If your big wall calendar is packed with notes and addresses, so small that you can hardly read, you may want to consider family organizer software. In this question and answer with About.com, Cozi CEO Robbie Cape describes the family organizer software that Cozi makes. If you're looking to coordinate family calendars, grocery lists and even a child care provider's routine, consider learning more about the Cozi family organizer software to keep your family organized.

What exactly is Cozi? How does it work?

Cozi is an all-in-one solution to help busy families manage their day-to-day life. We're a comprehensive set of services, both on the Web and on your mobile phone, that helps you manage your family calendars, to-do lists, shopping lists, messages, notes and even your meal plan. We also help you record family memories and share them with your extended family and friends with our Family Journal.

Cozi helps you easily track your to-dos and access them from anywhere you happen to be. You can log onto our website from your PC or Mac, or download one of our apps for iPhone, iPad, Android mobile, Android Tablet or even Blackberry, then start getting organized. All of the information you enter on your smartphone shows up when you log into the website and vice versa. There is no complicated setup. No wires. No pulling your hair out. It just works. We've solved the technical challenges so you can focus on being a family!

Can you tell me about the features?

• Family calendar - Central online calendar to keep track of the family. Syncs with Internet calendars (like school district schedules) and allows color coding for each family member.

• Grocery shopping lists - Cozi remembers your grocery lists and shopping lists so you don't have to. Send a list by text message or email and never be without your list again.
• To-do lists - Track and manage the things that need to get done. Assign a member of the family to a list, or keep a shared to-do list everyone can access.
• Family journal - Add memories to your journal from your iPhone or Android, share moments by email, or make a private family website—like a family blog but without complicated, unnecessary features.
• Mobile access - Call Cozi toll-free to have a list read to you. Go to m.cozi.com from your mobile browser. Get the Cozi app for iPhone, Android or Blackberry.
• Photo collage screensaver – An easy way to enjoy all your digital family photos, and it also displays your appointments for the day.
• Reminders and messages - Set up appointment reminders by text or email. Get a weekly agenda email sent direct to your inbox, or send a quick email or text right from your Cozi family homepage.
• Sync with Outlook - Sync your family calendar with Microsoft Outlook. No more missed family appointments or double bookings.

How is Cozi different from other family organizers or online calendars out there?

The primary difference between Cozi and other online calendars is that we are built specifically and uniquely for family use. Cozi is fanatically focused on families; it's all we care about and it's all we do. While the other calendar solutions are either built for business or for individuals, we focus directly on the needs of the family. It leads to a different design and feature set.

Comparing us to the other family calendars on the market is a bit more difficult since I think we're playing a different game. The other family calendars out there are typically unfunded, very small teams (one or two people) who have put a calendar up there for a few hundred or a few thousand people to use. I applaud their dedication to helping families, and ultimately we are in a different business. Cozi has set out to be the premiere online resource to help families manage day-to-day family life. We've built the company (our team now numbers 33) and our operation to deliver a high-availability, high-stability service to millions and millions of families. A family that uses Cozi will feel this in the quality of the experience, the breadth of our features, the availability of our service and the dedication of our support.

How can working parents benefit from Cozi?

Working parents have the added complication of juggling office life and family life, which can mean more time constraints in their schedules. Plus, in many cases they have a third-party caregiver who needs to be kept in the loop. This creates a whole set of additional challenges that Cozi works to solve. We give working parents the tools to help them appropriately integrate their family calendar with their work calendar so they can easily see how their family life is impacting their work calendar and vice versa. A Cozi family can now include an external member of their family (a nanny or babysitter for example) in the family calendar, letting them share specific parts of the calendar with an external member without sacrificing the privacy and security of their family data.

What is your background and how did you get the idea for Cozi?

I co-founded Cozi in 2005 with Jan Miksovsky. Jan and I worked together at Microsoft for many years (I started there right after college in 1993), predominantly on Microsoft Money, a tool that helped people manage their personal finances. So we have a lot of experience helping people use technology to solve problems that are core to their day-to-day happiness.

Jan and I got the idea of Cozi by talking to families. When we decided to build a new company, we looked at the software and Internet landscape and noticed that families were a grossly underserved demographic. We were floored that technology companies had not managed to deliver unique value to this important group. After interviewing many families, we discovered that the number one pain-point within every family was family logistics—making sure that people are where they need to be, and that there is food for them to eat and soap for them to stay clean. Pretty mundane stuff, but important nonetheless. This family research gave us the kernel of what would become Cozi.