Stop by and visit the Advantage booth at SIPA (Specialized Information Publishers Association) 2012 May 20 - 22 at the Capital Hilton in Washington DC. And then make your way to Arlington, Virginia on May 30 - June 1 for the 34th Annual Meeting of the Society of Scholarly Publishing (SSP).  Advantage will have a booth there as well, at the Marriott Crystal Gateway.

Ken Nemerovski—known to all as "Nemo"—has been a fixture at ACS since 1982.  Only four people predate him and, when it comes to remembering company history, he is unrivaled.  With his excellent memory for names, faces and dates, he is the go-to guy for information about the early days here.

Nemo has always worked in sales in some capacity, and even though he officially moved to the Client Services Division in 2006 as a Senior Account Manager, he still keeps his hand in the sales game, being responsible for selling additional software licenses and third-party products to ACS clients.  He manages third-party relationships for the company and also handles license compliance, monitoring usage for clients with such agreements.  He is the account manager for six ACS clients and is responsible for the overall relationship between ACS and each of them.

Peter Loftus, Circulation Business Manager at SRDS, has this to say about Ken:  "I have had the pleasure with working with Nemo for almost 15 years and have always appreciated working with him in several different areas.  Whether it would be modifying a Software License (for which he is a stickler for details), to his organization of the annual User Meetings in years past in Ann Arbor, to our colorful conversations about University of Texas versus University of Michigan college athletics, I have always enjoyed my relationship with Nemo."

Peter goes on to elaborate:  "Nemerovski is a funny last name with 10 letters so the following are 10 characteristics I believe describe Nemo best."

• Friendly
• Persistent
• Candid
• Cheerful
• Reliable
• Responsive
• Devoted
• Cooperative
• Enthusiastic
• Involved

Nemo revels in client contact and has made many lasting friendships.  Providing customer care and identifying sales strategies are two other aspects of his job that he enjoys.  Years ago, ACS also sold hardware and Nemo was responsible for that area.  Although ACS is not in the hardware business anymore, Ken still keeps up with the current hardware offerings and prices.   He has seen a lot of changes in his time at the company, especially in hardware and technology.  However, many of the people he deals with – both inside ACS and among clients – have been around a long time.

"I’ve known ‘Captain Nemo’ for over 20 years now and it’s been an honor to work with him," says Jose Garcia, who spent many years at Health Communications and is now with Agora.  "Ken has been everything from event organizer to showman to salesman at ACS.   He’s performed all his responsibilities respectfully and always with a smile.  My favorite lines from him are ‘You wanna pay how much for that?’ and ‘You know, I have to make a living, too’.   Cheers to Captain Nemo."

And Pat Sharpton, Manager of Business Information Services at God’s World Publications, has this to say:  "It's been a pleasure working with Ken over the years.  He does whatever possible to help us stay within our budget and encourages us to make full use of all the Advantage modules we've purchased.  Our entire staff always looks forward to his visits because he brings his good humor, the latest news about Advantage and always good lunches!"

A native of Wilmette, Illinois, near Chicago, Nemo came to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan, which was the alma mater of both of his parents.  He earned his undergraduate degree in Communications, and he has lived in Michigan ever since.  His first full-time position was right at the university, where he worked as an Assistant Director of Recreational Sports.  He was in heaven in that position, as his love of sports is renowned.  While in that job, he took evening classes over several years and earned his MBA from the University of Michigan.  He then took a position as assistant director of admissions for the U of M Business School and did that for two years before coming to ACS (then T & B Computing) in 1982.  He has worked with many ACS’ers over the years.

Dan Heffernan, VP of Sales, is one of them.   "Nemo is one of the most reliable, organized, and experienced persons I know," says Dan.    "He has an infallible memory and has been in hundreds, if not thousands of situations and remembers each one.  Or at least it seems he does.  He is a fantastic resource for ideas and is never far from lightening up the moment with a one-liner.  His humor is legendary.  As a former boss of mine, I’ve always held Nemo in high esteem and would trust him with my life.  He’s a real professional."

