Inside ASI-AP

The iMIS training class schedule has been updated for Oct - Dec 2009. There is a swag of At Your Desk and face to face classes scheduled.

At Your Desk (AYD) classes represent great value for money (only $165 - Australian dollars). The two hour courses cover a range of topics - including new courses in Customer Management. There are also AYD courses in Events, Billing-Dues, Orders, IQA, Business object Designer and AR/Cash.

Face to face classes have been scheduled for Melbourne including Web Content Management, iBO .NET and Task Centre.

Go to www.advsol.com/ap/learning for all the details.

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.

ASI Customer Sales staff are hitting the road in June to host a series of face to face Customer Briefings that will coincide with the release of iMIS 15.1.

Perth - Thursday 4 June
Wellington - Thursday 11 June
Melbourne, Brisbane & Sydney dates to be confirmed

The briefings will offer customers the opportunity to catch up with the local iMIS Community and meet with ASI staff.

Presented will be valuable information on:
• New features of iMIS 15.1 - the latest release of iMIS
• The iMIS Get Smart initiative - a roadmap for navigating the economic downturn
• Recession-Buster discounts available to iMIS customers.

iMIS Webcasts will be back in 2009. We're offering a range of webcasts suitable for customers currently using iMIS as well as prospective iMIS customers. Apart from our Intro to iMIS overview we will focus also on Friendraising, Social Networking, Marketing Suite in the first few months of 2009. Details and to register at www.advsol.com/ap/webcasts.

We're pleased to announce the 2009 iMIS Training schedule is now available. All the details on the courses, scheduled dates and registration details are at www.advsol.com/ap/learning.

On offer is a BIGGER and BETTER range of courses with more AT YOUR DESK courses. There are courses scheduled EVERY MONTH of 2009!

iMIS TaskCentre training kicks proceedings off in late January.

www.advsol.com/ap/learning

ASI AP is hosting two upcoming webcasts on Social Networking for iMIS. Chris Dworin from GoLightly, Inc will present the sessions.

An exciting new addition to the iMIS software solution, Social Networking for iMIS is a fully integrated, online community platform that puts the latest online networking and communication tools directly into the hands of your members, such as Blogs, Shared Libraries and Profiles.

With these social networking tools, your constituents can build vibrant online communities where they can share information, job hunt, gain recognition for their expertise, form valuable relationships, and tap into to collective wisdom of others in their field.

I hosted our final boardroom lunch of the year this week - 29th October - and we had an invited audience of membership department executives.

Last year we used the theme of "what keeps you awake at night" as a means of getting feedback and prompting discussion. This year I have adopted a new theme based on the business drivers of high-performance non-profits and the iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF). The focus for this presentation was on process management rather than functional management using the "join now" process as the example. See more in the copy of the speech below.

ASI AP will be hosting a series of iMIS seminars for prospective iMIS clients during November.

Details are:

iMIS Seminar for Fundraising Organisations
Wednesday 19 November
9 am - 10.30 am
The Grace Hotel Sydney
77 York Street, Sydney

Thursday 20 November
9 am - 10.30 am
ASI offices
Level 22, 459 Collins Street, Melbourne

iMIS Seminar for Associations
Wednesday 19 November
12 noon - 1.30 pm (includes a light lunch)
The Grace Hotel Sydney
77 York Street, Sydney

Thursday 20 November
12 noon - 1.30 pm (includes a light lunch)
ASI offices
Level 22, 459 Collins Street, Melbourne

I hosted our fourth boardroom lunch of the year this week - 1st October - and we had an invited audience of CEO's and senior executives.

Last year we used the theme of "what keeps you awake at night" as a means of getting feedback and prompting discussion. This year I have adopted a new theme based on the 7 business drivers of high-performance non-profits and the iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF). The focus for this presentation was on process management rather than functional management using the "join now" process as the example. See more in the copy of the speech below.

The Age recently published a great article about ASI client National Breast Cancer Foundation and their selection of iMIS to support their work.

Go to http://www.theage.com.au/news/case-studies--profiles/pink-ribbon-connect... to read the full article.

Two big website launches this week for iMIS 15 .Net Content Manager. I already posted about the AFI website launch, and then just 3 days later the Global Illumination website www.globalillumination.org.au - went live for the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF www.nbcf.org.au).

This website was launched hot on the heels of the Pink Ribbon Breakfast website that I posted about here and rounded out a big couple of weeks for our teams.

The first event run by our new iMIS 15 customer - the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) www.nbcf.org.au - is now live online and ready for registrations, sponsors and donations. The Pink Ribbon Breakfast is a well known annual event with many high profile stars as ambassadors led by chief ambassador Sarah Murdoch.

The Pink Ribbon Breakfast website www.pinkribbonbreakfast.org.au went live this week using the iMIS Friendraising module. The registration home page is shown above.

The Australian Film Institute (AFI) purchased iMIS 15 earlier in the year. They went live with their back office system back in May to support their membership, events and the voting for the annual AFI Australian Film Awards - with Leo doing most of the project. For those that don't know much about the AFI, and if you like films, their annual membership of just $55 per year is a great deal - since it gives you discounts at all cinemas plus a chance to attend the screenings of Australian films in the lead up to the awards.

This week they launched their new .Net website - www.afi.org.au - using the iMIS 15 Content Manager module. The website was implemented in just a few weeks by Nasser and his team at Avion Software. This week was a soft launch with just content only available so far; later in the month the functional pieces we be added including the member only area, online join, online renewals and other functions for competition and voting registration.

On Thursday 24 July we hosted our 2nd IT Round Table event in the Melbourne office. This is an invitation-only event for the IT managers of our largest customers and customers in the iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF) program. It followed on from the Executive Forum we ran for the same group of customers earlier in the year (for the Exec Forum the invitations are for COO's and senior executives). I posted some notes on our preparation here.

Based on feedback from the IT round table last year we are going to run these 1 day events every 6 months. The next one is scheduled for November and we will move to Sydney for that event.

Peter Foley the CTO and co-founder of Artez was back in Australia for a 3 week visit - taking in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. He visited all of the new iMIS Friendraising customers including Cancer Council Vic, National Breast Cancer Foundation and Leukaemia Foundation. I spent an afternoon and dinner with him on Monday, and then joined him at Cancer Council Vic for a meeting on Tuesday.

They key thing for ASI and Artez to work on as a result of our meetings is to get our project and consulting teams working closely together on implementations. To date we have been working almost as independent teams rather than a combined unit. Work to be done but something we will take care of pretty quickly.