During the holidays, we attended the requisite round of get-togethers with family and friends.  This year, my family hosted four events, which actually made all the cleaning and decorating worthwhile.

My conversations frequently migrated to publishing and information technology.  While sampling the wine and cheese pairings, I noted a number of common topics that were on the minds of my small, statistically-challenged sampling of the general public.  

Why are bookstores going out of business?

My sample noted   that bookstores are now hosting special events or selling video games, candles, collectibles, board games, jigsaw puzzles, coffee, and sandwiches rather than selling books.   New library branches appear to have more computers than books.

All of my classes now use course packs.

Expensive text books are being replaced by customized course packs that are printed, digital, or both.  Teachers and students find these both more flexible and less expensive.  Even when textbooks are used, course packs are used to supplement the material.

What is the cloud and is it secure?

Besides the general confusion over what cloud computing is, concerns exist about privacy and security. .  People are asking: how is my personal information being used?  What is the chance that my personal files will be lost or hacked?  How can I access my information when the cloud is "down"?

I buy everything through Amazon or eBay.

This might be an overstatement, but it indicates the direction retail is headed.  Will the online retail market continue to expand?  What are the costs and challenges for traditional retailers and publishers?

What’s going on with self-publishing?

The people I talked with appeared quite knowledgeable and interested in self-publishing.  Everyone wants to be an author, I guess, and they see it as less of a barrier to entry than the traditional publishing model. They understand the link between self-publishing, online retailing, print-on-demand, and electronic readers.

While those of us in the industry have been aware of these shifts for several years, I was surprised at the level of knowledge, and acceptance of the new trends among my friends and family.  For example, it seems like all of them now have an E-reader or tablet when only a couple years ago they were expressing the desire for the feel of a good book in their hands.

So, as the demand for information evolves, where do we focus our attention?  Let me suggest a few areas to consider:

·        Customer relation management – how do we target and retain customers?

·        Business intelligence – how do we store and evaluate data to drive strategic business decisions?

·        Data security – how can we ensure our data is safe and complies with new regulations?

·        Content management – how do we manage and deliver content in the way the market demands?

·        Strategic partnerships – how do we build strong relationships with key technology partners and combine the value of years of industry expertise with new, forward-thinking associates?

These issues are generally transparent to the general public, but very important to Advantage and our customers.  Our recent and future developments address these issues head-on.  As more and more clients use Advantage, the product is pushed in new directions as is our company - your partner.  We will be discussing many of the above items at the upcoming Advantage User Group conference in February.  

The year 2012 will be full of opportunities as well as challenges for us all.  May it be a prosperous new year for you.

Feel free to email me with your thoughts and suggestions for ways we can help you improve your competitive advantage.

We’d like to know which trade pubs, e-newsletters, websites and other sources you look to for keeping up to date on the publishing industry.  Please take a moment and respond to this very brief survey.  Your input will help us decide where to advertise.  Thanks!  

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/B39LR8N 

After their successful meeting in Paris last fall, Advantage’s European users decided to create a dedicated European Advantage User Group on the professional online network Linked In. They discovered a growing need to share not only Advantage usage and administration knowledge, but to do so within the dynamics and business practices unique to Europe.

At the group’s request, ACS provides the administration for this Linked In group, which extends but does not replace the ACS Message Board.   Linked In is an easy way to strengthen the ties between European users, and also an efficient means to "push" information to the community, through regular "latest news" posts.   ACS actively supports the news effort with regular updates on approved modifications available on the ACS message board, news about the latest revision of Advantage, and even information about the company or the publishing industry. In both English and French, of course!

So, if you are a European user-- including those of you in the US whose companies have activity on Advantage in Europe–you may join the group on Linked In by clicking on:

http://www.linkedin.com/European Advantage User Group

 

Philippe van Mastrigt and Virginie Motte represented ACS at the exhibition "La Presse au Futur" in Paris Nov 30th and December 1^st. This was the third year for the show, which is geared to publishing industry leaders, and attendance has increased each year.    It covers a large range of topics: editorial needs, print, digital and nomad solutions, advertising support, and of course subscription handling. The exhibition identifies trends and offers innovative tools and thinking to help publishing professionals deal with the major change the publishing world is going through with the rise of digital.

During the two days, visitors could attend 6 seminars mainly on digital topics, while 29 workshops were held including a presentation on Advantage given by Philippe van Mastrigt.  Thanks to all of you that went to the ACS booth and participated in discussions of trends.

 

The 2012 US meeting of the Advantage User Group is Wednesday, February  8^th through Friday, February 10^th at the Holiday Inn in the WALT DISNEY WORLD® Resort. 

This year’s conference will focus on "Doing More with Less" and will feature topics that AUG members have identified as being of particular interest. There will once again be a guest speaker and vendor sponsors (such as Chase Paymentech).  Keynote speaker is Greg Erlandson, President & Publisher, Our Sunday Visitor, and Dan Heffernan and Dick Hile of ACS are scheduled to present.

The AUG conference is a great opportunity for sharing ideas and networking with peers from publishing companies around the globe. For more information, contact Sue Sherrill, Steering Committee Chair (Sue.Sherrill@ama-assn.org), or any Steering Committee member.

Successful upgrade projects were recently concluded at various Advantage clients. 

Agora is now live on 11r3 and Suzanne Earley was highly pleased with the efforts of the upgrade team, which included Doug Moore, Larry Kleber, John Moore and Molly Mathe. 

"We had such a great experience with all the members of team," said Suzanne.  "Doug was a terrific project manager; he was always available and very supportive. Larry went above and beyond so many times on this upgrade. He worked several weekends to get dry runs done so I could avoid down time. John and Molly keep the issues moving and resolved quickly. Overall, it was a great experience."

CrainCommunications recently went live on 11r1, completing a five month upgrade project.   They are especially excited about using the new campaign/promotion setup workspace, using the enhanced credit card response rules features, and the upgraded list management email handling.   They also upgraded hardware to a brand new, top-of-the-line server – which will have tremendous positive impacts on processing and performance. 

Project Manager Daryl Vautour wants to thank the following people for the success of the project:

·        Scott Ghormley, Crain’s account manager and alternate delivery expert.  

·        Martha Kriegand Larry Kleber, their engineering leads for this project

·        Greg Marshallfor consulting with Crain on a new server

·        Kelly Vautourand Matt Varblow for leading the upgrade project on the websites and implementing the ASP.NET deployment model

·        Ray Zickand Howard Brooks for their help on numerous issues

·        Todd Gilson, for returning to his old stomping grounds onsite at Crain to do campaign/promotion setup training

·        Pete Oasfor his heroic efforts upgrading Crain’s custom lockbox program; also, to Linda Woodman, Linda Lorenz, Stan Pyett and Kathie Porter for pitching in as well.

·        Also, kudos to Greg Stout and Bryan Varblow for their executive and managerial assistance throughout the project.   

KalmbachPublishing is now live on the 2011R1 release of Advantage.  A smooth cutover was achieved, after a six-month project, which included a thorough verification phase. 

Project manager Bryan Varblow thanks Linda Woodman and Larry Kleber, who led the way on the engineering end and ensured the successful cutover.  He also wishes to thank all the others who pitched in at times to fill various needs.

Massachusetts Medical Society recently upgraded successfully and is now poised to take full advantage of features that will enhance their business productivity and better equip them to adapt to changes in the market.   

Project Manager Philippe Rowland sends out a big thank you to MarthaKrieg, the lead engineer, RayZick, who was the pinch hitter and Larry Kleber who performed his usual wizardry with the upgrade scripts.

Congratulations to Agora, Crain, Kalmbach and Massachusetts Medical!

 

Stan Pyett earned the nickname "The Sultan of Swat" early in his career at ACS and it’s stuck ever since.  ACS folklore has two explanations for how the term "SWAT," (which is our designation for work done investigating and fixing software bugs) got started.  One is that it came from the 70s police term "SWAT team"-- an elite tactical unit using Special Weapons And Tactics.  The other option is that it stands for "SoftWare Attack Team."  Either way, Stan has made it happen for more than 25 years.

There isn’t a client company—current or former—that Stan hasn’t worked with at one time or another.  He has endeared himself to dozens of users over the years by tracking down and fixing some pretty gnarly issues that were causing said clients to tear their hair out.  Advantage users have expressed their gratitude on many occasions.

Caryn Bair, Director of Fulfillment Operations at Penton, writes on behalf of her team:   "We all think Stan has been a great guy to work with and feel lucky that he waited until there were some recruits in place to absorb some of his knowledge before he left us.  Whenever we have turned in CIR related CSL requests, our mantra has always been:   ‘Make sure you tell them to have Stan work on that!’  or ‘Stan will know exactly what I am talking about – just ask when we can talk to him!’ 

No matter how frazzled our side was, Stan always had such a calm demeanor that you just trusted him to get your job done—and he did.  We will all miss him and hope he plans to really enjoy his retirement."

Born in southern Virginia, Stan’s family moved to Ohio and he attended the University of Akron where he earned a degree in English.  He learned Fortran and IBM 1620 machine language in his initial computer course in college, which was used at his first job.  However, his undergrad studies were interrupted by a stint in the Army Signal Corps, including time in Viet Nam, where, he says, he learned to get along with all sorts of people. 

