WAHM Basics- Types of Telecommuters Jobs

If you’re new to the telecommuting job search; you probably have a lot of questions about what types of positions you can apply for. There are several kinds of jobs that are frequently being offered as a telecommuting position by several companies.

Here are some of the options you may find when browsing the job boards:

Customer Service Agent

This is the most popular and easier to find jobs online. There are several companies that hire people to work from home providing customer service for several clients. You could be using the telephone, live chat or even email correspondence to provide the service.

The level of experience you need for this position depends on the company’s requirements, but they can vary from no experience to a couple years of experience. Each website should say what they have for that requirement.

Transcription

Transcription is typing up audio content into a word document. There are three types of transcription positions that you might encounter in your job search. The types are:

General- You would type up materials from focus groups, financial meetings, and presentations. This type of telecommuting position doesn’t require a lot of experience to do. Companies that hire for this position usually look for ability to type fast, ability to listen, and take direction well.

Legal- This is where you would be transcribing legal content for lawyer’s offices. This type of transcription usually requires one to have at least a year experience working in the lawyer’s office, so that they are familiar with the legal terms.

Medical- You would be transcribing Doctor’s notes and files that are sometimes sent to insurance companies. This is the harder type of transcription to land. This type usually requires medical transcription training and some experience working in the field. The companies will not pay for your schooling, so you’ll have to pay your own way.

Scoping

A scopist works with a court reporter. Basically you would receive the rough data from the court reporter and clean it up for them. You would do the research, type up the correct information, change the formatting and look for any questionable items the rough data may contain.

The court reporter would then proofread your work to be sure everything is correctly in place. This kind of job would require you to have a scopist training under your belt and the necessary equipment needed to do your job. This can be costly.

Social Media Manager

Social Media Managers are people whose job is to scour all social networks, communicate with the target audience of a company and respond to any negative comments being published within these networks. Basically, your primary duty is to socialize with other people important to the company you work for.

You would need to have a good understanding of most of the social networks online and continually research the available tools that pop up frequently to make social networking easier for those who participate. Most companies that hire for this position aren’t necessarily looking for on the job experience; they will oftentimes hire based on your knowledge and experience using them in your personal life.

This list is only a portion of what’s available online today for telecommuters. More types of positions will follow in an upcoming article.

Nell Taliercio has been working at home full time since 2004. She’s worked as a telecommuter, virtual assistant and affiliate marketer. In 5 years she’s discovered many secrets to finding legitimate work at home jobs and securing them. You can find work at home job information and tips at: www.justonlinejobs.com

Twisted

So Im sitting at my desk working this morning and I was really putting it out. I mean words were just flying off my fingertips and I was pushing submit like every freaking five minuets. Hell yeah, rock on.
I was concentrating really hard and then my family came in the room. My 15 year old son is fighting with my 10 year old daughter about who would get on the Xbox 360 next. My four year old son was crying because he couldnt find his ViewMaster and the dog started barking incessently.
I glanced out the window to check on the dog.
He’s cool. Just barking at the neighbor.
I turned back to my work- a 500 word piece on an assisted living facility – and I hear my son say “I am going to twist your arm off!”
And before I knew it I had written
…at this gracious twisted living facility…

I looked back over at several of my other recent sentences. Damn!
…where you’ll have every comfort broken…
…enjoy your pests at a moments whim…

Sigh…and I thought I was doing so good.

SEO Writers VS Content Writers

I ran across an interesting piece yesterday. I found it through a google search and I thought, from the title SEO Writers Vs SEO Content Providers, that it would impart some great insight I could use. But alas, it was more of a sales pitch for a writers blog. But the whole idea of what he said got me to thinking. I posted his link on a WAHM forum and got some replies but I wonder what others think.
Is there a difference between a content writer and a content provider when it comes to SEO writing?

http://writing-for-web.com/2008/08/22/seo-writers-vs-seo-content-providers/

Start a Home Business With No Money

I found a great article on Ehow today. I thought I would share it here:

Start a Home Business With No Money

Hey! Have your heard? There are RECESSION PROOF Home Businesses!

