Apache HTTPD has been the Internet's most popular web server since 1996, and the worldwide Apache Software Foundation conferences are well known for providing hardcore technical data around Apache HTTPD and some of the other fifty-odd ASF projects. Along with the usual bits and bytes, ApacheCon NA 2010 (Nov 1-5, Atlanta GA) is broadening its scope with Content Technology, Business, and Community tracks. Other tracks Tomcat, Lucene, NoSQL, Tuscany, OSGi, Enterprise Java, Commons, Mahout, and Hadoop, and, of course, HTTPD.

The conference's top level theme is "Servers, The Cloud, and Innovation", and features talks like "Building Cloud Native software" and "Making Tomcat a native cloud runtime." Cloud-based applications, like SalesForce, are a proven way to reduce the total cost of IT ownership.

I'll be presenting an updated version of my Open Source Secret Sauce presentation on Thu, Nov 4, 2010, at 4p, as part of the Community track. OSSS discusses how volunteer open-source projects create and maintain so many compelling, competitive products, and asks "What is the Open Source Secret Sauce?"

The presentation covers

• Why open source matters,
• How open source development works at the ASF, and
• What makes open source projects successful.

If you caught the OSSS presentation at BlueTie or FOSSCon 2010, and have any suggestions, drop me a line.

This will be my fifth ApacheCon, and I'm looking forward to another whirlwind of war stories, brain dumps, and social goodness.

The 2010/2011 kickoff meeting for the Rochester NY chapter will be held on Wednesday, September 8, from 5:30p to 7p, at  NimbleUser, 656 Kreag Road, Pittsford NY 14534

Refreshments will be provided with a $5 to $10 suggested donation. Assorted sandwiches, soda and dessert will be served.

The meeting will include a Study Group Orientation along with a review of the application process for the CBAP® professional certification.

For more details, or to register for the event, visit the IIBA Rochester Chapter web site.

NimbleUser sent 4 of us, Sig VanDamme, Dawn VanDamme, Ron Wille and myself.  Leading up to the show the excitement in the air was palpable.  Our experience as an exhibitor went off without a hitch.  We found ASAE staff doing an excellent job coordinating all the facilities to make our exhibiting experience as stress free as possible.

The buzz on the show floor for us – SALESFORCE!  Last year we introduced Salesforce.com to the association space, and we were pleased to see that it is taking a foothold.  Cloud computing is gaining traction and we enjoyed many great conversations with association professionals on the subject. 

Beyond our immediate product offerings, we had many conversations about integrations.  The need has never been greater than ever to integrate AMS, CMS, Social Networks, and E-Commerce into unified solutions.

Left to Right:  Sigmund VanDamme, Dawn VanDamme, Ron Wille, Garry Polmateer

Okay, enough about work.

By far, the best part of the show for me was meeting many of my Twitter friends in real life for the first time.  I was warmly welcomed by Kiki Li’talien, Maddie Grant, Lindy Dryer, Deirdre Reid, Kylee Coffman, Jeff Hurt, Tom Morrison, Teri Carden, and many, many others.  My favorite part about working with associations is the great people and community and connecting other young association professionals.  The culmination of this was a special live edition of the Social Media SweetSpot  show in which I was invited to make a guest appearance!

I loved listening to everyone's take on the event as a whole and got into some great conversations about their experiences with social media and technology.  It was like hanging out with a group of great friends… with a purpose.  Every one of them was passionate about their members and helping people, and we all had an awful lot to talk about.  My only regret is that we didn’t have more time.

Finally, I had a great time with my co-workers.  We shared many meals and laughs throughout the week and we will be returning to the office with a newfound sense of camaraderie.  I feel truly lucky to be included in such things and amazed that I got to see Melissa Etheridge, Cindy Lauper, enjoy tons of amazing food, people, dancing, and good times.  I can sum it all up in one word:  Awesomesauce.

Garry Polmateer
Product Manager
Certified Salesforce Administrator & Consultant
NimbleUser
656 Kreag Road Pittsford, NY 14534
419-9NI-MBLE
Follow me on Twitter here:  http://twitter.com/DarthGarry
NimbleUser Community:  http://www.getsatisfaction.com/nimbleuser
Email:  gpolmateer@nimbleuser.com

NEW YORK, August 24, 2010 -- Inc. magazine today ranked NimbleUser NO. 3478 on its fourth annual Inc. 5000, an exclusive ranking of the nation's fastest-growing private companies. The list represents the most comprehensive look at the most important segment of the economy—America’s independent-minded entrepreneurs. Music website Pandora, convenience store chain 7-Eleven, Brooklyn Brewery, and Radio Flyer, maker of the iconic children’s red wagon, are among the prominent brands featured on this year’s list.

“The leaders of the companies on this year’s Inc. 5000 have figured out how to grow their businesses during the longest recession since the Great Depression,” said Inc. president Bob LaPointe. “The 2010 Inc. 5000 showcases a particularly hardy group of entrepreneurs.”

Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found on inc.com/5000.

About NimbleUser
NimbleUser makes seemingly difficult systems more agile, flexible and user friendly so you can be nimble-a true partner through every and any stage: planning, selection, implementation, integration and support. NimbleUser can help with technology consulting, CRM/AMS, content management systems, web design & development, google apps and social networking.

About Inc. Magazine
Founded in 1979 and acquired in 2005 by Mansueto Ventures LLC, Inc. (www.inc.com) is the only major business magazine dedicated exclusively to owners and managers of growing private companies that delivers real solutions for today’s innovative company builders. With a total paid circulation of 712,647, Inc. provides hands-on tools and market-tested strategies for managing people, finances, sales, marketing, and technology. Visit us online at www.inc.com.

CONTACT: Beth Farrar for additional information about this honor, bfarrar@nimbleuser.com  

Steps:

1.  Open the resource from the admin console:   Service Settings ==> Calendar ==> Resource Tab ==> Click on the resource to open
    
   
2. Cut and past the email address:
    
    
    
   
3.  Goto your calendar and click the add button and select 'Add a coworker's calendar':
    
   
    
   
4. Paste the email address and click 'Add':
    
   
    
   
5. The Calendar will now appear in the list of 'My calendars':
    
    
      

1. SPEED: Content authors will find that updates and changes can be made within moments. You will experience improved performance over prior versions.

2. PAGEBUILDER: Allow non-technical users to create pages and add functionality in a simple manner without the help of a web developer.

3. WIDGETS: Drag & drop mini applications, known as "Widgets," that can be used for specific functionality, such as a Calculator or Social Bar.

4. ACTIVITY STREAMS & MICRO-MESSAGING: Make your organization "social." Automate the sharing of user activity to see real time updates such as who posted a blog or commented on a forum. Engage in passive communication within your organization by enabling users to post status messages and questions and allow for internal collaboration right within Ektron.

5. BUILT-IN ANALYTICS: The performance statistics you want, right within the work area of Ektron.

Want to learn more? Join us for a webinar, "Ektron 8.0...For the Non-Techies", on July 22nd at 12:30 pm (EST) presented by Matt Rist, Senior Project Manager for NimbleUser. Register Today 

Sacramento CA is famous because of the Gold Rush-era. Now, iMIS users were treated to truly Gold Rush-level iMIS education and presentations. This summer’s NiUG conference was full of great learning opportunities for the iMIS community and naturally, NimbleUser was involved every step of the way.

On the first day of the conference I gave bucket loads of educational gold when I presented both of the iMIS 101 training sessions.

• iMIS 101 – A/R Cash and Billing
• iMIS 101 – Customer and Events

Then over the next two days of the conference gold prospecting hit a fever pitch. There were lots of iMIS users panning for gold yesterday morning when I gave a breakout session presentation on “Building Blocks of a Complete Customer Record”. People left that session with big blocks of gold. No one could leave the conference empty handed. So when I co-presented the closing general session on “Fringe Elements of iMIS” I made sure everyone had some gold before the mine was officially closed.

To make this conference even more spectacular was the Tuesday night networking dinner. To put it mildly, it was a dinner to die for. For the first time, the NiUG dinner was a murder mystery dinner theater event and it was spectacular. I think everyone will agree that it was the best evening event NiUG has ever put on. Everyone got in on the show … plotting, backstabbing, and murder. It was a great evening out with many iMIS friends.

Please mark your calendar now for the next NiUG conference that will surely be another outstanding event. This fall’s conference will be on September 27-29, 2010 at the new Gaylord Hotel on the National Harbor. The complete agenda for that conference will be announced shortly. Everyone here at NimbleUser hopes to see you at another NiUG conference soon.

Enter Salesforce Chatter, branded "The Collaboration Cloud".  It allows for private, secure, cross departmental collaboration within an organiztion.  Imagine, instead of comment on someone's photo on your Facebook feed, you're commenting on the status of an event registration record.  Imagine if, instead of reading through status feeds, you're reading what your coworkers are working on, and realizing that you have something to add, are able to join the conversation and help your co-workers be more effective.  Imagine if not only are status updates from people showing up in your feed, but important data milestones and alerts as well.

This stuff is no longer in the realm of imagination.  Today Chatter went "GA" or "Generally Available" for all Salesforce.com users.  The best part - It doesen't cost another dime. Chatter is included, a deeply ingrained part of the Salesforce.com platform.

When NimbleUser started working with Salesforce, we realized that the platform in was an immensely powerful tool.  It is completely multitenant, everyone shares the same infrastructure and code base.  When updates roll out, they roll out to all 1.7 million users in unison.  Yestereday, Chatter was only available to 500 beta companies and developers.  Today, it is available to all 75,000 organizationns that use Salesforce.  Going above and beyond this, all applications built on the force.com platform also now have Chatter enabled.  

We talked about it before, but now our two AMS offerings have gone social.  Think of what you could do with a fully social, collaborative, Association Management System.  Think of the collaboration you could foster in your organiztion.  Think about the way you could break down departmental silos and enable all of your staff to work as a cohesive unit, tightly integrated and aware of what everybody was doing.  It's an exciting thought, and technology has now made that possibility a reality.

For a short introduction on Salesforce Chatter, view the video below.  It's 4 minutes long and does an excellent job explaining the technology:

Thanks everyone for the read!

-Garry

Garry Polmateer
Certified Salesforce Administrator & Consultant
Follow me on Twitter here:  http://twitter.com/DarthGarry

So, Information Architecture 101... what exactly is it?

First and foremost it's about user experiences -- making your web site easy to navigate, intuitive, friendly for anyone who visits.  It's about demystifying how you name and organize your content so that you can reach your target audiences and keep them coming back.

Think blueprints, organization, orientation. Do you know where to find canned beans for your cookout at your supermarket?  When entering Barnes and Noble, do you immediately know how to navigate your way to your favorite section?

How about on your site?  Do visitors know where to find the latest news or how to get involved?

Information architecture is the foundation for making sure your site visitors don't feel -- or get -- lost!

Join me and Tom on Thursday June 24th at 12:30 EST for our brown bag Webinar.  We'll break down IA and give you some useful tools to get started.

First thing in the morning we arrived to a calm, orderly show floor, and our booth space was perfectly setup.  In short order we had things put together.  With the new signage and shirts, I thought I might be able to hide in front of the sign and jump out like a ninja to enthusiastically greet our booth visitors.  Julie thought that may not be such a great idea.

I attended the morning's social media session.  It was a great overview of the free social media tools available to associations to participate in this technology medium.  They covered Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, RSS Feeds, and LinkedIn.  We also reviewed case studies about successful social media campaigns.   My key takeaways:

• Social media adoption is still growing extremely fast (200 million new Facebook users in the past year alone)
• Control is becoming more of an issue.  How can an organization control what people are saying about their brand?  The answer - They can't!  But what they can do is participate and have influence over the conversation.  People will say negative things whether you're there or not.  It's better to know about it and have a chance to address.
  
• There is still a general lack of understanding about how to use social media.  It is much more than just a marketing tool, it's a way to build relationships and build common ground so the next time you call someone, it's not a cold call.
• Social media is also a great way to  network with your peers, it is not all about marketing.  Are you a CAE?  Follow a bunch of CAE's on Twitter to help each other out and build even more relationships
• Video is a very underused medium.  People overestimate the difficulty.  The evolution of sub $200, easy to use cameras (like the Flipcam^TM) will continue to open this medium up.
  

After lunch, we proceeded to the show floor for the expo proper.  The buzz on the floor was all about social media efforts.   I think there are a few reasons for this, #1, the session in the morning was very interesting and got everyone thinking, and #2, Social media is a rather low cost, high return project an association can take on.  Given the economic climate of the past few years, social media projects are quite popular.  I was very happy to help some folks out offering advice on their social media endeavors and look forward to more conversations about this.  To see how we're using Social media as a company, see what happens when you do a Google search on NimbleUser.  You can see immediately it showcases our blogs, Facebook page, YouTube channel - all are social media based.  What happens when you Google your own organization?

As things wound down, Julie and I decided some sunbathing at Lake Placid was in order:

To finish, I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who visited our booth, the ESSAE staff & board for another great event, and Beth and Vidie, our marketing team who organizes these events for us.  (Oh yeah and the Lake Placid people who took the great picture above)

Garry

Follow me on Twitter here:  http://twitter.com/darthgarry  

The cornerstone at this year’s conference was the new .NET wCM module (the iMIS content management solution) and the flexible iParts applications. They are taking iMIS to a whole new level in how both staff and the constituents can interact with the system. These new tools give the iMIS solution added freedom in design and configurability. 

In addition to the learning opportunities, Innovations also took some time to recognize industry leaders.  NimbleUser (NU) is proud to announce that we received two awards at this year’s conference:

• The Chairman Circle Award, recognizing outstanding overall performance by an iMIS AiSP, and
• The Customer Satisfaction Award, recognizing outstanding customer service and support by an iMIS AiSP. We are thrilled to receive this award for the 9^th year in a row (the only iMIS AiSP to have achieved that honor).

NU left Innovations with a sense of excitement about the new iMIS offerings and tools as well as very appreciative to our customers and the iMIS community for these awards.

Bob Alves (Chairman & CEO - ASI), Jeff Golembiewski (Evangelist - NimbleUser), Sig VanDamme (Founder - NimbleUser), and Don Robertson (President & CTO - ASI)

The conference should be great.  We have an excellent program with some great new topics and sessions.  For more on the agenda and to register go to NiUG.  Hope to see you in Sacramento.

You must be logged into your facebook in order to see your friends' like preferences appear and you also need to be connected to that person, meaning you cannot see what strangers like/dislike. There is currently much debate about privacy rights in terms of how Facebook is following you around the web but in the meantime, we are excited to see how this plays out. We've implemented this feature on NimbleUser.com. If you are interested in doing the same for your website, please contact us for more information.

Like this blog? Be sure to click the like button so your network knows.

What are the easy tools to use? There are so many choices. We talked about Wordpress (and, thanks to re:char ’s Jason Aramburu, got a behind-the-scenes look at the admin side of things) and Drupal for content management and community engagement, free or low cost sites that make advocacy campaign management easier, social networks for tapping in to those special online locations where people are flocking, talking and taking action… the list goes on.

But what was the big takeaway?

Prepare and be transparent. Come up with a goals statement for what your online presence will accomplish – this is different from and organization’s mission statement. Keep that at the forefront when making decisions on what tools you’ll use and what content you’ll produce.

Whatever decisions you make about the technology that will support your efforts, be straightforward when reaching out to people. Write for the people you need involved in support of your goals. Make it easy for people to take action, sign up, spread the word.

What tools are you using? What challenges to you face? Can’t wait to see where we are in another few years…

For the first time NimbleUser attended the AFP International Conference.  As an attendee (versus an exhibitor) I was able to participate in all the sessions and activities and really experience all aspects of the conference.  With over 3,000 attendees, over 200 exhibitors and over 100 sessions to choose from, I was a bit overwhelmed!  I had flashbacks of the pains of selecting college courses as I sat with my highlighter and the conference program book trying to decide which sessions to attend!

I selected a variety of sessions from blogging to databases to leadership.  Here are some highlights:

• Fundraising in the Blogosphere - This was like Blogging 101 and provided a great intro for those who have not yet jumped into the world of Blogging.  Sandy Rees, Fundraising Coach, provided three ways that a Blog would fit into your current plans:
  Communications - use it to share news, stories, events etc.  
  Marketing - Use it to identify potential members, donors, volunteers etc. 
  Fundraising - use it as a tool for raising money online
• Make Improving your Donor and Prospect Database a Priority - This was music to my ears and I know this is something most organizations struggle with.  One thing Cynthia Peak Hoffman said to keep in mind is that "Your Annual Fund is only as good as your Database".
• Savvy Networking Skills - Andrea Nierenberg started out by telling us that "The opposite of Networking is Not Working!"  Another nugget she shared was her grandfather's favorite saying "Give without Remembering and Receive without Forgetting".
  There were several sessions on social networking, Facebook, Twitter etc. - the overall message was get started, this is not just a fad - this internet thing is here to stay!
   

The three speakers I enjoyed most - Desmond Tutu, Lee Woodruff and Murray Banks had one thing in common - they all talked about change.  Desmond Tutu was an instrument of an overwhelming change, Lee Woodruff's personal world was dramatically changed when her husband Bob was hit with a roadside bomb and Murray Banks mixed humor, nutrition and his athletic experience to talk about embracing change in our organizations.  I was reminded to embrace change -Murray Banks had a great analogy - he said we should instill a Lava Lamp Philosophy on our team, that we should "Think Resilient, Agile & Responsive - rather than coping and reacting to change" He also shared a great classic quote from Benjamin Franklin - "When you are finished changing - you are finished" (sounds like Mr. Franklin was quite Nimble!).

The general sessions were good this year and two of them stood out for me: Rita Gunther McGrath, a Professor at Columbia Business School, discussed Growth in the Face of Uncertainty, while Emmanuel Gobillot, Author, Speaker and Consultant spoke about Goodbye Leadership, Hello Leadershift!The two sessions tied in well together.

Growth in the Face of Uncertainty

Rita spent time talking about how organizations could build an upside down business case for their opportunities and save risk and cost by revisiting their assumptions on a regular basis. To do this, you should start by asking, what would success have to look like? What would you need to get to make that happen?

Look at what profits you need, what the margin will be, and then you can see how much you need to sell. Break that down further into how you would get there, and then look for assumptions you want to test. Create an Assumption Checklist and track on that often. Keep coming back to it again and again to look for changes.

The goal through her process is to look for intelligent failures throughout your process. If you can put checkpoints in with smaller dollar amount investments along the way (that must be passed prior to moving on to the next checkpoint) then you will be able to minimize your investment while still testing your theories.

You can be disciplined and creative at the same time - checkpoint by checkpoint - using this method.

What I liked the most about Rita's way of looking at things is that it allows for failure. One thing we say here at NimbleUser is that failure is okay, you just need to learn from it. Rita's process provides for this all the while, minimizing the investment prior to any fail. Thus allowing organizations to take risks - which is needed for growth.

Goodbye Leadership, Hello Leadershift!

Emmanuel Gobillot talked a lot about leaders needing to bring along the company with the decisions. He made some great points about how leaders generally have lots of time to think issues through and make decisions. But since they didn't share that process with others, it is sometimes hard to bring people along. They really need to hear the whole story leading up to the decision so they can better understand it. His analogy was that it is kind of like going to a movie and only seeing the last 5 minutes where the girl and guy kiss and live happily ever after. You don't really "get it" if you didn't see all the trauma that happened prior.

A few of his points:

•  Simplify (not give clarity) - We cannot cope with the complexity that is around us. We don't need it clarified; we need it to be simplified.
• Provide the Narrative - What is the story? You need to tell the story so that you can have effective actions. Effective actions = conversations + shared history.
• Unify - Once you have the people engaged they will help to create the plan. Start by thinking about what are the tasks we need to achieve? - what are the bits? - put that list on the table and ask who is best for each? If people are generally energized they will do whatever it tasks to get it done. Even the crappy ones.
• The goal is to show where we are going (destiny) and because they understand where we are going they will help figure out how to get there.
• His point was at the end of the day you need to ask if you have made those around you stronger and more capable.
  
  
  

Dawn VanDamme and Sig VanDamme at DigitalNow:

 

 

• Consultants have to meet client expectations.
• Consultants have to meet deadlines and deliverables.
• Consultants have to listen and create things specific to the clients needs.
• Clients need to be open, honest and forth coming. This helps us address issues faster, better and less expensively for both parties. This also helps us to craft better solutions.
• Clients need to make sure that they meet the consultant expectations this includes timelines, deliverables and access to people.

Some common items that both need to consider:

• The project has to achieve the desired outcomes
• Have to have open, consistent and frequent 2 way communication
• The engagement has to be successful for both parties

Some of the items that did not come out of the session but we at NimbleUser believe in are as follows:

• Projects can make or break a career. Someone in the organization stepped up and said this is what we need this is who we are going with. The success of the project is linked to the success of the people involved in the project.
• You are bringing in a consultant to change or enhance something. So we need to think about change management. Some people will change quickly, others need just a little support while others need a lot more support. The people who need the support are the ones that are going to impact the success of a project the most. You need to budget of this.

