Making Mytutorlist.com better

I had the fortune to talk with Craig from Craigslist via email the other day. I've always really admired how well that website works and I wanted to know how to make Mytutorlist just as good. Craig wrote back and simply told me that the secret to his success was to listen to suggestions, make changes, and to listen some more - to treat the users the same way that I would like to be treated. It was a simple bit of advice, but it occurred to me that I don't do enough listening.

I decided to do more listening this week. The first bit of advice came from Rob. Rob felt that Mytutorlist desperately needed a search feature. Now, there is database being built right now and searching won't be a problem once the database is ready, but I decided that it was important to listen to Rob's suggestion. Although it is very work-intensive to manually sort postings, I decided it was necessary to start now.

Mytutorlist tutor postings can now be sorted by 6 subjects, and 4 locations. I will be adding more search options soon.

The second thing Rob commented on was the curious feature of a used stuff section. He felt that if the site was named Mytutorlist, it should be about tutor listings. This made me think about whether Mytutorlist was actually serving its purpose. I decided to start a tutor directory section to make browsing easier for users (I pretended to be a student and I found it hard to browse for what I wanted). All listings in the tutor directory will run for one calendar year from Jan to Dec. I also decided that the tutor directory should be a paid service.

Now, there are many reasons why I decided that the tutor directory should be a paid service. One of the reasons is because Rob questioned the need for both ads and a donation option. The goal of Mytutorlist.com is to become self-sufficient in costs. However, the site is currently not self-sufficient. I don't want to cover the site with advertisements or to ask for donations, so my option is to charge for some of the services. As Mytutorlist is currently not-for-profit, directory listing fees will go towards the costs of running the site and to purchasing advertising to help Mytutorlist get the word out about all the tutors posted with us.

We want to help you succeed, and we need to listen more to our users in order to become better for you. If you have any suggestions on how we can improve, please do email us.

Cheers,
Marie

Making a Career from doing what you Love

I started reading "Success Built to Last , Creating a Life that Matters" by Jerry Porras et al lately and realized that Mytutorlist.com users could benefit from some of the ideas in this book. On interviewing and analyzing many individuals who have experienced self-defined, world-changing success, Porras et al found some common themes. They discovered that how successful you feel at the end of your journey doesn't depend on how rich or powerful you are, it depends on whether you did something that you found meaningful in life. Porras et al encourages the reader to identify what is truly meaningful to the reader, and then to follow their passions with thinking and actions to support that meaning.

I was really encouraged by this. Every day, advertisements and media try to tell us different definitions of what will make us happy. This happens so much that we lose track of what we really care about, what we are really passionate about. Porras et al argue that when you find what you really care about, you will know because you will become obsessed about. And because you're obsessed about it, you lose track of time and you will work harder than anyone else to follow that passion. Perhaps you're in school, and you don't know what to do for your career. The key is find out what you really love and to make that into your career - not because it will make you rich or famous, but because following passions give you drive and committment that you won't find by following a career that you don't love or care about.

I hope that every student out there will realize the vast potential that they have when they find meaning in their life and can take actions to create more meaning. We are all capable of doing more when we do something that we are passionate about.

Coming Soon! New and improved features!

Dear Tutors and Students:

I'm excited to announce that Mytutorlist.com will soon be updated to include NEW FEATURES which, I hope, all the users will benefit from.

Edit your own ads!
You'll soon be able to post ads automatically, and sign in to edit your ads. Every time you edit your ad, the posting date will be updated. So, in essence, you will now be able to renew your ads.

Improved Browsing!
Browsing ads will also become easier. Only ad titles will show when you are browsing so that it's easier to search for something. When you find an ad title of interest, just click on the title and the ad contents will open up.

Improved privacy and an easier way to contact you!
In order to protect you from "spammers" that collect emails, your email address can now be hidden. When a student or tutor is ready to contact you, they can send you a message directly from our website. You can also opt to have your email shown with a live link.

Help us grow!
What do all these improvements cost you? Nothing. Mytutorlist.com will still offer free posting space and we're happy to provide you with a service to help you find tutors or to help your tutoring business succeed.

