Babble Soft’s Blog has moved to a self-hosted WordPress blog
Jul 15 2007

I have so enjoyed using our wordpress.com blog platform that we just moved to a self-hosted WordPress blog on our Rackspace server for even more flexibility.  A HUGE thanks to Wendy Piersall at eMomsatHome for her WordPress QuickStart Guide – WordPress Hosting and Installation and her WordPress QuickStart Guide – What Plugins should I use? posts.  I’m now working my way through her 32 Internet and Marketing and Homebased How-To’s post and the post by Tech Wise Guy on 7 Steps for conversion from wordpress.com to a self hosted wordpress was invaluable!

The biggest thanks go to my husband, Erin, for doing most of the heavy lifting and intalling the platform and plugins on our server! 🙂

We are still working on some Feedburner (i.e., RSS feed and email subscription management) set-up/transfer issues but they seem really helpful and we should be able to resolve those issues soon.

Aruni

Silicon Valley’s Baby Boom
Jul 13 2007

I just found out from reading Burningbird’s post called The Strk Commeth (or is that Stork?) that there is a site/blog called Valleywag (a gossip like blog that seems to be about the Valley’s tech entrepreneurs and investors).  Valleywag just did a post on Silicon Valley’s Baby Boom.  Seems like there are several new babies that have arrived or are arriving in the Bay Area including parents-to-be from Flickr and big time bloggers Robert and Maryam Scoble.  They just bought a real iPhone…not a hand knit one.

I’m in Austin, Texas which people sometimes refer to as Silicon Hills.  I wonder if there would be any interest here in having an Austinwag.  Hmmm.  I’m not sure if we’ve reached the same drama level as Silicon Valley though. 🙂

Aruni

Success to Me: Marc Seriff, founding CTO of AOL
Jul 10 2007

As some of you may know, I co-write articles on the topic of success for alumni magazines with my wonderful writing partner Pam Losefsky.  Our latest article for The University of Texas at Austin’s alumni magazine, The Alcalde, is about Marc Seriff, founding CTO of America Online.   Our goal with this endeavor is to get people thinking about what success means to them by reading about how other people define success.  Click here to see other articles we have written.  We’d love to hear your thoughts…

The cell phone as a baby monitor and a hand knitted iPhone
Jul 6 2007

The Browser just ran a short piece on Babble Soft today, July 6, 2007.  Maybe that’s the reason our Technorati rank broke 1,000,000!  See below for the full article…

July 6, 2007

The cell phone as baby monitor

A few years ago, when the price of wireless airtime plummeted, wireless executives sometimes talked about customers who used pairs of mobile phones as baby monitors. (The Browser suspects this is the stuff of urban legend, but a few websites do explain to the technically impaired how to perform this trick.)

Now along comes Babble Soft, an upstart that can turn a number of so-called “smartphones” into a different sort of baby monitor. (Company founder Aruni Gunasegaram, a mother of two, prefers the term “baby manager.”) Gunasegaram has created a web-based application that helps new parents keep track of feedings, sleep schedules and other newborn activities and milestones that pediatricians often ask moms and dads to track. A mobile version of the application, available for many smartphones, such as the Treo, allows users to access their baby data on the go. (Think Google Calendar for the diaperpail set.)

Gunasegaram says she came up with the idea shortly after her son was born more than four years ago. She found herself keeping track of his feeding schedule on assorted scraps of paper. She and her husband scoured the ‘Net for an online service that could help them. They couldn’t find one, and a business was born.

Now it isn’t clear to Browser exactly how many new parents, mom’s especially, will have the inclination (or presence of mind) to go online and enter data about baby’s every move. But Babblesoft’s product does have one nifty feature any new mom will love: It can provide tallys of how much time she’s spent taking care of her little bundle of joy. “Sometimes you think, ‘What have I done all day?’ ” Gunasegaram says. “You can look and say, ‘Oh, I spent five hours today nursing.’ “

****

Interestingly, they also ran a piece called Will the soccer moms buy it? in reference to soccer moms buying the iPhone by Apple (sooo much hype about the iPhone and sooo little time to read all about it).  According to their source, 60% of soccer moms would not buy one.  I’m not a soccer mom (yet) and even if I wanted to buy it, who has $600 + peripheral fees + monthly service fees laying around?!?  I’d rather spend the money on my kids, a day at the spa, or building Babble Soft!  Or better yet we could spend it on making our application iPhone compatible!  But here’s something soccer moms probably would want to buy for their kids:  a hand knitted iPhone!  Daddy Types‘ mother created it.  What a cool mom!