The interesting thing about the session was that client and consultants are actually very well aligned. We both want and need projects to be successful. We seem to understand each other’s drivers and so we just need to keep this in mind. Consultants have expertise that will help to transform organizations, but clients need to be active and involved participants. 2 way communication is really the key.

• Team Work - Our team, without much direction, complete the tasks at hand. What was great about this for me was that we each hard our task but we were all willing to help each other out to each our end goal. I heard over and over again can I help you with that, what can I do next. When was the last time you asked a coworker if they needed help?
• Good Enough - The time crunch really put the other issues into perspective. It was not important that we had timing and staging issues, nor missing ingredients. Everyone just kept pushing forward. I heard my team say that it was good enough several times and I heard other people say it as well. This is really a good lesson. When is good enough, good enough? How much time and money have we wasted trying to make things perfect? In the end we said good enough lots of time but we were on time and it all tasted awesome. Sometimes it is more important to just keep pushing things along then to be perfect and maybe just maybe perfect is unattainable anyways.
• Creative Thinking – It was great to see how people addressed the opportunities that presented themselves. We used pots as covers, repurposed bowls from the resource table, and used different ingredients when they called for one that was missing. Again given a clear goal and no wiggle room in the timeline or deliverables people would figure something out. You just have to let them.
• The greatest lesson for me was in the desert. Each of the 4 groups took a different approach to the same desert recipe. You could see the individuality in each desert. Each made due with what they had and the result was magic. It helped me to realize the importance of defining the goal but allowing the worker to determine the best approach given the hurdles that come up along the way, because they will be creative, they will figure things out, and they will be delicious.

This was by far my favorite session. It was fun, I felt connect to my team and I learned a ton about myself during it. I highly recommend the consultant who ran this session:

Rhea Blanken, Results Technology 

What does a group of displaced technologists do when their annual conference is canceled? They take the conference virtual - as UnTech10.

For the past two days, my fellow conference refugee Nimblers and I have been "attending" UnTech10, running a virtual booth, demos and webinars via GoToWebinar, following the topics trends on Twitter, and participating in conversations on the conference web site.

I felt like a live test subject in a social media experiment throughout the event, and I have to say that the experience was very engaging and exciting. When I wasn't "running the booth", I found myself scouring the ever-updating #untech10 Twitter hash and the un-conference web site for valuable news and information to pass along to others.

I also got to meet, demo to and chat with some great people at our virtual booth on topics ranging from Google Apps to Salesforce.com to content management to technology planning for associations.

Above all, I think UnTech 10 demonstrated how a group of like-minded people can come together using all the social networking tools at our disposal today. We as a company are looking at this model for running our own events in the future. 

The first day of the conference was chock full of great training sessions. I presented a very intensive session on “Understanding iMIS”. That was a huge topic to cover in less than 8 hours. But we succeed in trying to highlight many little features and bits of functionality that many of the attendees did not know even existed. Hopefully it was eye opening for anyone that attended. We closed out the day with a Texas tradition … bar-b-q. Our client appreciation dinner was at the famous County Line right on the San Antonio Riverwalk. Everyone enjoyed themselves and ate lots of ribs, brisket, and much more. (With the Olympics starting today …I would say we all got gold medals in the Meat Eating Olympics) Thank you everyone for being our clients!

The next two days were full of excellent sessions. The conference general session started off with a great presentation from iMIS founding father, Don Robertson. It was great hearing him talk about the evolution of iMIS and keeping customers for life with the iMIS products.

As always, us Nimblers were BUSY with sessions. Adam Carey and I had three presentations during the conference.

• Organizational Best Practices
• Converting to Google Apps from Microsoft
• i15 Public Views – Orders

These sessions were a great combination of the many things that NimbleUser excels at … from understanding how non profits work and operate to being a technology visionary and integrator. To stay with the Olympics theme … I think these sessions also deserve gold medals. These presentations can be downloaded now from NiUG and they will also be posting recorded sessions shortly. So stay tuned for those.

The two biggest concepts that I was able to take away from the conference were.

• Strategy/Planning – Having a plan or a strategy gives you the path to follow and get somewhere. It gives you direction, goals, and tasks that can be and are achievable.
• Nimble – BUT! Every organization also needs to be NIMBLE. They have to roll with it. NiUG rolled with the weather where other presenters covered for the ones that could not make it because of the weather. ASAE rolled into the “Unconference” making it virtual. How you react to the situation makes you a leader in your industry.

What a way to start off 2010, another excellent NiUG Conference. All of us Nimblers look forward to see you at the next NiUG Conference in Sacramento, CA on June 28-30, 2010.  See you there!

Go to http://www.nimblepack.com  to get it now!

 

Over the past several months we have seen a very high interest level in what was called the "Nimble Nonprofit Starter Pack Enhancements".  As a Salesforce ISV, Consultant, and user we have seen some nonprofits use the Nonprofit Starter Pack (NPSP) to great success.  We have, however heard from clients and other NPSP users alike that they wish the NPSP had a few more functions.  Through our consulting engagements, we developed a toolkit that contains many of these features, which have now evolved into the NimblePack. 

After 17 years serving the association and nonprofit marketplace, this is our way of giving back. So NimbleUser has made the decision to offer the enhancements as an unmanaged package that allows anyone in the community to use the NimblePack, the Nimble Nonprofit Starter Pak Enhancements, free of charge.

Our hope is that some of our work will be used for the greater good and allow many nonprofit organizations to benefit from our experience both with mission- and donor-based organizations and Salesforce.   We'd also love to continue to give what help we are able back to the community.  To facilitate this we have created a new community website located here http://www.getsatisfaction.com/nimbleuser .  Our goal with the community is to facilitate peer-to-peer knowledge sharing as well as a place for our socially-minded staff to offer unpaid consultative guidance to NimblePack users.
 
Long term, our goal is to continue incrementally improving this product. Such improvements cannot happen with you, the NimblePack user, telling us about your experiences. As you might guess, this can only be done by joining the NimblePack community. Did we say you can join the NimblePack community here ?

We are also turning on a documentation site that has some verbose processes and procedures that are specific to the NimblePack.  It is located here:  https://sites.google.com/a/vandamme.com/npsp---public-site/ 

So, if you're not familiar with what the NimblePack does, here is a summary of the features that have been added on top of the standard Salesforce NPSP:

• Contacts
• Improved Preferred Address Logic
• Added a Full Name calculation field
• Membership Management
• Ability to create and manage memberships
• Membership Reporting
• Dues Billing Reporting
• 3rd Party Memberships
• Tie Marketing Campaigns with Memberships
• Donations/Commerce
• Ability to track Memberships, Grants, Donations, & Event Registrations
• Payment Tracking
• Track Soft Credits
• Track Estate Gifts
• Intelligence around recognition tracking
• Pulling additional contact info to donation record
• Payment tracking! Now you can track multiple payments against a donation. Review balance due, payments made and open balances
• Donations are now renamed dynamically based on their type! I.E. Events vs. Memberships vs. Donations all are named intelligently instead of all being called “Donation”
• Groups/Committees
• Ability to manage multiple groups and committees
• Manage position titles
• Track group membership history
• Track expiration dates
• Event Management
• Ability to create and manage event attendance
• Event reports – attendance, revenue, ROI
• Manage complex registrations – Golf teams & tables
• Added expense tracking to the campaign object
• Updated arrangement object – now more flexibility with configuring arrangements
• Added additional venue fields to the event page layout to assist with tracking venue information

• Reports
• Reorganized report folders
• Improved package
• With the winter 2010 “Package Anything” ability, the package was made more robust for an easier installation. This means screen layouts, list views, and record types come along for the ride.

NimbleUser is very excited about NimblePack! Thanks to our clients and staff helping it come to fruition. As with most open source offerings, it is a work in progress and we will continue to refine and improve both the product and the documentation over time.

Remember, you can download the NimblePack enhancements at http://www.nimblepack.com  !

Thanks everyone!

Garry Polmateer

Product Manager
Certified Salesforce Administrator & Consultant
Follow me on Twitter here:  http://twitter.com/DarthGarry  

Faster, Cheaper and Better - the New Nimble Implementation Methodology

NimbleUser has been doing a number of implementations in a new way - we call it the 'Nimble Implementation' . At a high level a Nimble Implementation is a methodology for completing a technology implementation project at a much quicker pace and in many cases, a much lower cost with extremely satisfied clients.

The reason NimbleUser invented an offering called Nimble Implementation is because we saw a need to help our clients make more timely decisions during projects and get results more quickly. Let's face it, that is a win win scenario!

One of the biggest problems we have to overcome during a traditional implementation is getting feedback from our clients in a timely manner. Our clients are busy already. Then they get a big project that lands on their desk. At first, many think, "oh great I will just give this over to NimbleUser. We have the budget, we are ready to have this done." But once they get into the process, the harsh realization comes in that they have a big part to play on the project. After all, we are excellent at technology implementation, but not so great at mind reading.

Enter Nimble Implementations

Here is how it works:
NimbleUser provides its Collaboration Room with your key decision makers at key points during the project like Orientation, Discovery, Beta Site Review, QA and Training. Many times multiple steps can be covered in a few days at our site. The great benefit is that you is that you are not getting distracted by the rest of your co-workers, a ringing phone, prepping for meetings, etc. On our side, we have the Project Manager, coordinators and developers in the room with your team - Nimble face to face communication with both teams. And, we feed you great food, provide you suggestions to fill your evenings, and our office is conveniently located right in walking distance from your hotel . Our location is great-right down from a beautiful mall , many eateries and the historic town of Pittsford  / Bushnells Basin  and the fine city of Rochester. It is all right here in upstate New York.

In the end you get your implementation done more quickly and less stressfully than with many other more traditional methods and you get to work with our great team of experts, all of them at your disposal.

We are looking forward to your visit!

The NiUG conference itself is a day and a half conference filled with general sessions, topical breakout sessions, and lots of networking and sharing. Attendees also have a great opportunity for education courses. You can come to the conference early for a day of preconference iMIS training. The day before the conference is packed with full day and half day training sessions that are well worth the time.

Click here for more information on the NiUG Winter Conference.

As always, NimbleUser will be speaking at several sessions during the NiUG conference.

• Monday 02/08 – Full day training – Understanding iMIS and How to Make it Work For You – Jeff G
• Tuesday 02/09 – Breakout session – Converting to Google Apps from Microsoft – Sig VanDamme
• Tuesday 02/09 – Breakout session – Organizational Best Practices – Jeff G

Now the SURPRISE!  It is a great time to register for the conference if you have not done so. We have coordinated with NiUG a super secret special $25 discount per attendee. But special promo’s like this are only available for a limited time. The deadline for the discount is tomorrow Friday, January 22^nd.  If you are interested in the super secret special $25 discount, please email me at jeffg@nimbleuser.com and I can email you the super secret registration form.

I look forward to seeing you all on the Riverwalk.

* NEW * - NiUG just released new discounts. First registration receives $50 off and each additional registration within the same company will receive $25 off. Registration needs to be received by Wednesday, January 27th.

In the Rochester area and looking to get involved with a Non-Profit?  The following opportunities are open, and great for Young Professionals and experienced volunteers alike!

Al Sigl Community of Agencies is looking for some volunteers to add to its WalkAbout planning committee. The committee meets monthly (usually breakfast or lunch on their campus) and helps with sponsorship solicitation, prize donations, entertainment, team and walker recruitment, and generating new ideas to help grow the event. Contact Amanda Birchenough at amandab@alsigl.org or (585) 442-4102 x8944 for more information.  (http://www.alsigl.org/walk.htm) 

Corn Hill Navigation, nonprofit operators of the Sam Patch and Mary Jemison boats, is looking for young professionals to become involved with the organization. They are specifically looking for someone to sit on their Marketing and Sales Committee and people who can help them with charter sales. For more information contact Vicki Schmitt at (585) 509-8229. (http://www.samandmary.org) 

Literacy Volunteers of Rochester would be pleased to have young professionals assume leadership roles like committee membership and board service, particularly people interested in fundraising, planning special events, and marketing.  For more information contact John Williams at jwilliams@literacyrochester.org or (585) 473-3030. (http://www.literacyrochester.org) 

Planned Parenthood of the Rochester/Syracuse Region (PPRSR) is looking for young professionals to join sub-committees to support its young professional steering committee which provides leadership in building a new generation of PPRSR supporters and advocates. Sub-committees include fundraising, membership, advocacy and events. For more information, contact Erin Grant at egrant@pprsr.org or (585) 546-2771 x342. (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/rochester-syracuse/)

The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra is looking to create a young professionals group at the RPO.  They have started looking for 10-15 people to have on a planning/leadership committee for the group.  For more information contact Jill Pritchard at jpritchard@rpo.org or (585) 454-7311 x241. (http://www.rpo.org/)

Sojourner House is looking for dedicated young professionals to bring fresh ideas to the table on the Board, Committees, or general Volunteering. Their goal is to bring a younger subset of members into the organization with the hope that in a few years they will be vested enough in the SH mission to replace Board Members when they "retire" from their positions.  For more information contact Portia Chiarella at portia_sojourner@yahoo.com or (585) 436-7100 x117. (http://www.sojournerhouse.org)

Blog taken in part from the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Looking to support a cause in your area? We've got the tools you need to learn how to become a volunteer in an area that interests you!

A few photos from this years wrapping:

For the mother:

• 3 cozy sweaters
• 6 pairs of fun, warm socks
• A portable AM/FM CD Player

For the girls:

• Dora the Explorer Sheet Set
• Dora the Explorer Comforter
• Hannah Montana Sheet Set
• Hannah Montana Comforter
• 2 Baby Dolls and Accessories (a girl has to have baby accessories!)
• A Leapfrog Learning Laptop
• A Touch and Learn Reading Fun Turtle
• Soft and cuddly Christmas Eve (or any eve!) Jammies
• A ton of books
• Coloring and Activity Books and Crayons
• 2 stockings chock full of fun goodies like bouncy balls, Disney Princess hair accessories, dry erase boards, notepads, etc.  

Here's the "In Progress" pile we had going that we all kept adding to, we've got a lot of wrapping to do!

We are really excited to be able to have the opportunity to spread a little joy this year and recommend it to anyone that has the opportunity to do so.  From all of us at NimbleUser to you, we hope you have a happy and healthy holiday season, and a wonderful 2010!

While most exhibitors were hotels there were a good number of technology providers as well.  We met a number of people who were very interesting in our NUMembers product based on the Force.com platform.  I spent sometime with a person who had investigated using Salesforce to manage his association because he loved the product (he had used it in a past career) but had dismissed it because it did not have the core functionality of an Association Management System (events, committees, etc..).  When I explained that NimbleUser had built those components into our Salesforce offering he loudy blurted out "Brilliant!".

I sat in on a great presentation by Reggie Henry, Chief Technology Officer of  ASAE, on engaging your members using online technologies.  Reggie has a great way of making sense of how best to leverage social media (twitter, Facebook, etc) for non-profits.  He also made some great points using real life situations from his own life.  I particularly like how he described his 10 year old niece using Facebook to decide what to ask for as a gift on her birthday (she received suggestions for people in four other countries) to show how the younger generation is 'living their life out loud' in ways that may be foreign to other generations. Click here to read about other sessions at the show.

This was the first test of NimbleUser going with a double sized booth. It really worked well and made it easy for people to visit with our team.

Overall I would consider this a great show from both a learning and exhibitor prospective - we will definitely be here again in 2010.

If you’re not familiar with the history of the Salesforce Nonprofit Starter Pack, check out the two blog posts here, as they describe the nonprofit donation program and our original set of enhancements.

Salesforce Enterprise Edition - For Free? 

Salesforce NonProfit Starter Pack - Nimblized! 

And now we’re very excited to be releasing our second edition of these enhancements! They include a number of tweaks to existing enhancements and add a few exciting new features!

• Event Management/Campaigns
  • Added expense tracking to the campaign object
  • Updated arrangement object – now more flexibility with configuring arrangements
  • Added additional venue fields to the event page layout to assist with tracking venue information
• Donations
  • Payment tracking! Now you can track multiple payments against a donation. Review balance due, payments made and open balances
  • Donations are now renamed dynamically based on their type! I.E. Events vs. Memberships vs. Donations all are named intelligently instead of all being called “Donation”
• Contacts
  • Added a Full Name calculation field
• Reports
  • Reorganized report folders
• Improved package
  • With the winter 2010 “Package Anything” ability, the package was made more robust for an easier installation. This means screen layouts, list views, and record types come along for the ride.

What’s next?

We’re very excited about the continued nimble development of this application. In addition, as its popularity increases, we will continue to beef up our support which includes full public facing documentation. The documentation is in process now and going through some final editing. We’re excited to get this out to the community shortly.

If you’re interested in learning more about these or adding them to your current org, contact our specialist Rick Randall, he can be reached at gpolmateer@nimbleuser.com 

Thanks everyone and we are very excited to continue enhancing this product and better serving our customers and the nonprofit community.

-Garry

Garry Polmateer
Business Analyst
Certified Salesforce Administrator & Consultant
NimbleUser
technology. for people.
Follow me on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/DarthGarry 

Theory #1 – I have had such an amazing experience working with the other NimbleUser staff, that I sort of feel like I’ve been working with them my whole life. We are in many ways a family and the warm welcome I received has not dimmed.

Theory #2 – We’ve done and gone through so much in a year. We’ve moved FASTER than ever before, in essence packing many years of work and accomplishments down into one. So what has happened in the past year? Here’s a fancy bulleted list to outline a few highlights:

• VanDamme Associates created a new initiative on the Force.com  platform
• The rest of the Force.com team and myself wrote an association management application on the platform - NU Members .
• Attended ASAE Tech  in Washington, DC. While there learned how to make Cloud Computing work for them.
• Adam and I cooked omelets for the staff 
• Spent a week in New York with Tom Patros at Salesforce boot camp.  Learned Salesforce and also proved that we are not bad at Rock'n'Roll trivia.
  
• NU Members was selected as a Force Top 40 App . This is out of thousands, I’m very proud of this.
• I got certified as a Salesforce Administrator and Consultant
• VanDamme Associates became NimbleUser 
• The team has had nearly a dozen successful Salesforce Implementations
• Attended the ESSAE Annual Expo  with Julie
  
• We became one of the first companies to integrate iMIS and Salesforce
• I got serious about fitness and joined the Pie90X program 
• We developed our own flavor of the NonProfit Starter Pack . This will give our customers even MORE options on the Salesforce Platform
• We’re up to our necks in developing fully functional web extensions for NU members which will include things such as directories, customer login, profile edit, and content management.
• Attended Dreamforce 2009  and “Had my face melted off” by the level of awesomeness and excitement present.
• Danced with Chatty and SaaSy  at said Dreamforce.
• Made hundreds of new friends.  Or as we like to say "Hundos of new friends" :)
  

These are just a few things, I’m sure there’s more. I do have a few thanks –

Thanks to all the NimbleUser staff. You have been a joy for me to work with and it’s been a great time getting to know you and learn new things with you.

Thanks to the NimbleUser management for allowing me to be myself and teaching me so much throughout the year.

But most of all – Thank you to all of our customers, without who there would be no NimbleUser and none of this would have happened.  I feel very fortune to work for a company that has such an excellent clientele. I did not understand the concept of a vendor/customer partnership until I lived it here. Thank you for being partners with us, and I can sincerely say that we are committed to being partners with you.

A mainstay of conventional requirements gathering, use cases can ease the transition to agile methodologies. In this practical program, Ted will explore:

• how to write use cases
• how to adapt use cases to agile projects
• how to automate acceptance testing with use cases

Ted Husted is a local Business Analyst and iterim Executive Vice President of the Rochester NY IIBA. He is co-author of JUnit in Action and a regular speaker at the Ajax Experience, ApacheCon, and various user groups In 2008, he joined NimbleUser as a Business Analyst. For more information visit the Chapter's website at buffalony.theiiba.org. The meeting runs from 5:30pm to 7:30pm.

The International Institute for Business Analysis (theiiba.org) is an independent non-profit professional association serving the growing field of Business Analysis. Formed in 2003, the IIBA has more than 5000 members in over 100 chapters worldwide. The Buffalo chapter is undergoing charter in 2010.

The highlight of the event for me was Colin Powell.  His message around leadership was very timely and I will always remember it.  His approach, intellect and vision brought also sense of calm to me that we have some amazing people in government and that perhaps we are too critical at times.

