Google Docs to manage kids’ presents April 6, 2009
Posted by jphebert in family.Tags: b-day, birthday, parent, parenting, parties, party, x-mas
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As a parent every time there is an occation (X-Mas, B-Day, etc.) I get asked what the kids would like to get as a present. I do the same to people, it just makes sense to not go in blind and get something which will be off-mark.
Since last X-Mas, I’ve been using Google Docs‘ spreadsheet to manage the “present process”. We just had my son’s birthday this weekend and we listed a set of suggestions we thought our monkey would like and all the parents used this to get suggestions and most importantly let the others of what they got. And herein lies the trick, this document can be edited by all invitees. Otherwise a simple email would do – so we had no gift duplication, the monkey was really happy with what his buddies got him, we controlled the present list so we avoid as much as we can the stuff he’ll never touch and simplified the process for other parents.
Hi JP-
My name is Jeff and I work with the Office Live Outreach Team. This is a cool use of an online collaboration tool. If you use Excel you should look into Office Live Workspace. Rather than having to log into a website to save an updated spreadsheet, you can save an updated document directly from Excel.
Cheers,
Jeff
MSFT Office Live Outreach
http://workspace.officelive.com/Examples
Thanks for the note Jeff, I’ve been on Google Docs for a while and use it only for such activities. I use Office2007 (why oh why did Microsoft do the ribbon interace?). I’ll take a look into it but life is easier towards Google Docs when you’re on iGoogle/Gmail for your stuff already.
That’s understandable since you seem to be fairly integrated into the realm of Google. Thanks for checking it out and for the feedback on Office 2007.
Best,
Jeff
MSFT Office Live Outreach