Committee Events

Please give some consideration to the top sessions we can promote to membership in a last email push to generate some sign-up interest. Seems that the Sage Road Ahead / Payroll Tiers / Sage 100c plans should be a hot topic, Kless/Baker, and probably reporting tools (SI, BizNet, Renovo). Please give this some very serious thought prior to the meeting. Jim tells me that we are about 50% of where we were last year. Membership is going to vote with their $$ whether this conference (and future events) return next year. It's great we slap ourselves on our backs -- and apparently get smoke blown where the sun doesn't shine by affiliates - but money talks...... As of today it seems we are being sent the message that something about the group -- for both members and affiliates -- is not attracting the same committed interest that it used to. We need to pay very close attention to this major shift - both in events and in the group itself.

Yes, something(s) have clearly changed. I also suggest that we: - contact those who registered last year but who haven't yet registered this time. - collect brief testimonials from some who attended last year and are signed up this year. Use them in an outbound communication. I suspect that 90 Minds has grown to the point that perhaps there are 2 broad classes of members 1. Early adopters who came for the product support beyond just tech break/fix and quickly found a broader professional support community for small business owners 2. members joining in the past 2 years who view this as mainly an alternative to Sage TS. They are less likely to be the independent consultants of the original members. Nobody on the planning comte is in group 2. We might have missed topics more interesting to them.

I had originally planned to bring 2 staff to this, including the Kless/Baker session. I realized that I know enough about Value Pricing and just need to implement it, and they don't need to sit through that - the book is great and I can review the process with them. I know this is the right decision, because at the ITA conference earlier this week, I was in a roundtable with Ed on actual implementation detail of Access Level Agreements and project scoping and options. I knew what was required due to attendance at many of Ed's sessions in the past (and the 2-day training with Ron). There are some that have not been through this, so I support offering again for those, but there is probably little value to attending it again. What would be a great session for the rest of us would be a 1-2 hours on how to scope and how to develop the A, B and C in the grid. I asked my staff people if they thought going to MOTM would be worth it for them. The answer was no, because none of the topics seemed compelling to them. They both attended the two scripting classes and those were very valuable for them and they use scripting in their work now. They either need something that is new that they need in their consulting or something that will help them improve what they are already doing. They did not find that. As for shootouts of report writers - why? Most of us have already decided on our preferred utility, so it has no value. If a consultant has not decided on one, why is that? I just attended ITA and went to many very valuable sessions, because they did not address product, but issues we face as owners of consulting practices. Those types of sessions most of us want, and in the past these have been the ones that were popular. As for Sage, the Road Ahead is fine and we can always get an update. But why don't we have the new Support VP and get some higher level management to tell us how valuable the channel is - an honest discussion. Sage is different, because we all work with their products. Acumatica and XTuple are not in that position - yet. So Sage can inform our group and we can help them with our feedback. I personally do not know if that requires money changing hands for us to have them there. I also do not want there to be an obligation if they pay (not that there would be). I believe Sage should be a large part of this - not just a Road Ahead session.

What about the Ed Kless session at MOTM - ""Business Process Reviews, Best Practices - Why, How and When""?

Yes, that will be great.

Perhaps it will help to succinctly describe how the 2-day B-K session will differ from the sessions people have encountered before?

We are also competing with the Acumatica Summit that is being held the same month as MOTM. It seems that Acumatica was able to sign up a good amount of our members last year at MOTM and would guess that many of them would be having to choose between MOTM or the Acumatica Summit this year.

One of the things Ed did say was that he could focus more on scoping an implementation/project so it will not just be a repeat if that's what you're thinking @JohnHoyt . He knows several of us have attended FOTF in the past.

@ThereseLogeais Those types of more specific topics are very valuable. My reason for not attending the 2-day session is that I am well aware of what needs to be done. I just need to start doing it. And, yes, @MoiraGoggin the Acumatica conference in the same month, along with SLA being right after MOTM is significantly influencing people's priorities. And don't forget the Altec conference at the beginning of March. Time is at a premium, so we do have to pick and choose, because we still have to run our businesses.