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Paromita Pain

Here is an online planner for busy people buzzing around, who need to remember a hundred chores.

OUR lives today resemble the frenetic existence of bees. Entering data and keeping calendars up-to-date and synchronised is challenging and requires careful juggling and good communication. To meet such a need, the Chennai-headquartered Congruent Solutions, in partnership with Saro Saravanan, founder of Mediabee, has developed the Mediabee Group Planner & Dashboard, Family Edition, Version1.0. Mediabee, downloadable software for Windows XP and Windows 2000 PCs, seeks to help busy families and small groups communicate better.

The planning tools mimic current tools people use, such as the wall calendar, sticky notes, and day planners, but are far more powerful, say the developers. Using an intuitive shorthand that can be mastered in minutes, information for multiple people can be quickly entered without the complicated dialog boxes of most calendaring software, they say. Saro Saravanan says, "While there are a lot of informal methods for family communication, there is no single platform that brings it all together into a package that is widely adopted. In our own nationwide survey of 400 women, we found that despite having PCs, PDAs (personal digital assistants) and cell-phones, 87 per cent, a vast majority of households, were using paper-based wall planners and day planners to coordinate and manage family activities. Our survey also indicated that less than one in three are satisfied with their current solution and 81 per cent would be very interested to try an electronic or online product. There is no lack of portals and software solutions, yet the vast majority of households and small groups don't use them, except in an ad hoc manner. Mediabee's solution is focused on breaking down the barriers to adoption through innovation."

A friendly bee

Mediabee software integrates everyday information, planning, delegation, calendaring, and mobility into one streamlined package suited for everyday use, both online and offline, that will also be available in Linux/MacOS in the future, say the developers. Once set up, Mediabee can be accessed directly with the desktop client or remotely using a browser, speech-based phone access, and text messaging. It enhances the value of the users' existing tools, such as e-mail, cell-phones, and office scheduling systems such as Microsoft Outlook, by sending messages to them at appropriate times. For example, users can set up to receive reminders and daily schedules as e-mail or text messages.

Using Mediabee, parents working in separate offices can coordinate children's activities with the ease of use of the wall calendar in their kitchen. A teacher, parent-teacher group, or soccer coach can create a homework or sports schedule that automatically updates the calendars of everyone in their group. Groups of employees working in a small office can share information on meetings, vacations and room availability, they say.

Shanker Janakiraman, Vice-President, Technology, Consulting Group, Congruent Solutions, says "The product evolved out of the needs of a family that is computer-comfortable to get organised. Further, the initial prototypes had an emphasis on American families that developers born and raised in India couldn't relate to. Congruent's staff has a good sprinkling of Indians returning after a long stint in the US, and that helped bridge the cultural gap."

Mediabee is easy to use, says Saro. For instance, with Mediabee, you can type in `Cricket, 3pm, Mark; Mary; Joe' in 5 seconds to make a cricket appointment for Mark, Mary, and Joe at 3 p.m. Mediabee can handle a tremendous amount of data on a daily basis. Make the bed, Put clothes in laundry, Feed the fish, Walk the dog, Do your homework... and a hundred other minutiae can be tracked for several individuals on a daily basis, with a progress meter showing how much everyone has done.

paromita@thehindu.co.in

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