The annual AUG conference is being held January 12-14, 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada.  The focus of this year's meeting is Digital Publishing and Reporting, and the keynote speaker is Ted Blizzard, CIO of the Massachusetts Medical Society.

The conference will be held at:                                                

New York New York Hotel

3790 Las Vegas Blvd South

Las Vegas, NV 89109

www.nynyhotelcasino.com

Rooms are available at a special group rate of $60.00 per night through Thursday night plus a $12.95 per night resort fee and applicable taxes (base rate is $109.00 for Friday night). The cutoff date for these rates is December 20, 2010.

Make online reservations at:

https://reservations.mgmmirage.com/bookingengine.aspx?pid=010&host=offer&code=SCAUGA0111

This is a New York, New York reservations website specifically set up for our group. Choose which date you want to check in and how many nights you'll be staying and click the "search availability" button. It will show what is available for our group rate. If you're satisfied with everything just click "book this room" and it will ask for your credit card information and give you a confirmation code.  Please keep this code as you will need it upon check in.

 

Or by telephone:

Reservations will be telephoned directly to Hotel Group Reservations Department at 800-693-6763. In order to receive the group rate, callers must specify the group code SCAUGA0111.  Rates cannot be changed at check-in or check-out for guests who fail to identify their affiliation at the time the reservation is made.

Conference fees

The conference fee will be $250.00 per attendee and is due by December 15, 2010.  This includes breakfast and lunch for two days.  A special "early bird" rate of $225.00 ($235.00 via PayPal) will be honored if your registration is received on or before November 19, 2010.  No refunds will be given after December 15, 2010.

New this year!  If you'd like to pay your conference fee with PayPal, use this link:

https://cms.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/?cmd=_render-content&content_ID=marketing_us/send_money

and email the applicable amount to aug@advantagecs.com.  Please identify payment as Personal/Payment owed. Contact Ev Acton (eacto@advantagecs.com) with any problems.

 We hope to see you there!

Fifty people descended on the New  Maison Dupuy Hotel in the French Quarter of New Orleans January 13 - 15 for the annual Advantage User Group meeting.  The 41 clients representing 23 different companies were joined by 9 representatives from ACS.  

Although the conference officially opened on Wednesday night, three discussion sessions were planned for Wednesday afternoon for early arrivals and almost everyone attended them.  Attendees had their choice of "XML ICEDIS Standards for Academic Publishers," led by Andy Wright of Oxford University Press, assisted by Dan Heffernan of ACS, or "Implementing Marketing Strategies in Advantage," led by Nikki Lorenz of Kalmbach, aided by Phil Montgomery of ACS.  Much meaningful discussion took place during these highly interactive sessions.  They were followed by an ACS-led AMB and BI module update/forum led by Dan Heffernan and Phil Montgomery.  They were able to report on the latest additions to these popular modules.

The meeting officially opened with a vendor-sponsored meet-and-greet reception Wednesday evening.  Representatives from two vendors, Jim Jankowski from Ladd & Associates and brothers George and Richard Coriaty of Sir Speedy, attended the conference.  (Ladd is a circulation modeling software provider and Sir Speedy is a print-on-demand operation.)  After the reception, many attendees headed down Bourbon Street to be amazed at the eclectic mix of elegant restaurants, famous music halls and the other, more low-brow establishments. 

On Thursday morning, after a welcome and introductions by Andy Wright, the outgoing AUG chairman, Kevin Carr, president of Motor Information Systems, delivered an informative and entertaining keynote address.   His talk was entitled, Change or Perish, and was a captivating case study of the Encyclopedia Britannica's rise to prominence over the course of the 20^th century only to be followed by a rapid and nearly-complete collapse in the late 1990's and early 2000's.  Carr's main point was that, due to a number of factors, EB did not adequately prepare for the technological changes that were making their way into the industry in the early 1990's.  By the time they realized what was happening, it was too late.  Their short-sighted refusal to acknowledge the realities of the changing marketplace led to their inevitable demise.  Kevin cautioned the attendees to make sure they don't make that same mistake.

Rounding out the program on Thursday morning was a vendor presentation on circulation modeling by Ladd & Associates and Kristie Fischer of Kalmbach Publishing.  Kristie, a user of the Ladd modeling software, explained how Kalmbach uses this application effectively by using data from Advantage to project a number of scenarios ranging from how many magazines to produce for a particular issue to how much revenue could be expected from a change in approach to renewals efforts.  Jim Jankowski  of Ladd Associates then demonstrated how to set up and use the Ladd application.

The food at the New Maison Dupuy hotel was superb and Thursday's lunch was no exception.  Yum, yum!

Dan Heffernan, ACS VP of Product Direction, had the dreaded after-lunch time slot and tried to keep everyone awake with a colorful presentation of the latest ACS news, including current initiatives and the importance of keeping in touch with customers in order for ACS to provide real software for real life – at least in the publishing/information content business.  He succeeded in holding the attention of the entire group and gave them much to think about.

Brandon Marsh of Penton Media then led a session in which he reviewed the results of a survey done prior to the conference in which people were asked to identify and rate the interfaces that they use.  The list included credit card, address cleansing, manifest shipping and other interfaces.  Attendees found this information helpful and ACS will be putting this on its website for ongoing reference.

Brandon's short presentation was then followed by roundtable discussions on several of those interfaces.  Participants found this exchange with one another engaging.

The day concluded with an AUG business meeting in which Kevin Quinn of Wolters Kluwer Health was tapped as chair for the next term.  Although some in the audience suspected that he was bribed, others responded that "it's about time."  Also coming on board were Sue Sherrill of the AMA, and Ricky Land of National Auto Research.