Nemo’s one-liners flow seemingly effortlessly at company meetings and get-togethers.   He is rarely, if ever, at a loss for words and there aren’t many subjects that don’t provoke some sort of witticism.  Most of his puns inspire laughs and smiles, although there is the occasional groaner in there, too.     

Greg Stout, VP of Client Services, and Nemo’s current supervisor, is another who goes way back with Ken.  "Nemo and I have worked together for many years," says Greg.  "And it seems like he has a memory or story about each one of them.  His organizational skills, ownership of responsibility, attention to detail, and follow-through ensure that everything is done in a professional manner.  I very much appreciate the fresh perspective he often brings to challenging situations.   Nemo does everything with a sense of fairness, integrity, and personal attention that we all appreciate."

Fellow account manager Bob Thornton waxed poetical on his friend and coworker:

"Nemo is great.

He always works late.

He’s got the quickest wit.

Which I enjoy quite a bit.

The licenses, out they flow

From that notebook of Nemo.

So it should be easy to see,

Why I’m glad I work with Nemerovski." 

Bob goes on: "Nemo is a wonderful co-worker – one of the best organized people I know!  He is always more than helpful with whatever question is posed to him.  He is detailed, thorough and his emails are thoughtful and well-crafted.   And of course his sports knowledge is legendary – at least here at ACS."

Nemo lives in Ann Arbor, a whopping 2.6 miles from ACS headquarters.  He has four children, spread out all over the country and proudly notes that they all have advanced degrees.  The eldest, David, lives in La Jolla, California and is getting married this spring.  Peter and his wife have a three-year-old daughter and a newborn son, and live in Coral Gables, Florida.  Third son Brian is married and lives in Ann Arbor – the only one still close to home.  Daughter Christy and her husband live in Columbus, Ohio.

Nemo’s mother still lives in Chicago and he gets back to his hometown quite often to visit her.  He came by his love of sports in part from her, as she was always one to read the box scores in the newspaper and could quote the latest statistics for Chicago’s professional sports teams.

Tom Hathoot, CFO at Horizon Publishing, appreciates Nemo’s loyalty to his hometown teams.  "Anybody who is a Chicago Cub fan is alright in my book, but Nemo goes way past being just alright," says Tom.  "He has been a tremendous liaison between Horizon Publishing Company and ACS since he took over responsibility for our account.  He is both honest and trustworthy in our business dealings and a lot of fun away from work.  For purposes of full disclosure, I was not paid to write this but will expect a few more strokes on the golf course."   (Nemo:   Be warned!)

It’s clear to see that Nemo has had a hand in ACS’ success over the years.  In addition, he has enriched the lives of his coworkers – whom he calls "an outstanding group of very bright people" – and many clients.  We hope that Nemo will be here at ACS, throwing out his one-liners and brightening our days, for many more years to come.  Or at least until the Cubs win the World Series. 

Are you interested in a streamlined and unified way to import orders into Advantage and process them? A way to combine much of the functionality in the CIR125, PRO301, CEM125, and AMB125 Advantage uploads? How about the ability to create rules to automatically correct bad incoming data?

If so, OrderStream may be right for you. 

Available in the 2012r1 release of Advantage, OrderStream offers a new process to standardize and unify the various uploads in Advantage.  Many of the current upload transactions are now available through a standard Advantage XML schema. The newly developed process supports the wide variety of files and formats of data to be uploaded into Advantage. In addition, it supports various file locations, types, and formats.

OrderStream also solves the problem of a bad data condition you frequently encounter; for instance, an incorrect promotion code. If you know what promotion code should be used instead, OrderStream allows you to create a rule to automatically correct it. In order to handle the incoming data conditions, OrderStream allows you to define a set of rules and actions to correct these conditions. Better yet, for those one-off data conditions that you were not expecting, a new view is available to easily correct the incoming transactions and resubmit them for processing without holding up the current upload.

Contact your ACS representative to find out how OrderStream can be implemented to support and streamline your business transaction flow.

