Greetings from Austin!

I’m Jenn, a design team member here at BigTent, reporting with my colleague Pearl Wu, who’s QA. We’ve recently landed in Austin and are excited to take part in the 2010 SXSW Music and Media Conference.

There are some great keynotes and workshops listed this year. We’re excited to participate in discussions on mobile user experience, location and context, Tastemaker Moms, and much more! It is our hope that these conversations will inform our thinking as we expand our product into the mobile realm, and continue to devise strategies for appealing to all the Chief Household Officers out there.

If there are any BigTent members out there participating in SXSW, please get in touch with us @jenn__chen and @pearlsaur. You can also show your support by joining our group on Facebook. We’d love to meet up with you!

Best,

Jenn and Pearl

January is always jam-packed with resolutions — work out more, eat healthier, keep the digs tidier, and so on. We at BigTent are in full support of these self-betterment initiatives. And if there’s any chance that these newfound routines have you a tiny bit stressed, we’re here to help!

You can win a $300 SpaFinder gift certificate from BigTent. SpaFinder gift certificates are accepted at over 4,400 spas in North America, plus hundreds more around the world.

Entering to win is easy, just head over to Twitter and tweet between January 19 (12:01 am PST) and January 31 (11:59 pm PST). There are only a couple of rules:

• Follow @BigTentGroups
• Add #BigTentGroups OR @BigTentGroups to your tweets
• Look out for our tweets on how to earn bonus points. Bonus tweets are worth 5 points instead of the usual 1.

The more you tweet, the better your chances of winning! We’ll be tracking your participation with the help of TweetBeep. If you’d like to be extra sure that we’ve cataloged your tweets, send us an email to learnmore@bigtent.com letting us know what you’ve been up to on Twitter. Looking forward to seeing your tweets!

Best,

Mia & the BigTent team

To show our support, we’re participating in the 2009 National Organization of Mothers of Twins Clubs (NOMOTC) Convention, held July 26 – August 1 at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas, NV. We’ll be answering questions in the Resource Room, and sponsoring the Club Networking Luncheon on Saturday, August 1. Hope we’ll even have some time to get into the convention theme, “Only in Vegas.”

I’m a mom of twins and former President of my own twins club, Mid-Peninsula Parents of Multiples, so BigTent’s efforts to support multiple-birth parents is very near and dear to me. If you’re planning to attend the convention, be sure to stop by and say hi!

Best,

Dawn & the BigTent team

Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bigtentgroups

]]> http://blog.bigtent.com/2009/07/17/bigtent-supports-online-groups-at-2009-nomotc-convention/feed/ 2 BigTent boys at firestation http://blog.bigtent.com/2009/07/10/building-a-team-at-bigtent/ http://blog.bigtent.com/2009/07/10/building-a-team-at-bigtent/#comments Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:28:37 +0000 BigTent http://blog.bigtent.com/?p=685 ]]> Taking a break from the daily grind, BigTent recently participated in an interactive scavenger hunt in San Francisco’s Mission District. Under the expert guidance of Melanie and The Go Game, we divided up into small teams and scurried off from Dolores Park.

Armed only with digital cameras, smartphones, and occasional clues,  we tested our collective talents with a variety of creative and fast-paced challenges. We solved location-based riddles, recreated famous historical events in photos, and sleuthed for special agents. We even reenacted famous movie scenes — using only our fingers.

We reconvened at Andalu, dining on delicious tapas and judging each others’ scavenger hunt results. In true team spirit, everyone brought home a prize, from self-adhesive mustaches to a dueling unicorn-vs.-narwhal set.

It was a one-of-a-kind experience, though Jaws did appear twice:

Have fun out there!

-The team @ BigTent

Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bigtentgroups

We have seen an increase in the number of homeschool support groups on BigTent and we’re working hard to nurture this growing interest. Here are two quick updates for you:

1. We’ve launched the Homeschool Leadership Collaborative, a free online group aimed at homeschooling parents and leaders of homeschool organizations.

The group is a great resource for getting support, sharing best practices, and learning from colleagues with various homeschooling philosophies. We welcome your ideas and hope to see you in the group soon.

2. For homeschoolers in Washington state, come meet BigTent this Friday and Saturday. We’ll be in Puyallup at the 2009 Washington Homeschool Organization (WHO) Convention.

This convention is the largest event of its kind on the West Coast, and we’re excited to participate. Look for us in Booth 2003.

Best,

Archana and the BigTent Team

Before we close out 2008 and usher in a hopeful 2009, we wanted to take a moment to thank you for your continued interest and loyal participation in BigTent. We wouldn’t be where we are without your commitment to serving your local communities of moms, dads, school leaders, hobbyists, fitness enthusiasts, and much, much more!

