Smart Guides: A New Way to Learn, Teach and Share

In our digital age, there’s a phenomenal amount of information at our fingertips. Search engines, social media and online encyclopedias place vast swathes of knowledge at our disposal, accessed via a few clicks and a few well-chosen search terms.

But it’s not enough.

Despite all those billions of articles, blog posts, articles, stories and how-to resources, something is missing. You might call it a lack of clarity, or connectivity, or refinement. There’s too much noise. How do you get to the crux of what you need? Or what you are trying to share? Or teach?

One solution has arrived in the form of Guides.co. It’s a platform offering in-depth, instructional content on anything and everything. Described as “like stumbling across a secret notebook of spells”, these guides are digitally penned by people who have real working knowledge of their topic. It’s not like reading a blog post or downloading a PDF. The guides are constantly evolving and readers can even ask the author questions via an in-page comment tool.

Snappy

In an interview with TechCrunch, Guides.co CEO Scott Annan said that most forms of content have been reinvented for the digital world, but not instructional, how-to books which, unlike a novel, “you don’t read from start to finish.”

We know that reading a web page is more challenging than picking up a book, and readers have a tendency to skim and scroll. Therefore, content published on Guides.co is broken down into snappy step-by-step chunks.

The guides platform was originally created specifically for startups, but has since broadened. Take a look at their list of existing guides here, which is updating daily. How To Do Keyword Research, LinkedIn Marketing Strategies, The Complete Guide to Outsourcing, Getting Started With A Raspberry Pi, it’s all here.

You may have spotted a familiar brand in that list.

Alliance Virtual Offices is there too. In fact, it was among the first four companies to host content on Guides.co’s platform, focusing on three topics it has highlighted as the biggest challenges for customers: How To Run A Virtual Company; Optimizing & Automating Administration; and A Business Setup Checklist.

Alliance Virtual Offices is no stranger to forward-thinking technology, having joined cryptocurrency Bitcoin last year. It also launched a digital meeting room booking system back in 2011, allowing meeting rooms to be reserved and paid-for online, in advance of many other workspace providers.

Beyond four walls

Why the need for a smart guide on the topic?

Its series of guides, which it describes as “step-by-step, do-it-yourself smart guides”, are designed to help both startups and established firms get to grips with virtual officing, and reduce their reliance on traditional forms of communication, helping companies to think beyond their four walls.

“Some of our clients get a virtual office, put their address on their business card, and that’s about it,” said Mike Sullivan, Chief Marketing Officer at Alliance Virtual Offices.

“Our Smart Guides are designed to help small businesses get more out of their virtual offices. We’ve built a complete menu of virtual services. With these resources and more planned for the future, I’m confident small business owners can drive even more growth using their virtual offices and the resources we provide.”

Guides.co isn’t just for businesses. With titles like ‘How To Jailbreak Your Apple TV’ and ‘The Way To Better Skiing’, it’s a lifestyle resource too. But its real value lies in the way it can help business owners and professionals navigate to quality, actionable advice that can make a serious difference to their businesses. That’s probably why it has attracted angel investors like Shopify founder Scott Lake.

As a coworking or business centre operator you can not only learn from these guides, but publish your own content too. It’s free, and you can expect impressive returns – even if you don’t wish to charge for your guides. In the words of Guides.co, “Helpful and actionable content is one of the most important gifts you can give your audience… Helping people achieve their goals will help you grow your brand and your pocket book.”

Talk about cutting through the noise. Surely that’s something to shout about?