As part of one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the land, Harvard College Library has a long and storied tradition of excellence dating back to 1638. From a starting point of a mere 400 books, Harvard College Library has grown to become the largest academic library in the world boasting over 70 libraries ranging across all the academic disciplines.

Far from a staid institution, Harvard College Library has been working with Shiftboard as we together continue to streamline the operation of the university library system helping the move into the 21st century and beyond. As the world becomes more reliant on information in the internet age, institutions like Harvard College Library with their riches of knowledge will certainly grow in true value and we here at Shiftboard are privileged to be a part of it.

For the last 42 years Bumbershoot has been the premier music and arts festival in Seattle, WA — If you haven’t been,  it’s a lots of fun  In fact, over the years,  it’s grown to become the largest urban arts festival in all of North America with over 100,000 attendees flooding Seattle Center on a yearly basis.

Shiftboard has powered tens of thousands of volunteers getting involved and getting scheduled with Bumbershoot in Seattle over the past 6 years.  Doing this, we’re helping to power Bumbershoot, now with 2012 marking our magical 7th season – We are proud to work with organizations like Bumbershoot that help promote music and the arts in our communities.

So save the date: This year, Bumbershoot is happening September 1-3 (Labor Day weekend).  One ticket is all it takes to get you into this world of awesome music, great films, amazing art and so much more.  Come Labor Day Weekend, be sure to have your ticket ready so you can join in on the fun.

Of course, if you’d like to volunteer for Bumbershoot (earn your tickets!), or just find out more information about getting involved behind the scenes, check out the links below.

Volunteer with Bumbershoot here

More information on Bumbershoot here

This weeks featured member comes to us from the capital of the United States!

Established in 1961, WAMU 88.5 FM has become a cultural and news leader for the D.C. metro area through the decades. Boasting over 735,000 listeners and featuring programming from NPR, PRI, APM, as well as the BBC, WAMU and it’s ever growing base of listeners are helping to raise the bar for civil discourse and in-depth news in our nations capitol.

Combine all that with a taste for great American music and you’ll be hard pressed to find better public broadcasting in the region. If you’re interested in volunteering with WAMU or would like more information on what they do, be sure to check out the links below.

Volunteer with WAMU here.

More information on WAMU here.

Shiftboard has become a leader in collaborative and interactive workforce scheduling – we provide tools to maximise both operational efficiencies as well as workforce satisfaction.  Today more than ever, we strongly encourage providing tools for flexibility and workforce interaction where ever it saves time, makes sense, and promotes better lifestyles.  Not surprisingly, often, this kind of change can take courage on the part of management.

So, much in the same way that collaborative work spaces can aide productivity, creativity, and overall happiness within an organization, over our years in business it’s clear to us that letting employees more or less schedule themselves and to work with their colleagues to mitigate time off, flexible scheduling, and optimal coverage can provide similar results.

While changes to workforce management behaviours, expectations, and practices rarely come easily or happen overnight, those struggling to become (or remain) competitive should consider environmental and other in-direct means to promote job satisfaction, recruitment, and retention of key staff members.

OK, so here’s our shameless plug:  Shiftboard offers tools for staffing flexibility.  Our tools can ease the transition to a more collaborative, energetic, creative, and satisfying workplace while optimising key factors that touch the bottom line.  Give us a call and find out how we can do it for you.

Try out Shiftboard for your organization or call us for information about how we might help.

This week, we are featuring the Puget Sound Blood Center as another favorite, long-time member of the Shiftboard community.

A lot can be said about PSBC’s blood and tissue services and it’s impact here in the Northwest, but perhaps the most important is it’s noble mission of saving lives through research and by furthering our collective knowledge through education.

PSBC has been a part of the Seattle and greater Puget Sound community since 1944 and it continues to serve not just the Western Washington region but people all over the world with pioneering research in the fields of blood, transfusion and transplantation medicine.

Would you like to help PSBC?  Get Involved.

At Shiftboard, we are proud to say that we work with organizations such as the Puget Sound Blood Center who enhance and improve people lives locally and around the world and we look forward to continuing to help them in their mission to foster the expansion of quality healthcare, blood and tissue services, and education.

It’s a rare that security issues such as these effect the Mac OS, but with the growing popularity and acceptance of Apple products into the enterprise, we all may come to expect news of this kind to become more common.

For more information on the Mac OS X vulnerability refer to the link here.

Seattle’s Comedy/Varietè and Libertease Burlesque festival returns for another year with yet more raucous fun. With acts ranging from trapeze aerialists to can-can dance troops, the Moisture Festival is keeping the Vaudeville tradition alive and kicking (no pun intended!) in the Greater Seattle Area. With two weeks left of shows, there’s still time for you to check out some of your favorite artists and performers so be sure to go to their website below to get tickets!

Moisture Festival

Cleveland International Film Festival: 3/22 – 4/1

The world of film comes to Cleveland with this great festival celebrating the cinematic arts. With screenings featuring a number of critically acclaimed films as well as a plethora of up and coming indies and short films, CIFF has a film for just about everyone. You better hurry though, time is running out to see the next award winning film before it becomes so popular that all the people you know have seen it 5 times! Check out CIFF’s site below for screening times and ticket information.

Cleveland International Film Festival

This weeks featured member is Skillet Street Food, Seattle’s local gourmet food on the go. Starting out in a converted classic Airstream trailer in 2007, Skillet has become a phenomenon not only on the streets of Seattle but across the country with its unique take on familiar favorites. Today it’s possible to get a sampling of Skillet’s amazing food from one of their Airstream trailers roaming around Seattle, their newly opened brick and mortar restaurant or at any of over 300 grocers across the U.S. as well as Canada. Described by some as “hipster comfort food” and rated amongst the best places to eat in Seattle, you can call it a lot of superlative things, just don’t call it “another food truck”!

Wanna try some amazing gourmet burgers yourself? Check out the Skillet Street Food main site below to locate their roaming Airstreams, browse their menu, and find local stores carrying their wares.

Skillet Street Food Main Site

In a little over a month the Sundance Institute is set to bring the best of independent film to the capitol of Great Britain with the inaugural Sundance London Film Festival.

Showcasing 14 hand picked films from the U.S. iteration, Sundance London will play host to stars and movie goers from all over the world. Taking place April 26th to April 29th at the O2, Sundance London’s hundreds of volunteers will make use of Shiftboard to ensure nothing but the best movie going experience possible for attendees.

For those interested in volunteering with Sundance London, you’re in luck! There’s still time to register as a volunteer and (possibly) rub elbows with some of film’s biggest names, just go to the link below by April 1st to sign up.

Also be sure to check out the main Sundance London Film Festival site for a taste of what screenings festival goers will be able to check out.

Sundance London Volunteer Registration

Sundance London Main Site

The week long SXSW Music, Film and Trade Show finally drew to a close over this last weekend with much fanfare and aplomb. For those that weren’t aware, Shiftboard hosted a booth at SXSW rubbing elbows with the likes of MK12, John Hodgman, Adam Duritz and many many more. What was but a few years ago a small obscure film industry shin dig has exploded into one of the largest festivals of its kind in the country and Shiftboard can proudly say that we were apart of it helping schedule all of SXSW volunteer staff. This years festival was a grand success with more attendees than ever, plenty of screenings to attend and lots of great music.

We here at Shiftboard had a great time meeting new and current members, the volunteers of SXSW as well as those in the general public. To be sure, it was all a bit daunting but excellent fun nonetheless. Do be sure to keep an eye out because who knows, Shiftboard might be making an appearance at a trade show or festival near you!