expert resources, all from the comfort of home and your desktop or laptop computer. The information and training they share may help clarify a situation, open a door to new business, gain more clients and increase profits. To have a seat in these educational sessions, you must register soon. The last day to register is Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 12 midnight EDT ( US).

This year’s schedule includes topics any virtual business can benefit from. Visit the Speakers Profile page for details about each session.

Jonathan Bailey
Dealing with Plagiarism: A Realistic Guide to Fighting Content Theft

Laurie Dart
Increase Your* Income by Establishing Yourself as an Expert with Article Marketing

Annie Jennings
Create A Website To Showcase Your Talent, Land BIG New Clients & Build A Powerful Community

Jamie Lee Mann
The Importance of Follow-up

Becki Noles
Creating Multiple Streams of Income: Affiliate and Internet Marketing in a Nutshell

Dale Noles
Target Markets and Niches: The #1 Success Ingredients

Victoria Santiago
How To Make Your Home Based Business Sound Like A Fortune 500 Company

Tawnya Sutherland
SEO, Let’s Rank It!

Yvonne Weld
Setting Up Processes for Your Business

Sharon Williams
Be Your Own Brand and Stand Out from the Crowd

OIVAC…it’s not just for Virtual Assistants anymore!!

Hope to see you there,

Becki

PS - Don’t forget registration ends Tuesday, May 13th!

On my soapbox as it pertains to Virtual Assistants:

During my first couple of copyright escapades I came across this great site: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html.

Pay special attention to this section (excerpted from http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html):

“If I make up my own stories, but base them on another work, my new work belongs to me.”

False. U.S. Copyright law is quite explicit that the making of what are called “derivative works” — works based or derived from another copyrighted work — is the exclusive province of the owner of the original work. This is true even though the making of these new works is a highly creative process. If you write a story using settings or characters from somebody else’s work, you need that author’s permission.

For some additional light reading (I am being facetious) you can read all about the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works at: http://www.law.cornell.edu/treaties/berne/overview.html and the Universal Copyright Convention at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Copyright_Convention.

The argument that there are only so many ways that you can describe a Virtual Assistant is getting old. If you use the IVAA definition give them credit, if you use Virtual Accuracy’s definition give them credit, etc. However, always ask the individual organization or VA to use their definition prior to putting it on your site. Don’t plagiarize another person’s definition and claim it as your own.

Becki

Well it’s that time of the month everyone (no not THAT!), time to check to see if anyone is infringing on the copyright of your site. Go to http://www.CopyScape.com and type in each of your URLs for your entire site or copy and paste them. It’s that simple.

I did it last night and found someone using my content…AGAIN. This is extremely frustrating and she is the first person to not comply with my cease and desist. Needless to say I contacted her webhost today and I will be on the phone with the attorney tomorrow. Yes, I am a killer, I know. I don’t mess around and I am SICK and TIRED of people taking my content.

Yes there is a right click prohibit, but for SEO it sucks, to put it bluntly, plus they could just copy it from the source code anyway.

If you are a new VA or existing for that matter and you research other VA websites for content ideas…be careful not to plagiarize. It is not fair to those of us who came up with our own content and in some cases hired a professional copywriter to write it.

Becki Noles
Virtual Accuracy
Assistance for Coaches