When he came back to work after the military, the company (actually a hospital) was changing to IBM 360’s and so he learned COBOL.  At a later job, he picked up CICS (IBM’s first screen display language). 

Several years later, he went to graduate school in Illinois at Trinity Evangelical School and not only earned a graduate degree there, but also met and married his wife, Jocelyn.  After graduation, her best friend invited them to come to Michigan—and the couple moved to the Ann Arbor area where they have been ever since.  Stan held several programming and analyst jobs before joining Advantage—then T & B Computing—in February 1986.

He was assigned to SWAT right away and although he has worked for different bosses and seen countless reorganizations and company changes and location moves, he has kept on "swatting" away for nearly three decades.

"Stan and I go way back," says Nikki Lorenz of Kalmbach Publishing. "It’s hard for me to imagine Advantage without him. One of the things I appreciated most about working with Stan is that he communicated directly with me when working on an issue and provided just the right level of detail for me. This not only saved time but eliminated any risk of misinterpretation by a "middle man". He will definitely be missed!"

Support Center Manager Ev Acton says of Stan:   "There are so many things I’ll miss about Stan….his wit, his wisdom---his Boy Scout attitude---always willing to help and take my phone call or join in on a call with a client.  I have to say----Stan has always made my team’s life so much easier.  We love him and the clients love him too."

In addition to the friends he has made over the years, Stan has enjoyed the challenge of investigating and solving software bugs.  His favorite thing to work on has been "a well-researched bug that isn’t a "rush" job."  His work days varied in that some days he would juggle multiple issues while at other times he’d work on one item for several days.

Samantha Hinkley at OUP has called Stan a "superstar detective sleuth."

Judy Bramlett, Customer Relations Manager at Boy Scouts sends her best regards: "It was always a pleasure working with you, Stan.  I hope you have a long and happy retirement."

  "‘Config is’ is what I typically associate with Stanley," says Peter Loftus, Circulation Business Manager at SRDS.  "In the 14 years I’ve known him, Stan has worked on numerous items for us at SRDS, and has been most adept at solving problems.  Stan has proven himself to be patient, thorough, and tireless when it has come to fixing our issues.  And after he installs the "fix" in our test area, he always finishes with the statement, "Config is …….." 

Stan, I wish you all the best as you move on to the next stage of your life and I will surely miss working with you.  Thank you for everything, Stan!"

Andy Wright, Systems Manager at Oxford University Press, waxes eloquently about the soon-to-retire Sultan of Swat: "Stan, me old mucker, the day OUP has long dreaded is finally upon us and you are on your way.

Your efforts to ensure that our issues continued to head out the door is the stuff of legend – King of the FOIs, Lord Catch-ups; at the very least, a knighthood, so that from henceforth you should be known as Sir CIR. Your email exchanges with Graham rivalled the old Norse sagas in their duration and scale with the BKI issue, and like the greatest of the sagas, appears to be an epic that will now be carried on and written by more than one generation.

On a more serious note, I’ve very much appreciated all the work you have done for us. You have combined an extensive knowledge of the software with an understanding of our business and our needs, approaching everything with a perfect balance of dedication, professionalism, and just the right amount of subversive humour to keep everything in perspective. You epitomise all that is good about ACS and you will be greatly missed.

I wish you all the best, Stan, and hope you get to do all those things you were kept from when looking after us.  Best wishes from all at OUP. "

All of ACS will have a daily reminder of Stan’s absence because he will no longer be here to supply our laugh of the day.  For more years than he can remember, Stan has taken it upon himself to post cartoons each day in the ACS lunchrooms.  Ranging from New Yorker magazine cartoons, to copies of comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes, Dilbert, For Better or Worse, Foxtrot, Zits and The Far Side, ACSers have enjoyed these day brighteners, courtesy of Stan.

Stan isn’t yet sure of what he will do during retirement.  His wife, Jocelyn, a psychotherapist, will continue to work for at least another year at her position as executive director of Samaritan Counseling Services.  Stan says the only thing he knows for sure is that his first task will be convincing the couple’s two cats--Manchester and Bagheera--that breakfast can be consumed later than 6 a.m.

Whatever you decide to do, Stan, we all wish you the very best in a long and satisfying retirement.

Happy New Year!

Thank you everyone for your participation in Advantage Webinars in 2011.  It’s time to put together 2012’s training schedule and I need your input. Please take a moment to answer the following brief survey in order to ensure the topics you want to see are included on the schedule.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/WEBINARS-2012

As always, if you have general feedback regarding the format of the webinar training program, please pass that along to me, too. Angie

 

This Tech Tip discusses upsells performance tracking.