Babble Soft and Rackspace Partner Up
Jun 26 2007

Some of you may have heard about our webhosting issues, but in case you haven’t here’s the scoop:  We have gleefully left our old host and their bad technical support behind and moved to Rackspace!  Rackspace is one of the top managed hosting companies in the world.  I have to say they have been amazing to work with…a true 180 from our prior host.  They are so responsive!  They even called us on a weekend to help us figure out a support ticket we submitted that ended up being a configuration mistake we made.  At first we were like “who are you and why are you calling us?”  It didn’t even cross our mind that they would call us to help fix the problem ASAP!  Oh so sweet.  I like working with them because their emphasis on customer support matches what we strive for.  Check out some of my thoughts on customer support on Glenn Ross’ Customer Service Experience blog.

Rackspace is a living example of ‘you get what you pay for’ and yes it’s not cheap but for our new parent users who are relying on 24/7 access to our application, it was a critical move.  We are currently boostrapping (i.e., using personal savings and borrowing from future savings) Babble Soft so please tell all of your friends and family about Baby Manager so we can continue to pay for our wonderful, powerful, consistently available, new dedicated server. 😀

If you are looking for a new webhost and would like to check out Rackspace, tell them you were referred by Aruni Gunasegaram/Babble Soft.  You will get a discount and we will get a referral fee if you sign up with them!  If you’d like a personal introduction, please email me at blogger at babblesoft dot com and I’ll put you in touch with the sales person directly.  It’s a win-win if you ask me. 8)

We are still working on getting some of our money back from our prior hosting company.  If we can’t work something out with them, you will most likely see a blog post about which hosting company NOT to use!   We have tried several times to get them on the phone but no such luck.  One time we waited over an hour on hold until we got so frustrated we hung up!  After much pain and them completely disabling our site right before and during the time we were interviewed by a local TV news station, we have thpfftd them goodbye.  Yay!

Now for the press release (pdf):

For more information, please contact:                                    

Halli Hollimon                
Rackspace Managed Hosting                                                                                                                      
(210) 447-4617                
hhollimo@rackspace.com

Aruni Gunasegaram
Babble Soft, LLC
(512) 799-8789
aruni@babblesoft.com

Babble Soft Looks to Rackspace for Managed Hosting 

Managed Hosting Specialist to Support Website Infrastructure That Helps Make New Parents’ Lives Easier 

SAN ANTONIO – June 26, 2007 – Rackspace® Managed Hosting, a leading global provider of managed hosting services, today announced an agreement with Babble Soft, a leading supplier of software solutions in the baby market.                                                                                                                                

Babble Soft’s Baby Manager Web and mobile software application is a new and innovative way to relieve some of the day-to-day pressures of new parenthood. Baby Manager, a software program that is accessible through either a computer’s Web browser or through Windows-based mobile devices and Smartphones, keeps families connected and focused on their newborn’s health and well-being by helping parents maintain records of breastfeeding times, bottle feeding times and amounts, pumping times and amounts, medicine doses, and diaper changes. Users can share access to their accounts with family and friends around the world.  They can even upload pictures and exchange notes with each other. 

“A newborn baby is a challenging and life-changing event. By choosing Rackspace’s secure and reliable infrastructure, we believe that we’ve helped to ensure our customers can access our Baby Manager application anywhere, anytime,” says Aruni Gunasegaram, president, Babble Soft. “When choosing Rackspace, we wanted a provider who could work and grow with us. With our product, scalability and capacity are keys to our success as our product continues to mature and we work on creating new products down the road.” 

