The New Media Diva

I’m trying not to use the word “hate” because it’s just not a nice word.

Last year, my editor-in-chief and I started using Google Calendar as a collaboration tool to schedule stories. She’s in Sarajevo. I’m in Zurich. The Calendar seemed to be the best way to schedule stories in real time with both of us online. I created the calendar.

A few months ago, she had a problem where the calendar that contained the schedule for all of our news stories either wouldn’t load for her or just wouldn’t show the stories (which we’d put in as events). This happened all of a sudden. Then, all of a sudden, the problem disappeared. Everything went back to normal.

Well, it’s my turn now. Since Christmas, I haven’t been able to see what stories have been scheduled…and we’ve scheduled some weeks in advance. I posted the problem on the Google Calendar help group, but no one seems to know a solution. My e-i-c is going to have to send all of the scheduled stories in an e-mail, which is certainly not a time saving move. I created a new calendar thinking that that would solve the problem. Nope, I can’t see any scheduled stories even on the new calendar.

I even tried embedding the calendar in a web page. I still couldn’t see the events.

I’m at my wits end with this. I can see my other calendars, just not this one…which is the most important one.

This has taught me a lesson: Never depend on one service for something as important as story scheduling. Always have some type of back up (even paper based). It will save you a lot of trouble down the road.

I’m now trying to find a better scheduling solution because it looks as if Google Calendar isn’t it. Any suggestions?