 

The 2012 webinar schedule is off and running.   We’ve got a great program in the works for this year, including popular repeat topics like ‘Web Module Interface Architecture’ and ‘AMB Administration and Data Entry.’   I’m also very excited about some new topics that will be presented such as ‘Order Stream Rules and Transactions’ and ‘Credit Card Authorization Enhancements.’

Each webinar is typically a one-hour session of cost-effective training on a particular Advantage topic. The cost is $70 per connection and $35 for each additional individual using the same connection.

Be sure to check often to see additions to the webinar schedule and to reserve your spot. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions then please email Angie Markel.

8-Mar-2012         Web Module Interface Architecture                       Philippe Rowland
22-Mar-2012      Confirmations in Advantage                                   Tim Martin
24-Apr-2012       CIR Renewal Processing and Selects                  Todd Gilson
8-May-2012        Credit Card Authorization Enhancements             Philippe Rowland
17-May-2012      AMB Administration and Data Entry                       Angie Markel
7-Jun-2012          Credit Card Encryption Changes                          Philippe Rowland
21-June-2012     Order Stream Rules and Transactions                  Doug Moore
10-Jul-2012         Duplicate Consolidation                                         Eric Burbeck

This Tech Tip discusses price points which provide the ability to add a price to a group of items, without having to change each item individually.

The Price Points Business Case

You have 500 items. It turns out many of the items have the same price.

In fact exactly 100 items share one price. The next 100 share a different price and another 100 share another price and so on.

Let’s say you need to add a new price to all five sets of 100 items.  You would prefer not to add the new price to all 500 items individually.

The price points feature allows you to add five new prices (Price Points) and then assigns the price to the 500 items.

Creating Price Points

You can associate a group of inventory items with the same Advantage "Price Point" for ease of assigning prices---and in particular, adding new prices on a regular basis.

Use price points when you have groups of items that share the same pricing structure.  Rather than assigning prices to, and adding new prices on, each item, you set up the structure for the price point, and assign items to the point.  Each item then inherits that point's pricing.

1) First ensure your inventory data entry script displays the Price Point data element for Add and Change actions.

a) Open your data entry script for change

b) Click the check box to "Show advanced elements and enable Move Up/Down"

c) Type "price point" in the Filter to view "Price Point Item" entry

d) Highlight the Price Point entry

e) Change the settings to "Open / Visible"

2) Find or create an item that will hold your "price point" prices. This item is called PRICPNT in the example below.

3) Enter the prices for this item (these prices will appear as prices for all other items having this item in the Price Point field).

4) Find or create the items that use the "price point" prices.

5) Instead of entering prices, you simply enter the item number created in #2 in the "Price Point Item" data field.

6) The prices defined on the price point item (PRICPNT) now appear as prices for this item.

Finding just the right technical people is a vital part of growth at ACS and the intern program has been a great source of excellent employees.  In addition to providing valuable services in their stints as interns, it gives both intern and management staff time to evaluate whether or not the fit is a good one.

Brian Roskamp is the newest intern at ACS, working in the engineering division.  A junior at the University of Michigan, Brian is studying computer science and engineering.  It only took one introductory computer science class as a freshman in high school for Brian to decide what he wanted to do for a living.  That was at Howell High School in Howell, Michigan, where his family still lives.

Brian is especially interested in software engineering for business applications and is enjoying his current classes which include database management and user interface design.  He is working at ACS part-time during the school year and will be full-time in the summer months.

When he’s not studying or working at ACS, Brian is a part-time youth worker at a church in Howell and also enjoys watching movies and spending time with friends.  In warm weather, he likes to play ultimate Frisbee, a popular sport among college students.

ACS is happy to welcome Brian to the Advantage team.

 

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 search method.
• 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. 

Ken Nemerovski—known to all as "Nemo"—has been a fixture at ACS since 1982.  Only four people predate him and, when it comes to remembering company history, he is unrivaled.  With his excellent memory for names, faces and dates, he is the go-to guy for information about the early days here.

