ACS will be exhibiting at the annual UKSG (United Kingdom Serials Group) Conference and Exhibition to be held April 12 – 14 in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

If you are planning to attend the conference, please stop by the Advantage stand.

http://www.uksg.org/event/conference10

A second meeting of European Advantage clients is planned for Tuesday, 18 May 2010 in London from 10:30 to 16:30.  In addition to providing another excellent opportunity to network with other Advantage clients, these topics will be covered:

- ACS news

- company strategic direction

- Advantage software futures

- latest product features

Who should attend?  Advantage super-users, system administrators, marketing users, people involved in the day-to-day operation of Advantage, and those in regular contact with ACS. 

The meeting will be sponsored by ACS (no cost to you) and lunch will be provided.  Please let Dan Heffernan know if you or someone in your organization would like to attend and has not received an email invitation.

ACS will be one of the exhibitors at Publishing Expo at Olympia 2 in London February 24th and 25th, 2010.  Pub Expo is the key UK event dedicated to the magazine publishing industry.   It combines a showcase of suppliers demonstrating exciting new products with a free education program incorporating seminars, workshops and demonstrations, all offering the latest up-to-date information.

It attracts thousands of publishing professionals involved in producing magazines, newspapers, brochures, newsletters, directories and catalogs - covering print, digital, electronic and online.  It offers the latest ideas, the contacts, the products, the services and solutions to enable publishing teams to compete effectively in their markets.

In 2010, Publishing Expo will again take place at Olympia February24th - 25th, and will feature more exhibitors, more seminars and workshops - and more visitors,  all coming to do business at what is the UK's only dedicated exhibition for magazine publishing professionals.

If you attend Pub Expo, please stop in at the Advantage booth: Stand A30.

www.publishingexpo.co.uk

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)

The annual Advantage Training Week was held September 15-18, at the ACS office in Ann Arbor.  Courses included key Advantage operations areas such as Maximizing Personnel Efficiency and Powerful Contact Management … as well as sessions on Marketing Analysis Reports and Financial Management within Advantage.  In addition, a half-day User Forum addressed the concept of Product Families, Hierarchy, and Granularity.  The User Forum topic was chosen in response to continued high interest among ACS clients in the Access Management and Billing and Business Intelligence Modules.

ACS remains committed to offering training sessions that address the topics that are of highest interest to our clients.  While attendance this year was less than we hoped for, virtually all who were unable to attend cited as the primary reason their organization’s travel restrictions due to current economic challenges.  Hopefully, the economy will turn around soon and, once again, we will have Training Week with each class filled to capacity, exciting client networking and, of course, a return to Whirly Ball!

The forum produced a lot of thoughtful debate.

Discussion flourishes in the Product Families, Hierarchy, and Granularity forum.

Andy Wright is known for his sweet tooth, but this is ridiculous!

About 200 people gathered in Minneapolis in September for the first Niche Digital Conference.  As one of the event sponsors, ACS attended the conference which was chock-full of the latest in the world of digital publishing.  The conference offered tracks for CEO/Publishers, Advertising Directors/Sales and Content and Audience Development and covered topics such as “Turning Clicks to Cash,” “How the Heck Do You Sell Digital?” and “Get Your SEO Groove On.” 

It’s important to us as a vendor to support the industry and conferences like this one serve double duty because they help us to keep current with the changes and developments in the publishing world, which is another important goal.  Meeting and talking with publishers helps us to decide what enhancements and new features to develop in upcoming releases.

If you couldn’t attend, we hope to see you there next year!

It's Access Management and Billing (AMB) month! We've packed October full of sessions geared to give you the latest information on the most popular module of late. Using the AMB functionality, Advantage manages orders and access for all types of digital media, from your online newsletter to content databases.

October 15th and 22nd, Corey Mantel and Phil Montgomery will be demonstrating the AMB module. These are FREE sessions… don't miss out!

Later this month, John Sheehy will be providing in-depth training; "Administering the AMB module" on October 27th and "AMB Data Entry and Customer Service" on October 29th.

You can register online or contact Doug Moore to reserve your spot.

All of us here at ACS are looking forward to seeing those of you that are planning to attend this year’s Training Week.  In addition to the useful information in all the class sessions, the networking with other Advantage users and ACS staff is always valuable to attendees.

Tuesday, September 15

• Maximizing Personnel Efficiency:  Optimizing Data Entry and Customer Service
  Instructor: Mona Hidayet
• User Forum:  Product Families, Hierarchy, and Granularity
  Instructor: Dan Heffernan

Wednesday, September 16

• Marketing Analysis Reports and Business Intelligence in Advantage
  Instructors: Dick Hile and Corey Mantel

Thursday-Friday, September 17-18

• Advantage Financial Management:  Reconciliation, Auditing, and Reporting
  Instructors: Bob Thornton and Corey Mantel

Friday, September 18

• Enhancing the Customer Service Experience:  Powerful Contact Management
  Instructors: Angie Markel and Doug Moore

For more information about 2009 Training Week, contact Ken Nemerovski at (734) 327-2345 or NEMO@AdvantageCS.com.

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.

The 2009 Advantage Training Week will take place in Ann Arbor September 15-18.   We have an outstanding program of popular training courses led by experienced ACS trainers.  The courses offered are in response to surveys taken a few months ago from you … the Advantage user community.  To encourage participation even further, we have reduced the course fees from last year and have increased the discount for those registering for three full class days.

The due date for Training Week registrations is August 17.  After reviewing the brochure, feel free to contact your Account Manager or me if you have any questions.  I look forward to receiving your registration and seeing you in September.

2009 Training Week Brochure (PDF - 205.45 kb)