My major takeaways for me were:

• We have to figure out how to go faster.  The stop doing list just got larger.
• Salesforce.com is changing the game and we need to look at all aspects of our organization to make sure everything from marketing to sales to implementations to support are aligned with what the world according to Salesforce.com now affords us. Our recent move to Nimble Implementations is definitely a step in the right direction.
• We are good at what we do.  It was great to have people coming up to us already and thanking us for their success or introducing us to people they think we should be working with.
• NimbleUser has amazing staff.  To pick up this application a year ago, win an award for our application (top 40), win a Nonprofit industry award for making a local nonprofit nimble and be a toped ranked consulting partner already is amazing.  Kudos to the team here.  Thank you all!
• We are going to be able to focus on our customer’s success and not with making the solution work.  We can spend our time and frankly our customers can invest in more value added things beyond just making the application work. 
  This business is no longer "BUY this because WE say we are great" that some software companies tend to think.  It is "Buy this because it will make YOU GREAT.” This is so freeing and in line with our ideals that I want to cry. ;)
• We can create whatever is needed to develop awesome solutions for our customers. The technology can handle it.
• Salesforce.com is a great partner.  They already know NimbleUser and asked about our application & our implementations to date.  They also wanted to know if they could do anything for us.  Everyone I met from Salesforce.com gave me a card and told me to call if I need anything or was not getting what I needed.  This went all the way up the chain.
• We are a small fish in a big pond and I am happy to be here.  I think organizations and people alike will rise to an occasion.  The cream always comes to the top so to speak. The competition is stronger and so we too will become stronger and I am looking forward to the challenge.

The only thing left for me to discuss…..I wonder how I can take the entire company to Dreamforce next year?  ;)  Does anyone know if SF has a company discount?

Hello Salesforce World! And thanks for such a great experience. 

--Ron Wille, Jr., coCEO

Marc Benioff delivering the Keynote Address at Dreamforce 2009

The big announcement during Marc Benioff’s (CEO of Salesforce.com) keynote was the announcement of a new product – “Chatter”. To view a short demo go here: http://www.salesforce.com/chatter/. Chatter brings social media into Salesforce.

It starts off with user profiles, similar to Facebook, each employee has a profile and a “wall” and posts status updates answering the question “What are you working on?” These updates go out to whoever is following you within the organization.

Not only people can post status updates, but DATA CAN POST STATUS UPDATES. It could be that if someone is working on a $10,000 donation it would post to your feed. From there you can comment on it and start a conversation. It is possible to set triggers on any data in the system to kick off a Chatter event.

To top it all off - Chatter has been integrated deep within Salesforce. It is now a part of the platform. So, suddenly every Salesforce app can now become social. It also has rich API support and will be able to integrate with non native apps (i.e. Facebook and Twitter). We are currently waiting to get into the Chatter preview program so we can integrate it into our Force.com product: NU members.

"The Gang" met up with "SaaSy" - Left to right - Brian, Tom, Garry(me), and Ted

The awesomeness continued out onto the expo floor. Hundreds of Salesforce.com partners were present, showing their wares and having great conversations. I discovered a few new products that could be a great fit for our customers. My favorite part was the “Salesforce Campground”. Salesforce had about 30 kiosks setup staffed by “Cloud Experts” who were there to answer any question you could come up with. I visited quite a few of those folks and learned some great nuggets of information.

The sessions were excellent as well. I attended several that were focused on implementation methodology and improving user adoption. A few key takeaways were how important it is to attain executive sponsorship, come up with in depth training plans, and strategize to improve user adoption. User adoption was one of the largest challenges that I heard from Dreamforce attendees. The technology was not the problem, it was getting people to use it effectively. It was great to have this reinforcement and I will keep it in mind while working on projects in the future.  Learning about this only reinforced that by focusing on people, NimbleUser is putting its energy in the right direction.

 
Tom Hacking it up at the Dreamforce 2009 Hackathon

Tom Patros and I attended an event known as the “Dreamforce Hackathon”. The premise of the event is that you get 2 hours to build a Force.com application from scratch and then demo it in front of the participants. Our idea involved building a CRM application for your family that integrated with Twitter. If anyone in your family sends tweets, it would collect them in the app and help in the creation of gift wish lists. We didn’t win but we had a lot of fun doing it, and it was great to see Force.com flex its muscles. It’s amazing what people can do in 2 hours with the power of the Force.com development platform.

I attended the first ever Dreamforce "Tweetup" where I met for the first time many of the folks that I have been following over the years.  If anyone is interested in following a bunch of Salesforce professionals on Twitter check out my list here: http://twitter.com/DarthGarry/salesforce-folks.  It was great to meet many of them in person at this event and throughout the week. 

The level of support for nonprofits was impressive. Salesforce is world renowned for its 1/1/1 program, donating 1% of time, equity, and application to nonprofits. This year, they had a special nonprofit track. It started with an opening reception geared to nonprofits, and a special track of sessions that investigated the special flavor of Salesforce that was designed with nonprofits in mind. We were very excited to see the hundreds of nonprofit attendees and hear their stories, and how Salesforce was a great solution for them. It culminated in a special nonprofit dinner event that was very well attended where we all let our hair down and had a good time.

Perhaps as the culmination of the week, General Colin Powell delivered a keynote address. It was a great mix of eloquence, humor, and wisdom. He painted a much larger picture than just technology. He wove in a thread of patriotism that is often forgotten. I left feeling very hopeful for all of our futures.

Gen. Colin Powell delivering the keynote address at Deamforce 2009

After taking a few minutes to dance with Chatty and SaaSy, it was with no small regret that I packed my bag and headed home. Dreamforce was truly a spectacular conference. I’ve attended many conferences, but this one was the most exciting of all. The air was full of electricity with all the opportunities that were being created. It was amazing to hear success story after success story and know that something big is indeed happening, and I was fortunate to be a part of it.

So what is Dreamforce then? It’s not Salesforce. It’s not technology , or code, or the cloud. I must quote Charlton Heston for the answer - “DREAMFORCE IS PEOPLE!”

Thanks everyone for reading!

-Garry

Garry Polmateer
Business Analyst
Certified Salesforce Administrator & Consultant
NimbleUser
technology.  for people.
Follow me on Twitter here:  http://twitter.com/DarthGarry

CITT (Canadian Institute of Traffic and Transportation) recently went live with Public Views (formerly VanGo), a suite of products designed to make their website available around the clock to their member base.  For this project CITT decided to focus on the three modules that would benefit their members most...Customer, Events, and Billing.  All of these mosdules brings new and exciting functionality to the CITT table, providing:

• A solution with integrated eCommerce functionality
• Personalization of member profiles, with the flexibility to update profile information and register for events online
• Allows members the ability to renew dues online
• Provides members with the ability to register for courses online
• An eCommerce system that is integrated with CITT’s current Content Management System (Single Login)
• Allow members when registering for an online course the ability to see the history of courses previously taken
• A system that will grow and flex as CITT expands and changes
• A system that is based on current technology with a proven and timely upgrade path
• And of couse, the opportunity to work with NimbleUser, a company that consitently wins the ASI Customer Service Award!

Public Views has proven to be a cost effective solution for CITT that has provided them significant value for their investment.  We had a great time working with our neighbors to the north and are excited to hear about the positive feedback we are sure they will be getting as a result of these changes.

Interested in learning more?  Take a look around the CITT website!

One of the first objectives in doing one of these audits is to review what tools the client has in their AMS toolbox. In most cases the client does not know. Usually they are only aware of the basic features. Beyond that it gets fuzzy. Let me ask you this … Do you know what tools you have in your AMS toolbox? 

The point here is that any AMS system has a lot of tools, features, and possibilities. Some you may or may not be licensed for. Some you maybe licensed for but you are not using. Either way, the knowledge gained by understanding the features and functionality can go a long way in maximizing your return on investment.

Example: You may know that your system has an events management module. What else can it do? Could some unknown tools or features save your staff time and money?

• Do you have deferred income tools – so you can automatically let the system defer the event revenue until the month the event occurs in?
• Do you have continuing education units tracking – so you can track units or credits for events that have been attended?
• Do you have exhibit tools – so you can track the booth sales for the event in addition to the registrants?
• Do you have ecommerce tools – so you can allow for online event registration for the event in addition to any backoffice processing?
• Do you have speaker tracking – so you can track speaker assignments for the event as well as post event evaluation survey history?

With more in-depth knowledge about your AMS tools, you and your organization will be much more empowered when looking at new objectives and initiatives as well as helping staff become more nimble and efficient. 

Very often during these audits, the clients are surprised by how many of the tools they have in their existing tool box they are not using. These are simple wins that your organization can use in challenging economic times. Maximize what you already own! And the best way to do that is by understanding all the tools you have at your disposal in your AMS toolbox.

A little over 1 year ago VanDamme Associates was a top reseller of iMIS as well as an Elite partner of Ektron. We were looking for a way to increase our offerings without cannibalizing our existing lines of business. We had been looking at Salesforce.com for some time and decided to attend Dreamforce as a way of reviewing the technology with the hopes of building a native application to serve small staff associations. By the time the conference was over we had committed to pursuing Google Enterprise, Salesforce.com (SF) and building our own Force.com native application. 

Fast forward 1 year.....

• In an effort to support our new efforts and our new brand promise we renamed the company to NimbleUser. People buy technology in the hopes of becoming more nimble but even great technology sucks if the staff cannot use it.  Our new name reflects our commitment to making the organizations we work with nimble by offering great technology and then ensuring that the staff is trained and adopts the solution. While some existing customers hated the name....We are focused on creating nimble users and they get that.
• We developed and launched our own native application built on force.com called "NU Members."  NU Members is an Association Management Solution (AMS) designed for small staff associations.  We launched our application at ASAE to great reviews.  We knew we were headed in the right direction and to our surprise the application was selected as a top 40 application built on force.com.   
• We decided to do NonProfit Template implementations for Fundraising nonprofits.  Our first implementation was for a Rochester NonProfit that works with other nonprofits.  We saved them $ 3,600 a year pulling out MS Exchange and we consolidated 20 different data stores to give them a consolidated, efficient and effective Fundraising solution. They liked it so much they recognized us at their annual luncheon.  This was a great honor and we could not believe that we were being recognized so soon and in such great company. We have since completed 3 other nonprofit template implementations and each organization is very happy.
• We complete a very complex integration of SF with iMIS for solution for case management.  The solution required that we divide SF into 3 distinct record sets and then integrate them with iMIS.  
• We have talked with one sales territory management company about integrating with SF and what it would take and then we actually help a different sales territory management company to kick start their integration. 
• We completed 2 For Profit Sales and Support implementations.
• We are in the middle of developing SF Sites to build out an auction application to create a market-specific solution for a new venture. We cannot believe how fast the project is coming together and we are so excited he is going to be able to also use Sales and Support to run the rest of his business all within the same solution.  
• We are in the middle of a set of sprints helping an iMIS partner to use SF for sales and support.  
• We have gained the following credential:two Admin I certifications, one Admin II certification, one Certified Consultant, one Dev I Certification, one Dev II Certification and one Certified Sales (before they eliminated this certification).  
• We have since hired 3 people to focus on our SF business bringing the total number of people dedicated to SF to 5 and we have several open positions and we are looking to staff a product team for our native application.  Starting today,  8 NimbleUser Staff members are headed to Dreamforce which includes the 5 on this team plus two other people we are looking to cross train. The two newbies are a project manager and a business analyst. 
• We have hired a sales rep to focus on for profit SF businesses and we have transitioned an existing sales rep to sell NU Members and the nonprofit template implementation.  

As you can see when we commit to something we jump in with both feet.  We made numerous change this year and while we had to work hard to make this all happen it was worth it.  We have not noticed any decline in our legacy offerings and have found that with SF we are not only finding net new clients but we are able to position new and exciting offerings into our existing client base.  We are just beginning to talk with them about using Force.com to build situational applications. 

To say that I am excited about Dreamforce is an understatement.  To say that I am afraid of what changes Dreamforce09 might drive, well that, might also be an understatement.

I want to extend a special thanks to Rick Randall, Account Executive, Garry Polmateer, Business Analyst, Donna Whitig,. Project Manager and Tom Patros, Web Developer to making our SF strategy a reality.  I would also like to extend my appreciation to the rest of the NimbleUser staff for supporting us while we ramped up.

Dreamforce '09--here we come!

--Ron Wille Jr., coCEO

BELOW: Tom Patros, Developer receiving flu shot:

BELOW: Sig VanDamme, Big Baby, receiving flu shot:

(Note: Sig dramatized his reaction for the purpose of this blog :) )

BELOW: Sig lives to tell his story and to spread his message of health and nimbleness to others.

BELOW: Nimbler (what we fondly call our logo) made out of smileys:

Your organization probably spent thousands of dollars on the purchase and implementation of your AMS. Do you think that kind of investment is worth some scheduled maintenance and review?

In other areas of our lives it is completely accepted and normal that:

• We should have a physical once a year.
• We should have our teeth cleaned twice a year.
• We should have our eyes examined once a year.
• We should have the oil checked and other maintenance on our car every 3,000 miles.
• We should get a tune up on our car every 30,000 miles.
• We should change the air filters on our HVAC every 3 months.
• We should change the batteries in our fire detectors and test them every 6 months.

Why should your AMS system be any different? Just like the other things in your life, your database requires regular maintenance in order to remain effective and functioning properly. Any AMS health check up should be just as thorough a review as your physical or tune up. The check up could consist of many things depending on how healthy your system is, new or ongoing organization initiatives, as well as your organization’s IT capabilities. Possible AMS health check up items includes the following:

• Meeting with your AMS solution provider – Your organization should have this meeting annually at minimum (bi annually would be even better). Your vendor should be your technology partner. Keeping them in the loop of your IT objectives, initiatives and changing goals is critical to keeping both organizations in sync. Your vendor can better serve your needs if they understand them. And so it is important to communicate your strategy and work with your solution provider.
• Address any AMS problems or issues – Openly discuss any problems or issues you are encountering with the AMS solution. Critical problems are usually addressed immediately through support cases but small or non critical items can fall through the cracks. You should keep track of these items as well as prioritize where they fall in your organization’s objectives. When you have the check up meeting, you and your solution provider can plan out a corrective path to resolve these items.
• Minimum database maintenance – Use the AMS health check up as an opportunity to do any database maintenance that you have put off. Depending on your organization’s technical knowledge and staffing, these duties could be scheduled with your solution provider. These tasks could include data clean up for consistencies records, identifying resolving duplicate records, purging unwanted records, updating software patches (or upgrades if appropriate), updating business rules and procedures (if appropriate), etc.

Just like in our lives, there is no magic pill your AMS system can take to be healthy. It takes work and dedication. There are things that we can do ongoing through out the year to stay healthy – take our vitamins, eat healthy, work out, and get our regular check ups. That same logic applies to our AMS systems. If you have let your AMS system go, a good place to start for a new healthy AMS lifestyle would be a good old fashion check up. Hey there membership module … stick out your tongue and say “Ah!”

However, in some early client engagements Donna and I have run into a number of shortcomings of the NPSP, namely membership management and event management. So we set out on improving it. We did this using standard Salesforce funcionality to create the missing features with minimum custom code and overhead for the future.

So, what extra abilities have we created? I will list them below. For the right situations, these customizations will add a lot of functionality for future NPSP implementations. Without further ado, here is a high level summary of added features:

• Contacts
  • Improved Preferred Address Logic
• Membership Management
  • Ability to create and manage memberships
  • Membership Reporting, Data Warehousing
  • Dues Billing Merge
  • 3rd Party Memberships
  • Tie Marketing Campaigns with Memberships
• Donations/Commerce
  • Ability to track Memberships, Grants, Donations, & Event Registrations
  • Payment Tracking
  • Track Soft Credits
  • Track Estate Gifts
  • Intelligence around recognition tracking
  • Pulling additional contact info to donation record
• Groups/Committees
  • Ability to manage multiple groups and committees
  • Manage position titles
  • Track group membership history
  • Track expiration dates
• Event Management
  • Ability to create and manage event attendance
  • Event reports – attendance, revenue, ROI
  • Manage complex registrations – Golf teams & tables

We are very excited about all of these changes for a few reasons. The first is that we were able to accomplish this without the burden of custom code. We used standard Salesforce all the way. Secondly, we are excited to start using these enhancements to solve YOUR business problems. Being that these are all based on a free platform, we will be able to deliver a high level of functionality at a very affordable price.

If you are at all interested in enhancing your existing Salesforce installation, or do not currently have an AMS, the Salesforce platform coupled with the NPSP and enhancements may be an excellent solution. If you are interested, contact Rick Randall to arrange a demo. He can be reached at gpolmateer@nimbleuser.com  for more information.

If anyone has any ideas for further ideas or enhancements, let me know, we’re always interested to hear what you have to say!

Garry Polmateer
Business Analyst
Certified Salesforce Administrator & Consultant
Follow me on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/DarthGarry 

Recently I worked with a client to develop an internal and external PROFILE report. I believe this is the more traditional approach of evaluating your members to see what they have done with the association recently as well as giving them an opportunity to look back and evaluate their participation. They wanted one version that could show summary information for staff but they also wanted another report with full details for the member as a member value statement. It was basically a 360 DEGREE view of that member’s record. Here are some of the basics needed in the report.

• Basic contact information
• Name
• Company
• Address
• Phone, fax, email, etc.
• Basic membership information
• Type of membership
• Member ID number
• Join date or member since
• Paid thru date
• Key or critical demographic information
• Information varies by association
• Recent or accumulated activities
• Membership status – dues renewals/payment
• Event attendance – courses and conferences are they attending
• Product purchases – recent store and online transactions
• Organization involvement – committee and chapter enrollments

The key to any sort of success with this is similar to what we discussed last week – data, data, and more data. You first need all of your data in a centralized database. If the data is not in your AMS system how can you accurately report on it and present back to your member what they have done with your organization lately? Unfortunately there is lots of association participation, communication, and demographics that never make it into an AMS system. A prime example that I see over and over again are committees. Everyone tracks committee participation. But what does participation mean to you? Most organizations ONLY track the individuals that are enrolled on a committee. Do you track historically who attended the committee meetings? That meeting attendance data is usually found on a list somewhere or in the committee minutes. Not in the AMS system.

So if you were to send out a 360 degree report to a member it might show that they are on committee X but does it show that they also attended 3 out of the 4 committee meetings?

The point here is that your 360 degree report or profile for any given member is only as good as the data you have in your AMS system. If you are missing demographics or activity/participation history fill it in. Pull all of your outside lists (trust me, you probably have more “islands” of information out there that you do not even know about) and centralize all of that information into your AMS system. With that accomplished any form of member profile report or 360 degree report of your members will be much more complete. 

I recently worked with a client to answer just that. The first step in the process was to break down all elements and activities a member could be involved in within the association. No matter how small it was, it was still member value. Some obvious ones were:

• Are they a current member?
• Did they attend the annual meeting?
• Are they on a committee?
• Did they contribute to the PAC?
• Are they a volunteer?
• Did they purchase any products?
• Are they providing content on the website?
• Did they speak at an association event or conference?

That was the easy part.  We had our focus. Now came the challenge … where are the data elements residing and how do we weigh each of them?

A good amount of the member value elements and activities SHOULD be in your database. I would be stunned if 100% of it was. But the data exists somewhere. Someone has a list or an Excel spreadsheet with that information. This is critical because those data elements need to be centralized it into your AMS system. I don’t care how you do it (keying it in by hand or doing an import – i.e. most AMS systems provide easy data import tools) but all of the information needs to reside in one database.

Now that we have all of our data in one spot (which will be an ongoing challenge for any organization – as new elements and activities come along – they need to be centralized into the AMS system as well), we can now work on the point or weight system. This was the hardest part to complete. We worked with the association staff to come up with a point system. Each element could be quantified by their numeric point value.

• You are on a committee = 10 points
• You attended the committee meeting = 3 points
• You attended the annual meeting = 5 points
• You attended an education seminar = 2 points
• You purchased a product = 1 point per quantity
• You were a speaker at our event = 15 points

Why was this so hard? Everyone could easily pick out member value elements to track. Everyone could easily see the value (no pun intended) in centralizing it into the AMS system. However, assigning the point value all of a sudden became very personal. Why do you think my member value element is worth fewer points than yours? Everyone started to take it personally if their elements got lower values. It may take some time but you should be able to eventually NEGOTIATE all elements into an agreed upon value.

In the end the organization was able to produce a new insight into every constituent. They were now able to clearly see WHO WAS THE MOST VALUABLE MEMBERS. And in some cases it was not the members that they had previously ASSUMED.

NOTE: Please keep in mind that this is a work in progress type of evaluation. You may need to tweak or adjust your point system because it might off, it could change as the importance of the activity changes or the activities themselves could change. You may need to add in additional elements or participation. This is an effort that grows and matures with your organization and needs constant reevaluation to ensure that you are fairly assessing your members.