Check out these home biz entreprenuers who are making it during the worst thing since the big depression. It is truley awe inspiring!
 Recession Proof Home Biz

How to Become an Ebook Affiliate

Maybe you’re an avid reader. Maybe you’re a book enthusiast. Maybe you just see a way to make some money.

Whatever your reasons your looking for the answer to how to become an ebook affiliate. There are a few ways to become an ebook affiliate.

The fastest, easiest and cheapest way is to promote another persons ebook. Find an ebook that you love. Find one that speaks to you, one that you would recommend to your friends and buy your family members for Christmas. If you love it, it is easier to write real believable ad copy on it. It doesn’t seem much like selling when you believe in the product and its help. If you have found an ebook that you enjoy then someone is trying to sell it. Almost every market place on the net offers a affiliate program and ebooks are no exception.

Fill out the application form and place the html linking code on your website. Learn to promote your ebook affiliate links so that the commission you draw is higher. Each ebook affiliate program will pay a percentage of each sale, a per click fee or both to its affiliates.

You can also write your own ebook and promote it. Write on a subject that you know well. Have someone check it for typos and misspellings. There are lots of software packages that will guide you through the processes of writing an ebook. There is also the option of becoming an ebook affiliate for a bookseller or warehouse. The process is much the same as for a single ebook but may differ slightly in certain areas. Read all requirements carefully. Not following the rules completely may result in a delay or complete denial of payment.

It is not difficult to become an ebook affiliate. It takes only time, effort and patience. Before long you’ll have your own virtual bookstore and living your dream.

Congratulations, you’re an ebook affiliate!

Tuition Free College!

I found this article on Mental Floss. Its a wonderful blog with lots of great information.

During difficult economic times, the cost of higher education leaves many students wondering if they can afford to go to college. For those who want to avoid being saddled with huge loans, the U.S. government offers one of the best deals around: Enroll at one of the five service academies tuition-free and receive free room and board. (And you thought the Grand Slam promotion at Denny’s was cool.) But if military service isn’t for you, here are eight other schools that offer tuition-free educations:

1. College of the Ozarks

Several schools share the “Linebacker U” and “Quarterback U” monikers in reference to the NFL talent that their college football programs produce, but the only “Hard Work U” is located in Point Lookout, Missouri. In 1973, a Wall Street Journal reporter bestowed that title on the College of the Ozarks, where students pay no tuition and work at least 15 hours a week at a campus work station. Jobs are taken seriously at the school of 1,400; students are graded on their work performance in addition to their academics.

History: In 1906, Presbyterian missionary James Forsythe helped open the School of the Ozarks to provide a Christian high school education to children in the Ozarks region, which spans parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. The school added a two-year junior college 50 years later and completed its transition to a four-year college program in 1965. The school was renamed College of the Ozarks in 1990 and has established itself as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the Midwest.

Notable: College of the Ozarks was No. 4 on the Princeton Review’s list of the top 10 Stone-Cold Sober schools in 2008.

Famous Alum: Actress and model April Scott, who played Daisy Duke in the straight-to-DVD prequel of Dukes of Hazzard – Dukes of Hazzard: The Beginning. Scott has also appeared in Entourage, as a briefcase-toting model on Deal or No Deal, and on various magazine covers.

How to Spend the Money Saved on Tuition: Silver Dollar City, an amusement park in nearby Branson, Mo., harkens back to simpler times with its 1880s theme. In addition to thrills, roller coasters at the park offer scenic views of the Ozarks.

2. Deep Springs College

Deep 

Springs is a two-year, all-male liberal arts college located on a cattle ranch and alfalfa farm in the Inyo-White Mountains of California’s High Desert. To get an idea of just how isolated the school is, consider the explanation for its policy forbidding smoking in any of the school’s buildings or near hay bales: “We’re 45 minutes from the nearest emergency services, so a fire could be disastrous.” Every student admitted – 10 to 15 per year – receives free tuition, room, and board, and works at least 20 hours a week on the ranch. The manual labor ranges from washing dishes to milking cows. Most students complete their degrees at prestigious four-year schools after leaving Deep Springs.