Nemo has always worked in sales in some capacity, and even though he officially moved to the Client Services Division in 2006 as a Senior Account Manager, he still keeps his hand in the sales game, being responsible for selling additional software licenses and third-party products to ACS clients.  He manages third-party relationships for the company and also handles license compliance, monitoring usage for clients with such agreements.  He is the account manager for six ACS clients and is responsible for the overall relationship between ACS and each of them.

Peter Loftus, Circulation Business Manager at SRDS, has this to say about Ken:  "I have had the pleasure with working with Nemo for almost 15 years and have always appreciated working with him in several different areas.  Whether it would be modifying a Software License (for which he is a stickler for details), to his organization of the annual User Meetings in years past in Ann Arbor, to our colorful conversations about University of Texas versus University of Michigan college athletics, I have always enjoyed my relationship with Nemo."

Peter goes on to elaborate:  "Nemerovski is a funny last name with 10 letters so the following are 10 characteristics I believe describe Nemo best."

• Friendly
• Persistent
• Candid
• Cheerful
• Reliable
• Responsive
• Devoted
• Cooperative
• Enthusiastic
• Involved

Nemo revels in client contact and has made many lasting friendships.  Providing customer care and identifying sales strategies are two other aspects of his job that he enjoys.  Years ago, ACS also sold hardware and Nemo was responsible for that area.  Although ACS is not in the hardware business anymore, Ken still keeps up with the current hardware offerings and prices.   He has seen a lot of changes in his time at the company, especially in hardware and technology.  However, many of the people he deals with – both inside ACS and among clients – have been around a long time.

"I’ve known ‘Captain Nemo’ for over 20 years now and it’s been an honor to work with him," says Jose Garcia, who spent many years at Health Communications and is now with Agora.  "Ken has been everything from event organizer to showman to salesman at ACS.   He’s performed all his responsibilities respectfully and always with a smile.  My favorite lines from him are ‘You wanna pay how much for that?’ and ‘You know, I have to make a living, too’.   Cheers to Captain Nemo."

And Pat Sharpton, Manager of Business Information Services at God’s World Publications, has this to say:  "It's been a pleasure working with Ken over the years.  He does whatever possible to help us stay within our budget and encourages us to make full use of all the Advantage modules we've purchased.  Our entire staff always looks forward to his visits because he brings his good humor, the latest news about Advantage and always good lunches!"

A native of Wilmette, Illinois, near Chicago, Nemo came to Ann Arbor to attend the University of Michigan, which was the alma mater of both of his parents.  He earned his undergraduate degree in Communications, and he has lived in Michigan ever since.  His first full-time position was right at the university, where he worked as an Assistant Director of Recreational Sports.  He was in heaven in that position, as his love of sports is renowned.  While in that job, he took evening classes over several years and earned his MBA from the University of Michigan.  He then took a position as assistant director of admissions for the U of M Business School and did that for two years before coming to ACS (then T & B Computing) in 1982.  He has worked with many ACS’ers over the years.

Dan Heffernan, VP of Sales, is one of them.   "Nemo is one of the most reliable, organized, and experienced persons I know," says Dan.    "He has an infallible memory and has been in hundreds, if not thousands of situations and remembers each one.  Or at least it seems he does.  He is a fantastic resource for ideas and is never far from lightening up the moment with a one-liner.  His humor is legendary.  As a former boss of mine, I’ve always held Nemo in high esteem and would trust him with my life.  He’s a real professional."

Nemo’s one-liners flow seemingly effortlessly at company meetings and get-togethers.   He is rarely, if ever, at a loss for words and there aren’t many subjects that don’t provoke some sort of witticism.  Most of his puns inspire laughs and smiles, although there is the occasional groaner in there, too.     