“Because their IT infrastructure is Microsoft-based, they found Rackspace’s Windows expertise and Microsoft Gold Certification a true advantage,” said Glenn Reinus, senior vice president of worldwide sales, Rackspace Managed Hosting. “Babble Soft is a new business venture in the baby market that demands constant web-to-mobile synchronization availability, guaranteed uptime and a rock-solid infrastructure, which Rackspace provides through Fanatical Support.” 

About Babble Soft, LLC
Babble Soft creates brain-saving software solutions to help families stay connected and help parents ensure that new babies get what they need, thereby making the transition into parenthood a little easier. To purchase Baby Manager or to activate a Free Trial, please visit www.babblesoft.com or www.babymanager.com. To learn more please visit Babble Soft’s Blog at www.babblesoft.com/blog.

About Rackspace Managed Hosting
A recognized leader in the global managed hosting market, Rackspace Managed Hosting delivers enterprise-level managed services to businesses of all sizes. Serving more than 13,000 customers in eight data centers worldwide, Rackspace integrates the industry’s best technologies for each customer need and delivers it as a service via the company’s award-winning Fanatical Support™. Through trusted relationships, Rackspace serves as an extension of its customers’ IT departments, enabling them to focus on their core business.  Since its inception in 1998, Rackspace has grown more than 50 percent a year. For more information, please visit www.rackspace.com, or call 800-961-2888. 

The Top 10 Blogging Mistakes by Wendy Piersall
Jun 20 2007

A couple of weeks ago, I ran across a wonderfully helpful post by Wendy Piersall of eMoms at Home called The Top 10 Blogging Mistakes I Made in My First Year.  Since I’m pretty new to blogging, reading her list of mistakes was an eye opener for me.  They all make great sense and the ones that I still need to figure out are:

4 – I did too much self-promotion

I’m not sure how much self-promotion is too much self-promotion because I’m not really promoting myself but my company, Babble Soft…which at this moment consists of myself, my husband (part-time), a development team in India, and a publicist (part-time).

8 – I didn’t promote my feed

I honestly don’t really know how to promote my feed.  We have some email subscribers and some RSS subscribers but other than joining MyBlogLog and Technorati and sending out a mass email inviting my friends/family to join, I haven’t had time to figure this one out.

9 – I waited too long to learn about SEO

I have heard a ton about SEO, but I also hear to get great SEO results you have to hire a guru who can be quite expensive, and we are all about keeping expenses low right now.

A picture of Wendy

I have signed up for Wendy’s 10 Days to a Better Blog free e-course and look forward to seeing more traffic to our blog in 10 days!  I’m already a day behind and I’m only on day TWO! 😯

I have one more blog post to write today and a user case study to finalize before getting to work on the e-course!

Aruni

Father’s Day Mania
Jun 11 2007

The week before Father’s Day (Sunday, June 17) is finally upon us and I thought it might be interesting to write a short post about the origination of the day as well as provide you with some other neat links.   In the US, the first modern Father’s Day was celebrated on July 5, 1908 in Fairmont, WV.  It is also suggested that Sonora Smart Dodd drove the effort to establish the Day to honor her father, a single parent of six children.  The first June Father’s Day was celebrated on June 19, 1919 in Spokane, WA.

There are many things you can do for your father and/or father of your children and if you aren’t able to do anything really mind boggling this year, then there is always the ‘ole t-shirt option.

If you have a lot of time on your hands and would like to read a long article on expecting fathers check out: Medical Technology and Childbirth: Experiences of Expectant Mothers and Fathers.

If time is hard to come by these days, you can read some lighthearted Father’s Day quotes or even get a chuckle out of what people in Stockholm, Sweden think of the US Celebration of Father’s Day.

With all that said, remember that Dads tend to like gadgets over ties so use the 20% off special going on this month to buy him or any expecting dads a gift subscription to Baby Manager.  Remember that you can take advantage of the special to buy gifts for numerous baby showers you are about to attend (subscriptions aren’t activated until the user first logs on)!

