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. 
Author: Aruni |
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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
Author: Aruni |
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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
Author: Aruni |
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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….
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