Gulf Coast: How we can Work Together to Help Communities in Need

There's no way to sugarcoat it (or try to make it look better than it is) -- what happened in the Gulf has been a disaster for the surrounding wildlife and communities. Here in Austin, we’re fortunate to not be directly affected, but we're only a few hundred miles from the Louisiana coastline – and many within our family of customers have been strongly affected by the event. Even restaurants far from the coast that serve seafood are seeing sales decline as consumers are wary of fish that may originate from the Gulf region.

As our most recent question for our Facebook contest, we wanted to ask our users how they have been personally (and professionally) affected by the oil spill -- or even if they have not, what they could possibly do to help those that are. We have been humbled by your responses and great ideas, and a number of you had questions about what you could do to help. So, we wanted to put together a list of ideas for how you can help, and reputable organizations in case you are looking to donate your time or resources to clean up and help the people and wildlife in these communities return to normalcy.

Before we dive into that list, we wanted to mention how we are going to do our part – I’ve started personally calling some of our affected customers in the area to offer our support, and we are going to waive our monthly subscription fee for two months for about 25 of our customers that we identified as independently-owned small businesses in the region. It may only a drop in the bucket, but it’s one way that we can directly give back to restaurants and small business owners that are struggling as a result of the crisis.

And now, here are some ideas that you have provided, along with others that we brainstormed and some great organizations that are helping with the cause. We strongly encourage you to do your part to bring aid to these communities.

Click to read more ...

Thanks for your Engagement + Contest Question #4

It's that time again! We've drawn the third winner of our 10k Facebook Fans by 10/10/10 contest. Congratulations to Cam Copeland of Tubby's Ice Cream in Wayne, Maine for being randomly selected as the prize winner for this round. We'll be sending Cam our prize package of gift cards combining our two favorite things, restaurants and technology. For everyone else that answered, we really appreciate your feedback, and don't forget you can enter again with each question we post bi-weekly.

Before we move on to our next question -- which is very near and dear to us -- I want to thank you all for taking the time to participate in our contest. Our objective in trying to get more users to become "fans" is really tied to the ultimate goal of increasing our engagement with our customers. We love doing giveaways for our loyal user base, but we also want you to know that we are looking to build a two-way street for dialogue year-round, whether it's part of a contest or not. Each one of your comments will help us become a better service and product for all our users, from the top-level corporate management all the way to hourly restaurant employees.

A great recent example of this: last year, we held a "My Life, My Schedule" video contest in which we received some really great submissions (check them out at the HotSchedules YouTube channel) which we showed at our annual user's conference in the fall. We recently received another video, and while the contest is long over, we really appreciated the submission, and it reminded us how lucky we are to have such a great, engaged user base that enjoys communicating with us. Check out Andrew D'Amato's recent video here, and we strongly encourage you to engage with our team year-round, whether it's through comments on the Facebook page, questions on our Community Forum, videos, songs, art, etc! We love hearing from you and sharing your feedback and creativity.

Now, on to the next question of our Facebook contest. We are almost to 3,000 fans, so we're steadily working toward our goal! If we reach 10k by 10/10/10, everyone who enters will be put into a drawing to win an iPad, so spread the word. For a quick reminder on the rules, click here.

Question #4:

The oil tragedy on the Gulf Coast has severely affected residents and businesses in the area -- certainly including restaurants. For users that live and work in the region, how has the incident directly impacted your life/job/restaurant? For those of you not in the affected area, what have you done or could you possibly do to help those who are?

This question will be active on Facebook until July 28, when we'll randomly select the winner and post the next question. In the meantime, please post your responses there -- we really look forward to hearing from you, and our thoughts go out to all HotSchedules users affected by the oil disaster.