Greg Stout, VP of Client Services, and Nemo’s current supervisor, is another who goes way back with Ken.  "Nemo and I have worked together for many years," says Greg.  "And it seems like he has a memory or story about each one of them.  His organizational skills, ownership of responsibility, attention to detail, and follow-through ensure that everything is done in a professional manner.  I very much appreciate the fresh perspective he often brings to challenging situations.   Nemo does everything with a sense of fairness, integrity, and personal attention that we all appreciate."

Fellow account manager Bob Thornton waxed poetical on his friend and coworker:

"Nemo is great.

He always works late.

He’s got the quickest wit.

Which I enjoy quite a bit.

The licenses, out they flow

From that notebook of Nemo.

So it should be easy to see,

Why I’m glad I work with Nemerovski." 

Bob goes on: "Nemo is a wonderful co-worker – one of the best organized people I know!  He is always more than helpful with whatever question is posed to him.  He is detailed, thorough and his emails are thoughtful and well-crafted.   And of course his sports knowledge is legendary – at least here at ACS."

Nemo lives in Ann Arbor, a whopping 2.6 miles from ACS headquarters.  He has four children, spread out all over the country and proudly notes that they all have advanced degrees.  The eldest, David, lives in La Jolla, California and is getting married this spring.  Peter and his wife have a three-year-old daughter and a newborn son, and live in Coral Gables, Florida.  Third son Brian is married and lives in Ann Arbor – the only one still close to home.  Daughter Christy and her husband live in Columbus, Ohio.

Nemo’s mother still lives in Chicago and he gets back to his hometown quite often to visit her.  He came by his love of sports in part from her, as she was always one to read the box scores in the newspaper and could quote the latest statistics for Chicago’s professional sports teams.

Tom Hathoot, CFO at Horizon Publishing, appreciates Nemo’s loyalty to his hometown teams.  "Anybody who is a Chicago Cub fan is alright in my book, but Nemo goes way past being just alright," says Tom.  "He has been a tremendous liaison between Horizon Publishing Company and ACS since he took over responsibility for our account.  He is both honest and trustworthy in our business dealings and a lot of fun away from work.  For purposes of full disclosure, I was not paid to write this but will expect a few more strokes on the golf course."   (Nemo:   Be warned!)

It’s clear to see that Nemo has had a hand in ACS’ success over the years.  In addition, he has enriched the lives of his coworkers – whom he calls "an outstanding group of very bright people" – and many clients.  We hope that Nemo will be here at ACS, throwing out his one-liners and brightening our days, for many more years to come.  Or at least until the Cubs win the World Series. 

Exciting new features abound in 2012r1.  In addition, these highlights include features from 2011r3. 

• A new method of order upload---Order Stream---is available with this release. This upload framework employs .xml input to a new MST125 process that can be used to add CIR, PRO, AMB, CEM, and MBR orders. Order Stream includes an error correction process whereby you can define correction rules that automatically repair and resubmit records that were placed into error status by the MST125 process. Also, the feature includes a robust and flexible error correction view, where you can manually review and repair error records, and then resubmit them for processing.
• A consolidated payment view, MSTDAT/PAY, has been added. This view combines (and replaces) the ARPCSH and MSTDAT/CSH payment entry points, and provides a consistent and central place for payment entry and related payment functionality (such as refunds). 
• Subscribed CIR items can now be offered as part of a premium set (previously, only PRO items could be included in premium sets). You additionally indicate whether the CIR premium is to be sent to the bill-to customer or ship-to customer. Finally, if the premium is earned as part of a paid CIR subscription order, and the paid subscription is cancelled, Advantage automatically cancels the free premium subscription as well.
• The AMB module now supports on-approval orders. As with the related functionality in CIR, you can create AMB agreement orders, but delay having financial information posted into Accounts Receivable until the initial payment is received.
• With this release, Advantage provides a Promotion Offers feature. This allows you to define characteristics of a promotion (for example, items, premiums, upsells) that may repeat from promotion to promotion. Instead of needing to perform setup for each promotion, you define the "offer," and then link the promotion to an offer.
• The customer authentication feature now includes the ability to lock users out of a website if they fail ‘n’ id/password login attempts during a defined period. This can protect the integrity of your customers’ id and password records, and increase overall website security.
• A package allocation feature allows you to set up packages so that PRO items are assigned a proportional weight of the eventual package pricing. At order entry time, Advantage uses this weighting, along with the determined package price, to split the cost of the PRO components proportionately.

