Inside ASI-AP

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.

I hosted our third boardroom lunch of the year last week - 9th July - and we had an invited audience of sales and marketing executives. We tried a new boardroom layout this month with a single long table setup in true boardroom style rather than our 3 separate lunch tables.

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 2 business drivers I used for this luncheon were "segmentation" and "automation". See more in the copy of the speech below.

MEDIA RELEASE

June 17, 2008

iMIS Customers Preview the Future
at Business Excellence Framework Forum

The annual iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF) Forum held on May 20 and 21 brought together 10 not-for-profit leaders - representing the largest users of the iMIS software solution in the Asia-Pacific region - for two days of intensive review and knowledge sharing, with the focus on achieving business excellence. Mobile phones were off, thinking caps on and best practice firmly fixed in the spotlight.

Held at historic Mansion Hotel at Werribee Park just outside Melbourne, the forum was hosted by Advanced Solutions International (ASI), the developers of iMIS. In attendance was US based chairman and CEO Bob Alves, ASI Asia-Pacific senior management and leaders from:

I was reading an article over the weekend in the May-June edition of Advancing Philanthropy (the journal of the AFP - Association of Fundraising Professionals - www.afpnet.com), which is conveniently now provided to all members of the Fundraising Institute of Australia (FIA - www.fia.org.au). The article was a summary of a study by the Run Walk Ride Fundraising Council (www.runwalkride.com) and it shows that funds raised through athletic charitable events - such was walkathons and bikeathons - grew by more than 10% in 2007. The top 30 athletic fundraising events in the US generated more than $1.64 billion in gross revenue in 2007. The top programs included Relay for Life (American Cancer) at $406m, Team in Training (Leukemia) at $125m and Start! Heart Walk (American Heart) at $106m.

Finsia (www.finsia.com) - a new iMIS customer - this week launched their new website based on iMIS 15 and the iMIS 15 .NET Content Manager. Finsia - Australia's premier membership organisation for financial services professionals - went live with iMIS 15 in the back office in April, and quickly followed with their website this week.

In addition to Content Manager, they have implemented the new iMIS 15 public views for Customer Management, Billing and Events - giving members the ability to renew online, update their profile online and register for events online. New members can also join online and in fact 7 new members joined online in the first day the site was live.

Allowing users to select Multiple funds through EFT split Gift.

I hosted our first boardroom lunch of the year yesterday - 30th April - and we had an invited audience of finance managers and finance executives. We had a slightly smaller crowd than expected with a few same day cancellations but overall I was very happy with who was in attendance.

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 am adopting a new theme based on the 7 business drivers of high-performance non-profits and the iMIS Business Excellence Framework (iBEF). The 2 business drivers I used for this luncheon were "automation" and "process".

I am currently at the Mariott North Bethesda Hotel attending ASI's annual Innovations conference. This conference is for ASI partners and staff. I am blogging live as I can!

ASI has won a prestigious award from the International Institute for Software Testing (IIST - www.iist.org) for having achieved significant improvement in testing best-practices. ASI was one of 5 award winners. Read a copy of the ASI best practice submission here; the submission by itself is a great read on how the ASI Production department develops and tests iMIS.

As noted in my iMIS 15 rollout post last week, the iMIS 15 upgrade packs are on their way to customers. Sarah P has been busy packing and posting over 250 packs during the last few days, and this is the last batch being mailed today.

In preparing for the quarterly CEO update call in the coming days, Bob asked me to provide a brief summary of the AP vision and outlook for the coming year. I realised in doing this that I had not yet given everyone an update of our 2008 goals and themes. Copied in below is what I passed onto Bob; and stay tuned in the coming weeks for a more formal update on our 2008 strategy.

AP Vision 2008+

1. To GROW our relationships with customers so that we solve their business problems now and into the future: