Doodle Meeting Scheduler

For those of us who must frequently schedule meetings with folks outside our organization, it can be challenging to try to schedule a meeting amongst a variety of people with varying schedules. This month, I've been tinkering with a new tool called Doodle. I'm not sure about the name, because it suggests a drawing or sketching tool, right? Well, it is actually a meeting scheduler. This free tool allows the user to enter in a range of possible dates and times and then "poll" invitees as to which ones would work for them. Once everyone has responded, the tool will then show where the intersections in availability exist. I used it just this week to schedule a meeting and it worked like a charm without 15 emails back and forth with phrases like "what about an hour later?" The folks you invite to respond to the poll don't even have to register! The only thing you have to think hard about is time zones...I'm not sure Doodle accounts for that. Last but not least, Doodle does offer an Outlook plugin so you can sync meetings set using Doodle with your Outlook calendar and a mobile plugin for your phone. And voila! Pretty darn neat.