Scheduling Wizard Blog

We're celebrating the January 27th Apple event here at TimeCenter with a nice Apple dessert. Here's the recipe for the delightful snack to enjoy while watching.

If you're a kitchen wizard, make this as it happens. You'll impress us!
For all you normal Apple geeks, here is how you can easily make this nice Apple dessert:

1. Peel three apples and cut into thin slices
2. Put them in a oven safe bowl and add sugar and cinnamon (As much as you want!)
3. Mix it around and put slices of butter on top
4. Bake it in the top of the oven oven for 10 minutes at 250°C (480 °F)
5. Enjoy with some icecream or whipped cream!

Don't burn yourself on the hot Apples and don't spill any on your brand new iPad!

Wait a minute, let's call this desert the iPie! ;)

I wanted to share our Name this donkey competition with our customers, so I sent out a newsletter. I made a slight mistake and sent out a Swedish version of the email to everybody, including our English friends.

Now this was an honest mistake, but I was mad at myself for making it. So I found out a way to make it all better.

Now, we have a new policy. Every time something goes wrong, the staff member responsible has to donate 500kr (about $70) to charity. I chose the Red Cross and their Haiti effort.

Now when something goes wrong, it's great for the world!

We need your help to name our biggest donkey! Just leave a comment with your name suggestion and become the next internet hero! The rules are simple, the funniest name will win.

We have served over 200 000 bookings worth over $15 million dollars and we realised that not all entrepreneurs are as lucky. So we want to celebrate ours and our customers success in a slightly different way.

In Ghana, many women and children are suffering because of poor living conditions and poverty. We have decided to donate 20 donkeys that will be used by women to carry goods to the local market. This way, their children don't need to work and can attend school instead. The animals were purchased from Gifts in Action, a non-profit organization that helps families in vulnerable parts of the world to tackle the effects of poverty.

Thank you all for making this possible. Now go and name that donkey!

Squeeeeek! *insert funny monkey sounds here*

Have you tried MailChimp? It's a cool service to send gazillions of emails to your clients. A pretty boring task normally, but what makes MailChimp interesting is their branding.

On the startpage of MailChimp.com they have a big monkey. And when I'm signed in, Freddie (Yes, he's got a name!) talks to me and gives me fun links to YouTube, telling me that he likes my new shirt, and stuff like that. Pretty fun, and an unusual touch.

In October we had the luxury of being in Las Vegas and attending the Usability Week by Nielsen/Norman Group. There were several seminars to choose from and what caught our attention was Write Your Way to Cost-Effective Online Customer Care by Catherine Toole from Sticky Content.

She gave us many hints on how to communicate with our customers both in e-mail and on our website. Since it was a small group, Catherine dedicated around 30 minutes to discuss our website and helped us see what could be improved.

Sometimes I get the question on how a small business can protect themselves from their competitors prying eyes. I usually think it's totally unnecessary.

This fear is based on the the same logic when some businesses don't list prices of their stock products and services online. Because if their competitors see their prices,
they will... do what? You should care about what your customers think. And no, they won't call you. They go straight to the next website.