History: Deep Springs was founded by Lucien Lucius Nunn, a pioneer in electrical engineering who helped design the Ontario Power Plant at Niagara Falls. While working for the Tellurid 

 Power Company, which provided power to gold mines, Nunn invited young men to work for him in exchange for an education. The work-study program became known as the Telluride Institute in 1905. Nunn was driven out of the company in 1912 by a powerful stockholder who believed Nunn’s unconventional means of attracting workers was detrimental to the business. Nunn decided to start a completely new educational endeavor at Deep Springs, which admitted its first class of 20 in 1917.

Notable: Academics, labor, and self-governance are the three pillars of the Deep Springs experience. Students have a say in what subjects to study, what professors to hire, and even what applicants to admit.

Famous Alum: William T. Vollmann, a novelist and journalist with a propensity for writing about dangerous firsthand experiences, including a trip into Afghanistan with the Mujahideen in 1982. Vollmann has written more than 20 books, including Europe Central, which won the 2005 National Book Award for Fiction.

How to Spend the Money Saved on Tuition: Given that students are generally prohibited from leaving the ranch during the semester, online shopping via the somewhat reliable Internet connection is one of the only viable options.

In an effort to attract the best and brightest students for its inaugural class, the UC Irvine School of Law is offering a free ride to all 60 students admitted this fall. Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law scholar, told reporters, “Our goal is to be a top-20 law school from the first time we are ranked.” By early February, the number of applicants at California’s first new public law school in 40 years had topped 1,000. The school will rely on grants and donations to cover the estimated $6 million it will cost to put each of the students in the first class through the program.

History: There is some precedent for a professional school offering free tuition to its inaugural class. In 2008, the Central Florida College of Medicine received nearly 3,000 applicants after offering the same deal to each member of its inaugural class.

Notable: Chemerinsky, an adamant defender of the separation of church and state, as well as abortion rights, was hired, fired amid political pressure from conservatives one week later, and then rehired as Irvine’s law school dean in 2007.

Famous Alum: You? It’s not too late to apply.

How to Spend the Money Saved on Tuition: In-N-Out burgers. Lots and lots of In-N-Out burgers.

4. Berea College

Thanks to a large endowment, every student admitted to Berea College in Kentucky receives a full-tuition scholarship valued at more than $90,000. Students are required to work at least 10 hours a week in one of more than 140 departments, and while room, board, and books are not covered, the work-study program enables some of the 1,500 students to lighten their financial load even more. Berea offers degrees in 28 fields.

History: Berea was founded in 1855 by Rev. John Fee – an ironic name for the founder of a tuition-free college if there ever was one – as the first interracial and coed college in the South. Classes at the school were fully integrated until the Kentucky Legislature passed a law in 1904 that prohibited school integration. The law was amended in 1950 to allow integrated education above the high school level and Berea returned to its roots, becoming the first school in Kentucky to re-open its doors to African-Americans.

Notable: Berea’s motto is “God has made of one blood all peoples of the earth.”

Famous Alum: Carter G. Woodson, an African-American historian, journalist, and author. After graduating with a Bachelor of Literature degree from Berea, Woodson earned his PhD and taught at Howard University. He pioneered the celebration of “Negro History Week” in 1926, which would serve as the precursor to “Black History Month” as we know it today.

How to Spend the Money Saved on Tuition: Berea is home to the Kentucky Artisan Center, a 25,000-square-foot facility that showcases Kentucky-made arts and crafts in a variety of exhibits.

5. Olin College of Engineering

Olin College is a school of 300 in Neeedham, Mass., where every admitted student receives four years of free tuition valued at $130,000. The school is funded by a $400 million grant from the F.W. Olin Foundation and ranks as one of the top undergraduate engineering programs in the country. There is great emphasis placed on philanthropy at Olin; students are encouraged to develop creative ideas that address societal needs and help make the world a better place.

