90p Admin

Here are some ideas that I think would be effective for building the 90 Minds brand which in turn helps individual members: 1.Annual MotM. No brainer already happening. 2.Vendor conference. Same as above but a chance for vendors to present new products, features and roadmaps to 90 Minds / OASIS members in a structured format. Sponsored by Vendors. 3.Virtual end user conference. This not only differentiates 90 Minds as a group and the individual participating members, it also allows us to present information in an exciting, fresh way to customers without any costs associated with travel and being away from the office. 4.90 Minds Magazine. Yes, an actual printed magazine. We could share the costs of physical publishing and allow contribution articles. Members could then buy some issues (for a low price) and distribute to clients and prospects. Members could slap their logo and info on it. I realize that some of the firms in the group already do their own marketing. I feel that the above activities would be supplemental to most firms. Regardless, they would not be mandatory if people don't want to participate, they don't have to. I have a few more ideas but these are the big ones.

1 - Yes - question - should we include the meeting as part of membership? ""Require"" attend or pay for the mtg even if they don't go. 2 - Yes - should be a day before the MOTM and on a paid basis only (charge vendors) - issue will be that we only have so much time. Perhaps have some type social hour. 3 - Yes though start small - use series of GotoWebinars - maybe at first it's two sessions on one day. 4 - No - think this should be email newsletter. Print is a huge time suck and will be very difficult to maintain.

3 - Why start small? Everyone does goto webinars and they are ignored for the most part. An organized virtual conference would be more of an event and guaranteed to get a better response than a webinar (or two). 4 - Print is the new email. Until such time as 90 Minds has a huge email subscriber list, nothing will beat a print copy of articles in a magazine format sitting in someone's john to look at while they are doing their business.

Shouldn't we figure out what the group is before we start building rocket plans? If we don't know what we're working towards, we ain't gonna get there.

Along those lines - this maybe be an opportunity once we do figure out the group direction to create a subset of 90 Minds that people could join. There's a breakout of member who I'm guessing would fall into: Collaboration -- 100% (present group) Sales/Marketing -- 40% (guessing at this) Shared Support -- 10% (guessing at this) I'm stil thinking that you have a lot of work ahead of you WRT to the virtual conference but maybe it would be as simple as a software solution and get the vendors to do their presentation. In my mind I see 10 vendors signed up - 8 of whom are used to canned webex and can't figure out whatever solution is used for virtual conferencing, etc. Lots of handholding and training --- and as @JeffSchwenk aptly put it last night on the hangout -- we all have day jobs so devoting a lot of time to this just isn't going to be a priority. The webinar area is also very crowded - other organizations are scheduling these like there's no tomorrow and I know it can be very tough to fill seats. Personally I would be more excited about a 90 Minds conference where 90 Minders were the speakers and shared knowledge with all of our mutual customers.

@RobertWood ""Shouldn't we figure out what the group is before we start building rocket plans? If we don't know what we're working towards, we ain't gonna get there."" You said this here but it seems like you are exploring building out a Sage 300 add-on to the group in the general forums. I'm all for the Sage 300 group but I don't understand the lack of consistency.

I'm a human being and am flawed.

Plus I get tired of seeing Sage 300 messages in the Sage 100 threads.

It's less of a stretch to spreading out the portfolio of products to other Sage products that members are already posting questions to to moving on to talking about publishing a magazine...

Thanks for the explanation. I would caution against comparing expanding the group to include Sage 300 against creating a group magazine (electronic or print or both). Which has the most value to the group? Hard to say at this point until we agree upon the purpose of the group.

@PeterWolf I think the magazine is a great idea, but my history & experience tells me only 1 or 2 people would actually contribute to it. Look at the 90minds blog and see the distribution of the posts by person ....@WayneSchulz ...

I didn't say it was a bad idea. Creating a magazine is a whole project. Adding a product is little more than adding another group on the left.

100% agree @MarkChinsky. I was actually thinking we start with giving the blog a shot in the arm and re-purpose the best content into a magazine format that could be distributed. Really it is just an idea for brainstorming. It's too bad you won't be at the MotM. We are thinking of having an admin meeting the afternoon of the 14th. Would you be able to dial in via goto meeting?

Since I get in around 2 and Wayne doesn't get in until about 3:30, I'm not sure how much meeting there will be unless it's in lieu of the dinner or after the dinner Thursday night.

Ok - what about Sunday morning then?

Jeff's leaving Sunday morning. I'm all for making time.

I'm not available after 5:30 EST on that Thursday as I have to watch the kids and it takes an hour to drive from the office. Before then I'm fine.

Jeff's leaving at noon. Same as me. @JeffSchwenk can you make a meeting at 8 or 9am on Sunday?

I'm OK with that. When I suggested it before Jeff indicated it would be a problem.

My flight leaves at noon on Sunday. An early breakfast meeting is doable.

My flight is noon as well. How far away is the airport? I was thinking we could do a breakfast meeting from 8 - 10 and still have time to get there. Pre-checkin via internet saves the day. Also I only do carry ons which helps speed through the lines.

Since we are all on the east coast, I am thinking a bit earlier. What airline for your return? Maybe we are on the same flight.

American - 674 SAN DIEGO SUN 17MAR 12:05 PMCHICAGO OHARE 6:05 PM Why does being on the east coast impact the time to get to the plane in San Diego ...

Same flight. Isn't there a rule in the bylaws about admin team members riding on the same flight? What if it has an event? Regarding the east coast question, getting up at 6AM SD time shouldn't be an issue...

I was a'feared you were going to say that. Six am is still six am.

Stay up an extra hour and sleep on the plane.

Let me check my copy of the bylaws...

Nope. Not a problem.

Sunday morning.... Wow cutting into our beauty sleep!!