discredit.org

In the last week or so I have been interviewing various assistants to take care of some of my business needs.  When the word assistant is heard most think I am shelling out a ton of money to have someone in-house answer the phones, schedule client meetings, etc…  This would be the case but my assistant is located on the other side of the world in India.  These types of assistants have been labeled virtual assistants since they tend to communicate with you via the Internet.  I actually hired a virtual assistant after reading, “The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich” by Timothy Ferriss.”  This is an excellent read that I would advise any entrepreneur to get. (My ex-girlfriend actually purchased this book for me as a Christmas present last year.  Some of the best tools come from those you would least expect!)  In the book, he describes how you can consolidate a work week into just a few hours.  I took his advice and went on elance to test the waters with a virtual assistant.  So far, my virtual assistant has not fulfilled the obligations that I have outlined for them.  It’s unfortunate but I am giving them the benefit of the doubt for now because it was a holiday weekend in India this past Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  The tasks I have set for my personal assistant are the following:

1. Research domains that end with the word “forum” and “talk” on www.justdropped.com. An example reference would be: carforum.com or cartalk.com, I want you to create your own justdropped.com account and conduct searches to find domains which have just been dropped from the registrar. To do this you would visit justdropped.com and type the forum or talk entry into the ends with box. Make sure to only search domains which end with (.com) as those are the only ones which I am interested in. Once you have conducted the search create a spreadsheet with the following fields: Domain Name, Currently Available, Archive.org History

From here I want you to go to the following site: http://www.moniker.com/domains/batch_reg.jsp

At this site you will paste any of the deleted domains which you have found in the previous step to find out which are currently available. If a domain is currently available please mark the domain in the spread sheet with a “YES.” For the domains that are not currently available please mark the domain in the spread sheet with a “NO.” For each domain in the list I would like for you to run each individually through archive.org and mark “YES” in the spreadsheet for those which have historical references and “NO” for those domains which do not have any historical references.

Once you have completed this make sure to save the spread sheet with the exact notation = YEAR.MONTH.DAY.FORUMDOMAINS, example: 2008.08.13.FORUMDOMAINS.XLS

*Skip any domains you may have already searched on previous days. All domains in each list should be unique.

Have these emailed to me daily at jason@eightmotives.com

Estimated Time To Complete: (15 - 30 Minutes Daily)

Please have these sent to me by 7AM (PST) each day.

2. Research a list of data centers located within the United States. Start with California and proceed forward from the West to the East until all states have been covered. Find out each data center name, location, company ownership and email / phone, fax number. Please create a spread sheet with your findings. Utilize the major search engines like google.com and forums on web hosting like webhostingtalk.com and datacentertalk.com to gather this information. Here is an example search conducted on google:

Key Word: Los Angeles Data Center
Returns www.ix2.net
Company Name: IX2 Networks
Location(s):
One Wilshire
624 South Grand
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Floors: 16th and 3rd
Email: sales@ix2.net & info@ix2.net
Phone: (866)600-2800
Phone: (213)542-0100
Fax: (213)542-0104
Additional Information:

IX2 Wilshire operates approximately 5,000 square feet of collocation space on the 16th and 3rd floors of One Wilshire and has a large presence in the 4th floor meet-me room. The One Wilshire Building was built in 1966 but the infrastructure has been renovated over the years to be able to accommodate the needs of telecommunication companies with respect to power, air-conditioning, emergency power and connectivity requirements. With more than half of the building’s tenant base in the telecommunications industry, today One Wilshire is considered the premier hub of the Pacific Rim and is one of the most important points of connectivity within the Western United States.

*Make sure not to copy additional information exactly how it is listed on the site. Change at least two to three words in each entry.

Estimated Time to Complete (30 minutes - 1 Hour Daily)

Email this list daily to me jason@eightmotives.com by 9AM (PST) each day. More tasks will be added.

These tasks are quite basic and are meant to test how efficient my virtual assistant team is.  I currently pay my virtual assistant $5.00 / hour.   I understand that at this rate, there might be issues with work being completed properly.  So far they have completed one spread sheet for Thursday of last week, which details the domains that I requested for them to research.  I am still waiting for data pertaining to data centers within the United States.  This data is actually for a new directory that I will be establishing in the next couple of months.

My virtual assistant team has apologized for the delays and said that they would pick the pace up.  This is pretty much a paid interview at the moment and budgeting $100 to test their services wouldn’t be much of a loss.  I have found other virtual assistants that are within the range and a company called Brickwork for India which assigns you a professional virtual assistant.  I look forward to see how much time I can save during the day by utilizing a virtual assistant.  This is a learning curve for the majority of them, so I will give it some time before everything runs flawlessly and the information I have requested is in my inbox on a timely matter.

Kind Regards,

Jason Thompson