In the Kirker household, it’s become a morning ritual — as habit-forming as plugging in the coffee pot and popping down the toaster.

Sometime amid the rush, Scott Kirker and his wife Anne update their busy schedules via the kitchen computer.

Using Scott’s Pocket PC and Anne’s PalmPilot, the Calgary couple trades information through the computer. The kids’ schedules are recorded. Contact lists are updated. Work and travel plans noted.

Later, with the click of a button, the information is downloaded in their offices. In total, five computers are linked.

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
Scott Kirker and kids Katie, left, and Ryan at their computers.

“It’s a huge relief stress-wise,” says Scott. “For the most part we now know what’s going on.”

It hasn’t always been the case. In fact, as late as last October, the couple felt they were in a never-ending battle to keep all the balls they were juggling from tumbling to the ground.

But life changed last November, when software giant Microsoft made Scott an offer he couldn’t refuse.

Microsoft said it would give Scott a “technology makeover,” with the idea of seeing if technology would add balance to his personal and family life. Or, make things worse.

He was given the use of the latest software applications and hardware plus a few hours of training. “For me, it worked very well,” says Scott, a manager of planning and analysis at Canadian Pacific.

“It (the makeover) didn’t change my productivity at work a lot. But what it did change was the organization of my life.”

For years, he and Anne, a partner in Calgary law firm MacLeod Dixon, have dealt with conflicting schedules, jobs that involve travel and young children whose own lives are increasingly demanding.

Now, says Scott, he knows what four-year-old Ryan and seven-year-old Katie are supposed to be doing. Is it gym day, or show-and-tell? Can Anne make the recital, or will she be tied up in court?

“I’m not an inherently organized person,” says the 47-year-old, who is also working on a PhD in management at the University of Calgary. “If you forget something with the kids, you begin to worry that you’re screwing up their social fabric. That was fairly bothersome.”

He welcomed Microsoft’s offer, and joined four other Canadian businessmen in the three-month trial. The professionals were given the use of about $5,000 worth of equipment including a Compaq laptop, a Pocket PC, an Internet camera for the computer, a scanner and a portable printer. A fairly literate user of Microsoft technology at his office and home, Scott took a few hours of training on two separate occasions.

All the computer tools were interesting, but the Pocket PC proved a hands-down winner. Although he already owned a PalmPilot, it didn’t do e-mail and was hard to read, he says.

The Pocket PC with its bright screen is easy to read and uses applications including Windows, Microsoft Explorer and Outlook. With some tutoring, he learned to stretch the technology’s use.

Each morning at home, he updates about 300 Web pages on his Pocket PC. On the bus, or waiting for meetings, he can read editorials from business publications. E-mails — he receives 200 a day — are now automatically filed into priority folders.

“When I’m in a rush, I can get to the key stuff by going to certain folders,” he says. “Or if I’ve got some time I can edit a document, perhaps a letter I’m working on.”

He doesn’t know how many hours of work he’s saved and he does bring work home. Often, however, he can do it on the bus or in a cab.

The technology has made an incremental change in the quality of his life. It’s saved minutes of aggravation during the day looking for documents he used to have to gather up for study. Almost everything he requires is digitized and available through his computer network.

“Now, I have the stuff I want to read with me every day,” he says. “I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to find it. I don’t have to carry it . . . and then lose it.”

But the crucial change revolves around his family.

“I don’t sit here, and say: ‘When is the kids’ tennis lesson, or where do I have to be at 5 o’clock’ — all those things that drive me crazy.

“Me writing something down in one place is just a bad idea. Because I’ll lose it. But if I put it on my computer, it’s in five places.”

Sue Sharp, a Toronto-based marketing and communications manager for Microsoft, says Kirker’s findings are similar to those she’s hearing from the other test cases.

“One of the biggest things we’ve heard is that it (the technology) was not as overwhelming as the participants thought it would be,” she says.

“The benefits they enjoyed by understanding the software and how it worked with the hardware, and being able to use it to its maximum benefit far outweighed the time it took to learn it.”

Scott agrees. He hopes that a research organization will soon do an objective study of technology and its benefits.

Meanwhile, he will focus on family. “The next thing is to give Anne a complete technology makeover,” he says, noting that she has never been a big believer in technology’s worth.

But, recently, she started using a laptop, says Scott. On business trips, she can now log on to e-mail and access documents.

“We can communicate by e-mail, (and I don’t) have to worry about finding her in hotels,” he says. “That alone takes out so much stress in travelling.”

As for the kids, it’ll be second nature. They already play with the Pocket PC because it recognizes their printing and converts it to text on the computer.

“They can send e-mails when one of us is away,” says Scott. “Katie thinks it’s the coolest thing.”