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Web posted
Parham developed a unique solution, her own "virtual" business, so she could take her business, clients and work with her when she moves. The acid test of the concept was working five hours a day in the back seat of an SUV for 22 days last year as she and her family drove from Maryland to her husband's new assignment at Fort Richardson. Parham could have flown to Alaska to make the transition smoother, but she wanted to give her virtual business concept the ultimate test, to see if she could do it on the road, literally. Every day, relying on a laptop, cell phone and a wireless modem, Parham was able to work, holding on-line interactive meetings and teleconferences with clients and other "team" members, other virtual-support workers scattered around the United States. En route, Parham recalls teleconferencing with a team and client and revising documents in real-time while her husband navigated traffic in Minneapolis. Further west the family drove through areas where forest fires burned. Planes carrying water roared overhead and firecrews were along the road as Parham talked on a cell phone and tapped at her laptop. Clients were intrigued with her experiment. Sometimes she panned the scenery with her video equipment, she said. Parham was a senior administrative assistant with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' value engineering unit in Georgia in 1994 when she decided to form her own business. At first it was basic secretarial services offered from a traditional office. Electronic communication was then in its infancy. In 1997, after a couple of moves and a lot of research, she decided to take her business completely virtual. Parham's Virtual Support Services primarily does administrative support for mobile workforce professionals and executives who travel frequently and rely on e-mail and other electronic communication for support. A senior NBC executive is among her clients. "I do their reports and put together their presentations," Parham said. "Once a client sent me a draft of a PowerPoint presentation as he boarded a flight to South Africa. When he got there, 16 hours later, he downloaded the revised presentation and went to his meeting." She also does Web design, virtual meeting hosting, and coordinates telephone interpretation services in over 140 languages. Clients fax or e-mail notes or drafts, and Parham edits and turns them into polished documents. With her "virtual" team, sometime including people in Europe, they consult with the client, revising documents and drafts in real-time. Parham and her family live on base at Fort Richardson. She maintains a home office and, because of the time difference between Alaska and the East Coast, is usually up at 4 a.m. with her headset on and laptop open. After a lot of moves, she and her husband hope to settle in Alaska. They're now looking to buy a house, she said. Her business is changing, too. She wants to help local firms realize the advantages of virtual business and has been making presentations on what she does at the University of Alaska's Small Business Development Center Womens' Networking Breakfast and to firms, state agencies, and business groups like the Anchorage Economic Development Corp. "I want to encourage the business community as well as government agencies to embrace the technology. In an effort to build business relationships we must diversify our market. Technology will allow us to do that, and more," she said. Not surprisingly, she finds the local business community a little behind the times, though not much, in the virtual business area. "But that's OK, because there are now people here to help -- like me."
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