The Upsell Business Case

A customer calls and places an order for Product A.   Advantage "knows" that people who ordered Product A also ordered the "I’ve Got To Have It" book.  So an upsell script pops up with an enticing offer for the book – one that your customer agrees to.   Ideally, this positive result takes place more times than not.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know the precise success rate of your staff's upsell efforts?  Well, you’re in luck--Advantage can track and report the number of sales made from upsells compared against the number of upsell opportunities.  Here’s how it works.

Upsell Performance Tracking

Advantage tracks performance statistics in the upsell activity table (CPNUSA-M). It writes an entry each time an upsell is listed during an operator’s session (defined as the upsell opportunity) and then updates the entry with how it was resolved.  The entries get written to CPNUSA-M for all upsell types created with the upsell definition view (CPNUPS). The table contains:

* Upsell script ID from CPNUPS view

* User accessing the script

* Date and Time

* Outcome

  - L – upsell was listed

  - P – upsell script was accessed

  - S – actual sale resulted from the presentation

  - A – alternative promo choice was accepted

* Currency and Sales amount

Reporting Upsell Performance

Run the CPN680 report on upsell performance activity.  To purge old upsell activity records, use the CPN885 process.

For more information refer to your Master Order manual or contact your Advantage account manager.

 

Starting at 2011R1, Advantage has to ability to perform the customer search when you tab out of the field or with each keystroke. The search behavior for the TAB and KEYSTROKE is activated with the CDS option SRCHWHEN. The valid values are:

·    ENTER: the default behavior; works as currently, and requires clicking the Search button.

·    TAB:  performs the search each time the search data is entered and the user tabs out of the field---there is no need to click the Search button as a separate action.  This can be a way to progressively narrow your search as you enter your search criteria. It may enable you to locate the desired customer more quickly than if you had used the conventional searching.

·    KEYSTROKE:  performs the search each time a character is entered into a search field.  This can narrow your search with each keystroke, and may enable you to locate the desired customer even more quickly than the above two methods. 

The search behavior depends on there being enough search criteria to effectively conduct the search. For example, if you type in just a country name, the system will not perform a search. However, if you add to your search criteria a few characters of postal code or last name, search results will be returned.

The minimum amount of search criteria required for KEYSTROKE or TAB option is at least one of the following:

·    3 characters of postal code

·    2 characters of last name

·    2 characters of company name

·    2 characters of e-mail address

·    4 characters of phone number

The TAB and KEYSTROKE settings are supported in the List and Directory presentations at SVCDAT, but not at Cards. The search behavior applies to both SVCDAT and the Customer Lookup dialog.  It is not available in Web capsules.

 

Congratulations to Martin Media, who recently went live on Advantage (11r1 revision). This French publisher is located in beautiful eastern France, at Revigny sur Ornain.  The company publishes a variety of educational and special interest magazines, with 130,000 active subscribers.  They also have a large product order component to their business and are working on integrating their websites.

Due to intensive and thorough testing by the Martin Media team, the transition was made without significant cutover challenges, and they are now successfully up and running on Advantage.

On ACS's side, John Hughes was the project manager, with assistance and direction from Levi Hyssong and Philippe van Mastrigt.  Barbara Smith served as the lead engineer for the project.  The Martin Media team was led by Philippe Canus, with Jean-Luc Poncin giving executive direction.

ACS is delighted to welcome John Wiley & Sons, Inc., to the Advantage community.  Wiley was founded by Charles Wiley in 1807 and, in its early years, published works by such authors as Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, and Herman Melville.  By the early 1900s, Wiley was established as a leading publisher of scientific and technical information.  In 2007, the company acquired UK-based Blackwell Publishing, greatly expanding its journal and society publishing business.

Wiley's global headquarters are located in Hoboken, New Jersey. With more than 5,000 employees and operations across North America, Europe, Asia, Canada, and Australia,Wiley is a global enterprise.The company reported revenues of nearly $1.75 billion in fiscal year 2011.

Wiley began its search for a subscription management system in the first half of 2011 and sent out an RFI in June to a number of vendors.  The field was narrowed to three companies who participated in workshops and product demonstrations over the summer.  After a thorough evaluation process by the Wiley search team, Advantage was chosen, and implementation is now underway.

Advantage will be used to manage subscriptions for Wiley’s three core businesses:Scientific, Technical, Medical, and Scholarly (STMS), Professional/Trade, and Global Education.  Advantage will support 10,000 subscribed products, including 1,500 journals across those businesses.

The ACS team includes project manager John Sheehy and lead engineer Karl Davis. Tim Zapawa is acting project director, and many others will be involved in the project as it moves through the implementation phases.

The Wiley project team to implement Advantage is being led by Nick Forman, business lead, and Neel Mony, technical lead, while being managed by David Ingham.  In addition to the ACS team members, the project will draw on expertise from across Wiley.