Israel - Spring 2010

Israel is dry most of the year, with hills full of dry, yellow shrubs and grass. But in the winter after a little bit of rain, the country goes green, with grass and flowers exploding across the beautiful landscape.

It's a great time to get out and hit the trails, whether on foot, bike or horseback.

The first trees to blossom are the almonds trees with lovely white flowers.

My family loves hiking the hills near our home in Bet Shemesh.

Enjoy the pix.

mySupermarket.co.uk — Comparative grocery shopping

A while back I applied for a writing position with a British company called mySupermarket.co.uk .
Unfortunately for them, they didn't hire me.......but I still liked their service. As a real food lover and sometimes chef, I appreciate finding quality food at low prices. If I can avoid the hassles of shopping...even better. In short, they provide British shoppers a comparative shopping experience where they can find the best price from 4 different supermarkets...all on one website. The following is what I had originally written as a marketing writing sample for them.....and I trust that you British folks will appreciate both the content and the Queen's English. It should provide a good overview of what they offer with some good links to key points on their site.

More and more shoppers are buying their groceries online instead of going to the supermarket. Shopping online is quick and easy, with no need to maneuver overloaded trolleys or wait in long queues. Save yourself the hassle of carrying heavy groceries home by using the affordable and reliable delivery service. Even the temptation to buy things you don’t need is minimised when shopping online.

Recently, mySupermarket together with Martin Lewis of MoneySavingExpert.com, introduced the Downshift Challenge to the British public. To see how it works, simply visit mySupermarket.co.uk and fill an online trolley with all your favourite products. The challenge shows just how much you can save by “downshifting” or choosing similar products that are one or two brand levels lower (e.g. buying a no-frills brand instead of a manufacturer’s brand).

I also wrote an email blast for them as follows:

Dear Bloke, (that's not what I really wrote in the original)

Are you interested in taking control of your grocery shopping and getting the best value for your money? Would saving hundreds of £££s every year increase your financial freedom? Do you want more free time for your leisure activities?
If you are nodding your head to these questions, then visit mySupermarket.co.uk to see how easy it is to save money and time when you shop. Compare prices on your favourite products at leading supermarkets TESCO, ASDA, Sainsbury’s and OCADO, all from the comfort of your home.
At mySupermarket you can shop with confidence, knowing that you are getting the best value for your money. View this short demo to discover how.

Cheers,

Zev

P.S.
Despite the management's error in not hiring me, I wish them luck and really think they got something really good going on.

Haiti Earthquake - How to help without getting scammed

As the new day begins in Haiti the horror of the massively destructive 7.0 magnitude scale earthquake becomes clearer. This was the last thing Haiti, an already impoverished country, needed.

With major infrastructure destroyed and hundreds of lived snuffed out, there will be tons of work to do. From rescuing those still trapped under rubble, to treating the injured (men, women and children of all ages), Haiti will need all the help it can get.

If you are interested in contributing without worrying about scammers, check out these Dontation links below from Oxfam, The Red Cross and an application for the Peace Corps (where you can join up and actually go to Haiti to help). UPDATE: For those who know the Haitian musician Wyclef Jean...he is asking all on his twitter account (@wyclef) to contribute thru Yele.

Oxfam

Red Cross Red Crescent

Peace Corps

Parent Teacher Conference Scheduling Software - Comparative Review

Now that we have laid out the reasons why Parent Teacher Conference scheduling software is so important, we will take a closer look at some of the leading providers.

My research lead me to 7 companies that either focus exclusively on Parent-Teacher Conference scheduling or are just "scheduling" software companies that can also provide a system for Parent-Teacher Conference scheduling. (I personally believe that the companies that focus on school scheduling have a better understanding of the specific needs that are unique to Parent-Teacher Conference scheduling.....and their offerings reflect that.)

Here is the list with a short description of each company:


PTC Wizard This company seems to really have done a thorough job on Parent-Teachers Conference scheduling software. From their website to their actual product.....things are looking good. A friend of mine who is an educator showed me how their system works. The software is extremely user-friendly and I really enjoyed playing with it. From creating conference dates and times as an administrator, to setting up appointments as a parent, the system was intuitive, attractive and easy-to-use. It was clearly designed to prevent human error. For example, there is no way that scheduling conflicts will ever occur, whether scheduling between parents and teachers or even when working with teams (which is ideal for middle-schools).

PTC Wizard also allows schools who do not want to deal with annoying and time consuming data exports/imports to get up and running immediately without worrying about syncing their data every semester(parents can register themselves with all their details). They also provide the data import feature for the schools that are interested in doing that kind of customization.

Another cool thing my friend heard from PTC Wizard tech support is that apparently they are on their way to offering a SIF agent with their product. This will allow SIF agents to connect and download data without any human interaction…saving more time for administration.

PTC Wizard also provides customized interfaces for each school and can also be configured for other uses (like lab sign-up, student events, PTA, etc.) making the system valuable year-round. I also heard that pricing is quite competitive starting at around $650/year with unlimited scheduling for as many conferences or events that the school has.

pick A time These guys have spread themselves out to scheduling for health-care, general business, as well as for educational systems. It looks like they provide a simple-to-use system that allows for basic scheduling without much hassle. However, their pricing is based on how many teachers are being scheduled for any given conference (between $2-$12 per teacher). The downside to this is that if you want more than one session per year, you could end up paying double what other systems cost.