SAANYS is a member driven organization, and they have come to rely heavily on iMIS.  To stay at the top of their game, and to continue to lead the way with cutting edge technology that would help them serve their members better, SAANYS partnered with NimbleUser to upgrade from iMIS 4.4 to i15, which would be a huge jump not only in the technical sense, but would also require some time to familiarize staff with new features and business processes. As a part of the project, NimbleUser needed to not only upgrade iMIS, but also install and configure SQL Express on a new server, which in turn lead to a transition of data from one database to another.  Automations and Special Pricing forumlas needed to be updated, and SAANYS needed to be educated on the differences between 4.4 and 15, as well as ODBC configuration changes.  Both Jeff Golembiweski and Adam Carey spent a lot of time in Latham with the SAANYS crew during the Training, Implementation and Post Implementation phases. 

Moving to a new system is never an easy transition, especially when moving from versions that were released 10 years apart!  Through it all, SAANYS was a great partner, always keeping members in mind and working with NimbleUser to create the best possible configuration for management.  We are pleased with the results and are pleased to report that SAANYS is too!  We wish SAANYS a congratulations on the successful launch of i15, and are looking forward to working with them in the future.

Since 1920, The National Federation of State High School Associations has led the development of education based interscholastic sports and activities that help students succeed in their lives. NFHS strives to set directions for the future by building awareness and support, improving the participation experience, establishing consistent standards and rules for competition, and helping those who oversee high school sports and activities.

NFHS came to NimbleUser in the hopes of updating their website in such a way that content would be easier to manage, the design would be more user friendly, and most importantly, the information that their members needed was up front and center in a manner that was efficient, made sense, and was easily searchable.  An implementation of Ektron (along with a new website design) did just that, and with the additional of new "portals" based on area of interest, the collateral, News, and Events are easily located and referenced.

NFHS made heavy use of Ektron's Taxonomy feature, which helps them organize content from the inside out.  Behind the scenes, their Web Admins have the ability to tag content to specific categories, allowing for easy location and organization of content.  To the public and the NFHS member base, this means that the lists of events, resources, news, and Rule Changes are shown on the proper pages, with no question if they have missed an important news article or Rule Change that would affect the way they play the game.

NFHS also chose to implement the Group Application, a Social Networking application that allows members to collaborate with members that share similar interests.  With the Group Application, NFHS can provide group members with exclusive, secured content; as well as share calendars, discussion forums, and News postings (blogs).

For more information on NFHS, check out their website.

CMBA first approached NimbleUser to implement Ektron Content Management System to allow for non-technical staff members to more easily make updates and changes to their website than their previous site would allow for. They needed the ability to add and edit content, images, links and news pages without having to rely on a technical resource. They also wanted the ability to present the same piece of content in multiple places. Using the iMIS Provider (developed by NimbleUser), we integrated their current iMIS database with Ektron to provide CMBA's web users with a single login process and to also allow CMBA to restrict content by member type.

CMBA has been a long time iMIS user, since 1993.  Since the early 90s, iMIS has added new features and functionality. Through iMIS version upgrades, CMBA has been able to take advantage of these new components. During this project CMBA also upgraded from iMIS version 10.4 to 15.1 (moving from eSeries to Public Views). This upgrade provides the association with the latest version of iMIS as well as easy to use product-based ecommerce to compliment their new website.

The most exciting part of the implementation was the approach in which this project was done. We engaged the client in an onsite agile development session to launch the beta version and also to handle the content conversion. This approach shortens the project cycle and increases quality by allowing for direct communication between client decision makers and developers. Several phases of a project are overlapped so that the project may be completed at a much faster rate instead of the traditional waterfall project management apprahc. Matt Rist, Senior Project Manager for NimbleUser stated, "Taking an Agile approach to our project with CMBA was overall a very positive experience.  It allowed us to focus together at key points of the project that traditionally would take longer to get through.  Our on-site visits were very productive and helped to build a unified team that could process through issues quickly. We are finding that this approach is very positive and fun!" Samantha Pringle, Director off CLE & Sections for CMBA also enjoyed the approach and her experience with NimbleUser. She commented, “The team at NimbleUser provided excellent guidance and expertise throughout all facets of our project.  From iMIS upgrades to Public Views and Ektron implementation, the team was with us every step of the way.  The intensive on-site visits allowed our staff to quickly make decisions and troubleshoot issues, which resulted in a successful launch in a relatively short time frame.   The support from NimbleUser made this process much easier than our previous site launch, and we are very pleased with the continued support."

Be sure to check out the new website: http://www.clemetrobar.org/

TEDMag (short for TED Magazine), is the goto magazine for all of the Electrical Distributors in the world…independent, or corporate owned.  Together with NimbleUser, Jodi O’Toole and the fine folks at NAED worked tirelessly to give TEDMag the facelift it deserved, ending up with a clean, easy to navigate design that puts the information you need front and center.  A new calendar gives you information on upcoming events, while the News and Blogs provide the public with up to the minute information on the electrical distributors industry.  We worked with NAED earlier this year with the release of the TEDGreenRoom site, and we are pleased to say that this project was just as successful.

The Society of Quality Assurance  also celebrated the launch of their Ektron site this week.  SQA is based out of Charlottesville, VA and Adam and I had the pleasure of visiting the team there (Custom Management Group, lead by Allison and Marilla) early in the project to train them on Ektron and Public Views, as their new site integrates both seamlessly.  Their main focus was to improve workflow, reduce the effort involved with maintaining the site, and increase the benefits to their member base.  We helped them do just that with the power of Ektron Content Management working behind the scenes to help them manage certifications, a Bibliography Q&A database, a MyMembership page (pulling in the PV modules), and the Group Application, a social networking platform built to bring the SQA members closer together in groups focused on their specific needs and interests.  Check out the site when you have a chance!

-Ron,
coCEO NimbleUser

*To see photos of the ASAE Conference please visit our Facebook page and check out our ASAE Photo Album. Become a fan of NimbleUser while you are there!

I did not get much sleep last night.  At 9:30 I received an email from Salesforce.com that our application, NU members was selected as a finalist for the Salesforce Top 40 Innovation showcase.  Over the past several months we have been preparing to compete in this rigorous competition against multitudes of other applications that have been developed.  Two weeks ago Ron Wille - CoCEO, and Tom Patros - Evangalest went to Salesforce headquarters to demonstrate our application along with many other contenders.

The experience in itself was great, getting to see many other Salesforce applications in person, and meet some of the leaders at Salesforce, but that does not compare to the sweet taste of victory!  Being selected as one of the top 40 gives NU Members a pedigree that few Salesforce applications can claim.  As we move forward with product development, our goal is to continue to strengthen our position with Salesforce, as well as improve the offering for our customers.

When asked why we think we got into the showcase, our answer is that this application was built to tackle the specific needs of Associations and Nonprofits.  Concerted effort was made to map Association business processes into the application in a technically feasible and innovative way without losing our focus - ease of use.  Our goal was and will be to continue to evolve NU Members keeping these core values in mind.  We have some very exciting features on our backlog that we will be blogging about in the near future.

Needless to say, we are very excited here at NimbleUser.  Being selected for this honor is a statement to us that we are heading in the right direction, that this product is innovative, and has great potential.  It also proves to us that our efforts to be nimble as a company are enabling us to perform at new levels of excellence.

Have a great day everyone!

Garry

Garry Polmateer
Business Analyst
Certified Salesforce Administrator
Follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/DarthGarry 

Despite the varying opinions over the name change, it is what's behind the name that is of most importance. The name is simply a vehicle in which to better communicate our unwavering commitment to the end user. So often in our industry the message is focused on the company itself, not the end users. It is also clear to us more than ever that it is not enough to choose the right technology as that is just half of the equation. The other half of the equation is looking at your people, processes, goals & objectives and making sure that your staff can actually USE the technology you have just invested in. Customer satisfaction has always been a core value with our company and we realize that customer satisfaction is dependent on how well the user can actually apply the technology to their everyday job. We focus on making people work more efficiently, effectively and to ultimately be more nimble. Still getting used to the new name? The name didn't exactly roll off of our tongues either at first....in fact, the blooper reel of our Name Change Announcement Video is proof of that. However, we are quickly adopting a whole new language of nimble:

• Nimblize: To make more nimble.
• Nimblemania: A frenzy of productivity.
• The Nimbler: The name we gave to the dots on our logo (yes, if you haven't noticed it was made to look like a person)

Whatever you choose to call it, people are trying to work smarter, faster and better to get more things done. We are dedicated to helping and supporting our customers so that they can be more nimble at whatever they are trying to do. What do you wish you were more nimble at?

After years of winning awards for our ability to implement and support technology projects as VanDamme Associates, we decided to rename our company to NimbleUser. We initially received some strange looks from people far and wide, including a few people on our staff; however, it became clear we were on to something the more we talked about it with our customers.

Lets face it, most organizations do not buy technology for technology sake. It is a tool used to make staff faster, better or tasks simpler. We also know that great technology is, well, not so great if people have not been trained to use it. So in the end, organizations just want their staff, the users, to be able to use technology in order for them to be more nimble. This is where NimbleUser was born.

Specifically, we decided to change for....

• Our customers....For years we have focused on the customer and we have done a great job to date. The new name brings a renewed focus in our mission to service them but with a more specific goal in mind....making sure you can use the solutions we implement for you.
  
• Our company focus on the customer...We are building our company around helping you be nimble. Our new name will help to drive strategic as well as tactical decisions around this goal.
  
• Our growth... We are looking to get beyond who we are today. We want to help all organizations to be more nimble. We were looking for a name the represents who we wanted to be when we grow up. This gives us something to aspire to be.

We believe that our new name, NimbleUser, will help us to be seen as something new and different in the marketplace. We believe the name NimbleUser helps to communicate our goal of ensuring your projects are successful by focusing on your staff, our users.

Thanks for coming along for the ride. Please be sure to watch the final episode of our Diary of a Rename here.

We are and will continue to be dedicated to helping you pick, implement and use technology to help your organization be more Nimble. Let us know what you think and welcome to NimbleUser.

Ron
coCEO

NimbleUser worked closely with the NAFSA's Project Manager, Gordon Withers (along with Eric White and Jordan Wait) to create a site that maintained the style that members were used to, but with new and improved functionalities.  Additionally, the NAFSA staff was very easy to get along with, and provided NU with many laughs along the way to lighten the mood of even the most stressful points of the project. 

The new site features new templates to display information appropriately, Ektron CMS400.NET for an upgradeable, manageable CMS; improved workflow, and updated Social Networking capabilities thanks to the NimbleUser Group Application.  You can check out the site by visiting NAFSA.org!

Family First had a few goals for the new site that were achieved with the new Ektron site and a partnership with NimbleUser:

• Online Banking Login Integration
• Updated Design
• Improved Navigation
• Expanded Educational areas
• Low Maintaenance, easily upgradable

Family First is very excited about the new website noting that response has been overwhelmingly positive, with the most consistent comment recieved is that the site is "very clean and easy to navigate"...a Family First wish fufilled!  We here at NimbleUser would like to take a moment to thank the entire FamilyFirst staff for their hard work and dedication to making the website so sucessful.  Take a moment to check out their new website by visiting https://home.familyfirstny.com/. 

Why change a good thing? It's true--many people (both inside and outside of the company) have come to love our name just as it is. For many, NimbleUser has carried a strong reputation of customer support and run by both Sig and Dawn VanDamme. The reason behind the name change is that in many ways our company has changed, and thus we need a name that reflects that. Over the last year or so our product and service offerings have expanded--we have successfully expanded to include Salesforce.com and Google Apps. We have recognized that technology is definitely trending toward cloud computing and that these disruptive technologies are changing the way people work and manage their information. To learn more about NimbleUser's Strategy around these technologies, read this Q&A blog written by our coCEO, Ron Wille.

What will not change with our company is our committment to excellent customer service. Throughout our organization from the way we direct your call all the way through to our Support Services we believe that excellent customer service is the most important aspect of what we do. Therefore, our customers will continue to receive the same level of service they have come to expect with NimbleUser--that will not change.

Another thing that won't change? Our committment to the iMIS community. We are still an Authorized iMIS Solution Provider, partnering with Advanced Solutions International. Although we have expanded our product and service offerings, the level of solution is most often determined by the size and unique needs of your organization.

Rumors Squashed--Just in case there is any buzz and to set the record straight---the leadership team will remain intact just as they are. The NimbleUsers are not going away. Dawn VanDamme, coCEO continues to lead the company with fellow coCEO, Ron Wille. Sig VanDamme continues to head our Customer Support Team & is constantly monitoring the market for new technologies that offer clear benefits to our customers.

This won't change overnight! Even though our name will be changing on August 3rd you will likely still see our new name and our old name cobranded for sometime so that people will become familiar with NimbleUser's new name over time. To be honest, this entire process of renaming the company is such an interesting journey that we couldn't keep it to ourselves. We decided to document the process of renaming the company--everything from communicating our company's direction down to the different feelings our staff members have about the name change (Sig included!). Stay tuned to watch Sig VanDamme, Founder discuss all of these changes in a series of short videos from now until August 3rd. Oh and we can't reveal the name just yet--where's the fun in that?

Check out his first video in the series: http://www.youtube.com/NimbleUserAssociates

Julie and I rockin' the VA booth!

I attended a session titled “Association Beliefs, Behaviors, and Attitudes in Response to the Current Economy”.  The first third of the session consisted of statistics from several ASAE studies.  The second third analyzed the results a bit.  The most surprising statistics that I saw was the disparity between what association professionals believe to be true and what their members believe to be true.  The last third focused on some best practices around how to avoid such disparities in beliefs between Association staff and the membership, particularly around communication strategies and leveraging social networking to have a better handle on the pulse of the organization.

The buzz on the show floor from people that I had conversations with focused around a few themes:  Lowering the cost of doing business and maintaining or increasing the level of service to their members at the same time.  Also, people are becoming fatigued with how cumbersome many IT solutions are.

Historically, it would have been A or B, and it would have lead to some tough conversations.  Luckily with some of our new offerings, notably our native Salesforce.com AMS and Google Apps as a replacement for MS Exchange, we were able to communicate that awesome IT does not have to cost an arm and a leg anymore.  Now we can deliver A and B.  By leveraging the power of pre-built cloud applications we are able to deliver a robust product for a fraction of the cost of traditional premise based solutions. As for the second issue, moving to the cloud reduces all the overhead associated with traditional solutions, and Salesforce offers an unprecendented level of flexibility and ease of UI customization to give users the "Just Right" experience they've been looking for.

As the show started to wind down, Julie and I perused the floor a little bit.  Between the popcorn, root beer, and sweets galore, we were experiencing a full blown sugar rush!  I happened to stumble upon a money machine and could not resist the urge to say...… SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Anyways I snagged $112 in make believe dollar bills in 30 seconds!  It was a blast (literally… lol), and I won a shoe polisher.  Thanks to Cristina at Lake Placid Crown Plaza for humoring me!

All in all, it was an excellent show!  It mixed in all the right elements – Great people, great food, and lots of fun to make for an exciting as well as productive day! 

Garry Polmateer
Business Analyst
Certified Salesforce Administrator
NimbleUser
656 Kreag Road
Pittsford, NY 14534
518.432.6272
Follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/DarthGarry

• We are implementing the NonProfit Edition of Salesforce.com which is focused on the Fundraising needs of Nonprofits. We are currently working with the Susan B Anthony House and are in the process of helping the Epilepsy Foundation of Rochester, Syracuse and Binghamton. 
  
• We are going to implement Salesforce.com into nonprofits to compliment their existing systems. As an example, we are integrating it with an AMS (in this case iMIS) for a customer who has a need to do true case management.  We believe we are a good fit for associations that do true sales.  As an example, an association selling advertisements, or memberships or sponsorships via a sales force. We learned that the right tool for the job is always the way to go.  Integration is easy enough to do.
   
•  Probably the biggest news from us is that Salesforce.com has an application as a service platform called force.com.  We have taken this platform and created our own AMS on it.  We have been working on it for some time and we are launching this at the Annual ASAE Conference in August.  We just won an award from an organization because of what it has been able to do for them.  We are looking to position this product in places that are not a good fit for iMIS.

So then where does Google fit into this? 
 
As part of our growth strategy we wanted to focus on technologies that we believe are transforming the industry. We believe that Google fits this bill.  Google Enterprise offers mail, calendaring, documents, collaboration, applications and more. 
 
We have moved several clients out of Exchange and have saved them thousands of dollars a year and in some cases, allowed them to realize an immediate ROI.  One organization will save over 60% of their email costs annually if they do  choose to switch to Google. Google Apps Premier Enterprise starts at $ 50 / User / YEAR.  It includes Gmail (25 GB per inbox user), Gtalk, Calendaring, Docs, Sites and Video.  Plus 24/7 support, 99.9 % uptime SLA, SAS70Type II certification and Integration API's.

Some people don't realize that over 1 Million organizations are using Google Apps for mail and collaboration and that over 3,000 organizations a DAY are moving to Google. So who are these organizations?  To note just a few you may know: Fidelity, Merrill Lynch, Hormel, Business Objects, L'OREAL, Valeo, Heinz, Salesforce.com, Clemson University, Jenny Craig and NimbleUser are all run on Google.   We want to be the go to organization in the Nonprofit community helping them to realize not only this great technology but also the savings it offers. 

So as you can see, we have moved beyond just iMIS but we are not leaving iMIS. We are looking to grow each of these offerings to be as successful as we have been and hope to continue to be with iMIS. As a matter of fact, Google would be a great solution for all of our iMIS clients and I can think of several iMIS clients who could benefit from either a case management solution or a sales force automation tool completely integrated with iMIS.  ;) 

Thanks for the question and please let us know if you would like to talk more about any of this and how you might be able to benefit from them.
 
Thanks,
Ron
coCEO

"On behalf of NimbleUser I would like to thank the Ad Council for this award.  It means so much to us to be recognized along with the distinguished group of recipients here today.  While they could not be here, I would like to thank the two people responsible for the Ad Council’s project, Donna Whitig and Garry Polmateer. They are great employees and we are honored to be able to work with them everyday. 
 
NimbleUser works with nonprofits across the US with the goal of bringing them technology that they can use. From web development to constituent databases to entire enterprise applications, our goal is to help nonprofits to do more.  We realize the impact nonprofits have around the World and are humbled by their dedication, determination and ingenuity.  We believe that technology is just an enabling tool and that if deployed well, can help nonprofits to be more nimble. 
 
We are honored to receive this recognition and are happy to be assisting the Ad Council in achieving its mission of helping nonprofits to be heard.  It is great to work with a local nonprofit whose impact on the community is immeasurable.  Thanks for the award and know that in it your thank you is appreciated and has been heard." 

OK, so I don't really get a redo but I thought that taking the time to put into words my gratitude for such a wonderful Rochester organization was only fitting.  It has been great to be able to work with such wonderful people doing such wonderful work and the pleasure has been all ours.  I think we should be giving you an award. 

IIBA® is the creator of the Business Analysis Body of Knowledge®(BABOK®), which documents the generally accepted practices in thisprofession, as well as the Certified Business Analysis Professional™(CBAP®) designation, which recognizes individuals who have demonstrated expertise in this field. Moreover, the IIBA helps business analysts develop their skills and further their careers by endorsing education providers and hosting local chapter events.

As part of the organization's skill development process, Ted delivered a presentation at the May meeting entitled “Agile Analysis with Use Cases: Balancing Simplicity with Utility". The slides from the presentation are available through SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/rochesterny.theiiba.org/agile-use-cases-balancing-utility-with-simplicity.

Ted is also an emeritus member of the Apache Struts project, was co-founder of the Apache (Jakarta) Commons, and currently serves on the Public Relations Committee of the Apache Software Foundation. His books include JUnit in Action, Struts in Action, and Professional JSP Site Design. Ted has consulted with teams throughout the United States, including CitiGroup, Nationwide Insurance, and Pepsi Bottling Group. In September 2009, Ted will be speaking at the Ajax Experience in Boston MA.

This is a GREAT opportunity for NimbleUser to be able to assist in supporting ASAE's strategic plan as well as sharing our knowledge with this often overlooked group within our community.  I know that Ron is excited and looking forward to getting started!

Be sure to stop by our booth (#809) at the ASAE Annual Conference August 15th-18th in Toronto and congratulate Ron.

1 With the Earth - Salesforce.com  is on their way to becoming carbon neutral, and taking other initiatives to lower their environmental footprint.

1% Product:  CRM Donations – Qualifying organizations can receive 10 licenses of Salesforce Enterprise Edition free of charge, in perpetuity.

Several of our clients have qualified for the CRM donation.  It’s a fully functional version of Salesforce that comes complete with a Nonprofit template to facilitate fundraising and donation management.

So a few questions to ask yourself…

Is this something you could be interested in?  Free CRM?  Free CRM on the largest CRM platform on the planet?  Free CRM on the largest CRM platform on the planet, completely on the cloud?

