Inside ASI-AP

I sat in on the iMIS 15.1 customer briefing in Melbourne last Thursday, which was the first one of these I have been to this year. Marla has already posted photos and Colin also posted about the customer briefing series.

We had the biggest attendance so far for the Melbourne seminar which was held in our boardroom, with 60 guests registered. We hired in some additional seats and the seating was more comfortable than I was expecting.

Colin spoke well to a fairly long presentation of 50+ slides (PDF version here iMIS Customer Briefing Melbourne July 09.pdf) but I really feel we have some work to do in improving the way we explain the benefits of the 15.1 upgrade. The presentation was good in explaining what new things are on offer with 15.1 including some of the current promotions, but what was lacking was explaining the benefits to the customer.

I have put down my thoughts below but would really like to see this presentation revisited, possibly with another round of briefings/webcasts before the year is out. And it's important that the ASI team working with customers get these messages right too.

1. The presentation starts well with the iMIS Value Cycle, but this theme is not carried throughout the rest of the presentation. I think tying the new features of 15.1 back to the value cycle could help explain what the benefits are to the customer.

2. Cold Fusion - we missed the point that 15.1 is the first version of iMIS that does not require Cold Fusion and that's all that needs to be said. However we also need to realise that this may or may not matter to a lot of customers, or at least to non-technical people at customers who may be attending a briefing. We do need to realise now that with .NET web/application servers becoming part of the iMIS standard install that our messages for the technical and non-technical staff need to be delivered in an appropriate context.

3. Communities - since only about 10% of existing customers have the existing e-Communities module we need to stop saying this is an upgrade to the existing module. In fact, for the 90% of customers who don't have e-Communities this is a whole *new* module! And I would even say that even for existing e-Communities customers that they would see it as a new module too since it has extensive improvements and whole new features like blogs and wikis. So let's talk it up!

4. Functions like Site Designer and Content Designer were explained well in regard to their technical functions, but like I said earlier what was missing is what does it mean for a customer? What it does mean for a customer, if we can paint the right vision, is actually pretty amazing! For example - a committee home page that includes content (WCM), a list of committee members (an IQA), a forum (Communities) and a resource library (Communities) - is basically a no brainer to put together in 15.1 - wow! How about a home page for an event that includes a pre-registration list (an IQA), a blog (Communities) and online registration (Public views) - also a straight forward task with Content Designer in iMIS 15.1. And except for the Communities module functions, these things are all possible with standard iMIS. This is big!

Your feedback is welcome on my thoughts here, please add a comment ...

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Couple of quick photos - first one with all the hired chairs ready for our 60 guests; and second photo with the room full and Colin doing the presentation.