History: The school is named for Franklin W. Olin, who founded the Olin Corporation and made a fortune selling ammunition. Olin was a great philanthropist, too. Since 1938, the F.W. Olin Foundation has contributed more than $300 million in grants to colleges and universities throughout the country. The same foundation financed the development of Olin College, which was completed in 2002. The school graduated its first class in 2006.

Notable: Indicative of the entrepreneurial spirit of the school, six Olin students are taking a year off to develop educational Internet software – think Google Docs meets Facebook – for local middle school students. The students expect the software, which will include built-in features that allow parents and teachers to interact with and monitor their students’ work, to be operational by mid-April.

Famous Alum: He’s not exactly famous, but Alex Dorsk does have a cleverly titled blog chronicling his time aboard a research vessel with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

How to Spend the Money Saved on Tuition: Honor the legacy of F.W. Olin, who played two years of professional baseball after graduating from Cornell, with a trip to Fenway Park in nearby Boston.

6. Cooper Union

Located in Manhattan, Cooper Union offers degree programs in art, architecture, and engineering, and every admitted student receives four years of free tuition valued at $130,000. According to a recent article in the New York Times, applications for early decision to the school were up 70 percent this year. The admissions rate at Cooper Union is about 8 percent, while the enrollment is a little more than 900. The Cooper Union endowment is valued at nearly $600 million.

History: Peter Cooper, who invented the first locomotive in the United States, believed that education of the highest quality should be “as free as air and water,” so he founded Cooper Union in 1858. Cooper’s greatest legacy may have come 14 years earlier, when he received the first American patent for powdered gelatin. A cough syrup manufacturer bought the patent from Cooper, developed a prepackaged gelatin dessert, and named it Jell-O in 1897.

Notable: The Great Hall on the Cooper Union campus has been the site of several historic speeches. Abraham Lincoln outlined his views on slavery – namely that he didn’t want to see it spread – in a famous address there, while Mark Twain spoke at the school’s inauguration.

Famous Alum: Milton Glaser, who founded New York Magazine and designed the ubiquitous I Love New York logo.

How to Spend the Money Saved on Tuition: Fifth Avenue is a start.

7. Curtis Institute of Music

Like Juillard, the Curtis Institute of Music is considered one of the most prestigious performing arts conservatories in the world. Unlike Juillard, tuition at Curtis is free. Every student admitted to the school of 160 in Philadelphia is provided a full scholarship, and all piano, harpsichord, composition, and conducting majors are lent Steinway grand pianos. As part of their training, students at Curtis host over 100 public concerts each year, and receive one-on-one instruction from the musically accomplished faculty.

History: Mary Louise Curtis Bok founded the Curtis Institute in 1924 as a place for talented young performers to prepare for careers as professional musicians. She named the school in honor of her father, Cyrus Curtis, the founder of Ladies Home Journal and a fellow music lover.

Notable: According to the school’s Web site, 17 percent of the principal chairs in America’s top 25 orchestras and four music directorships in the top 50 are held by Curtis-trained musicians. More than sixty alumni have performed with the Metropolitan Opera.

Famous Alum: Anthony McGill, a member of the Metropolitan Opera and the clarinetist in the quartet that played at Barack Obama’s Inauguration last month. Also: Leonard Bernstein.

How to Spend the Money Saved on Tuition: Buy a membership to the Franklin Institute to supplement your musical education.

8. Alice Lloyd College

All students at Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes, Ky., are required to work at least 10 hours per week in exchange for free tuition. Students who need additional financial aid to pay for room and board may work up to 15 hours per week. Jobs at the school of 550 are assigned based on a student’s work experience and personal preference.

History: Alice Spencer Geddes Lloyd, a former publisher and editor of The Cambridge Press, moved from Boston to Eastern Kentucky in 1916. With the help of June Buchanan, Lloyd chartered what was then called Caney Junior College in 1923. The school became an accredited four-year college in 1980.