If you’re interested, Salesforce.com has a simple 3 step process to get enrolled in the program, complete with a 30 day trial.  While Salesforce.com is an immensely powerful program, many nonprofits still need a little help getting off the ground.  That's where you can leverage NimbleUser’s vast nonprofit experience, to assist in the configuration, data conversion, trainining, and IT planning for the future of your organization. 

We’re very excited about this program and see a lot of potential for nonprofits to get cutting edge CRM software with a very low initial investment, and lots of room for growth in the future, both as the Salesforce.com capabilities grow, and as your imagination for what you want to do with it grows.

To get started, visit http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/donation for all the details.

Garry
Follow me on Twitter! @DarthGarry

NimbleUser was recognized by the Ad Council for the 2009 Chairman's Award for overhauling their IT Infrastructure by implementing Google Apps for their email, messaging and collaboration solution in addition to configuring Salesforce.com CRM with with the ability to manage partners, volunteers, donors, events, products and donations just to name a few. The Keynote Address was provided by Jeff Hayzlett, Chief Marketing Officer for Eastman Kodak who addressed the room with great energy and charisma around the topic of social media tools.

Google stated in their newletter, "NGOs will tell you that they need good maps to help develop many of these regions but, traditionally, great maps are only created once a place is already developed. This is why Map Maker was born."

While Google is busy mapping the world, don't forget they offer other great services to non-profits, including Google Apps--a collection of email, messaging and collaboration tools that NimbleUser has found to be a great way to gain collaboration features, increase staff efficiency & save money on your overall IT budget. We use it here at NimbleUser and we've helped a number of organizations, nonprofits and associations implement the solution so that they may seamlesslessy switch from hosted solutions to a new way of working, collaborating and getting more done.

This year’s conference focused on celebrating ASI’s record year in 2008, previewing the upcoming iMIS 15.1 release, and recognizing outstanding ASI partners. The Conference was divided into three tracks – sales, product, and technical – which allowed for different perspectives on the benefits of upgrading to iMIS 15 and the flexibility of the upcoming iMIS 15.1 release. iCreate, a new suite of tools available in iMIS 15.1 for tailoring and extending iMIS, was announced and highlighted in various sessions.

ASI recognized several partners for outstanding achievement in 2008 and is pleased to announce that NimbleUser has been presented with the 2008 Customer Satisfaction Award, recognizing outstanding customer service as measured by an annual customer survey. Sig VanDamme, Founder of NimbleUser was present at the conference and accepted the award and stated, "Customer Service is what NimbleUser is built on.  From day one we set out to build a company that constantly and consistently exceeded the customer's expectations; everything else is secondary."

Above,From Left: Bob Alves, Chairman and CEO,ASI, Sigmund VanDamme, Founder of NimbleUser and  Don Robertson, President & Chief Technology Officer, ASI

About ASI
Advanced Solutions International (ASI) is the largest, privately-owned global provider of web-based software for member and donor-based non-profits and has served nearly 3000 customers and millions of users worldwide since 1991. ASI is the developer of iMIS, an upgradeable software solution for managing associations, membership, nonprofits, and fundraising. iMIS 15, the latest evolution of iMIS, leverages Microsoft's .NET development platform to provide a flexible and open web-based solution.

• “All the Apps without the install”
• “Follows me wherever I go”
• “It’s always on”

I agree with all of these! Google Apps are very convenient and definitely allow for better collaboration in an organization.  If I am working on a document at home, I can pick up right where I left off when I come into the office the next day, without having to save anything to a drive or constantly email the document back and forth to myself and colleagues.  This saves a significant amount of time, especially when in a rush!

What are some of the reasons why you love Google Apps?? 

If you would like to learn more about Google Apps and how it can help your organization, please give us a call at 585-586-4750 or email info@NimbleUser.com .

For all of you that will not make it to the conference this year,  unfortunately you will not have a chance to win the technology assessment but the good news is there are a number of ways for you to follow the conference at home and get live updates from wherever you are:

• Twitter: 09NTC 
• Flickr: You can find photos tagged to 09NTC Flickr
• Podcasts: You can find them in iTunes 

Some of the sessions will be offered as webinars and others you can hear via live-streaming.  For more information, please visit http://nten.org/ntc-live 

If you were unable to attend this years expo and/or would be interested in learning more about MSAE and future events, you can follow them on twitter at maryland_sae, Facebook and LinkedIn. 

NimbleUser worked closely with the City of Rochester's Project Managers, Ted Capuano and Lisa Bobo to create a site that offered an information architecture that put the user in the driver seat. In the past, information was kept in various silos based on the department that would oversea that particular city function. However, as Mayor Robert J. Duffy stated, "We have made it easier for citizens to access City services and information by redesigning the web site around the customers we serve." The Technology Department at the COR will no longer oversee the city's website, since Ektron will allow users within the Communications Bureau to oversee the content as a whole. The COR then appointed a Web Coordinator within each department to be responsible for uploading and adding content with the end goal being to make the site as dynamic, up to date and relevant as possible. These Web Coordinators were also instrumental in converting & auditing the content during the content conversion portion of the project. Dawn VanDamme, coCEO at NimbleUser remarked, "The COR was a true partner and were invested in the success of the project and spent tireless hours making sure all of the content was converted in a well throught out manner." Not only did the COR contribute to the project, but they also changed some of their processes to ensure future success with the site well beyond the initial launch.

Some of the highlights of the site include:

This website is part of a larger initiative known as "One-City" which helps to unify many of the city's disparate departments and information. Prior to the redesign, the city cited at least 30 different city-affiliated web sites. Tom Patros, Project Manager for NimbleUser stated, "This project included our most intensive information architecture (IA) effort to-date. A large amount of content, a focus on categorization and cross-referencing, and the requirement to make The City's departments appear transparent to the end user all emphasize how critical it is to have a thorough and rigorous approach to IA. Through detailed wireframes and process flows, an exhaustive content inventory, and (most importantly) a highly-motivated and flexible project team, an IA approach was developed that laid the foundation for successful content management practices for The City and a rewarding user experience for users of the site."

NimbleUser would like to thank the entire City of Rochester Web Site Revitalization team including Enterprise Systems Manager, Lisa Bobo and Ted Capuano, Assistant to the Director of Communications. For those who are reading this and are located in the Rochester area, stay tuned for a media campaign surrounding the new site and promoting the site's easy search capabilities to find the information people need--"1 click away from it all."

Check out the new site: http://www.cityofrochester.gov/index.aspx?id=96

In the News:

http://www.13wham.com/news/local/story/New-City-of-Rochester-Website-Launched/MHDtyOaIHE6-q_sEqmh8PQ.cspx

http://rbj.net/fullarticle.cfm?sdid=78032

Below are pictures from the press conference that NimbleUser attended at City Hall just a few hours ago for the unveiling of the new site:

Above: NimbleUser employees chat with David Mayor CIO for COR, and Lisa Bobo, Project Manager for COR

Above: From left: Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy, VA Employees: Dawn VanDamme, coCEO, Sig VanDamme, Founder, Matt Rist, Senior Project Manager, Tom Patros, Project Manager & Web Developer, Julie Tracz, Account Executive and Elizabeth Pratt, Marketing Coordinator.

Above: City of Rochester Project Team

Above: Mayor Duffy answering questions about the new site after the Press Conference

Above: The newly redesigned site offers a clutter-free portal approach to serving Rochester citizens. The COR also  increased their usage of images to really tell their story.

Above: The old website was cluttered and many of the City departments competed for space on the home page. The site's new search capabilities provide all departments with visibility and better relevancy to site visitors.

I had become familiar with their mission and was really excited to become more involved in collecting items for their immediate needs. Earlier this year I spoke with Portia Chiarella, the Volunteer Coordinator at Sojourner House, about making them the recipient of my annual Blanket and Toiletry Drive, to which  she happily accepted.  Sojourner House serves over 500 women and children each year, many of whom rely on SJH to provide these essential items.

Despite the poor economy and the outpouring of support for my first drive in January, I received responses like you wouldn't believe!  Bags of clothes and toiletries came pouring in; the front entry of my house was actually filled to the brim- twice! Each round brought over 30 bags of clothes, boxes of household items and toiletries.  My friend Amanda, who happens to be the Business Manager at Sojourner House, stopped over twice for pickups and even had to store some of the donations at her home while their receiving room at the House was being organized from the first donation drop.

My heartfelt thanks extend to everyone who donated this year, with contributions of all types!  What might seem to be just a simple thing to you, makes a marked difference in the lives of the women and children who reside at Sojourner House, and I truly appreciate your support!  An extra special thanks goes out to my co-workers at NimbleUser who always support my efforts no matter what the cause, and the employees of Dixon-Schwabl, who donated 30+ bags of clothing alone!

Interested in helping out at the Sojourner House? Contact Portia Chiarella, Volunteer Coordinator, at (585) 436-7100, Ext. 117.

Looking for more information about their organization? Visit www.sojournerhouse.org. 

Turns out that his executive director had her laptop stolen!  It also turns out that her Outlook client was configured to download email from exchange and not leave a copy on the server.  It also turns out that while looking at the server, the exchange database was not included in the backup set!

Needless to say, the email is gone. Utterly. Irrevocably. Gone.  Depending on your job function, this could be a crippling blow to your ability to do your job.  Email, contacts, history of correspondence, vanished in a second!  Apparently her email consumed much of the capacity of the Exchange server, so it was reconfigured to live on the laptop.

This whole situation also brings something to mind.  Google Mail is a great way to protect your organization from things like this ever happening again.  You do not need to worry about storage space and capacity, everything is stored “In the Cloud”, and backed up redundant to the Nth degree.  Since the data is not stored locally, there is no need to worry about what happens to any piece of equipment at your facility.  You also do not need to worry about the levels of administration required to keep an Exchange box up and running.  Care and feeding the server, policing disk usage, installing client software, staff turnover, security, remote access.... all taken care of by the cloud!

There are a few lessons to be learned here, Daniel-San…. (Using a Mr. Miyagi like voice)

Lesson Number One – Don’t store any critical data on client workstations… ever!  It should always be stored on the server so it is included in the backup.

Lesson Number Two – Review your backup set regularly to make sure you’re backing up all the important stuff.  Things change, people move stuff around.  Make sure your backup set is current.  Run test restores regularly to make sure that you can pull it back if needed.

Lesson Number Three – Go a step further and look at your disaster recovery plan.  It is best practice to audit you DRP annually at the least.  Run some scenarios, i.e. a laptop is stolen, your server crashes, your building burns down.  Is your organization prepared to recover from this and resume normal operations in a timely manner?  Is that data that you just can’t live without properly safeguarded?  Could moving some of your operations to the cloud mitigate some vulnerabilities?

As the cloud continues to mature, it never ceases to amaze me on the breadth of IT problems it overcomes.  Sure, it is saving you money, sure you can now access your applications from anywhere, sure, it makes disaster recovery planning that much easier, sure it integrates well with many other applications… Woah! Just killed 4 birds with one stone.  Sounds like win/win/win/win for all.

Garry

Advanced Solutions International, Inc. (ASI), the developers of iMIS, have updated the iMIS product to use the Payflow Pro V4 interface.  To help transition iMIS users, this update is available in 10.6, 15.0.1 and 15.0.3.  Also,  please note that NimbleUser, the developers of VanGo, have updated the VanGo product to use the Payflow Pro V4 interface.

If your organization will be affected by this change, you should contact your iMIS reseller/solution provider as soon as possible to discuss how to proceed.  September will be here before you know it! (and many others will be facing this same issue)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., (March 2, 2009) — Advanced Solutions International (ASI), the largest, privately-owned global provider of web-based software for member and donor-based non-profits, today announced results for the past 12 months ending December 31, 2008. The company reached the following milestones:

• ASI achieved record revenue in 2008 with a 22% increase in new customer software license revenue. ASI's international operations in Canada, Europe and Australia also collectively achieved record revenue this year.
• ASI acquired U.K. charity and fundraising software company, Fisk Brett, creating the largest, privately-owned global provider of web-based software for member and donor-based non-profits and the UK's no. 1 specialist software provider for the not-for-profit sector. The combined company has served nearly 3,000 customers and has nearly 200 employees in seven offices worldwide.
• ASI was rated #1 for customer satisfaction by an independent survey. ASI was ranked first for meeting customer expectations in time to implement, cost to implement, ease of implementation, and postimplementation performance in an independent survey, by Lehman Associates, of associations with more than $2 million in revenue. The survey also confirmed ASI's leadership position in the association market, with a nearly 40% market share.
• ASI announced the availability of Social Networking for iMIS, a fully-integrated online community platform with Blogs, Shared Libraries, Profiles, Forums, Tagging and Tag clouds, Groups, and Listservs. In 2008, ASI also launched iMIS Friendraising, a peer-to-peer marketing tool; iDashboards for iMIS, a visual role-based reporting tool; and iMIS TaskCentre, a workflow automation tool.
• ASI received three major industry awards for support and performance. Service Strategies Corporation (SSC) recognized ASI with a certification in Service Capability and Performance (SCP) support standards for the sixth year in a row, as well as professional service standards for the second consecutive year. ASI was also honored with the Software Testing Best Practice Award from the International Institute of Software Testing (IIST).
• ASI met PCI-DSS self-assessment validation level five for iMIS. ASI conducted the self-assessment process of review and implementation of policies, procedures and technologies to meet the 2009 Payment Card Institute Data Security Standards (PCI-DSS) Compliance requirements. Level five is the highest level, and applies both to iMIS and to ASI hosting services.

“Despite the economic downturn, we had a strong year in 2008 which we attribute to our commitment to ‘keep our customers for life’. By setting realistic expectations and then delivering on them, we continue to improve the quality and strength of our customer relationships. This approach was validated by the Lehman Associates independent survey findings which rated us #1 for customer satisfaction,” said Bob Alves, Chairman and CEO of ASI.

About ASI
Advanced Solutions International (ASI) is the largest, privately-owned global provider of web-based software for member and donor-based non-profits and has served nearly 3000 customers and millions of users worldwide since 1991. ASI is the developer of iMIS, an upgradeable software solution for managing associations, membership, nonprofits, and fundraising. iMIS 15, the latest evolution of iMIS, leverages Microsoft's .NET development platform to provide a flexible and open web-based solution.

• Issue #2606: Resolved UDF Tree Control Expiring Problem
  A new Tree Control was created to replace the one used previously.  The previous version periodically threw "trial expired" errors and showed the incorrect details when editing, updating, or pressing up and down on any field.
  Who this affects: All VanGo users.
  
• Defect #2607: Unrecorded Paid_Thru and Bill_Begin with December dues payments
  This resolved an iBO bug that caused member sign ups in December to not record Paid_Thru and Bill_Begin when submitting a dues payment through VanGo. The result was an error that caused the payment not to be logged even though the user was charged. When a user submitted again, they were charged a second time, but iBO entered the data into iMIS with the wrong Paid_Thru.
  Who this affects: All VanGo users.

To schedule an update:

• Fill out the Customer Service Request Form on our website.  This request can then be flagged as "normal", "urgent", or "immediate response required" and is sent directly to our support staff.

• Call us at 585-586-4750 and asking to schedule your update of VanGo.

• Note: You must be current on your VanGo Software Update Fees in order to receive this update.
  

How Do I Know What Version of VanGo I Currently Have?

To determine which version of VanGo your website is currently operating on, please check the version.txt file located within the VanGo directory of your website. Examples would be: http://www.yourwebsite.com/version.txt or http://www.yourwebsite.com/vango/version.txt where "website.com" stands for your URL. (For instance, NimbleUser would go to www.NimbleUser.com/version.txt).

If the VanGo portion of your website resides in an alternate sub-directory please check in that directory for the file. (IE: http://www.yourwebsite.com/yourdirectory/version.txt).

Need information about previous VanGo versions?

All VanGo product information for versions 2.1 and up can be found at releases.NimbleUser.com; a release tracking tool that provides a current listing of all the updated features, enhancements and defect fixes pertaining to the VanGo product. 

To donate or learn more about Becca's capstone project, click here.

To learn about Becca's past trips, click here.

P.S. – Those of you that attended the conference will understand the meaning behind the picture and drawing below :)
  

Click here for the full article.

For those of you not familiar with the term, Chemotherapy refers to the treatment of cancer by chemical agents that stop or limit the growth of cancerous cells in the body.  It is a rigorous process that challenges patients both mentally and physically, and encouragement during this time has proven to enhance the quality of life for patients during and after treatment.

The ChemoAngels program relies almost entirely on the support of volunteers who commit to sending notes of encouragement, letters, or small gifts at least once a week.  The gifts, of course, are optional, and most volunteers opt to treat this as more of a letter writing program.  There are a few types of volunteers in the program (I am a card angel):

Traditional Chemo Angels

Card Angels

Support Angels

Senior Angels

Patients

Chemo Angels will also accept:

Why am I involved?  My family recently lost my cousin to Testicular Cancer at the young age of 28.  Having had this experience, I can attest to importance of support during this hard time, even when it is through the kindness of someone you have never even met.  My experiences have allowed me to reflect on my life and give back some of the compassion that my family and I received during such a difficult time.  This program has quickly become one of the most important things I do each week, and I am thankful for my friend Amanda who brought such a worthy cause to my attention!  It's nice to be able to sit down on a Sunday morning and find something positive and happy to share with my 'buddy'. 

If you are looking for a volunteer experience that will allow you to help cancer patients, I encourage you to visit the website and find out more!  

Happy Angeling!

 Guidestar, a company that provides data & information about the non-profit sector stated :

"Nonprofits whose exemptions are revoked will suddenly be required to pay federal income taxes—and subject to financial penalties if they fail to do so. Hundreds of thousands of charities, many operated on shoestrings, could find them themselves no longer eligible to accept tax-deductible contributions. Nonprofits that wish to have their exemptions reinstated will be required to re-apply to the IRS for tax-exempt status, a process that can take several months."

For more tax information for charities & other non-profits, visit: http://www.irs.gov/charities/index.html

On another note, the IRS warns of a refund scam  email being sent to Exempt organizations. The email states the organization qualifies for a refund in a specific amount and the prompts the user to click a link to fill out a form to receive the refund. The form requests personal information that could be used to access bank accounts or credit cards.

As with any phishing scheme, beware of messages that ask you to validate/confirm personal information online and direct you to a fake website.

Wishing you a happy and safe tax season!

For this session I was assigned to the Floor Hockey Skills area, working with adults ages 16-30.  Floor Hockey is one of the official sports of the Games, and is offered in the Winter so participants that live in warmer climates are able to participate in a sport normally held on an ice rink.  During this session, I assisted team members through a range of exercises that helped to hone their skills for a Floor Hockey tournament held later in the day. Each skill is scored and the total score helps to place the athlete on a team with athletes that perform on a similar level.  The skills included were:

• Shoot around goal: The player takes five shots from different positions near the goal. Points are scored for each successful goal attempt.
• Passing: The player has five attempts to pass the puck through a target.
• Stickhandling: The player is timed while they maneuver the puck from a start line to the goal, weaving in and around six cones. Players are penalized for missing cones.
• Accuracy: The player performs five shots on goal from a spot away from the goal. The player's score depends upon the area of the goal where the puck hits the net (more points for corner shots).
• Defense: The player has two attempts to steal the puck from two opponents who try to keep the puck away from the athlete being tested.

It is a humbling experience to volunteer at any Special Olympics event.  There is no trash talking and the participants have no enemies.  Successes and disappointments are shared, but the athletes never lose sight of what's really important...the friends and the families of those participating and supporting them.  I think I received more hugs and high-fives in the short time I was at the event than I have in my entire 30 years.  This is athleticism at it's finest, and these athletes are shining examples of what it means to be a team.

I would encourage anyone interested to find a local S.O. branch and see what fun opportunities they have for you, it is a life changing experience!  In the area and interested in supporting the local chapter?  Visit the Genesee Region website and see what's up next!

A longtime client of NimbleUser also offered some remarks about our company in the article: "I've run into a lot of companies that don't really understand what associations do even though they're trying to sell you their product," said Dan Stark, executive director of the American Public Gardens Association in Wilmington, Del. "But without fail, when I've had issues or questions, (NimbleUser has) understood it. They knew exactly what I was talking about and had solutions to those questions."

You can read the full article here:

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20090208/BUSINESS/902080314/1001

According to the AHA:

• Heart Disease is the #1 killer of women over the age of 20.
• A woman in western New York is 39% more likely to die of heart disease than the average woman in the United States.
• Only 25% of women even view heart disease as a health threat.

Many of these heart disease-related deaths could have been prevented by understanding and identifying risk factors and raising awareness among young women. The difficult thing is that women tend to experience different symptoms than men so it often goes undetected or is dismissed when it should not be ignored.