For more information on 2012r1, contact your account manager. 

ACS is pleased to welcome Ryan Powers to our employee family.  Ryan is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, where he earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree in computer science engineering.  He is assigned to the Product Development Group, led by Howie Brooks. 

Born and raised in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, Ryan has always had an interest in technology.   As a child, his parents soon learned to let him take care of the technical stuff at home as he had an aptitude for it.  When he took his first computer programming class at the University of Michigan, he made up his mind that computer programming was the career for him.

One of Ryan’s favorite aspects of programming is that you are free to try out your ideas within the safe confines of a controlled setting.  Developing in a test environment, programmers can experiment and explore ways to do things and make sure they work before they impact actual production.

Ryan also made room in his college days for music—playing cymbals in the marching band for five football seasons.  Interestingly enough, Ryan reports that engineering is the most common major among marching band members, at nearly 30%.  Ryan received three different scholarships through his band activities, including one for Outstanding Leadership and Contribution to the Band, which was awarded based on votes of the band staff. 

Ryan lives in Ann Arbor and still has a lot of friends at the university.  In his spare time, he enjoys video games and snow-boarding.

Welcome Ryan! 

… in a place warm and sunny in early February, a group of individuals descended upon Orlando, Florida.  Some were sneezy (from the Midwest cold), others were sleepy (from the west, due to time difference), most were happy, and although a few might have been grumpy or bashful, none were dopey.   No, these were not Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, in spite of meeting right on the grounds of the Walt Disney World Resort.  Rather, they were attendees of the Advantage Users Group Conference.

By all accounts, the conference was a tremendous success.  After several years of dealing with bad weather in January, this was the first time that the conference was held in February.  The weather cooperated beautifully and surrounding activities were fabulous.  All told, there were 80 attendees—a conference record—representing 27 client companies from as far away as the UK, France and Australia.

The event provided a wonderful combination of beautiful scenery and weather, informative user presentations and roundtable group discussions.   Topics included Credit Card Security and Compliance, Tokenization, Access Management, Business Intelligence, Web Capsules, Duplicate Consolidation, Conditional Letters, and Email Marketing, as well as an accumulation of Advantage Tips and Tricks from the user community.

In addition to the roundtable discussions, there were focused luncheon groups on specific topics.  One such grouping involved "newbies" to Advantage who wanted to network specifically with other new users and an AMB guru—Sue Bukovsky from AMA—provided the expertise.  Greg Erlandson, president of Our Sunday Visitor, was the keynote speaker and provided a fascinating and often humorous view of the challenges they face in serving the niche market of Catholics.  His review of lessons learned was relevant for any publisher.

Dan Heffernanof ACS provided an update on ACS news, direction and strategy, and Dick Hile provided a technology update for changes coming in 2012.

Attendees were in awe at the changes planned for 2012.

Tim Swietek, Ogden, led the session on Credit Card Security as well as taking part in the web capsule panel. 

In AUG business, Jim Browning, Value line and José Garcia, API, joined the Steering Committee and are looking forward to helping shape the 2013 conference.

Evenings were free for folks to network, relax in Orlando, or visit any one of the several Disney parks.  One group made a dizzying tour (in more ways than one) of the various country pavilions at Epcot.  On Thursday evening, attendees were treated to a riveting performance of Cirque du Soleil’s La Nouba.

There was a great deal of excitement as well as a real sense of community during the conference as old relationships were rekindled and new ones established.  It’s been a delight to see the camaraderie that has been built over the years among the various users as they strive to use Advantage as efficiently as possible to meet the various business needs in an ever-changing environment.

Sadly, by Friday afternoon attendees scurried off to catch various flights, but ideally…

… they all lived happily ever after.

 

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.