 Aruni

p.s. Baby Manager’s name is derived from the well known fact that babies “manage us” and the best we can do is try to keep up by using cool, new software.  😉

Babble Soft’s Blog Claimed by Technorati
Jun 8 2007

I know this post doesn’t have much to do with Father’s Day, but I was recently told that it is a good thing to have your blog claimed by Technorati so more people can find our blog.  In order to do that, I must paste this code: Technorati Profile in a new post and publish it so the fun can really begin!   Here we go…..

Speaking of Famous Fathers – Bill Gates and Steve Jobs
Jun 3 2007

For the first time in 20 years Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) and Steve Jobs (founder of Apple, NEXT, and Pixar) sat down for a joint interview on May 30, 2007 for the Wall Street Journal’s All Things Digital D5 Conference.   The interview is hilarious and awe inspiring!  Bill and Steve have achieved such outstanding professional success and their companies have affected many of our daily lives more profoundly than any other high technology companies to date.  Microsoft and Apple laid the groundwork and helped train individuals who have since created companies of their own that have enabled email, blogging, Internet browsing, mobile devices, and Internet search (don’t tell Google) for the masses.   Being an entrepreneur, I can appreciate how much effort, energy, and passion it takes to build even the smallest of businesses and for each of them to make it from Founder/CEO and still be heavily involved with their company’s decades later (even though Jobs had a little break during his career at Apple) is down right jaw dropping!

Bill married Melinda French in 1994 and they have 3 children born in 1996, 1999, and 2002.  Steve’s first child was born in 1978.  He later married Laurene Powell in 1991 and they have 3 children who were presumably born after 1991.  Babble Soft released its first PC/Pocket PC version of Baby Manager in 2005 (just after our second child was born) and we released Baby Manager Web and Mobile in March 2007 so it’s unlikely we will have the chance to say that two of the most famous dads in the technology world used our software when their kids were born.  Oh well, maybe some other up and coming dads in the tech world will discover us before their babies are born!

I’d like to think that if the technology behind mobile devices, the Internet, and Babble Soft had existed when the children of these well known dads were born that Bill and Steve would have enjoyed playing around with Baby Manager Web and Mobile.  I could just see them and/or their wives giving their nannies a mobile device and showing them how to easily input information with a touch of a screen or click of a button.  Later, they or their wives could log in to a web application to see how things were going at home and leave notes to their nannies, spouses, family, and friends.  Or they could use their mobile device and sync via cradle or over-the-air to Baby Manager Web and get a real time update on baby.  An entrepreneur can dream, can’t she? 😀

Baby Manager was created using Microsoft technologies.  The application works with the most commonly used browsers (e.g., Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox) and the latest Microsoft OS based PDAs and Smartphones.  One of the reasons we created a web application was because expecting parents were emailing us asking when we would have a version that ran on the Mac.  In 2005, I was barely holding my head above water with 2 little ones, so we put PR on hold until recently so we could more effectively use our limited resources to reach all the interested, Internet savvy new parents in the world.  We do use our Mac to create graphics and design product literature.  However, the PCs in our office outnumber the Macs…but if Macs start running Windows then the ratio might change.

The most interesting observation I can make about these two famous dads is that they have very different personalities, followed their own paths, have different strengths & weaknesses, and achieved financial success by being true to their own visions.  As someone who also interviews people on the topic of success, this observation further affirms my belief that ‘people should follow their own path to success, not try to mimic someone else’s.’  Every second that passes the world is different, and what has worked for others in the past may not work in the present.  There’s a reason we all have different fingerprints!

Happy Father’s Day Bill and Steve! 8)

Aruni

A great gift for Dad: 20% Off Baby Manager for Father’s Day
May 31 2007

In honor of Father’s Day, Babble Soft is offering 20% off on subscriptions of Baby Manager during the month of June 2007 using coupon code FATHER#1.  

