We’ve already got flash drives for schools – both for faculty as well as “green curriculum” USB drives for students – but what about flash drives for parents? Now, while you’re wondering “what good would that be” let me share with you a few thoughts.

We had a snow storm last night. TV weatherman were fiercely debating whether we’d get a dusting or enough to bring traffic to a standstill during rush hour in the morning. Me, well, I was just wondering whether there would be school or not, and for multiple reasons. If there was school, then it would have been a hectic morning, getting my almost 5 year old ready for preschool while I got ready to do a presentation to several hundred kids first thing in the morning at our local elementary school. It was a tight schedule, the weekend had been tiring, and, personally, I was hoping for a change of pace (and maybe even some extra shut eye). If there wasn’t school, then I would probably take the day off (sort of), spend some time with my three kids (all under 5) and, well, enjoy the snow.

So I started off last night keeping the local TV station weather & school closing page up on my laptop, along with the preschool home page and weather.com’s hourly prediction. Not satisfied with just that, I kept my email up on my smartphone (I get the auto email from the TV station once the county school district issues a delay or closure). And then the long wait and long night began. I woke up several times, grabbing my phone and checking my email, looking eagerly for that closure email.

Well, at 5:28 AM I finally got the email, but, to my chagrin, they were issuing only a 2 hr delay. I looked outside the window, and we barely had an inch, plus, the snow had stopped. My son’s preschool recently changed their policy of always following the local school district so I couldn’t rely on the 2 hr delay for the county schools to be certain that his preschool was cancelled. At 5:37 AM, the elementary school principal exchanged emails with me and we rescheduled my presentation to be in the afternoon. I checked weather.com and, sure enough, they were predicting that the snow would resume and the bulk of the accumulation would happen during the morning so I hoped against hope that the two hour delay would be extended.

By 6:55 AM, checking the preschool website, I noticed they’d formally cancelled it. Shortly thereafter, the snow started back up, and I received the email I’d been waiting for at 7:07 AM – all schools were closed. Yes! But by that time, I was so wide awake, it was virtually impossible to enjoy the extra time of sleep I’d earned.

So, now, back to my subject line: flash drives for snow days. Or, flash drives for parents of school students. Surely there must be a more efficient way to notify anxious parents (and students) about whether or not a school will be having a regular schedule, 2 hour delay, 1 hour delay or snow day. Since we’re so obsessed about USB flash drives (hey, don’t forget that’s what we do!), I’m sure you’ll understand why any kind of solution for such a significant part of life (remember that we’re talking about sleep for moms and dads) relies on these memory sticks called flash drives.

I’m going to go way out on a limb, but keep in mind that these are purely suggestions. If you’re an inventor, feel free to take this idea and run with it. Yes, it would be nice to mention that CFgear so kindly gave you the brain fodder for your creation, but you’d probably have to change it so much to make it workable that we wouldn’t even recognize our idea in real life.

Maybe a couple ideas will be better than one hairbrained suggestion.

First, the stick drive could have four lights on it (each color corresponded with regular schedule, 2 hr delay, 1 hr delay, snow day) and be preloaded with software that connects with the school district website. Once the school issues a delay or snow day, then the appropriate light comes on. Of course, that would require the person has the computer on (desktop, probably), but it would be fast and visually understandable within seconds. No more spending a half hour scanning radio stations in hopes of finding the school closures being read and then hearing (or hoping to hear) your school included (yep, been there, done that and too many times).

Another idea, take the same drive (without the lights but with the preloaded software that connects with the school district website), plug it into the laptop, and while you’re busy surfing the news in the morning, a little pop up shows up (sort of like our Brilliant preload option) to let you know that status of your child’s school. In fact, here’s a possibly more profitable idea – instead of having the drives connect to the school website directly, what if the drives connected to the local TV station website?  The flash drives then could be paid for by the TV station (specific sponsors of the station would actually pay for the flash drives as their logos would be branded onto the flash drive) and then the profit model would consist of ads appearing within the morning school status pop up.

My final idea to pass along to you inventors is the first example but with a different melody (you could download the tune like you do with your phone) for each status. In the morning, you open up your laptop to browse the latest events (or stock listings in … Hong Kong), plug in the school status flash drive, and the status song plays. If your son or daughter has any say in loading the songs, probably something triumphant for a snow day. Though if it’s your choice, probably the triumphant song would be for a normal, full day of school.

Imagine how much extra sleep I could have gotten if these snow day flash drives had already been invented, designed & passed out to parents like me. Some people roll their eyes when they see how automated we techies can make life, but, believe me, every extra wink of sleep I can get is worth it (and I’m yawning right now …).