To learn more you can visit www.goredforwomen.org and consider donating $5 to the movement today.

Pictured: Ellen, Christi, Amy, Chanda, Vidie, Dom, Adam, Beth

Not pictured but wearing red today!: Ted Husted (He was in a meeting ;) )

I'd like to congratulate the 5 associations who received awards, they used some truly creative and effective processes to meet some difficult challenges, and also Joe Reilly for receiving the coveted "Distinguished Member of the Year".  Joe has been involved in the association community for 30 years and counting, and has played a role in the formation and growth of ESSAE.

On the IT front, many of the conversations I had with ESSAE members echoed what we heard at ASAE tech two weeks ago.  Cloud computing, social networking, and the economy putting a damper on IT spending.  People are trying to do more with less, and still meet rising expectations of members.  With the economy as it is, associations are challanged to step up and make their services a thing members cannot live without.

At the end of the night it was with regrets that we had to return home.  For any of you who are not familiar with ESSAE I would strongly suggest checking them out.  As a former association employee, I received great value in their educational offerings.  It was always affordable and somehow they managed to get top rate speakers... every time.

Ron and Rick Manning the Booth

The information shared during the educational sessions and forums was of great value.  Throughout the show, several trends emerged, but the overall resounding theme is that change is still happening fast and furious in the world of IT.  If anything, it is speeding up.  

Here are a few that seemed to surface over and over:

Cloud Computing – Your browser is the next big operating system.  Many associations are looking to the cloud to lower their total cost of ownership for their IT systems.  NimbleUser's new Google Apps and Email offering was created to fulfill this need.  It allows organizations to do away with the hidden costs of running an in house mail server.

Social Networking-  Many associations are still looking  to add social networking functionality but do not have clear expectations or goals around it.  In the first session they polled 150 association executives, and over half of them did not have any type of formal IT plan at all!  It seems that the term "Social Networking" is a very popular buzzword.  While Social Networking is an excellent tool, it can also be a major drag if it is not properly implemented, marketed, and maintained.  Social networks can be very fragile in the beginning and need extra TLC to get them out of infancy.  It is important to formulate a strategy from the beginning to ensure that your social network(s) get off to the proper start and communicate value from the get go. So often, people assume that when the switch is flipped and the social networking site is turned on that their work is complete, when really there is much more to it than that to ensure a successful launch.

The Economy – The tight economy is beginning to roll down to Associations' bottom lines.  We talked to many people who have had to curtail their IT spending or postpone that next big upgrade until a later date.  One thing to consider if you are in a similar position is reviewing your current IT systems.  Are you getting full utilization from your systems?  Instead of replacing your AMS, have you considered increasing user adoption by offering additional training or writing a few reports to smooth out the edges of your operations?  For a fraction of the cost of replacing your systems, consider assessing your technology to see if there are opportunities to get more value out of what you already own. We have seen a number of situations where a simple process fix achieves overall efficiencies for the organization.

Enjoyed some of the sights

While we had a great day during the day, the nights were just as action filled.  Between the myriad of meetings with clients and other association professionals, we managed to find a few great restaurants in the area for some much needed nutrition.  We also were all amused by the news media response to the 2 inches of snow that fell.  Being from upstate New York, it's a whole different story concerning snow.  Our adventure ended with some interesting flights home, but that's a blog post all to itself!

Overall it was an excellent event, and great to see the association community come together and discuss common problems.   While we found some groups tempered by the economic conditions, it appears that most groups are stepping up their offerings regardless.  After all, when times are tough, it's time to prove to the members that their dues are worth it.  Offering increased efficiency and services is one great way of doing that.

In their roles as Web Development Coops., Chanda and Mustafa are currently gaining experience and proficiency in web development platforms such as .NET and Ektron, while assisting our web development team on a number of projects.  When asked about her experience at NimbleUser thus far, Chanda said, “My experience has been great so far.  I have been able to work with new technologies, which was a challenge.  Here at NimbleUser, they really want us to become very involved with all of their projects.  This gives us an opportunity to make a real contribution on the web development team.”  Mustafa concurred and says he has learned a lot from his coop at NimbleUser as well.

Aside from school, Chanda enjoys reading novels and cooking; her specialties include Indian Cuisine and various cakes.  On the other hand, Mustafa likes sports and will be playing on the RIT soccer team next year.

We are excited to have Chanda and Mustafa onboard with us!

So...if you are looking for a great cause, donate (there is a link to donate on her Capstone Project Page) to this worthy project today.  This project will make a huge difference.

Garry Polmateer is a Business Analyst for NimbleUser and in this position he identifies the needs of our clients and develops requirements and documentation to meet those needs within the proper scope.  He has 5 ½ years experience in the nonprofit industry as an IT Manager and 4 years IT consulting experience.   Garry says that he always applies the skills of problem solving and writing that he learned while studying sculpture and art history at the College of Saint Rose where he received a Bachelor degree in Fine Arts to his current career. A few of Garry’s hobbies and interests include automobile restoration and playing drums at church.  He also loves Volkswagen cars. 

We are happy to have both Ryan and Garry onboard with us here at NimbleUser.

Being good citizens, and sharing a love of all things crafty (ok, you got me, my craftiness is limited to buying crafts at art shows and thinking to myself "I could totally make that!" (I absolutely could not)), Beth and I were generously given a half day off from work to go "get our wrap on" in support of this great charity.  We thought of making it into a 'Wrap and Rap' event , but since neither of us have proved to be destined for musical greatness, we thought it best to leave the vocal stylings to Becca and Vidie. 

In addition to wrapping presents for the throngs of people vying for our services, we were also able to save some customers time by directing them to items they were looking for.  No, this wasn't part of the job, but since I'm such a nerd and hang out in Barnes and Noble a lot, I knew where everything was.  Magnifying glasses?  Checkout the Gifts section by the registers!  The new James Patterson?  You are in luck sir! First editions are available at the promo table by the Fiction books!  I dont think I need to tell you how tired my arm was from pointing by the end of the day!  Beth, in addition to being an expert spackler, also strutted her stuff as an expert wrapper, and boy can she fold a corner and trim some edges like nobodys business!

Some of the major reasons for the switch:

• Cost-NimbleUser expects to save between $3,000-$5,000 in the first year on hardware, software and consulting.  Additionally we expect maintenance to dramatically decline. Technical support from Google will be free (a yearly fee is paid for the service and it includes free telephone support)
• Uptime-Gmail experiences significantly less unplanned downtime than Groupwise, Lotus or Exchange
• Remote Connection Ability--Many of our employees travel to visit our clients and in the past they would have needed a VPN connection to connect in to email with the everyday interface. Gmail is available anywhere there is an internet connection!
• The ability to Overlay Calendars--This gives greater visibility across the company without having to pull up multiple calendars
• We're already Google Happy--We are currently using Google Applications such as Docs & Spreadsheets in many of our day to day tasks so this is a natural integration
• Google Search within your email,what could be better?--It will be significantly easier to find emails. This is good for people who may not clean out their inbox on a regular basis (yes, I am guilty of this)
• More Space (so long "Mailbox is Full" Messages--I won't miss you!) Microsoft Exchange has a practical storage limit of 3-5GB even with the 2007 version.  Google truly can handle unlimited email amounts.  Each staff member will have 25 GB of space

Some downsides to the move include:

• Gmail does not currently have a version of Outlook Tasks--Employees are using other applications to perform this duty: "Remember the Milk" and "Toodledo" are some office favorites (good for both your professional and personal life).
• Gmail/Gcal is a significant departure from Outlook--it is going to take some getting used to for people who have used Outlook for most of their career
• Oops!-There is no ability to recall a message in Gmail as there is in Exchange.
• Stink at Spelling?-Spell checking is not automatic, one has to remember to click spell check
• Time Travel--Cannot schedule email for delivery in the future
• Don't take this "personally"--There is no message setting for Sensitivity (personal, private, confidential)

Overall, the positives outweigh the negative. Once a Gmail skeptic (yes, I am being honest here) I admit I was unsure at first what I would think of using Gmail. I had not even really used Gmail in my personal life and so the interface was entirely new. I knew the developers at the company were google addicts but I hadn't yet given in to what I thought was hype until I kept learning new & better things about Google.Over the past several months, NimbleUser has prepared employees for the switch while building excitement for the move. Everyday, Sig VanDamme, Founder, sends out an email with some new "Did ya know" fun fact about Google or a hidden advantage. It has definitely grown on me and now I am anxious to get settled and working with Gmail. Confession: I even switched to gmail for my personal email account.

NimbleUser wasn't the only one to identify the advantages. We moved a NimbleUser client, American Public Gardens Association (APGA) into Gmail a few weeks back. I caught up with Dan Stark, Executive Director of APGA about their experience moving to Google for Mail and Calendar:
What do you like most about switching from Outlook to Gmail (from a user perspective)?
"I think there are three main areas we are really pleased about.  First is our ability to share calendars, and schedule appointments.  Second is the easy accessibility to email from outside the office and from other computers.  Third is our ability to track conversations because they are grouped in Gmail."
 How has the adjustment period been?
"I would say the adjustment has been very brief.  We are about three weeks in, and have had very few problems with the staff using the product."
What was one of the biggest challenges of the switch?
"I would say there were two primary challenges.  First was getting buy-in from the staff, who were very used to and comfortable with Outlook.  Second was importing the current email and folders from Outlook"
Would you recommend switching to Gmail to others?
"For associations that struggle with managing email and schedules through outlook, and don't have sufficient technical support on staff, this is a very simple solution.  I could not be more pleased with the change."

Google has a number of advantages and NimbleUser is definitely prepared and ready to make the switch. The irony of this is that as I was writing this blog my Outlook crashed. Omen? Is the universe commanding that I switch to Gmail? The universe will have to wait until Monday for the official GoLive!

If you're interested in learning more give us a call at 585-586-4750 or even easier, submit an inquiry on the contact us form of our website.

It’s getting to be that time again.

• when it gets darker earlier.
• when the NimbleUser plague strikes co-workers on my left and right no matter how much we wash our hands.
• when the snow falls and I have to scrape my windshield. 

It’s winter.  And as the NimbleUser snowbird, I have to leave the country until May. 

Allright, that’s not why I’m going back to Kenya.  I find there’s great opportunity in Kenya to really help people out while being sure that money, resources and time are going to the proper places, instead of just sending something there without following up. 

Last year, if you recall, I worked on starting sustainable, grassroots programs in several Nairobi slums, during a period of unexpected political uprising/borderline civil war in Kenya.  I had the time of my life getting to know children and parents who were willing to help their own communities , and even extended my stay there to make sure the school we opened was in good enough shape for me to ship out and back to NimbleUser.  I never expected to go back to Kenya again. 

Now about seven months later, I’m preparing to return, this time to Kijabe, to help a 2007 “CNN Hero”   document and further extend two kid-focused programs in several rural areas of the rift valley. Steve Peifer was a former Oracle project manager who left the U.S. with his family to serve Kenya, and started an extensive feeding program and several computer training centers in impoverished areas. 

This could get long, so here’s bullet points.

• The dropout rate was 50% in the schools Steve targets.  
• Kids had been eating only two meals a week—When visiting on a Thursday, it’s obvious no one has eaten since Monday, and the kids are unable to sit up and pay attention.  
• Steve and his helpers drive corn and beans to schools. 2.50$ a month per kid buys lunch daily.  
• School retention is now at 98 percent.  

Knowing that food alone could not “break the back of poverty”, Steve began setting up solar powered computer centers in the same areas the feeding program was successful in.  They’re made out of old shipping containers and are wired so securely that “to steal the equipment, you’d have to steal the entire building”. 

After I saw proof that the centers are truly effective in creating jobs for seniors after graduation, boosting self esteem for kids, and improving countless other areas of individual lives…I emailed Steve about a role for me in documenting the centers, so that anyone with funds and a willing heart could make their own center anywhere in Sub-saharan Africa, following a simple document (that I’m creating!).  I plan to document each “ingredient”, down to the last cable, and every step, so that even my grampa could set one up. 

Steve could patent these things, but he just wants to see children learn.  And I get to go be a part of sharing the new technology with the whole world.  I’m excited. And yet again, NimbleUser has graciously promised me continued opportunities to continue my work here when I return (it’s always nice to get a paycheck after working three months for free!) so you can think of me as a NimbleUser employee abroad.   Maybe I can be like Jeff and Adam and wear my NimbleUser shirt in front of some spectacular Kenyan tourist attraction.  Expect an update if I don’t get eaten by a lion while I’m there!

Our Executive Team here at NimbleUser is always very supportive of staff who wish to volunteer and had decided to organize this group volunteering activity earlier in the year. It is a great way to not only give back to the community but to also work together in a new way (minus laptops, projectors and meetings).

The group of six was split into two groups. One group consisted of Matt, Sig and Mike and they stayed at a location over on Grape and Orange St. There, they dug holes and poured concrete—the real back breaking stuff! The other group headed over to Love St. and consisted of Jeff, Julie and Beth (Me), and we worked on finishing detail work in a home that was supposed to be turned over to the family a few days later—think painting, spackling and hanging fixtures. It wasn’t back-breaking but it was tedious. As a result, I have become a master at spackling. I may even start a side business.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience from a teamwork perspective as well as a nice way to give back to the community. I highly recommend getting involved with Habitat in your local area!

Below: The NimbleUserrs (From left: Beth, Sig, Jeff, Julie, Matt)

 Below: Jeff and Beth hang a medicine cabinet. See? We're handy!

Below: Matt and Mike working over on Grape St.

Below: Sig, Matt & Mike

Below: Matt & Sig Pouring Concrete

Below: Matt digging himself out of a hole :)

Below: Julie painting the stairs that Beth later accidently steps onto.

Along with Trina, NimbleUser would like to welcome Kristen Curtze, Development Intern.  She is currently a senior at the Rochester Institute of Technology where she majors in New Media – Interactive Development with a minor in Communications. At NimbleUser, Kristen is learning the web development process, she assists with talking to clients about debugging/design aspects/coding issues and she is gaining experience with transferring content from old sites and implementing new designs to upcoming sites. “So far I’m getting what I hoped for; since I got a client-side feel with my last internship, I enjoy seeing the development-side here at NimbleUser”

Prior to this year, Kristen has been a year round swimmer on the varsity team at RIT.  She enjoys all sports and she is a huge Pittsburgh Steelers fan, “I live for NFL season.”  In general, Kristen enjoys learning about new technology and she has a passion for computers and laptops.

We are enjoying all the new faces here at NimbleUser!

I went over some of the basics of social networking and discussed the unique challenges that non-profits face when implementing social networking.  We also reviewed some social networking sites and the individual features of social networking (blogs, wikis, forums, shared documents, tagging, social promotion, etc).  This led to a lively discussion and it was interesting to hear some of the initiatives in this area that were being undertaken by the attendees.

NimbleUser has been a long time NiUG sponsor and we feel that this group has been instrumental in the success of iMIS.  If you are not a member, consider joining this excellent organization.  See www.niug.org for more information.

Association for Women in Computing has monthly events for learning and networking and they can be found online at http://www.awc-uny.org.

It was a chilly weekend here in Rochester (47 degrees...Brrrrr!), but that won't stop the participants of the Special Olympics Fall Games from having some fun on Saturday and Sunday.  Friday night kicked off the weekend festivities with an Opening Ceremony here in downtown Rochester, celebrating over 1,200 participants and coaches ready to strut their stuff with the skills that have spent so much time honing in preparation.  All of this brought to you by the support of community members, local businesses, and the fine men and women of Special Olympics New York.

Special Olympics New York is a privately funded Non For Profit organization that provides full year athletic training and sports competitions in true Olympic-style. Their services provide support to over 46,000 children and adults with intellectual disabilities.  This years Fall Games were possible thanks to the donations and generosity of individulas, businesses, and organizations in the greater Rochester area.

On Saturday I went down to volunteer at the softball tournament being held at Cobbs Hill Park.  The softball games were one of 4 events scheduled for this weekend, which also includes Soccer, Rollerskating, and Cross Country running.  The team at Special Olympics works hard year round, and when the events take place, there is no lack of things to do. Volunteers of all ages help fill key roles to ensure everything runs smoothly the day of.  Whether it's registering the star athletes, setting up and taking down the sports venues, presenting medals, distributing lunches, or even just cheering on the participants, everyone is appreciated and their efforts support a tremendous organization.  My friend Beckie brought her dog along this year so even Joey (the dog) got in on this year's fun! 

For anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to participate in such a worthwhile cause, I urge you to consider it.  I promise you, there is no greater feeling than when you watch this all come together; witnessing shining moments in athleticism, the smile on the face and in the heart of someone seeing an old friend they met at previous games, and the pride in knowing that you were a part of this day filled with happiness and excitement.

For more information please visit http://www.specialolympicsny.org/ or http://www.specialolympics.org/ to find a program near you!

Here are a few images from this years games, sorry I didn't get more...it was a busy day!  Looking for a larger image?  Click the thumbnail and one will be displayed for you!

NiUG Conferences are the place to be to network with peers, get access (and give feedback) to key ASI staff members, get a preview of the latest iMIS release and future releases and to see what is available from the large 3rd party developers.

There were a number of highlights:

1. There was record attendance; 383 total registrants with over 140 first time members. 
   
2. ASI demonstrated the upcoming release of their new content manager (WCM).  This CM will ship in version 15.1 and is very tightly integrated with iMIS.  Brian Lindsey from ASI spent about an hour showing off this new technology.  It is .NET based, has support for web parts, and seemed very easy to use.  Brian showed how an IQA query could be created (say for member counts by member type) in iMIS and then directly added to the website thru a dropdown in the WCM.  It did lack some features that most higher level content managers have (Multi Language Support for one) but it could be a good fit for some organizations.  It will be interesting to see how this product is received and how it is priced.
   
3. ASI Announced that iMIS 15.1would be available as a release candidate in the 4th quarter of 2008. It is expected that a production (GA) release will be available 1Q09.  In addition to WCM the following enhancements / additions will be part of that release:
   1. Formal support for the iMIS Business Objects (iBOs) for .NET!  As technology integrators this will be huge for NimbleUser and our customers and should lead to quicker issue resolution as well as a better product.
   2. Support for Microsoft Reporting Services
   3. Report creation for IQA; i.e. users can now view query results as formatted reports.  I believe this is really going speed adoption of this very nice query technology.
   4. Community management; online forums, documents libraries, blogs and announcement areas.  ASI did not demonstrate any of these additions so I cannot comment on them.
   5. Trade Association Support enhancement for iMIS Public Views; basically it allows a new web sign up to attach themselves to a organization record.  We have had this functionality in VanGo for years and having this in iMIS Public Views will help us to migrate from VanGo to iPV.
   6. Online donations - this in now a true iMIS module and not just an iBO.  ASI did not demonstrate this at the conference. 
   7. ASI has extended support for the Cold Fusion based iMIS eSeries product.  Support for eSeries was supposed to end in 15.1.  This should help some clients with a heavy investment in their cold fusion eSeries sites migrate to iMIS 15.
      
4. ASI introduced the iMIS Business Excellence Forums (iBEF) as a program to help iMIS customers get the most benefits from the product.  Basically iBEF is a partnership where ASI and AiSPs (like NimbleUser) engage an organization's senior management to assure they get the full benefits of the product all of the time.
   
5. My good friend Lee Hornstien of C-Systems and Michelle Morgan received the John Howarth Memorial Award.  John's wife Holly was there to give the award.  I had not seen her in quite a while and it was good to reconnect.  Lee was instrumental in the formation on NiUG and I am very happy for him. 
   
   
   
   
   For those of you that did not have the pleasure of knowing John, here is some information on him and the award that now bears his name:
   1. John was the Northeast Regional Sales Manager for ASI, and a long-time friend of NiUG, passed away in 2006. 
   2. John was the first person I ever talked to or met in person from ASI.  He was always positive and he had a true love of iMIS and the iMIS community. 
   3. John was a catalyst for the creation of NiUG, back when it was a regional users group. His foresight to create a formal group of iMIS users provided the foundation for what NiUG International is today.
   4. Upon his passing the Board of Directors agreed to present an award each year to a person or persons who best exemplified his commitment to the iMIS community.
      
6. John Nicoletta of the New York State Bar Association gave a very good presentation on PCI compliance.  Link to presentation 
   
7. Randy Richter gave a very good presentation on Data Integrity.  Link to presentation 
   

Dawn and I manned our booth and we fielded a lot of questions in regards to the new product offerings from ASI.  There is a lot of confusion as to what is the best strategy for moving their organizations forward.  Here are a few examples:

1. Should I stay with iMIS eSeries or move to iMIS Public Views?
2. Should I wait for Web Content Manager to be released before I move to iMIS 15?
3. What impact with iMIS 15 have on my staff; will re-training be necessary?