We thought about offering 15% off for Fathers’ Day because we have noticed that dads generally need less incentive to try out new technology and gadgets.  However, in the interest of fairness and to acknowledge men’s more active roles (check out Daddy Clay’s blog) in the parenting gig, we decided to match our Mother’s Day offer.  Plus since about 42% of customers who purchased Baby Manager in the past were guys (who we assume were new fathers) we thought they deserved the same discount. 😎

In this day and age men are much more involved in parenting and although they can’t have babies or breastfeed (yet), overall they are generally more helpful around the house and with a new baby than their dads were (i.e., change diapers, get up at night, feed the baby, do dishes, etc.).  So if you know a new or expecting dad, get them a subscription to Baby Manager for Father’s Day and give them an excuse to play around with cool, new technology while helping out their spouse (which may be you)!  You can even take it for a test drive by signing up for a FREE Trial.

Dads, you now have a reason to replace your existing phone with a cool, new Smartphone; to assist the mother of your child in ways neither you nor she ever expected you could.  Imagine your wife asking you when and how much you last fed the baby and you being able to drag your mobile device off the nightstand and say in a sleep-deprived tone of voice “Honey, she had 3.5 oz of breastmilk/formula at 2:42 AM and I changed her diaper at 2:30 AM.”  She then replies “oh, thank goodness it’s 3:00 AM and I can go back to sleep for a little while longer…you’re the greatest!”  This scene can be a reality for all the tech savvy, new dads out there if you choose wisely and give them a subscription to Baby Manager for Father’s Day!  For a wonderful testimonial from a dad user see below.

Happy Father’s Day to all you Super Dads out there! 😀

Testimonial
“My wife and I are missionaries in Bolivia. Our first child was born here while our extended family was in the U.S. On our own for child care, we found that waking up every few hours to feed and change the baby was challenging.

Since we wanted to put our baby on a schedule, we decided it was best to take shifts at night. My wife took care of him from 11 p.m. until 3 a.m., and I took care of him from 3 a.m. until about 10 a.m. We shared responsibilities during the daytime. We learned quickly that it was not helpful for me to get up with the baby at 3 a.m. only to have to wake up my wife and ask her when he was last fed. When we downloaded Baby Manager for Pocket PC, it transformed childcare in our house.

First, we no longer needed to bother the other person with questions about diaper changes, bottle feedings, and breast feedings. It was all there. Second, since my wife breastfed our baby and pumped, Baby Manager provided an easy way to ensure she was “keeping up” with the baby by pumping as much milk as he needed. Finally, not only did we have the answers to our pediatrician’s questions, she was actually impressed with the level of detail and information we had from the reports on bottle feedings, breast feedings, diaper changes, etc.

Baby Manager helped us get through the first difficult months of child care. We needed to develop the good habit of recording important information about our baby, and Baby Manager helped us do that. In turn, it helped me and my wife to communicate better about baby care. It is the best solution for a single parent, or for a family with multiple caretakers, who need to collaborate and share this vital information.

We are now expecting our second child and are excited that we can count on Baby Manager to help from day one!”

-J. Eggen, La Paz, Bolivia
http://eggens.blogspot.com

Baby Manager on TV!
May 24 2007

On Wednesday, May 23, 2007 Baby Manager was the featured Cover Story on KEYE-42, the local CBS news station’s 5:00 pm news.  Originally they were scheduled to do the interview on Thursday, May 17 but as luck would have it, they had to reschedule.  Thank goodness, because as I mentioned in one of my previous posts, my son was home sick Tuesday-Thursday of last week.  They ended up coming out Monday, May 21 which gave us time to clean up the house and make sure everyone was reasonably in good health. 