In addition to free ads, we will also be offering an annual membership option. This membership option is a cooperative advertising campaign. The funds that you invest in us will be put towards helping us become one of the most heavily advertised tutoring websites around, and thus help all of us to grow together. Advertising costs can be overwhelming for one small tutoring company, but if we all pool our funds together, we can direct everyone to Mytutorlist.com where your advertisement will be waiting. Mytutorlist.com will be your #1 website for finding all the tutors and students that you are looking for. I am very excited about this upcoming opportunity, and I hope that many tutoring businesses can work together to make this rewarding for everyone involved.

So tell all your friends about Mytutorlist.com. We want our site to keep growing so that more people know about it and it becomes a better place for you to find tutors and students.

Thanks for using Mytutorlist.com!

Cheers,
Mytutorlist.com

Student Resources for Life

I spent all weekend searching for useful links for the Student Resources section of Mytutorlist. It's a lot of work! Hopefully, all my searching was not futile, and the resources now listed will be useful to the students that frequent Mytutorlist.

Having gone through the struggle of being a student and having somewhat broken free of the never-ending search for the perfect career, I know how hard it can be to be a student looking forward into the unknown of post-secondary school and job-searching. The stress is unbelievable, and there is so much pressure to succeed and to live up to the expectations of your family and friends. You constantly wonder if you'll ever be done of exams, and you can't wait to figure out what to do with your life so that you can move on and get out of school.

But, fear not, the future arrives so much quicker than you expect and, in the blink of an eye, you'll be working in a chosen career and looking backwards wondering why you didn't "do more" while you were in school and "having fun".

So, dear Students, listen to your wisdom-aged parents and those well-meaning elderly folks, take your schooling seriously and make the most of it. What does that that mean? Well, it means studying hard so that you stay caught up in class and rock the exams, but it also means enjoying the experiences that post-secondary life offers you. Go ahead and join some clubs, talk to people on campus and make new friends, volunteer and learn new things, and take advantage of your student discounts! (You will sorely miss those student discounts later...) If your school has a co-op program, take it. Co-op offers you a chance to try out real careers so that you can see if it's the right (or wrong) one for you. It also gives you a chance to work for companies that might otherwise be difficult to get in to, and you'll have the opportunity to meet people inside those companies that could help you land your career job after graduation. A lot of students bemoan the time that they'll waste by taking co-op, but the valuable experiences and opportunities you gain from co-op are well-worth the time.

I hope that the resources I have listed on Mytutorlist.com will be valuable to you. If there are any resources that you would like to see listed that are not currently available, please let us know.

Cheers,
Marie

Captain, we have a blog!

Welcome to a new online tool for Mytutorlist.com to share our experiences in tutoring and in building a place online for tutors and students to meet!

It's not easy having a dream to build something to help others but it has been worthwhile... so far :P

Mytutorlist.com - Our History

So perhaps you're wondering, what is Mytutorlist.com, and why was it started? Well, the story begins with a small tutoring company called Honours Tutoring. Started as a flexible, part-time venture, Honours Tutoring offered private tutors in various subjects. Parents and students would contact me with their tutoring needs, and I would find a tutor for them. It was a small, but successful venture. I had a collection of great tutors, and parents were happy to refer more parents.

However, about 2 years ago, I closed up Honours Tutoring. I had finished my studies and found a great full-time job, and I didn't have the time to run a growing tutoring business. I was very sad to let it go, and especially to say good-bye to my own students. However, it seemed that I couldn't walk away from my tutoring past. With no ads posted that I was aware of, students and parents still called looking for tutors - and I had no where to send them.

My brain started ticking.

Mytutorlist.com - The Beginning

There were always students looking for tutors, and there were always tutors looking for students. I wanted to create a place for them to meet - a posting board of sorts. With what skills I had in web development, I whipped up Mytutorlist.com in a weekend and I have been modifying and improving it since.

Mytutorlist.com is here to give tutors some free or low-cost advertising space, and it is also a great place for students to find a tutor. The number of postings grows daily, and I am confident that they will multiply in number once school starts up again. To fund this project, we have Google Ads and sponsored ads, and soon we will have Featured Tutors and used textbook postings. I hope that this website will be able to sustain itself financially over time (it doesn't right now), but I am content that the site is being used already and that students have been able to connect with tutors. If Mytutorlist.com ever does turn a profit, our first goal will be to hire a programmer to revamp the site. Our next goal after that, will be to start a bursary. We are not-for-profit in nature, and hope that you will continue to help support our site by posting ads, browsing our postings, and telling your friends about us.

Thank you for being part of our beginning, we hope that we will have many success stories to share with you in the near future.