Every Tuesday for the past three weeks, we’ve had a new post from a Clever 1000 blogger, asking for your help with a back-to-school challenge. You share your ideas in the comments, and she’ll pick the solution that works best for her family. Look for all of the details on the weekly posts. This week’s challenge comes from Georgia Getz of I Am Bossy. Can you help her with her particular calendar challenge?
Bossy has a problem: her kids are getting older. It’s not the actual ages – 21 and 14 – that present the issue, even though the numbers look more like a football score than the number of years since Bossy’s children were newborn.
No, the real issue is Bossy’s kids are becoming independent.
Bossy’s son attends a university two states away. He juggles classes, an internship, a job, social engagements, and frequent trips home to spend time with the family. Meanwhile, Bossy’s daughter is in her last year of Middle School where she participates in a range of activities, 
both in and out of school. Chorus and band mornings, after-school clubs, babysitting jobs, and birthday party invitations are just an example of the range of events Bossy’s daughter must field.
Bossy and her husband have always fostered independence in their kids. Bossy’s son is obviously at an age where he is making decisions for himself as an adult, but even Bossy’s teenage daughter is confirming her own arrangements based on her availability independent of the family unit.
The fact is, Bossy’s kids have proven themselves very reliable and worthy of this sort of scheduling responsibility, but the issue becomes one of communicating these events with the other members of the family. In times past, a wall calendar hung from a hook in a central location and things could be entered there for all to see at a glance. These days four members of a family tend to generate an overwhelming number of engagements that are work, school, and socially motivated – not to mention the fact that not every member of the family need know about every breakfast meeting or twitter meet-up.
Sometimes Bossy thinks it’s not so much a calendar the family needs, but an air traffic controller.
In terms of her own scheduling technology, Bossy tries to keep herself organized utilizing iCal, which she syncs between her MacBook Pro laptop and her iPhone. And occasionally Bossy will go out there and lasso her family’s upcoming schedule and manually enter these things in a family folder within iCal — but there are plenty of holes in this hit or miss system, which leads to miscommunication. Which leads to family argument. Which leads to heavy drinking.
Especially important considering the impending back-to-school craziness, Bossy and her family are faced with the problem of where to put their shared calendar information, and how to give that family calendar its own identity outside of their own existing professional and personal calendars.
Bossy should also mention that although everyone in her family of four uses an Apple computer, not everyone in Bossy’s family uses the same kind of phone or even phone service provider. Three members of the family have Verizon phones while Bossy is contracted with AT&T. Bossy has an iPhone, her husband an HTC Droid, her son a Blackberry, and although Bossy’s daughter has an LG phone, it’s not a smart phone, which Bossy’s daughter likes to remind everyone on a regular basis.
With all of these different contraptions, how can the family share their relevant scheduling information and keep that information updated through issues such as the inevitable change of plans?
Help! Can you think of a technological solution for Bossy’s dilemma? Leave your solution in the comments below for a chance to win a $250 gift card.
But wait! There’s more!
“Back-to-School Tech Wishes Come True” Grand Prize $500 Best Buy card:
In addition to getting your ideas to help the three bloggers, we also want to help you get a jump on the new school year, and make your back to school wishes come true.
Maybe a new phone, an iPad, or a color printer would get your year off to a great start? Tell us about your back-to-school technology wish list in the comments of this post, and on September 15, 2010, we’ll pick one winner at random to receive a $500 Best Buy giftcard!
Click here for complete official rules.
See more from Clever Girls Collective:
Back To School 2.0 Enter to Win!
Tips for Killing Time at Soccer Practice
Save Money With Back-to-School Apps
Lunchbox 2.0: Fun Finds for Cool Lunches
Online or Paper Calendar? Best Tip Wins $250
Winning Calendar Conundrum Solution: Cozi
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Clever Girls Collective is a social media marketing agency founded by women who wanted to use their deep marketing experience and broad social network relationships for good. We know that women who engage in social media are some of the most authentic, connected, trusted, and vocal influencers — not only online, but “in real life.” That’s why we’ve developed The Clever 1000: an ever-growing, beautifully diverse network of professional, thoughtful social media-connected, natural networkers and influencers who want to engage with and enhance their favorite brands. Georgia Getz, known online as Bossy, has been blogging since 1966. She struggled with the technology for the first few decades, but that resolved when they invented the Internet. Her humor blog, i am bossy, is currently sweeping the continent. When it’s finished, it will dust the lampshades.
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