Most people want to start the year off with a bang, well, we like to do things big around here, so we’re going to end 2011 with a bang! SproutBox is very excited to share with everyone our three newest employees, Josh Herring, Maggie O’Connor, and Diane Cessna. We are very happy to welcome them into our loving SproutBox family.

Josh has been working with SproutBox, primarily on ScheduleThing, since September. Word of mouth helped direct Josh to Chris White. Chris then helped get the ball rolling bringing Josh closer to where he had hoped to see himself within three years, starting his own software company.

Josh went to school to study human linguistics and ended up in a program that was equal parts linguistics and computer science. He found himself more interested in the programming side of things than the academic side. He’s pretty new to being a software engineer and would love any advice from the pros out there. Josh looks forward to hopefully work on an education industry sprout, or a really math heavy application. If you’re ever looking for Josh you can most likely find him playing with his cats if he isn’t hard at work keeping ScheduleThing competitive and implementing new features.

Maggie describes the way she became involved with SproutBox as serendipitous. She was looking for work in Bloomington and stumbled upon our website. She sent in her resume and it just so happened we were just as lucky as she was. She has only been with us for about a month but her enthusiasm to learn and improve her skills are a perfect fit for SproutBox. Her ambition has already lead her to learning more front-end development.

Maggie began her career when her natural love for art married her addiction to the internet. She advises any graphic designer to never stop looking for new things to learn, because you’ll be a much stronger designer for it.

When Maggie isn’t designing you can find her baking, cooking (which we have yet to experience, wink wink), or kicking butt in Words with Friends.

SproutBox’s most recent member of the family is Diane She actually knows our founders from back in the days of 2008. Once she returned to the great state of Indiana, she realized she had to get back in touch with them knowing SproutBox would offer the best working environment for area developers.

Diane first found her love for computers in elementary school when she participated in an after school computer program but didn’t start programming until college when an employer encouraged her to take a computer science class. She loves a good challenge creating and building things that real people will use. This is one of many reasons why Diane fits well with SproutBox, she is definitely able to directly contribute to the success of some really awesome products that people use.

Diane is currently splitting her time between Proposable and new Sprouts. She has really enjoyed working on our newest Sprout, because she’s had the opportunity to start working on it in the early stages of development.  She says she has already learned new things in the couple of weeks she has been here. With that being said, she advises any fellow developers to not be intimidated by things you don’t know. She believes it is impossible to know everything because things are constantly changing. So you don’t get in a rut, make sure to always be actively learning new things and growing as a developer.

If Diane isn’t hanging out with the fun and awesome people she works with, then she is probably with her English Mastiff and Boxer or doing something equally as awesome outdoors (by the way she also likes to overuse words like awesome and cool.)

It’s great that all three of them all are very excited about what SproutBox can offer them: a fun environment where they are able to learn while working on new awesome products. The projects are always changing allowing for our employees to not get tired of the same thing over and over again.

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Freelancers everywhere. Lend me your ears.

Working at home is great, in theory. You wake up, make yourself an omelet (or don’t), pull on some sweats and start the day. There is no wasted time commuting and no meetings to attend. Your boss isn’t checking how often you’re on Facebook or asking questions about your progress. Better yet, there’s no guy with bad body odor playing Michael Bolton in the cubicle next door. Life is sweet.

If only it were that simple. In real life there’s no time for omelets. You’re busy managing multiple tasks and looking for projects on top of a supposedly healthy social life.  But doing quality work takes more than just time. It takes motivation. Some can function from the comfort of their couches or kitchen tables. Others, not so much.

At the local coffee shop you wait 20 minutes for a table, only to find walls with no outlets and a weak wireless connection. Hours later you look at your clock and realize you’ve been there 3 hours and all you have to show for it is an empty latte and nothing done. It’s enough to make you swear off coffee.

Where’s the happy medium? Inspiration comes from surrounding yourself with inspiring people, but nobody likes to be micromanaged.

Hackers in Residence is for freelance developers and designers looking for office space and project opportunities. Use our space in exchange for a fraction of your time to work on projects for our sprouts. You reap the benefits of a laid-back, creative atmosphere while maintaining a constant work flow and access to our resources and networks. Better yet, you can get health care at the SproutBox group rate.

Best of both worlds? We think so.

Interested? See our Opportunities page for more information on how to apply and what we’re looking for.

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The ScheduleThing crew has been hard at work incorporating feedback from users to make ScheduleThing the most powerful appointment reservation system around. We’re excited to raise the curtain on the latest version of ScheduleThing. Here are a few of the great new features available now:

Multi-Day Reservations
Have a client that wants to book a facility or vacation rental or check out equipment overnight? No problem. Now you can set your reservation type length by days.

Smart Calendar on booking sites
The booking experience just got a whole lot easier. Once a customer chooses a service on your booking site, all of the availability is loaded into the calendar, so the customer can instantly see which days have available time slots.

Limited-Time Offers
Reservation types can now be restricted by date range for limited time offers, special engagements, and short-term services.

Offer multiple ’seats’ for tours & classes
Now ScheduleThing offers reservations that automatically can keep track of capacity for attendees. If you’re offering an event in a room that holds 15 people, you can create a reservation type with 15 seats that updates automatically every time someone books a seat.

Enhanced page customization and better load times
Now, when you’re editing the color and style of your booking site, you can see a preview of your changes instantly. Also, your booking site now loads even faster than before. Try it, you’ll like it.

These features are now available with a ScheduleThing account, so head on over to ScheduleThing.com to check it out! If you have any questions or need support, you can find us at twitter.com/schedulething.

Happy Scheduling!

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