Sarah’s Five Things

It’s an honour to be guest blogging in Minnow’s Five Things spot this week, as she’s off on vacation with her family. As co-founder of SavvyMom, I used to do a lot more of the writing than I do now (half of everything we published, to be exact). With the growth of our company, my time has increasingly been spent on the fun stuff like finance, accounting and our technology ‘stack,’ so it was good to pick up the pen this week and share what caught my attention:
1. As a student of grammar and punctuation (I still reserve the right around Savvy HQ to make the final edits on all our writing), I was intrigued by this report out of SXSW this weekend that stated that ‘e-mail’ is not cool. I was initially concerned when I read this headline because we put a lot of effort into our series of newsletters that we lovingly send to our readers’ inboxes, but I was relieved to read, however, that email (sans hyphen) is totally cool. And apparently digital types are still seeking the perfect short form for WWW. I think I will start trying out the term ‘twiple,’ as offered by one of the readers of this article. Say ‘twiple.savvymom.ca.’

2. Apparently there are now over 750,000 apps just in the Apple App Store, so it makes sense that we now need an app just to find apps, because it’s too time-consuming otherwise. A few of us in the office have been using AppHero, which uses your existing app preferences and other insights it picks up from your social media interactions to suggest other apps for you. I usually love to quiz other iPhone users about which apps they recommend but this is a fun way to discover new apps you want to try.

3. Speaking of apps, there’s even one now to let you know as soon as the new pope is named, which you can sign up for at popealarm.com to be alerted to the Habemus Papam! as soon as it happens. (As I write this, the conclave has just started so it’s hard to know when the new pope will be named but I found this interesting infographic full of good information on how the voting process works.)

4. If you know me, you know that I do almost all of my shopping online—from office supplies for SavvyHQ, to groceries for home, to clothing for my kids and myself—so I was very excited to learn this week that Everlane is looking at entering the Canadian market. The online-only retailer specializes in beautiful, high-quality basics, but by cutting out all the middlemen of the typical fashion business, they are able to offer amazing wardrobe staples like cashmere sweaters and classic tees for much less than usual. To test the market and finance their initial marketing costs, they launched a crowd-funding campaign entitled #CrowdFundCanada where you can support them at different levels, from $15 to $7500, as they attempt to raise $100,000. I signed up right away at the $200 level, which offered me a $200 credit and free shipping to Canada for life. They’ve raised about 80% of the goal amount so far—I hope they make it so I can start buying all the basics for the adults in our family there.

5. The ISU World Figure Skating Championships are on this week in London, ON. While I have never been into watching figure skating (unlike my mother, who is Kurt Browning’s biggest fan), I was intrigued to view CBC Doc Zone’s Ice, Sweat and Tears last week when it aired. It chronicles the difficult training schedules and often dangerous situations faced by some of Canada’s top figure skaters. Even my tough-on-the-ice, hockey-playing son who watched it with me was impressed by the physical and mental challenges these amazing athletes face. Definitely worth a watch with the kids—no matter what sport they’re into—just to see the hard work, commitment and determination these athletes display.

That’s all from me—I’d love to hear what caught your attention this week.