Inside ASI-AP

To further strengthen the iMIS community through the independent user group - NiUG International (www.niug.org) - ASI is subsidising membership for new and existing customers. We believe NiUG membership is a positive influence on iMIS customers and we have announced the subsidy program to support that idea - for both new customers and existing customers.

The details are as follows:

The dates and location have been set for the AP NiUG Discovery conference - set for Wednesday 15 October to Friday 17 October up at the Australis Noosa Lakes Resort in Noosaville (on the Sunshine Coast).

Already there is a large contingent of international speakers confirmed for the conference - including Marty Rabenovets (ASI's Director of Product Management), Doug Morris (CEO of CSI Inc. and NiUG International board member), Rob Wenger (CEO of Higher Logic) and Jeff from Informz.

In the past month the local NiUG chapter committee have held their annual planning day to map out the agenda for the year. We were asked to give some feedback on NiUG activities in 2007 - their first year in AP - and on things coming up. A summary of relevant activity for everyone to know about is as follows:

- Discovery Conference dates - 15-17 October 2008, Rydges Oasis Resort Caloundra, Sunshine Coast, Qld - ww.rydges.com/oasis.

- International speakers for Discovery Conference - ASI to assist where possible to support international speakers from the iMIS community coming to Australia for the Discovery conference.

Rod Dalglish from Bus Association Victoria recorded a video testimonial while in the US for 2007 Discovery. The testimonial has been uploaded to the ASI YouTube Channel. Go to www.youtube.com/asicommunity to see it.

The Great Things Award for 2007 was presented by me during the NiUG conference dinner on Thursday night 11th October. It was won for the second year in a row by The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), and the award was accepted in person by Kim Keane, the RACGP IT Manager.

The RACGP have done some great things with iMIS this year, including:

With day 1 of the Discovery conference being devoted to hands-on workshops, the formal opening session was held on day 2, Thursday 11th October. Rod Dalglish, NiUG chair, did the official opening, and this was then followed by my opening presentation, which ran for just over 20 minutes.

I took this photo from the main stage looking out into the crowd. You can see the room is almost full, with a record 97 delegates - a 15% increase on last year. Looking out made me very proud of everything the local iMIS community has achieved in the past 10+ years, and in particular what the NiUG committee has achieved in 2007. Everyone on the ASI team should also be very proud, because you have helped make the iMIS community what it is today. It really is something special.

Following on from the success of the hands-on workshops at the 2006 Discovery conference, the NiUG committee expanded on the concept and offered a whole day of hands-on workshops for the first day of the 2007 Discovery conference. Just under 50 laptops were hired and installed into 2 conference rooms; this alone was a big job for the committee taking a good part of Tuesday to load each of the laptops from portable hard drives with iMIS VMWare images and a 6am start on Wednesday once the rooms were available.

4 workshops ran on the Wednesday (10th October):

One of the changes to Discovery conference this year was that the NiUG committee signed up a number of sponsors. As well as providing essential financial support to NiUG, they also help contribute their products and services to the iMIS community. And that helps all of us. Listed below are the 2007 NiUG AP sponsors:

IServices www.iservices.com.au
Harbour IT www.harbourit.com.au
Dialog Information Technology www.dialog.com.au
CapitalCorp Equipment Finance www.capitalcorpequipmentfinance.com.au
Jardine Lloyd Thompson (insurance) www.jlta.com.au

Speaking of the Discovery conference, we have changed the nomination process for this years "Great Things Award". Last year, we asked customers to nominate themselves; this year, we are asking ASI staff to nominate customers. And if you nominate the winning customer, you will win Gold Class movie tickets!

iMIS ACHIEVING GREAT THINGS AWARD ... calling on staff to nominate!

We will again be presenting an award to an iMIS customer at the upcoming NiUG Discovery Conference. The award will be presented to a customer who has used iMIS to "Achieve Great Things". The winning organisation will be announced at the conference during the Networking Dinner on Thursday 11th October 2007.

As I write this, the US Discovery conference is about to get underway. Like our local Discovery conference, the US conference is now also run by NiUG. Both conferences have record attendances this year – in the US (Baltimore) almost 400 delegates; and locally the following week (October 10-12, full info here) almost 100 delegates up on the Gold Coast. A great effort by the respective NiUG committees.

As of the close of super early bird last week, NiUG so far have almost 80 registrations for the Discovery conference. This is a 50% increase on registrations as of the same period last year, and in fact more registrations than we had in total last year. There is still 6 weeks to go before the conference (October 10-12), so please if you are talking to customers and they are not already attending, you need to strongly encourage them to consider attending. Links to the schedule and registration form are below.

This is a copy of the latest email that was sent from me a few weeks ago as to why you should attend NiUG Discovery.

The NiUG AP committee has managed to secure 3 international speakers to attend the inaugural NiUG Discovery Conference to be held at Sea World Nara Resort on October 10-12.

Firstly is Doug Morris, President and owner of CSi (Computer Systems Innovations Inc www.csiinc.com). Doug has been a long time member of the iMIS community (including NiUG) and is currently on the Board of NiUG International. CSi are iMIS solution providers based in the mid-west, and are developers of a number of third-party products for iMIS including iMerge, Meeting Closer, Activity Importer Plus, iEmail and Freight Rate Importer.

I visited with Rod Dalglish, the chairperson of NiUG in Asia-Pacific, to be updated on NiUG happenings, with particular focus on the Discovery conference for 2007.

It seems in my last post on NiUG I got some of the names wrong for the Board members, so here is the correct version:

NiUG Asia Pacific Committee
Rod Dalglish (Chairman) (Bus Vic), David Spargo (Vice Chairman) (RACS), Ron Bonham (Cycling Aust), Michelle Lelempsis (Taxation Institute), Clive Keylard (NZICA), Kim Keane (RACGP), David Johnson (CPA Aust), David Humphreys (AIM Vic/Tas)

NiUG held their second meeting in the ASI Melbourne offices late in March. Attending were Rod (Bus Assoc), David (CPA), David (RACS), Kim (RACGP) and Michelle (Tax Institute – via phone).

Rod has just come back from the NiUG Conference in Orlando, Florida, where as well as attending the conference, he was formally appointed to the NiUG International board. Also the Asia-Pacific NiUG chapter was appointed a seat on the PAC (Product Advisory Committee) which is the key feedback committee between NiUG and ASI product development.

Further to the launch of NiUG in our region last November at the Asia-Pacific Discovery conference (NiUG to launch formally in Asia-Pacific region, NiUG update, NiUG signs up 20 new members in Asia-Pacific) - it was great news to hear last week the formal setup of "NiUG Asia Pacific Ltd".