Managing the Abstract

Are You Using Best Practices for Your Peer Review? Hmmm?

2010-12-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

Peer review is one of the most difficult parts of the whole conference management process, yet it is vital to the success of a conference. From recruiting experts as reviewers, and informing them of what is expected, to ensuring that reviewers adhere to strict deadlines, peer review management is a full-time job in and of itself. Applying best practices to your peer review process will put your association on the path to success and give your organization the confidence that member attendees will be receiving the best educational experience.

So, are you using best practices for your peer review? Learn about best practices in this addition of The Advisor newsletter. Not signed up? No problem, just click here to access our newsletter signup form.

Look for our newsletter next Tuesday, December 7th in your Inbox!

Introducing...the Event Archives Site!

2010-09-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

We are proud to announce that the new Event Archives site is now live! You can access our new site at the following link: www.eventarchives.com.

This site provides information on our new content distribution service. Event Archives is a new OASIS content distribution service that provides access to rich media presentations from meetings and conferences. It follows the capture - archive - distribute process, and offers the opportunity to learn without stepping foot in a convention center.

If you are interested in obtaining meeting-related content or even in preserving your content through our capture - archive - distribute process, you can contact us using the Contact Us form on this site.

Q3 2010 Webinar - SignUp Is Only Open for a Few More Days!

2010-09-17T11:27:00.000-07:00

Signup for our Q3 webinar on data collection is closing next Wednesday! You don't want to miss out on this one: http://bit.ly/q32010webtwiann

2010-09-08T09:38:00.000-07:00

Didn't receive our webinar sign-up info this AM? You can sign-up for the webinar here:http://bit.ly/oasisml

Get on the OASIS mailing list so you don't miss any future communications here:http://bit.ly/oasisml

To whet your appetite for this webinar, here's information: :)

By collecting and analyzing complex meeting data with an easy-to-use reporting tool, complex data transforms into sophisticated, meaningful reports. Please join us at our complimentary webinar where we will be launching the new OASIS Report tool as well as the new ITE (Instruction Text Editor tool! At our webinar, you can learn how to achieve the following with your meeting data:

Decrease the service cost of obtaining data to make good business decisions
Stay ahead of association and member challenges through observing trends in data that is available to you today
Save time and money by delivering your report data in a variety of formats
Drive speakers and reviewers to complete their essential activities and ensure timely communication
View the reports that enable you to increase the quality of attendee education by observing real attendee performance

A demonstration of the new OASIS Report will also be presented during the webinar, so be sure to tune-in to get a preview of this powerful new tool.

Take advantage of this opportunity to learn more about collecting and analyzing meeting data by clicking here to register for our complimentary webinar, "Best Practice Meeting Analytics that Drive the Best Communication, Education & Efficiency" held on Wednesday, September 22nd at 2:00 EDT/ 1:00 CDT. In addition, our recently released Q3 newsletter highlights the topic of collecting and analyzing meeting data, and you can read this edition by clicking here.

Our hope is that you will join us for this webinar - the third in our quarterly installment of the OASIS Technology Leadership Series.

Regards,

The OASIS Team

Learn how to Increase Member Engagement through Actionable Metrics, and More! Q3 Edition of The OASIS Advisor - It's Here!

2010-08-25T10:36:00.000-07:00

The Q3 edition of The OASIS Advisor newsletter, distributed on August 25th, is now available! Titled "Best Practice Meeting Analytics," this edition focuses on how to simplify complex event data to better understand event performance by having the proper reporting and analytic tools. This edition offers a sneak-peek of the new OASIS reporting tool. You don't want to miss reading this edition of The OASIS Advisor!

Click here to access the HTML-version of the newsletter. Thank you for your interest and your readership!

OASIS Advisor Newsletter, Q3 Edition - Right Around the Corner!

2010-08-02T11:37:00.000-07:00

The Q3 edition of the OASIS Advisor newsletter will be distributed on Tuesday, August 24th!

In this edition, we'll focus on the new updated reporting tool, which offers meeting analytics that help to drive communication, education and efficiency for our associations. You'll hear from the president of our company, the head of product development, as well as the OASIS product manager. We'll also be offering another tip/trick to use with our product.

Have you signed-up yet to receive your copy? If you haven't, you can do so at this link.

Associations Helping Gulf Oil Spill Victims Overcome Tragedy

2010-07-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

I found this awesome article describing how some nonprofits/associations are helping Gulf oil spill victims http://bit.ly/9M0g91. Read it and be inspired about how you can help that community!

Practice what you preach!

2010-07-06T11:54:00.000-07:00

In our second quarter, 2010 webinar, we highlight the virtues of capturing your at-meeting content in a quality fashion which will optimize your ability to reuse it later. This is not rocket science, but it's amazing how many folks haven't even heard of "elemental capture!" Did you know that if you don't do this, you will spend 2, 3, ... 10x the cost later to convert your captured media to different formats as new devices arrive to the market (think of the recent launch of the iPad!).

In an effort to help build awareness of how to do capture "right" in the association market, you may find our webinar of value. Watch it here... and comment to this post to let us know what you think!

http://bit.ly/b9L1U1

New Meeting Features On the Horizon - Mobile Device Users, These Are For You!