Unfortunately these questions cannot be answered in 2-5 minutes but require a full understanding of the current environment, the organization's budget and strategy.  For those of you with questions like this I highly recommend scheduling time with your Authorized iMIS Solution Provider to discuss; plan on at least a few hours.  Also ask you reseller to run the ASI iMIS 15 upgrade calculator to get an understanding of the license differences and any software / warranty costs that may be incurred.  Proper planning is key to a successful iMIS 15 upgrade.  If you do not have an AiSP, please feel free to give us a call with any questions you may have.

If you are not an NiUG member or have never attended a NiUG conference, take the time to join this fabulous organization and as their tag line says "Share, Compare, Become More Aware"

From Left: Ron Wille Jr., Dawn VanDamme after making the announcement, Celebrating with cake (hey, it's the NimbleUser way)

Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and hundreds of other employers attended the fair.

NimbleUser is looking for co-op/interns as well as full time staff members and we had a full day of interviews scheduled for RIT interview day (i.e. day 2 of the fair).

We used our new booth for the first time that we had made for recruiting:

Not to be out of sight out of mind, the AMS team hosted a "Housewarming Lunch" and lured their hungry coworkers into their new space with Pizza and Cake. Here are some picures from today's lunch:

Pictured Below: AMS Team's new front door

Pictured Below: Ellen Crooks, Jeff Golembiewski & Adam Carey

Pictured Below: Enjoying Pizza

Pictured Below: Team Spirit in the form of cake!

Pictured Below: Ellen Crooks cutting the cake (Amy Button and Tom Patros in the background)

Answer: Chips, one byte at a time!  I'll give you all a second to stop laughing while I use that humor to segway into my latest blog entry...

Did you know September is Hunger Action Month?  No, this isn't an excuse to go out for burgers at your local dive, but it is an opportunity to join in the fight against domestic hunger, and so last Wednesday I (Amy Button) and Adam Carey helped out the fine folks at Foodlink in support of the cause.

What is Foodlink?  I'm glad you asked!  Foodlink is the regional foodbank of the Genesee Valley and Finger Lakes Region that is chock full of reject food goodness, including scratch and dent items and mismarked food from grocery stores and other food distributors in the area.  With the assistance of handy people like us NimbleUserrs, Foodlink serves a network of well over 500 programs, distributing over 6 million pounds of food a year!  Fun Fact:  If you did some crazy math, all that food probably roughly equals the number of calories we take in on any given birthday celebration here in the office!

Why do we love it?  Because it's always a surprise...you never know what you will be working on!  One week you might sort canned food into boxes, and the next you might be standing in front of a giant cardboard box, shucking outer layers of cabbage and prepping it for storage and shipping to needy families around the country (think about that the next time you are eating your greens!). I know what you are thinking, and yes, next time I will get a photo of Adam covered in cabbage!  I, on the other hand, stayed away from the stinky stuff and did something equally as important, sorting toilet paper, napkins, tissues, and paper towel rolls for distribution.  (Anyone who claims paper towels are less important than cabbage obviously never walked into a kitchen that supported 20+ employees enjoying some BBQ!).

Want in?  Foodlink couldn't be the powerhouse they are without volunteers like you and me.  You can participate on your own or as part of a group, and at almost any time of day that is convenient for you!  Go ahead and give the Volunteer Coordinator a call at (585) 328-3380 or e-mail them to find out more about different opportunities. Not in the Rochester area but still want to help?  It's still a 'can do'!  Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest) has a handy dandy Foodbank locator so you can help out closer to home! 

Joking aside, we love giving back, and this was just one of many opportunities that present themselves for all of us here.  Community involvement is important to NimbleUser as a company, and it doesn't usually come as a surprise to anyone here when an invite goes out asking people to support a cause or participate in a volunteering or fundraising event.  We are all passionate about something...Becca teaches technology to kids in Kenya, Ron lends his genius to roundtable discussions at the Ad Council, and Rick recently pedaled his butt off in support of Multiple Sclerosis. 

So think about it!  How do you help out?  What's your passion?  We love hearing from all of you, so as always, feel free to comment on the blogs and share your thoughts.

As a web developer, Craig does a lot of work around developing the user interfaces for projects.  This includes the various aspects of the website that the user sees such as the main menu, log-in page, event registration etc. He feels that working at NimbleUser has been a “nice and collaborative experience and everyone is helpful”.  Craig has a Bachelor degree in Information Technology from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and has prior web development experience. He is a radio DJ for 89.7 WITR FM and he is also in an Experimental/Electronic band called Exit Abacus.

Dominic Rossi joined NimbleUser as a Technical Support Analyst where, among other things, he assists existing clients with a variety of technology issues from making modifications to their website to troubleshooting various issues.  Dom has 4 years prior experience with support, 5+ years experience with the web and a Bachelor degree in Information Technology from RIT. When asked how his experience at NimbleUser has been he said “the environment is better than any place I’ve been”.  A few interesting facts about Dom are he has a black belt in Taekwondo and he enjoys live concerts so much that he attends approximately 40 shows each year.

Last but not least, we would like to welcome Ted Husted, Business Analyst.  He identifies the needs of our clients and develops requirements to meet those needs within the proper scope. He has enjoyed his experience at NimbleUser thus far and stated “In the past, I may have worked with people as good, but, today, I can’t name a better team than the NimbleUser Clan.”
 
Aside from being a business analyst, Ted is a member of the Apache Software Foundation which provides support for the Apache community of open-source software projects, a senior member of the Apache Struts project, and co-founder of the Apache (Jakarta) Commons. He is also an author and his books include JUnit in Action, Struts in Action, and Professional JSP Site Design.

Ted, Craig and Dom each bring something unique to our organization and we are very delighted to have them on our team.  Welcome aboard!

In the mean time please feel free to email us with topic suggestions for future Brown Bag Webinars--we value your input! Suggestions can be emailed to epratt@NimbleUser.com 

About the Brown Bag Series
The Brown Bag series is a free educational webinar presented the third Thursday of every month at 12:30pm (EST).  The series features a variety of topics presented by one of our staff experts and also allows organizations the opportunity to ask any questions related to the session topic.

Please visit: http://awc-uny.org/meeting-09-2008.php for more details & to register for this event.

The General Sessions were some of the most interesting and inspiring of the week. Themes from these sessions such as diversity, technology/future trends and competitive strategy set the tone for many of the learning labs and thoughtleader sessions. When people weren't sitting in on educational sessions they were likely visiting the Exhibitor Expo during the day. NimbleUser (booth #535--the one with all the purple!) had the opportunity to meet people from a variety of non-profits and associations and discuss important topics such as Social Networking and other technology issues facing many organizations. There was a variety of conversation--some general in nature (Who is NimbleUser? What is a wiki?) and others speaking specifically of an upcoming project. It was a pleasure to meet so many new faces and to be able to inform them of who we are and how we might be able to help them.

In addition to the daytime events, the evenings were just as packed! Ron, Julie and Beth attended evening events in the Gaslamp Quarter -a nice area in downtown San Diego that features all of the best shops and restaurants. Julie and Ron attended a Food & Wine event aboard the USS Midway and ASAE through a huge block party on the last night of the conference. No detail was left untouched and ASAE put on a fabulous event!

Be sure to mark your calenders for next year's ASAE Annual Meeting in Toronto August 15th-18th 2009!!

(Left to Right: Convention Center, fun ribbons to add to your conference badge, welcome reception in Embarcadero Marina Park, shirt promoting next year's annual meeting in Toronto, ASAE's Learning Lab, view of the Mariott hotel and nearby convention center and Elizabeth Pratt, Julie Tracz & Ron Wille).

After stopping to pick up some non-scuffing tennis shoes at the store, Adam and Jeff made the drive to NYC where they stayed at a hotel on Van Dam street. Jeff remarked, "We took that as a good omen for the upcoming squash lesson." 

The duo met with U.S. Squash last Wednesday all day and then it was time to hit the courts! They each remarked it was intimidating at first to see all of the professional squash players on the court. However, they knew they were in good hands! Conor O'Malley, Senior Event & Sponsorship Manager for U.S. Squash, showed Jeff and Adam some of the basic skills: basic rules, how to hold the racket, basic exercises & drills and swinging & hitting the ball. Jeff and Adam both agreed that Conor's mini-lesson helped some of the nervousness go away as they played against each other and other U.S Squash staff. Adam stated, "Once you get a feel for things, the high pace of the game really gets you into it."

They both left U.S.Squash with sore muscles and a greater appreciation for the organization. Jeff said, "It was a great experience to learn the basics for a day, see the organization from the constituent viewpoint and to spend time with a client in such a casual and fun atmosphere!"

Learn the history of the game by clicking here.

1.  Email support@NimbleUser.com 
Emailing gives you the advantage of describing in great detail the issue you are having as well as including screen shots.  Your email will automatically generate a case that will be logged into the system for tech review.  In addition, several techs will receive your email, so even if it’s off hours and there’s an emergency, your request will be received.
  
2.  Online
Fill out our support request form.  This will automatically generate a case that will be logged into our system and a tech will get back to you as soon as possible.
 
Priority Immediate Response Required is for emergencies, for example, your website being down.  Choosing Immediate Response Required will page several of our techs immediately, and you will receive a response immediately.  Please choose Immediate Response Required for true emergencies only.

3.  The Old-Fashioned Way – Call Us!
You can always call us at (585) 586-4750 for support, Monday – Friday 8:30am – 5:00pm.  Please be prepared to give a brief description of your issue.  This issue will be logged into our case system and a tech will get back to you as soon as possible.

4.  Research the NimbleUser Knowledge Base
Our techs take the time to post about different topics on our blog.  Take a look and see if the answer to your question is there.  The blogs are a great learning tool and are available day or night.

5.  Brown Bag Webinars
Resuming in the fall, every third Thursday of every month we will hold online seminars on a variety of topics.  For only the cost of a phone call, you can broaden your knowledge; that will make you an even more valuable asset to your company.  These webinars last around an hour, meant for our customers to be able to eat their lunch while they attend.  Attend alone or have a co-worker join you in your office.  For information on upcoming brown bag webinars, check back here.

If you would like to get notices on future Brown Bags, please contact Elizabeth Pratt at epratt@NimbleUser.com. 

No matter which way you choose, we are here to help you!

About the Brown Bag Series
The Brown Bag series is a free educational webinar presented the third Thursday of every month at 12:30pm.  The series features a variety of topics presented by one of our staff experts and also allows organizations the opportunity to ask any questions related to the session topic.

I received my BS in Marketing and MBA in International Business from Canisius College in Buffalo NY.  After that I worked for Moog Inc as a Marketing Communications Assistant. 

I have had an awesome experience with NimbleUser thus far. The work, culture and people are as exciting and pleasant as my massive shoe collection and the variety of work is almost as ever-changing as my hair!  

In my spare time I play electric bass guitar in an all girl gospel band.  Last October we won a trip to Las Vegas, NV to audition for the ‘Next Great American Band Show” on FOX. Although we did not make it in the Top 12, our 10 seconds of fame was not in vain since we received a few gigs from it.  I have also played bass in the orchestra for plays at the historic Paul Robeson Theatre which is the oldest African American theater in Western New York.

Maybe one day I’ll be a rock star and then again maybe not but until that day comes working for NimbleUser is the next best thing to stardom.

FSI was no stranger to NimbleUser after having worked on Phase 1 of their project in October 2007, implementing VanGo. Now, they have completed Phase 2 of the project by bringing VanGo into Ektron to create a seamless user experience while providing them with content management capabilities.FSI also wished to keep their current web design so their new site was built directly off of their existing design and information architecture.

To keep the project moving quickly, FSI went through their training while simultaneously working on content entry. They also opted to do their own content conversion because they had the available resources and it proved to be more cost effective for them.

NimbleUser’s Project Team remarked that FSI was very receptive and responsive at all times and this allowed our project team and the FSI staff to move the project along quickly. As a result, it was a seamless transition for the organization. Their members and visitors no longer have to navigate away from the site to register and pay for events and content entry is now being handled by a workflow (series of authors & content approvers) for greater control over their website content. Overall, the site provided them with improved Content Management capabilities and now all of their web traffic remains within FSI’s website for all of their transactions and needs. Amy DeFaveri, Director of Marketing and Communications for FSI remarked, "Financial Services Institute needed a better way to manage Web content and file documents. With the implementation of Ektron, we immediately realized more efficiency and improvement in both areas. The Windows-like platform makes it easy to upload, store, locate, and publish documents and pictures."

Check out their site: http://www.financialservices.org/

The organization which assists people in finding resources such as self-help groups, family services and more was looking for a basic content management system in order to have greater control over their website. They were also hoping for an updated design as well.

Prior to implementing Ektron, MHA used to have to go to their hosting provider to change content (even small changes) because they are a smaller group and do not have an IT department. In addition to changing basic content, MHA utilized Ektron’s taxonomy feature for organizing their support group directory. Taxonomy allows for pieces of content to be categorized & searchable under multiple categories. Previously, MHA had relied on a printed directory and a customized system for this. However, that meant lots of maintenance work and lag time between updates to the directory.

MHA also wanted a fresh look without the high cost of utilizing a designer. They chose to use one of the predesigned templates offered by NimbleUser’ Design Gallery to ensure that their design was updated while still maintaining their overall project budget. The template provided a basic predefined navigation system and then the colors were modified and their logo was to create the final look and feel.

MHA had a great team that was very involved with the project. Patricia Woods, President/CEO, Christin Stenzel, Director of Administration, and Cindi Licata, Director were all very active with the project. The group received extensive training on using Ektron and was impressed by the fact that the system provided them with so much capability. One such capability that MHA is using is the Ektron Calendar feature which they are using to publish their events. When a user clicks on an event they get taken to an online registration form and are then prompted to a secure form for credit card purchases. View their calendar at: http://www.mharochester.org/event.aspx?id=110&date=4/1/2008

Overall, MHA is doing more with their site then they ever have before. Some of the highlights that have come out of this project include:

• Site-wide search capability with taxonomy. This is important considering the sensitive space that MHA operates in. Someone who genuinely needs help will be better able to find it.
• The organization’s Support Group Directory is published in a category view. Again, Ektron taxonomy gives a natural expansion to the end user which means that users are more likely to find what their looking for. It was important to MHA that the format of their directory remained similar to the printed version and use of Ektron’s taxonomy accomplished this. http://www.mharochester.org/SupportGroupDirectory.aspx?taxid=462
• A new look and feel minus the cost of an expensive redesign effort.

Patricia Woods, CEO/President remarked, "Ektron has provided us the ability to have greater control over our website.  We can now add content on any number of subjects which allows us to keep the site relevant as events occur and new information on mental health becomes available.  The content manager and taxonomy allow staff to easily update publications without having to pay to have the changes made by an outside vendor.  We are very pleased with our experience with NimbleUser."

Once again, MHA was an excellent client to work with. Some unforeseen circumstances at MHA called for Patricia Woods, to step in and do content maintenance (previously assigned to someone else at MHA) even though the organization had their annual event going on at the same time. Their willingness to help and to uphold their client responsibilities allowed for the project to remain on time and moving forward. MHA-Thanks for being such a great client!

Take a look at the site: http://www.mharochester.org/

“Becoming a NiUG Users’ Group member just got a whole lot easier”, according to Users’ Group president, Paul Peeples.  “In a show of support for NiUG International, ASI has agreed to pay the first year’s dues for all new iMIS customers.”

Bob Alves, Chairman and CEO of ASI voiced his support of this initiative, “Having a strong and supportive Users’ Group breeds strong and supportive users. We want to do our part to facilitate the important things this organization is doing for the benefit of the entire iMIS community. It’s a win-win for both parties, and we’re proud of the great things NiUG has achieved so far.”

“We’re excited to launch this new program and to offer special membership discounts to not only new customers but also existing ones,” says Paul.  Details of this special program include:

“Thanks to ASI, there’s never been a better time to become a member of NiUG.  Our organization is growing,” says Paul, “and so are the services we offer.   We encourage iMIS users to attend our upcoming conference in Sacramento as we offer several breakout sessions, as well as full and half day training programs developed to enhance iMIS knowledge within the entire organization.”

NiUG International currently has over 500 company members world-wide, with over 150 registrants who attend its regional meetings and more than 300 registrants who attend the NiUG Discovery Conference each year. With tools and opportunities to connect with other non-profit professionals and share their experiences, members have the ability to network and collaborate and be instrumental in growing the iMIS Community. For more information about this exciting new program and other NiUG benefits, visit www.niug.org today.

To take advantage of this special membership discount program, contact membership@niug.org

* Current iMIS customers are defined as those companies who are paid and current with their companies SU fees.

On Thursday, May 29th many of the employees here at NimbleUser participated in the Rochester JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge at the Rochester Institute of Technology campus. The event had over 11,000 individual participants from over 440 corporations.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the race, the Corporate Challenge was started by bank officials who were inspired by the successful sponsorships with the NYC Marathon. They decided to make an event soley for corporate runners with a course distance that even a busy professional could train for (3.5 miles). The series has continued to grow and is in it's 31st year and operates in 13 major cities. The Rochester, NY event just celebrated it's 18th year

This was NimbleUser's first year running in this event and we proudly had nine participants take on the 3.5 mile run. Our runners included:

• Dawn VanDamme, CEO
• Sig VanDamme, President
• Ron Wille Jr., Vice President
• Julie Tracz, Account Executive
• Adam Carey, Project Assistant
• Elizabeth Pratt, Marketing Coordinator
• Amy Button, Project Assistant
• Tom Patros, Project Manager & Team Leader
• Jeff Golembiewski, Senior Project Manager & Team Leader

We had a great time and all of us manage to finish the race without major heart problems (does that mean we're fit??). Ron Wille Jr. was our star athlete (he is an avid runner outside of the office) and beat out the rest of us NimbleUser-ers. The rest was history!

We rented a tent alongside the starting line and enjoyed some food and drink with each other. It was a great chance to motivate one another and participate in a worthwhile community event. We also had team shirts made up with the slogan "Going Slow-Thinking About How I Can Help Non-Profits Do More." A special thanks to Crazy Dog Tshirts for making the shirts!

Sore muscles aside, we considered this event a great success and wonderful team-building activity.

Project Overview
The organization wanted to be able to have individuals sign-up for Events online and have the registration information entered directly into iMIS.  They also wanted to give the members the ability to update key information about themselves via the web.  Both of these features would provide additional benefits to the members and customers while reducing administrative time of staff at the office.

VanGo Site
In order to help PA Bankers meet their goals NimbleUser implemented a pop-off VanGo site comprised of the Customer and Events .  The VanGo modules allowed for seamless integration between the backend iMIS database and the website so that web users could easily register online for events as well as update address and demographic information about themselves and their organizations.

Events Portal Page
PA Bankers also wanted to restrict some events to member's only. To accomplish this, a portal page was created that restricts Events designated by PA Bankers to allow access to members only.

Find Me Customization
Historically, registrations came in from the main office and not from the individuals, which resulted in some data accuracy issues. Because of this, PA Bankers could not use the out of the box Find Me module. NimbleUser had to customize Find me to search by first and last name or email address. If a valid email address was found, it used that. However, if the email address was not valid or one was not entered at all, it would display all records matching the first and last name entered (without requiring the email at all). Then, if the user chooses a record without a valid email address, they are prompted for one and the record is updated.

Directories
Directories were created to mimic the existing site directories. Information is pulled directly from iMIS so that it no longer needs to be rekeyed for the website.

Some interesting challenges existed with the fact that PA Bankers is a company member-based organization and how registrations where handled historically, information for individuals in iMIS was missing key information or associated with the incorrect address.  PABankers needed a way to implement an online registration process that would allow users to find themselves in iMIS using this limited information and register for an event.  We were able to modify the Find Me application of VanGo to account for these unique needs so that users could easily find their existing records for registration eliminating the possible insertion of duplicate records.

Benefits of the VanGo Pop-off site to PA Bankers:

• Registrants can easily register online when it is convenient for them.  They don’t need to call, fax or mail information to the offices and are not bound by the physical office’s hours of operation.
• Members can update information online to ensure that the information listed for them is the most up-to-date and accurate.
• Staff administrative time is reduced since individuals can now process their own registrations as well as update demographic information without staff intervention.
• Registrants can easily reprint confirmation notices online without needing to contact the office.
• Online directory information is always up-to-date with the information in backend iMIS.  No manual updates are required.

Overall, PA Bankers was very pleased that we were able to modify VanGo to handle their unique needs while saving the staff considerable time by letting registrants and members perform tasks previously done by staff. PA Bankers and NimbleUser worked together to successfully implement the VanGo pop-off site with customizations to meet PA Bankers specific event registration needs.  The project stayed on track and came in on time and on budget.  A great deal of this is attributed to Connie Ferraro's (PA Banker's Project Manager) attention to detail and focus on the project at hand. Congratulations to everyone involved in this project!