It felt good to be back in the limelight again even if for a few minutes and it felt even better that the reporter, Elizabeth Dannheim,  did such a great job producing the story!  For not being a parent or a PDA/Smartphone user, she asked very relevant questions. She and her team did a wonderful job at pulling the whole story together.  Maybe by the time she decides she wants a baby we will have convinced her to get a Smartphone. 😀

To me the most amazing thing about the interview was that our kids behaved nearly perfectly.  They wanted some shots of me playing with the kids and the kids cooperated wonderfully.  They were polite and took turns playing with the toys….often it’s a grab fest with each of them shouting ‘it’s my turn!’  Their good behavior (for me) was the highlight of the interview.  I was thankful for the exposure for Babble Soft and Baby Manager but I was even more thankful for looking like a ‘mom whose kids listened to her’ (i.e., a good mom) for a little while (on TV no less) and that feeling was priceless!  Maybe we should have a TV crew in our house all of the time. 😀

Needless to say, I gave them a bunch of hugs & kisses and promised them some ice cream after dinner.  When dinner time came around, our son reminded me that I had told him he could have ice cream and my daughter started getting the illness that our son had last week so she was home sick two days this week.  The wonderful ups and downs of parenthood…. 😉

Motorola Q Smartphone
May 8 2007

Not only is the Motorola Q phone running Microsoft’s WM 5.0 compatible with Baby Manager Mobile, it also has a few other nice features.  It’s sleek, it fits nicely in dad’s pants pocket, a purse, or a diaper bag, and I believe it also serves as a good “here look at this” distraction toy for those ‘rare’ occasions that your baby might be fussy.  Although I’m sure parents have given it to their baby to use as a teether, I don’t think Motorola recommends that particular use.  You can also use it to try to keep up with your hectic life once baby arrives by having your schedule and emails at your fingertips.  You can easily text message your spouse with “I need help…where are you??” statements throughout the day with one hand while holding baby up and away from a diaper disaster.

For those interested in the new MotoQ 9H phone running WM 6.0 (unveiled at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona in February 2007) due out later this year with apparently even neater baby distracting features, we are working like crazy to make sure Baby Manager Mobile is compatible.  Every time Microsoft releases a new OS, us little mobile application developers invariably have to make some ‘tweaks’ to make sure our app works as designed.  We can never figure out why they keep making changes….maybe to see how many hoops we can jump through! 😀

Motherhood doesn’t have to get in the way of a high tech career
Apr 30 2007

On April 27, 2007 the Austin Business Journal printed an article written by Aruni, co-founder of Babble Soft.  If you have a subscription to the ABJ, you can read a version of the article here.  If not, following is the complete version:

******
As a Tech Mompreneur running Babble Soft™, a company geared toward new parents, I get to combine my love for my kids with my love for running a business.  Every mom loves talking about their kids, and I get to do that every day!  And I don’t have to worry about whether people think I’m too “into” my family and not enough “into” my career.  Unfortunately, many women have to be careful of how often they discuss their kids at work and how often they take off time to spend with them.

Before having kids, I felt like I had something to prove and was on a mission to make a difference in this world.  I was the founding President/CEO of Isochron® (a Web and wireless company creating solutions for the bottling industry).  We raised $15 million in equity financing, grew the company to 35 people, and closed accounts with large, reputable companies like Coca-Cola.  Isochron survived the dot-com crash and was sold in 2002. After leaving in 2001, I taught entrepreneurship at the UT McCombs School of Business, consulted, and wrote.  I thought I knew what tired meant at this stage in my career, but didn’t truly know the meaning of the word until after my son was born in August 2002.

We left the hospital happy that we had a healthy baby, but emotionally and physically drained.  Our son decided he didn’t want to come out, so we induced six days after his due date and I ended up having an emergency C-section. 

When my husband went back to work, I started to panic, asking myself, “How will I remember everything I need to do now that my normal brain function is compromised by lack of sleep?”  I kept wondering out loud, “When did I last feed him?  And on what side?  How many times had I already pumped and how much had I pumped that day? When will this horrible pain (from the breast infection I’d contracted) go away?” Because I’m a “need-to-know” person, coming up with a system for tracking our son’s care became crucial to my coping with the topsy-turvy world of new parenthood.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that we weren’t the only ones using pen and paper to track the progress of their babies. We sympathized with friends and acquaintances over their frustrations about keeping months of notes on their newborns organized.  So we thought, “Why don’t we create something?” And, out of this need to know, Babble Soft and Baby Manager™ were born.  Now, I still want make a difference, but my desire to prove something to someone else has been tempered with my desire to be a great mother.