It goes without saying that it’s been a tumultuous, trying year across the US and beyond. We hope your holidays have been a heartening time of happiness and rejuvenation. 

There’s a lot in store for 2009, so we’d like to leave you with a quick and final glimpse of our office holiday spirit, BigTent style:

Deck the monitors with boughs of holly…

Thanks for all your holiday cards!

This year, we adopted a tree. It will be planted in SF in the new year.

Kitchen passerby definitely took note of our gingerbread house-making skills.

Even the dogs got decorated!

Happy holidays to you and yours,

BigTent

BigTent has partnered with Kimberly Fulcher to offer a unique “Get organized in 2009″ opportunity to group leaders who migrate their group to BigTent, start a new group on BigTent, or grow their existing BigTent group by January 31st, 2009.  Life and business coaching expert, Kim is the founder, president and CEO of Compass Life and Business Designs (www.mylifecompass.com), a personal development company and community for women.

Coaching for Leaders: Compass Coaching Network will provide a month’s membership free to the leader of any new BigTent group that grows by 10 or more members by January 31st. Each month, Compass Coaching Network helps members with the common challenges they face every day. This online service will help you get inspired and make real improvements in your life in less than 10 minutes a day. Get empowered through coaching, and connect with other people like you who want to enjoy their life!

Grand Prize: Any group leader who migrates their group to BigTent, starts a new group on BigTent, or grows their existing BigTent by January 31st will also be entered in a drawing to win a free “life makeover” valued at $1,500. The winner will receive three personal coaching sessions with a professionally trained coach and a signed copy “Remodel Your Reality,” Kim’s recently published book. Reclaim your confidence. Redefine balance. Go for your dreams. You can do all of these things working with a Compass Coach!

To Enter: Complete these three steps to be entered into the promotion.

1. Migrate a group to BigTent, start a new group on BigTent, or grow your existing BigTent group.
2. Get at least 10 new people to join your BigTent group by January 31st.
3. Send an email to promo@bigtent.com with the name of your BigTent group.

The winner of the grand prize will be selected at random during the first week of February.

Good Luck!

- The BigTent Team

Grand Prize Winner of a $1,000 group grant
- Ainsworth Elementary PTA

Creative Offline Promotion: $500 group grant
- Chelmsford Mothers’ Club

Creative Online Promotion: $500 group grant
- Newburyport Mothers Club

New iPhone 3G
- April L: member of the How to Shop for Free and Seacoast Mothers Association groups on BigTent

We would also like to thank all of the other people who entered the promotion. We received a lot of great entries and saw a ton of effort put into growing group membership. We hope to feature many of these other groups in a new “featured group page” coming soon to www.bigtent.com.

- The BigTent Team

Why the change? If you do a little Web search for “big tent,” you’ll find results for media venues, political parties, advertising agencies, bookstores and more. Plus, there’s the occasional person who wonders if we sell party or camping tents.

We live in a virtual Tent

We don’t sell tents, but we do provide free management tools for your family-friendly community group. And rest assured, our Tent fits more than 4-6 people, so come on in!

-Mia and the BigTent team

P.S. Yes, we really will delete the hundreds of spaces between “Big” and “Tent” all over our pages. If you see any renegade spaces, let us know.

As our interns headed back to school to complete their studies, Bernhard had a particularly long voyage. He flew all the way back to Dresden, Germany, where the snow is already starting to fall.

For warmth, there’s always Starbucks.

After a year of getting to know BigTent inside and out, we’re hoping that Bernhard will someday help implement “Das Grosse Zelt,” the German variety. To find out how Bernhard first united with Big Tent, please read on:

Going to the USA, working at a cool company, and getting international experience and new contacts – this is a dream for all European boys. Especially when, like me, they have just finished their boring civil and army service and are craving some international spirit.

So I decided in 2006 to work for a web company in San Francisco, but I wasn’t sure if I should join a start up or a larger company. After my first Skype call with BigTent it became totally clear to me: This is the company you just have to join. Full of opportunities and challenges and great people, I knew it right away.

So after flying over, orientating in a new culture, fighting for housing in San Francisco, applying for a social security number and fighting for my new visa, I started working in the mid-February 2007. I think I started on Valentine’s Day (<3).

I got to work on a variety of projects, from public page implementation, admin area design, and moving the Big Tent blog to a more robust hosting service, WordPress. Meanwhile, I tried to spread some German culture around, handing out hundreds of German beer mugs, amusing my coworkers with my harsh accent and my special way of small talking.

Now I am leaving to finish my college education. It’s not easy to say goodbye, to leave this wonderful environment and the friends I have made here. It has been a pleasure to work here – my BigTent, I’m gonna miss you all! Thanks for everything, I think I can’t phrase it in words how much you have given my life a wonderful, new direction. It has been so much fun!

Sincerely,

Bernhard Schmidt