I am now chairman of the board of directors of CalConnect

As of this month, I've been elected chairman of the board of directors of CalConnect. My additional duties consist primarily of running the organization's conference calls, which include twice-a-month strategic planning calls. Readers of Calendar Swamp know I am in the third year of a three-year term on CalConnect's board of directors.

I am always happy to answer questions here or offline about what CalConnect is doing to promote calendar and schedule interoperability, or better yet, visit the CalConnect Web site, consider joining the organization, and participating in its conferences. Registration for CalConnect XXXI, September 29-October 3 in Bedford, England, is now open.

Year 10 of the Calendar Swamp

As this Calendar Swamp blog enters its tenth year, I continue to see Web sites and apps strive to reinvent calendaring, scheduling and meetings, but scant little real progress toward connecting the calendars we already have on our personal devices. As the Internet of Things rolls out, interoperability remains a crying need. Too often, the answer is to enter the Apple silo or the Google silo or the Microsoft silo and try to work things out in there. But more than ever, no one platform dominates. Open source doesn't appear to offer any near-term or long-term solutions. Standards, such as those promoted by CalConnect (full disclosure: I am entering the third year of a three-year term serving on the organization's board) offer some help, but without the active adoption of those standards by all important stakeholders (I'm talking to you, Microsoft), our calendars remain the roach motel of information: data goes in but doesn't come out.

Nevertheless, I shall maintain this blog as long as it is necessary. Given the recent scandal that shook the Department of Veterans Affairs, it is evident that calendaring and scheduling is, for some, a matter of life and death. That is reason enough to press on.