My favorite video that I believe really sums up the ASI/iMIS philosophy is this one:

One of our customers (Paul Peeples of the Florida Association of Insurance Agents) is profiled in this one:

ASI presented NimbleUser with the 2007 Customer Satisfaction Award, making this the 7th consecutive customer satisfaction award to date.The Customer Satisfaction award is presented to the Solution Provider that delivers high quality services and has earned a high customer satisfaction ranking.  These Solution Providers demonstrate a high level of commitment in retaining and supporting their customers, and ensuring that they remain a customer for life.

NimbleUser, Inc. was also inducted into the Chairman’s Circle for 2007– an honor awarded to top performers within the AiSP (Authorized iMIS Solution Provider) Channel.

ASI recognized several winners of the prestigious Presidents Club Award for 2008.  The Presidents Club award is awarded to AiSPs for creating exceptional customer solutions by using and extending ASI products.  The awards recognize creativity and ingenuity in creating lasting and innovative customer solutions.  Contestants are judged using criteria such as clean and consistent user interfaces, innovative use of iMIS extension facilities, the business value provided by the application and the breadth of appeal. NimbleUser was awarded the iMIS Technology Innovation Award for its CMSA Social Software Applications entry. Everyone here at NimbleUser would like to extend a special thanks to the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association (CMSA) for being such a great client.

The Conference itself was an excellent opportunity to learn more about the iMIS product and community. There were a series of sessions in three different knowledge tracks: Sales, Product and Technical that provided insight into the features of iMIS 15 as well as valuable insight into the non-profit and association industry.

From Left: Ellen Crooks (Applications Analyst, VA), Elizabeth Pratt (Marketing Coordinator, VA), Don Robertson (CEO, ASI), Ron Wille (VP, VA), Bob Alves (CEO& Chairman ,ASI) and Jeff Golembiewski (Senior Project Manager, VA)

Recently, I (Amy Button - Project Assistant) spearheaded a Blanket and Toiletry drive to support a local homeless shelter in their efforts to help meet the growing needs within the community.  Thanks to the support of NimbleUser, the drive was a huge success!   Along with other non-VA donors, they helped to contribute to the collection of over 50 blankets, 7 bags of clothing and 1 large garbage bag of toiletries.  Considering the size of the toiletries (travel/hotel size) a full bag of that size is a tremendous amount!  The support and encouragement while I took the donations was much appreciated and I am thankful for all of you who participated in spirit and with donations!

Additionally, I’ve been recycling cans from our break room here since December and donating the proceeds to Boarding for Breast Cancer. For those of you not in the know, B4BC is a non-profit, youth-focused education, awareness, and fundraising foundation that focuses on increasing awareness about breast cancer, the importance of early detection and the value of an active lifestyle.  So far the soda drinking habits here at NimbleUser have helped to raise over $30 (which is a significant amount considering each can gets you 5 cents!).  For anyone interested in checking out a great local event, I will be working in the B4BC tent at 2 board-a-thons this month, one on March 1st at Hunt Hollow in Naples, NY and one March 8th at Kissing Bridge in Buffalo.  Both days promise to be good times with prizes, amazing riders, women’s clinics, park events and more.  If you’ve been looking for an excuse to try snowboarding or skiing, or even if you are just looking for something to do those Saturdays, this is a great time to have a  winter fun day while supporting an amazing charity.  Want some details?  Here you go:

• Sponsors: Hunt Hollow, Kissing Bridge, SNOW Ski and Board (Pittsford,NY), Ski Company, Transitions Board Shop, Burton, K2, Rome, Holden, Salomon, and more!
• When: Hunt Hollow: March 1st, 2008 @ 9:00 AM; Kissing Bridge: March 8th, 2008 @ 9:00 am
  
• What: Breast Cancer education, Park Jams, Fun Days, Tons of Prizes, and more!
• How: $40 includes a lift ticket (a $55 value), a $5 food ticket, and a $5 B4BC donation. If you raise over $150 for B4BC before the event, you get it all for free! **Just there to watch?  That's always free, but donations are appreciated! 
• Who: You!  Snowboarders and Skiers of all ages and abilities. Come out and enjoy a nice day or come and compete in one of the Park Jam Events.

Always happy to support the community, NimbleUser has not only helped to make many homeless Rochesterians happier and warmer this year, but also helped B4BC spread the word that Early Detection + Active Lifestyle = Best Prevention!

My personal thanks goes out to Dawn, Sig and the NimbleUser staff for supporting my efforts with the blanket drive and the B4BC can collection!

We encourage our iMIS clients to attend the conference in Austin.  The first day consists of concurrent training classes (a combination of full and half day courses), followed by a one-and-a-half-day User's Conference.  The User's Conference consists of several General and Breakout sessions on topical issues surrounding iMIS and related products. 

We'll be there in Austin and encourage our clients to register now.  Every year, our clients who attend benefit from the wealth of knowledge available and especially from the new relationships formed while at the conference.  Let us know if you're fixin' to go to Texas and maybe we can rustle up some grub with y'all!

Ron's Q & A section is a great read if you're interested in hearing more about our values and our unique goals--he mentions our clients almost immediately: "At our core we focus on partnering with our clients, doing great work and working with great people."  Thank you to our technology partners, our clients and our friends and family--we appreciate your partnership and support!

- What do you know about us and how did you find us?

- What system or process is currently in place?

- Who worked with you to develop the RFP?

- Do you currently have a budget set, and if so, how much?

- How many organizations have you asked to respond and who are they?

- What are the selection criteria and process?

- Who is making the final decision? 

Asking the right questions

These are just a few of the items any reputable firm should be asking.  Here's a thought: if the firm you have asked to respond to your RFP is not asking some flavor of these questions (in essence, protecting their resources) are they really going to be interested in protecting your resources?  Perhaps you can create a new category of evaluation called, “Do they ask sound business evaluation questions before responding to our RFP?" and then eliminate any "No's" from your  final evaluation.

If the responder doesn't think enough of your organization to pour their heart into your RFP to make sure everything is understood, then why expect future relations (that require commitment) to work out?  My thought is that you should keep track of all the questions that come in and hire the company with the best questions. Also, companies that did not ask the right questions probably shouldn't be handed the right answers (which often happens in the name of 'fairness for all competition'.) 

Access

We need only a few things from potential customers who send an RFP, but the most important is access.  Believe me, there's no way to reduce risk or find the best vendor without granting access to information. Selling enterprise solutions is complex (as RFP-senders know..they (maybe yourself included) spent months developing the RFP or perhaps paid thousands to have it developed.)  Therefore, how on earth could we be expected to answer a few questions in a document, give a demo or two and then have any chance of meeting expectations?  We need to talk . We need to understand the situation, the goals, the players.  Maybe Betty in Accounting is afraid of change and needs a little more attention when we do training. Which little box on the RFP talks about Betty?  This only comes from actually meeting the users, talking with the key stakeholders and from getting to know the organization as well as the people in it.

You've got to 'jive'

Buying a solution that is going to be around for the next several years requires--no--demands that the two companies jive.  I argue that if you are looking at reputable industry solutions, each of the applications will meet your needs. If not, how could they still be in business?  Really, at this stage of the game it should be about who is the best fit from a support, value, beliefs and ideals perspective. I argue that while the background and feature facts are important, the cultural fit is king and that this will have a greater impact on the success of a project then how we look on paper. 

Buying a solution that is going to be around for the next several years, cost thousands of dollars and touches very aspect of your business should require more face time then say, a blind date. While lots of people look good on paper and perhaps make a good first impression, it is not until you spend some time with them, talk with them, get to know them that you will know if perhaps they are the right partner.  If you're considering sending to us a request for a proposal..please, give us the honor to get to know you.

A previous post did highlight our saltine cracker challenge, and the current record holder, Matthew Doyle. Doyle was a quality intern who ate five saltines in a remarkable 48 seconds (14 seconds under the previous record.) We were amazed.

But today, today will go down in history as the most earth-shattering record break ever to occur in our kitchen. Patrick Maguire, a summer intern from Northeastern University, smashed the 5-saltines-swallowed-with-no-water-record by 11 seconds, clocking in at only 39 seconds.

Overheard afterwards:

“THAT WAS AMAZING!”
“WOW! 39 SECONDS!”
“You’ve got a huge mouth!”
“YOU’ve been practicing.”

“No. I’ve been saving saliva for five minutes.”

And folks, I don’t think the record can get any lower. 

(p.s.  We all found out today that Patrick will continue working for NimbleUser from Northeastern (part-time) this year.  Goes to show we don't like to let the good ones leave us.  Patrick does more for the NimbleUser team than eat crackers and we're glad he's stickin around!)

"It is official; I am teaching a course in web-database integration this fall at RIT!  It is a graduate level course for students that have completed the web and database concentrations. The course covers how to set up and configure an entire web server (complete with database and server-side scripting support), generate images dynamically on the server in a script, store binary information in a database, use advanced object-oriented programming techniques in web programming, and build something really cool that utilizes their previous coursework.  Plus we'll work with Flash, Ajax or even some combination of the two, depending on the skill level of the students in the class."

Carlo then summed it up for (very few of us) less technical members:

"Non-technical version of what I just wrote:  it’s a graduate class that places students into teams and guides them in the process of building an advanced, fully-functional web site from start to finish; idea to product.  They will be working with a lot of cutting edge tools and techniques and applying all that they’ve previously learned in their other courses – this is the class where it all comes together!"

Thanks for the support; I’m very excited with this opportunity! :-)"


So are we Carlo, and congratulations. Take it easy on those graduate students!

Rochester health care providers can now benefit from the newly designed web site of the Rochester Regional Health Information Organization (GRRHIO).

In a medical emergency, the Rochester RHIO can save lives by offering providers immediate access to crucial patient health data. It also improves routine medical care–doctors can spend less time hunting down test results and health information, and more time diagnosing and treating patients.

Our web experts were pleased to work with GRRHIO in designing their first web site. The purpose of the site is to share details and information about the Rochester RHIO and partner RHIOs with the community.

An easy to navigate, smooth layout welcomes professionals, financial supporters, and any other interested members of the community to the site. We all look forward to seeing the expansion of knowledge as GRRHIO continues to grow. Great job to both GRRHIO and our staff on making a quality web site!   

Answer: Yes it does.  It brings the following concepts:

• system entirely based on the .NET platform producing a thin client application
• Utilization of .NET capabilities to build iMIS applications without jeopardizing the upgrade path
• Redesigned database schema
• Tool-based applications that allow you to control the look and flow of your work
• User-friendly user interfaces designed on usability principals
• Improved accounting infrastructure
• Extensive fundraising capabilities
• Ability to localize products based on geographic needs (Internationalization)
• role-based security
• And much more....

To accomplish their objectives, NimbleUser implemented the VanGo Content Manager and Customer module as well as provided web design services for an updated look. By implementing the VanGo modules, we were able to seamlessly integrate with their backend iMIS database allowing for online profile updates and stronger affiliation between MSBA and their members, fulfilling their business goals.

Congratulations MSBA!

Sig VanDamme stated "We're proud of our achievement as it demonstrates our commitment to our customers and our passion for creating solutions of value.  We're committed to creating the best possible solutions for our clients, and working and participating with ASI in the collaborative iMIS Community helps us ensure that we deliver services of the highest quality."

1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog
2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments
4. Ignore the trolls
5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so
6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7. Don't say anything online that you wouldn't say in person

If more blogs followed this common-sense code it would certanly make the blogging world more civilized without removing the openness that has separated blogs from the mainstream media.

The Resource Library can be managed by the staff at APGA from the administrative area of the site where they receive notifications when new documents are posted or comments are added, allowing them to have complete control over what is actually posted to the APGA Web site.

Here are some screenshots of the Resource Library:

OBA originally approached NimbleUser to find an association management software solution that would be better suited to their type of organization and had learned about us from another nearby Banking Association. NimbleUser is no stranger to implementing iMIS into Banking Associations either – having this background knowledge helped us to configure and implement iMIS in a way that best met OBA's needs. In fact, many Banking Associations have chosen to go with iMIS because it is the leader in its industry, it consistently ranks high with regards to customer satisfaction and is a scalable solution that can continue to grow as the association grows. OBA already knew all this and had done their own research ahead of time. They determined that iMIS 15 was the best fit for them and would resolve many of the issues they were facing with their current system.                                 

With a tight deadline on the table, we jumped right into the Requirements Review Process and captured how they currently functioned and what they hoped to do in iMIS 15. Jeff Golembiewski, Senior Project Manager, and Ellen Crooks, Applications Analyst, traveled to Oklahoma City, OK during December and January to assist with the implementation. In addition to meeting a great crew at OBA, they also came head to head with an ice storm that hit Oklahoma pretty hard (travel delays galore--the picture on the left is a view of the area right across the street from OBA)!

When I asked Jeff about his experience with OBA he expressed that it was a GREAT experience working with OBA. The main point of contact for the project at OBA, Lea Ann Jackson, CFO, was a great contributor to the project. In addition to knowing what she wanted to accomplish with the new system, she also knew everything about her own organization. Combining this knowledge with a level of decisiveness on questions that arose, she made it possible to streamline the entire process and meet the tight deadlines that were set forth with this project. Jeff also commented that Lea Ann was able to pick up on things very quickly and communicate her learnings back to the entire staff.

The transition to the new iMIS 15 database went very smoothly with a couple of weeks of onsite training and some follow-up education.  Currently, OBA is still fully utilizing all aspects of the iMIS database – from managing customer records and committees to processing event registrations, dues/subscription billings, and product order fulfillments. The next phase of the project will be adding e-commerce capabilities – the new iMIS 15 Public Views.

Thanks to everyone at NimbleUser who worked on this project and a special thanks to OBA for being such a great client and partner!

The group is very active and has several member-developed programs such as an on-line magazine, networking events, benchmark studies, peer-to-peer workshops, webinars and more. They have about 1,000 members from roughly 450  companies across the globe--all collaborating to keep a pulse on best practices and networking opportunities in the Professional Services field. This online community was created to:

• Encourage the exchange of ideas, information, and best practices between senior practitioners
• Bring together talented PS/Consulting professionals at all levels with companies looking to build their Services teams

NimbleUser's CEO, Dawn VanDamme, is on the Technology Advisory Board on PSVillage and helps the organization choose web technology to aid in the group's collaboration efforts. Dawn states, "PSVillage has been a great way to gain a better understanding of how others handle issues and opportunities similar to what we have, regardless of the exact marketplace."

Check out Dawn's profile at:
http://www.psvillage.com/index.php/Advisory-Board/TechAdvisoryBoard/ 

By integrating traditional fundraising campaigns with the online peer-to-peer tool, iMIS Friendraising, organizations dramatically increase overall campaign revenue and streamlining participant communications, while providing donors with an unprecedented ability to quickly build and maintain their own networks online.  The new tool integrates fully with iMIS 15, so all participant information, new contact names and addresses and financial transactions are captured in one central database.

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Non-profits can increase donations, expand program reach and reduce campaign administration costs with iMIS Friendraising. Each participant personalizes their fundraising page to tell why the organization and campaign are important to them.  Donors can easily reach out to their network from their personalized campaign website, through automated emails.

Member-get-a-Member Programs

Organizations can revolutionize their member-get-a-member programs by giving current members the tools to reach out to like-minded colleagues and professionals within their personal networks, with iMIS Friendraising. By enabling members to share educational experiences and networking opportunities, an organization's member benefits are highlighted for potential new members.  Members are able to send recruitment emails, create growth goals and provide simple payment options for new members.

Online Event Campaigns

Traditional A-thon-based multi-location events can be managed online for rapid launch and reduced event overhead costs. Organizations can create and launch complex event websites for participants to register, donate and build teams. iMIS Friendraising provides participants the tools to recruit new sponsors through the Internet, eliminating the need to physically go to an event. Launching a peer-to-peer online event enables participation from across the globe, drastically increasing overall donations, automating event administration and dramatically increases the return on investment achieved by the event.

About ASI

Advanced Solutions International (ASI) is the leading global provider of software for associations and non-profits, serving the industry since 1991. The company's premier product, iMIS, is the only complete, upgradeable, web-based, not-for-profit business software system. iMIS has served nearly 3000 customers worldwide. ASI distributes its solutions through a direct sales force and a global network of local solution providers backed by award-winning technical support. The company employs more than 200, with offices in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia. To learn more visit www.advsol.com.

• ASI achieved record revenue for 2007 with 8% growth in software license revenue over the previous year. ASI's international operations in Canada, Europe, and Australia collectively achieved record revenue for 2007 and contributed nearly 30% of ASI's total revenue.


• Ninety-two new customers purchased iMIS in 2007, increasing ASI's total customer base to nearly 3,000. This included a diverse set of new customers from around the globe, including United Way of Greater Toronto, Lloyd's Market Association (U.K.), Catholic Mission (Australia), and Salesian Missions (U.S.). The company added a record number of faith-based customers in 2007 and continues to expand its customer base across the non-profit sector.


• An independent report by Lehman Associates confirmed ASI's leadership position in the association market, with a 37% market share. With data compiled from national and international associations in North America with budget sizes of $2 million or greater, the Lehman report ranked ASI highest among major AMS vendors in implementation experience, and higher than the combined average ratings of other major AMS vendors in product satisfaction.


• ASI was the recipient of two major industry awards for support and performance. Service Strategies Corporation (SSC) recognized ASI with a certification in Service Capability and Performance (SCP) standards in 2007. This independent standards organization audited ASI business processes against the best practices for the software industry and provided certification based on compliance and actual results.


• The non-profit software industry's largest independent users group, NiUG, held its largest ever Annual Discovery Conference in October, attended by 356 representatives from member organizations. During 2007, NiUG has grown from being a regional U.S. organization to establishing a multi-national presence in Canada, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. NiUG now has nearly 650 organizational and 3000 individual members.


• ASI added eight iMIS partners bringing ASI's partner channel to nearly 75 companies and 1000 professionals worldwide.
  

"Building upon our success in 2007, we will be in a good position to expand our market reach as the leading global provider of web-based software for associations and non-profits," said Bob Alves, Chairman and CEO of ASI. "While iMIS grows as an open solution, we will give customers access to new technologies in online fundraising and closer integrations with third-party applications."

About ASI

Advanced Solutions International (ASI) is the leading global provider of software for associations and non-profits, serving the industry since 1991. The company's premier product, iMIS, is the only complete, upgradeable, web-based, not-for-profit business software system. iMIS has served nearly 3000 customers worldwide. ASI distributes its solutions through a direct sales force and a global network of local solution providers backed by award-winning technical support. The company employs more than 200, with offices in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia. To learn more visit www.advsol.com.

On Monday, Jeff taught an "iMIS 101" class that gave a comprehensive overview of modules such as customers module, dues module, events module and basic reporting. It was intended for users new to iMIS or for those just looking for a refresher course. He also taught a breakout session entitled "Correcting iMIS Transactions" that helped people figure out how to fix financial transactions when they have been entered incorrectly. This session had a great turn-out and many of the attendees complimented Jeff on his training style saying that he went at just the right pace, provided the right information and people felt they could really follow every step.

Sig also taught a breakout session entitled "Planning for Change"which helped address people's fears surrounding iMIS 15. In addition to outlining some of the hardware and licensing requirements, Sig's presentation got people thinking about how to make that bridge between iMIS 10.6 and iMIS 15.

While Sig was held up at the airport as a result of flight delays/cancellations, Jeff was able to enjoy some real down-home Texas Barbecue at the County Line On the Hill with some of our clients who were in the Austin area for the conference. It was a great chance for NimbleUser clients from all over the country (FL, NY, IN, CO) to get together and enjoy great food & conversation. When asked what Jeff would recommend ordering, without hesitation he stated "the Brisket is the best!"(sorry you missed it Sig!)

On Tuesday, Paul Peeples (President of NIUG) & other speakers kicked off the general session. The session highlighted new community items for iMIS and and gave iMIS users new insight with "15 Things You Didn't Know About iMIS."

Here are some helpful links derived from this session...check these out:

• iMIS Helpsite: This site has the latest & greatest in documentation, corrections & additions: http://docs.imis.com/

• iMIS Community: This is a web site provided for and maintained by the community of iMIS users, partners, and ASI. It has an open community approach where all are welcome and encouraged to contribute. They use a "wiki style" approach where any user can contribute, edit, or comment on most any of the documents in this web site.The iMIS Community is mainly a self help place where people can share solutions and answers to common questions.
  http://www.imiscommunity.com/

Another  highlight of the conference was the iMIS Communication Solutions Breakout Session held on Tuesday, February 19th. Michael Meenan of the National Federation of State High School Associations showcased the easy-to-use broadcast messaging tool,Communicate, which was originally developed by NimbleUser.

All in all it was a great conference and we are looking forward to the next NIUG Conference coming up in June in Sacramento, CA!

Hi all, Becca here from sunny Kenya.