Dinner Thursday evening was aboard a paddleboat on the Mississippi River.  It was a little on the chilly side, but the lights of New Orleans from the water were breathtaking.

Starting off the Friday activities was a presentation of Advantage New Features, given by Mona Hidayet.  The reps from Speedy Printing then gave a presentation on Print-on-Demand, and after that, the group broke up into small groups to attend the first of two hour-long roundtable discussions. Topics included  Packages/combo orders, Print-on-demand, Promoting for Renewals, and Duplicate Consolidation. These roundtable discussions have become an important event at the conference, since everyone gets a chance to talk and all find something helpful to take away with them.

After a short break, the roundtables were repeated and attendees were able to attend a second discussion of their choice.  The conference ended shortly after noon on Friday.

According to a survey performed after the conference, everyone who attended was either satisfied or highly satisfied.  There was a tangible comfortable spirit at the conference, which even the new attendees felt.  If you missed it this year, make plans now to attend in 2011.

           

            

The theme of this year's Advantage User Group conference—headquartered at The Maison Dupuy Hotel in New Orleans--is "Supporting the Marketer." Although a number of sessions and events revolve around that theme, others feature different topics that AUG members have identified as being of interest.

 

The 2010 conference will open Wednesday afternoon—January 13-- with a choice of two discussion sessions:

1)      XML ICEDIS Standards for Academic Publishers

2)      Implementing Marketing Strategies in Advantage

An ACS-led update on AMB and BI will follow those sessions, and the day will wind down with a meet and greet reception.

 

Thursday begins with a guest speaker, Kevin Carr, president of Motor Information Systems, and continues with user and vendor presentations on Circulation Modeling, ACS News, Direction & Strategy, and discussions and roundtables on interfaces with Advantage. 

 

The final day includes a vendor presentation on print-on-demand, plus a look at some new features in the coming release of Advantage, and two roundtable discussions.

 

We hope to see you there!  If you aren't able to make it this year, start planning now to attend in 2011.

Advantage Users Group 2010
Please join us for the annual Advantage Users Group conference, which allows members the best opportunity for sharing ideas and networking with our peers from publishing companies around the globe.

This year's conference will focus on "Supporting the Marketer" and will feature topics that AUG members have identified as being of particular interest. We will once again welcome a guest speaker and vendor sponsors. See the enclosed agenda for all the details.

Dates
January 13 - 15, 2010

Location
New Orleans, LA

See the attached PDF document for more information and registration form.

AUG2010.pdf (93.94 kb)

On July 7, 2009, an historic meeting took place in London.  The ACS clients in the European region came together to meet one another, talk about their participation in the Advantage Users Group, view presentations on product direction at ACS, hear about some of our latest features and spend plenty of time networking.  Five clients were represented at this first meeting, with a total of 20 attendees.

The day began with an introduction and news update from me (VP and Chief Product Manager at ACS), followed by a presentation about AUG from Andy Wright, Advantage Administrator at Oxford University Press.

Andy's presentation was the catalyst for a lively discussion about meeting together regularly in the EU region as well as participating in the AUG meetings each year in the US.  Many of the ACS clients at this meeting share similar challenges, and plans were made to address these via future meetings.  The EU ACS clients are a diverse group of publishers, from consumer to special interest to academic/scholarly.  Nevertheless, they found many things in common, such as what resources and skills are needed to effectively manage the system.

It was an excellent morning, followed by a networking lunch and then the software direction presentation which I had given at the AUG meeting in January.  This was followed by a presentation of new features by Philippe van Mastrigt, Director of European Operations for ACS.

Andy—who is the current chairman of the AUG Steering Committee-- had this to say about the day:  "I'm very encouraged by both the turnout and the positive attitude of those who gave up their time to attend. I believe we have the beginnings of a group who are prepared to make the effort to share their knowledge to help each other in their day-to-day work. There are areas of specific interest to European businesses and we now have a group that can jointly work on these with ACS."

All in all, the feedback we received was that the day was a tremendous success and well worth the trip for those able to attend.  We will keep you posted on further developments for meetings of this group.

Chris Elson and Ben Cartwright of Saga Magazine

Sam Hinkley, Claire Kearney & Megan Ruddock of Oxford University Press

Kirsten Woolley & Denise Feeley of Maney Publishing, Andy Wright of Oxford University Press, Tom Burbeck of ACS

Andy Wright discusses future meetings of the EU User Group

Emmanuel Chevalier & Jean-Philippe Martin of Bayard Presse listen to Sam Hinkley of Oxford University Press

Dan Heffernan talks about what's new at ACS

Iain Cunningham, Jeff Sturgess & Sebastien Fournier from Agora

Tony Stephenson & Cat Barker from Traplet

Philippe van Mastrigt presents new Advantage features

Due to the large expanse of deep blue wet stuff in between us, it's often difficult for our European clients to attend the user group meetings here in the US.  We are pleased to announce that the first meeting of European Advantage clients will take place Tuesday, 7 July 2009 at the London Paddington Hilton Hotel from 10:30 to 16:00.

Dan Heffernan, VP of Sales, Marketing and Product Planning, will recap his presentation on the direction of ACS and Advantage from the AUG meeting this past January, and Philippe van Mastrigt, Director of European Operations, will also present new features in the latest release of Advantage.

Andy Wright, this year's chairman of the User Group Steering Committee, will be there to talk about AUG and to answer any questions you may have about it.

If you are an Advantage client in Europe, these presentations are great reasons to attend.  In addition, you will get the opportunity to:

• Discuss a possible European Advantage Users Group
• Network with other Advantage clients
• Hear what Advantage has been up to in Europe

For more information, contact Andy Wright at Oxford University Press or Dan Heffernan at ACS.