In 2005, Baby Manager was ready for our newborn daughter to be the first test case. Having a way to easily record her activities on a PDA was liberating.  Being able to take it everywhere, and having the information at my fingertips to reassure me my daughter was progressing normally, made the whole experience of taking care of a newborn much easier than the first time. Things went so well that I donated to the Mother’s Milk Bank at Austin (MMBA), a nonprofit organization that collects, pasteurizes, and dispenses donor milk for premature and sick infants.

During this time, we spoke with pediatricians and other birth specialists and realized that parents of premature babies would be particularly well-served by Baby Manager so we added features to better meet those parents’ needs.  We launched the new Web and mobile application in March 2007.

For me, starting Babble Soft has felt like a crusade to help new parents. Some people have questioned the need for Baby Manager, wondering if it was too much to know the time of every feeding and every diaper change, but for those with sick, premature, or multiple babies it’s a lifesaver.  And for those like me who “need to know,” it can bring a little sanity into an often very chaotic time.  I believe that informed parents are often more secure parents, and my goal is to continue creating products to help parents feel more secure.

So do moms and technology mix?  Yes, they do — now more than ever!  Women tend to have more education, make higher incomes, and have easier access to technology than their mothers did.  There are websites and community sites popping up everywhere, catering to this new type of mom who wants to stay connected to the world while spending more time with her kids.  I helped co-found the Tech Moms group within the Association for Women in Technology – Austin organization the year after my son was born to give moms who work in the technology field a forum for sharing their experiences.

Moms are using technology to run home-based businesses and to contribute on a part-time or full-time basis to other companies.  The availability of technology enables mothers to continue using their years of institutional education and work experience and stay connected to both the adult world and their kids.

Obviously, there’s no degree on how to raise your child correctly.  There’s a lot of learning on the fly. But it’s a great time to be a mom, whether today’s technology is a critical part of your professional career, your career as a parent, or – for people like me – both.

DadLabs – Building Better Dads
Apr 19 2007

Babble Soft Introduces Web and Mobile Software to Ensure the Health of New Babies
Mar 6 2007

Babble Soft has announced the launch of its Baby Manager Web and Mobile software. Helping parents keep up with breastfeeding, pumping, bottle feeding, medicine doses, and diaper changes, Baby Manager keeps families connected and focused on the health and well-being of their newborns. Family members, caregivers, friends, or health care professionals anywhere in the world can log on to watch the growth and development of baby. Users can even share pictures and exchange notes.

When babies are born they become the true managers of our lives . . . especially the first several months after they enter our hearts and homes! Baby Manager is a software application, with Web and mobile options, designed to help parents figure out their baby’s patterns and cues to ensure his health and happiness. No more wondering: “When did baby last eat?” “When did mom last pump or breastfeed?” or “When did baby have his last dose of medicine?” Caregivers can quickly look up the last time baby ate, took medicine, or had her diaper changed to determine whether she might be hungry, tired, need another dose of medicine, or just wants to be held.

What’s more, for busy breastfeeding moms, keeping track of pumping and medicine intake helps with the management of stored breast milk. Also, when asked, “What did you do all day?” breastfeeding moms can proudly and confidently show a report online, on a mobile device, or on paper the time they spent feeding their baby which can range from 3 to 6 hours per day (i.e., 20 to 40 hours per week!) depending on the baby and the mom. The application summarizes the data in easy-to-read graphs and reports that can be printed out to show friends, family members, or health care professionals.

Babble Soft’s president, Aruni Gunasegaram, a serial entrepreneur and mother of two, explains, “What’s advantageous about Baby Manager Web is not only its ability to help parents easily keep up with the basic information required by most pediatricians in the first months of a baby’s life, but also its ability to keep families connected.”

“The Windows Mobile platform allows people to customize their devices to meet their individual needs,” said John Dietz, group product manager for Mobile and
Embedded Devices, Microsoft Corp. “Applications like Baby Manager Mobile continue to expand the ways people can manage both their workstyle and lifestyle all on one device.”