The Gift of Bandwidth For Administrative Professionals

This week is Administrative Professionals Week. It’s a time to honor those “Radar O’Rilleys” of the office who keep everything running smoothly so management and staff can concentrate on getting their own jobs done. You’ve no doubt signed a nice greeting card and perhaps taken your secretary, administrative assistance, receptionist or other admin. support pro to lunch... Haven’t you? If not, better scramble and do something nice quickly. You have no idea how much doo-doo you could be in on Monday.

After the hoopla ebbs, there is something that still needs attention. Besides a little fawning and personal kudos, what administrative professionals could really use is better tools to help them be more productive. I’ve dealt with many great administrative assistants over the years and can attest that they are models of efficiency. They’ll take whatever’s available and make it work magic. But think how much more would get done if the tools worked better.

One big bottleneck in any business can be the WAN bandwidth connection. That includes point to point lines linking your business locations, and broadband Internet service. When the network slows down, everybody slows down. Those high performance admins that burn through a keyboard a week wind up drumming their fingers on the desk while waiting for critical files to transfer. Does that sound like a wise use of resources to you?

I’m going to make a suggestion here. Why not take about a minute or so and ask your administrative assistants if they are being slowed down by the performance of your computer network, especially for outside files. If the answer comes back “yes,” you probably can’t make a better investment than increasing that bandwidth.

That can be easier and cheaper than you imagine. Just ask your assistant or IT manager to run a quick bandwidth pricing check through a telecom broker. It can be done online in almost no time. All you need to know is the address of the business, who should be contacted and how much bandwidth you have in mind. Start with double what you have now and see what the results are. You might be shocked to find that you could have a lot faster network service for the same money as you are paying now. Wouldn’t it be a shame to let that opportunity go to waste?

Pssst. If you are one of those hard-charging administrative assistants being limited by data connections that are way too sloooowww, why not take charge and make this happen. When you tell your boss that you could get a lot more done with a faster network connection, also mention that you can take care of researching this without distracting from your critical work. Then get an instant online quote for bandwidth services and print off the results. Good chance the boss will say: “Go ahead and order that.” Then you’ll have one really sweet gift for Administrative Professionals Week.

Oh, Mandi, They Came and You Gave Them My Number

Everyone who's ever worked in an office knows that it's the secretaries that bring order to chaos. Sadly, we often take them for granted as they so efficiently go about their proscribed routine. It's when we cut the corporate umbilical and go out on our own that it suddenly dawns on us that chaos has reared its ugly head and there's no one to keep things running like the proverbial clockwork. You know you need a secretary. But you look at your budget and sigh. Alas, there's no hope you can afford someone to keep things organized. Or, perhaps, there is.

Meet your new assistant, Mandi. No, not the Mandy of Manilow song. This is Mandi, your virtual assistant. She's got your number. Phone number, that is. Hire Mandi and she'll manage your phone calls like the living, breathing assistant you can't afford. Mandi you can afford.

Mandi is a professional Electronic Voice Assistant. She's part of the SpeechPhone family of speech-driven personal assistants. The key idea here is "speech-driven." This is what separates Mandi from the usual automated attendants and answering machines. Mandi will answer your phone 24/7 and screen each call. She'll route them to wherever you happen to be and let you know who's calling so you can decide whether you're "in" or not. If not, Mandi will dutifully take a message.

When you order Mandi, you are assigned a personal local phone number. This is the one number that you publish and tell people. It matters not that you have 4 different phones in 4 different locations. Mandi will track you down when your services are needed and no one else has to know your real phone number.

What's really cool is the speech driven technology. You talk to Mandi just like you would a live secretary. With respect, of course. You say things like "get messages" and you'll get your new phone messages. Now say "call back" and Mandi dials that caller back. For some real fun, say "get email messages." Mandi will do just that and carefully read them to you over the phone. Then you have the options to save, delete, copy or reply to your messages, all by voice command.

Peeking behind the curtain, you should know that SpeechPhone services run on carrier grade Lucent Speech Servers that include robust Automatic Speech Recognition and Text to Speech technology that has been developed by Bell Laboratories. This is professional grade communications for working professionals. The amazing thing is that it's available in a price range that makes it perfect for mobile professionals and small office / home office users.