Notable: The call letters for Alice Lloyd College’s non-commercial radio station, which has broadcast inspirational programming around the clock since 1998, are WWJD-FM.

Famous Alum: Carl D. Perkins, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 until his death in 1984. Perkins’s legacy lives on in the form of the Perkins Loan, a need-based Federal student loan.

How to Spend the Money Saved on Tuition: Elk were introduced to Kentucky in 1997 as part of a restoration project and Knott County, which includes Pippa Passes, is now known as the elk capital of the East. Tours are available through several outlets.

Read the entire artical by Scott Allen here:

http://blogs.static.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/22573.html

 

State Grants for Your Home Business

Small businesses often need a little financial help to get started. This can come in the form of loans from banks and financial institutions but you must pay these back at some point. Obtaining a small business grant may be a better solution for a start up company strapped for cash. These can often be found at the state level.

 

Small Business Association

The Small Business Association offers much information on loans for small businesses. They focus on certain aspects of small businesses such as women and minority owned, green energy business and those improving child care. There are also state grants available there for business that are profitable for your particular state like tourism and specific product sales. Check the Small Business Association website given at the bottom of this article for a list of grants that your business may qualify for.

 

U.S. Government

 There are several small business grants offered by the government for each state. Their website has a grant search tool that can help you find the perfect grant to apply for. There are also many other financing options available for small business owners. It is important to make sure that you qualify for each grant you apply for. Even one small mistake in paperwork or documentation can disqualify you for the grant you’ve chosen. Check the government website link at the bottom of this page for information on their financial aid for small businesses.

 

Minority Business Development

 The Minority Business Development Agency helps small businesses owned by minorities. They give links to each states application and small business grant applications and check lists. They offer other information on starting and running a small business such as employee relations, business tools and national news of interest to small minority owned businesses.  This can be a valuable resource for many aspects of owning and running a small business. Check the resources section of this article for the website link.

 

Grants.gov

 Grants.gov is a wonderful tool for small business owners looking for financial aid for their business. There are more than 900 grants from over 26 government agencies focusing on many different groups and qualification points. It also offers a tracking device to help keep track of each grant applied for and the status of each. There is a whole section for applicant resources with articles, checklists and links to help become more educated on the grant process.

 

 

The Foundation Center

The Foundation Center is a subscription service that hooks up small business owners with various grantors. There is a lot of free information here as well. There is an online orientation that walks newbies through the process of grant seeking and all the in’s and out’s of the process in a step by step method. The subscription fee entitles members to the database of over 80,000 grant makers.

One of Those Days

It’s been one of those already and it is barely 9 a.m.

I got up at 5 and got kids off to school. I was so wide awake and full of ideas I thought this would surely be a great day. But…alas…

My first issue was with my cell phone. Seems my charger has quit cooperating and will not charge the phone. This is particularly aggravating since I just bought a new battery for it this week.

I go for my coffee machine determined to get back on the right track but instead of making coffee it sputter and spurts and coughs up a thick brown sludge that may resemble coffee in some alternate universe. But here, not so much.

I decide on herbal tea instead and as I open the backdoor to enjoy it on the porch with a bit of fall air- my beloved dog King has been left outside all night and is highly pissed about it. He runs past me into the house at lightening speed and spills steaming tea all over me, leaves a trail of wet dog and mud all across me and my floor and jumps directly into bed with my four year old son who  rivaled the dog in the bad attitude arena.

Now my tooth hurts and my car wont get out of second gear. Its pouring down rain and the satellite wont come in.

I think Ill go back to bed.

Cute!

I happened across a blog while checking out my fellow blogstresses comments over at the SITSgirls site. Just Add Walter is a young moms blog who is going to nursing school while attending to her family and her own life. Its funny and relevant and I really enjoyed my time there. It distracted me from about 15 minuets of work which I truley appreciate!

She’s having the most awesome contest right now for an adorable monogramed scarf and glove set. Head over and check it out!