PT ConferenceMaker This company, as their name implies, is focused just on Parent-Teacher meetings.
Their demos look really good and they have a rich feature set for admin, parents and teachers. However, if you read between the lines on their website, it seems that they might not have worked out all the issues with potential scheduling conflicts. Also, parents are not able to make their own schedule, but need to choose from the options the system provides. Lastly, their pricing for 2 annual conferences is really steep with a subscription of $2,000 + another $2/student for schools with enrollments over 1,000 students.


Canyon Creek Software Their website didn't provide too much info and as I didn't register for their "test drive" with a representative, I can't tell you all that much.

Teeso These folks certainly have a very colorful website. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy. They are definitely a "school-only" scheduling company to their credit. They offer conference scheduling as well as a solution for PTA/PTO volunteers where parents can sign up for volunteer activities and parents can post new events on the fly. Pricing info and extensive product details were not available on their site.

Appointment-plus They are the self-proclaimed "industry leaders for online scheduling". The truth is that their website is great with a solid video demo of their offerings. My only concern is that their software might be overkill for schools. They really are focused more on scheduling for retail operations like salons, spas, medical offices, etc. Their software offers rich features which are totally unnecessary for Parent-Teacher Scheduling. Even though you can subscribe for a more basic feature-set, I think these guys have their minds on markets outside the education system.....and their pricing and offering clearly confirm this.

Virtual Paragon This company seems to have a solid, no-nonsense product that offers the basics of Parent-Teachers Conference scheduling. Additionally, they offer other features such as an online school events calendar, and a "college applications tracking system". To top it all off, they offer all sorts of web services for schools that are not too web savvy.

I hope this overview is useful and that it helps your school achieve success in increasing parental participation.

Parent Teacher Conference Scheduling Software - Is it really needed?

For my first real post, I'm taking a look at an interesting industry. Parent Teacher Conference scheduling software. With over 130,000 schools in the USA, it's a huge market for companies that can provide an elegant solution for the time-consuming and complicated scheduling process.


The question really is whether scheduling is such a big pain that schools really need to make the investment to improve the system. To get a better idea we'll take a look at the 3 groups that are directly affected by the Parent-Teacher Conference scheduling process.


The first group is the administration of the school. Bear in mind that these folks (including the secretaries and principal) are tasked with keeping the school running smoothly on a daily basis and already have their hands full dealing with teachers, students and myriad other tasks.

Along comes the conference and the administration now needs to send out scheduling forms to the parents. Then they need to deal with phone calls from parents requesting different time slots, etc. They even need to make follow-up calls to remind some parents to send the forms in (only to find out that the parent never got the form in the first place...so the school needs to re-send it).

Finally after all the forms are back, the administration needs to work out a master schedule and iron out all the kinks (conflicting meeting times, etc). This last detail actually is a complete nightmare. Often many slots will be "oversubscribed" by multiple parents and the admin will need to call them all to work out new times. Things are already pretty grim.


The next group is the teachers. Often they are drawn into the fray and need to work overtime (which for some schools can be quite costly). The teachers themselves can get quite frustrated with difficult parents which of course is counter-productive when building an educational partnership (obviously there needs to be mega-cooperation between teachers and parents for kids to get the best education).


The last group is the parents. They are often coping with insane itineraries (work, shopping, gym, shrink, more work, etc.). Imagine you have two kids in one school.......and you end up meeting 6 teachers (each for 10 minutes only) over the course of 4 hours. What a disaster. You could have been done in under an hour, but with lack of visibility and coordination, your 6 meeting, instead of being back-to-back (or at least closer together), were scattered throughout the evening!@#$. As a result, instead of having a nice, pleasant meeting with the teacher, the parent is all ticked off and not quite in the mood to work with the teacher. Additionally, parents begin to wonder if their kids are getting a decent education when the school they send to is operating like they are still in the ice-age.


Of course schools can try and employ the age-old method of placing a pencil and sign-up sheet on the classroom door and leave it to the parents to create the schedule. But this option is not ideal and can create a big waste of time as well as some “friction” between parents. Imagine you get stuck in traffic and get to the sign-up sheet too late. Now you are stuck with the last appointment and have to wait hours for your turn. Or how about some parents waiting impatiently in the school hallway waiting for their turn to meet the teacher. Some guy shows up and claims to be before them or something like that. Things could get ugly real fast. This is especially true if parents have more than one child in the school.


In short, it's clear that Parent-Teacher Conference scheduling is currently very inefficient.... leaving just about everyone involved stressed out, overworked, and often with an inconvenient schedule.


Wouldn't it be great if this whole issue would only be taught in History class.....well, fortunately due to a handful of software companies, it will be soon.


In my next post I'll describe some of the companies and their solutions in greater detail, but for now, here is a list of the ones I've found:

PT Conference Maker

PTC Wizard

Canyon Creek Software


For now, check these out on your own and next time we'll take a look at them together.

Maiden Voyage for my BlogCraft

I finally have done it. After so many years.... and so many friends have gone ahead and blogged while I just sat there on the sidelines reading their brilliant "stuff".....I have decided to get me a blog too.

Why you might ask would I want to blog. It's a good question. It's not like I have lots of time to kill.....it's not like I need to pretend that other people are big fans of my writing (although it would nice if it were true)......so what's up with this sudden urge to make my words readable on the web?

There are no easy answers here.....but as we blog on, perhaps some things will become clearer.