Virtual Assistant Mums

About

Everywhere you turn someone has a good news story about using a virtual assistant in another country, via the internet, for a range of chores that they either don't like doing or have not got time to do themselves. The boom in independent workers is changing the way we think about our working life.

You’ve heard of DIY (“Do It Yourself”). Well, this is DIO (“Do It Ourselves”). New Mutualism changes the frame from “I” to “we.”

It’s such a simple idea - we are stronger together than we are alone - that’s at the heart of our vision of the new knowledge economy. And millions of freelancers are already living this connected life, which is now being referred to as “New Mutualism.”

Well if necessity is the mother of invention, then these freelancers are taking matters into their own hands. Independent workers are forced to seek opportunities elsewhere, and if they can't find or afford them, then they go without.

Our current Western support systems are based on a traditional employment model, where one worker must be bound to one employer to receive those benefits.

Given that fewer and fewer of us are working this way, it’s clear that people will form networks which will have economic benefits at a local level as the multiplier effect will generate local opportunities and these clusters will be become less dependent on central governments.

They will create their own local support systems, as they make choices about setting up their own home office or join a co-working community, do they go it alone or build something together.

The new global virtual labour market is so new that businesses, reviewers and writers are still inventing labels to describe it. It's been called the Gig Economy, Freelance Nation, the Rise of the Creative Class, and the e-economy, with the "e" standing for electronic, entrepreneurial, or perhaps economic.

In far off lands like the Philippines, there are growing clusters of ‘work from home mothers’ who are getting together in small collectives and pooling their resources and pitching for work in first world countries and forming cyber relationships that are truly win / win for both parties.

These women are usually university educated, highly motivated, have got a number of years experience working in a BPO/Outsourcing facility, have excellent English skills and are very tech savvy. They juggle multiple clients, learn to be marketing and bookkeeping experts, create offices in kitchens / coffee shops / co-working spaces. We call them free-lancers, virtual assistants, contractors, consultants, temps and they are all self-employed.