2010-06-30T08:46:00.000-07:00

As a meeting attendee in the 21st century, I'm sure you manage much of your life on the mobile device of your choice (PDA, Blackberry, iPhone, Android, iPad, Kindle, Nook ... the list goes on and on). Wouldn't it be convenient if the next meeting you attendee could accommodate some of these mobile features that you use daily and love?

Just think, at your next meeting you may be able to:

Search a general meeting program on your mobile device vs. on a bulky paper program
Manage your personal meeting itinerary when you want to and where you want to
Search and access full abstract text
Watch captured presentation audio, video and poster presentations
Locate what presentations are near you in the next X hours
Find other presentations by the same author
Interact socially with fellow attendees

Do all this, AND MORE, on your mobile device. And with so many abstract management providers and meeting planners focusing on accommodating these capabilities, you just may be able to coast through the next meeting you attend, mobile device in hand!

2010-06-25T11:07:00.001-07:00

Poll: which format do you prefer - watching presentational content with audio + video or reading abstracts + text? meetings asae pcma

2010-06-08T10:09:00.001-07:00

Captured content can earn your association non-dues revenue. Signup now for our complimentary webinar! http://bit.ly/Q2webinarsignup

Q2, 2010 of The Advisor - Now Available!

2010-05-18T14:00:00.000-07:00

It has taken a village, but the Q2, 2010 edition of The Advisor is now available!

You can view it on the OASIS Marketing site.

As always, thank you for your readership and interest.

OASIS Tip & Trick: Demographics Report

2010-05-13T11:39:00.000-07:00

This quarter's issue has an OASIS tip that helps you with determining the geographical distribution of control records by activity type as they are created or submitted within OASIS. This is especially helpful for an open-call submission of abstracts, as this report offers a snap shot of where submissions are coming from as a submission deadline grows closer.

Follow these simple steps to generate this report:

1.Within the OASIS Admin site, select the Demographics menu option located within the Submission menu. Please note that this option can also be accessed through the Reports menu.

Note: If you are using the original OASIS Admin menus, this menu option will be located within the Reports menu.

2.On the Demographics page, select control status options and a display option to apply to your report. The “Complete” and “Displaying non-Zero Locations” options are selected by default. Although a control status option is not required to run your demographics report, a display option is required.

3.Once you have determined the options that you would like applied to your report, select the “Show Report” button.

The grid located below the control status options is the demographics report. Within this report, the control record distribution may change depending on which status option(s) and display option was selected. Please note that this report displays the control record distribution by both country and by U.S. state.

This Just In - You Can Now Find Us on Facebook and LinkedIn!

2010-05-07T09:08:00.000-07:00

It's here! You can now keep in touch with OASIS through our LinkedIn group and Facebook fan page! Check us out:

Our Facebook Fan Page

Our LinkedIn group

As big believers in the importance of social media, we are excited to announce that the OASIS Facebook fan page and LinkedIn group are now live and well! We will be using these accounts to distribute OASIS news about major product releases in real-time (yes, as they happen!). We will also be sharing nuggets of knowledge about abstracts management and the association industry.

We hope you will become active users of both the fan page and the group, as we are very interested in what you have to say! Feel free to share your knowledge, ask questions, share your OASIS experience, etc. - we want to start active conversations with you! Our mission is to keep you informed with OASIS happenings, and of course we hope to learn as much as we can from you.

Become a group member, become a fan or better yet, BOTH! Once you connect to us, you will receive all of our group updates through an RSS feed (yes, everything will come straight to your email - it's easy!).

We hope to hear from you soon on Facebook or on LinkedIn!

Ekatius: Extending the Reach of Your Meeting Content!

2010-05-06T15:08:00.000-07:00

Preserving meeting content has never been more important than now. Medical research is dying a quick death post-meeting when it could assist with ground-breaking research and ongoing education long after the meeting. Previously, there has been no unified database or resource available to access legacy event knowledge, making presentations, papers and abstracts difficult and time-consuming to locate for association members and impossible for end-users. The only way an end-user could find archived material would be either through their membership with an association that digitally captures and archives its personal meeting presentations, or by stumbling upon it. Considering that the average four day conference contains nearly ten times that time-frame’s presentation material, a serious amount of education risks being lost. This poses a serious distribution and discoverability problem for associations looking to expand the exposure of their science.

Ultimately, the indexing of event knowledge in appropriate search engines is a decision left to the owners of the content, namely the sponsoring association. But when done, it enables the scientific, medical and technical (STM) communities to access previously unknown information from multiple associations where and when they need it. In 2005, the American Heart Association (AHA) needed a tool that would, among other things, make their Scientific Session event available on the Internet. By utilizing the components of the Content Discovery Suite (primarily, Ekatius™), the scientific content from their event was placed in a permanent, searchable repository with other STM content and as a result exists and is readily accessible today. Within their first year, this meeting’s content yielded hundreds of page views, and thousands of page views have been tracked since. Even though that meeting was five years ago, the content lives on today.

Ekatius™ is an event knowledge dissemination platform that aggregates and disseminates event knowledge elements such as abstracts, posters, and rich media presentations. It provides a permanent content library giving science presented at meetings a longer, potentially indefinite shelf life. The Ekatius™ platform has advanced search functionalities that allow users to search for event knowledge elements either within a specific event or across several events, thus yielding a cross-disciplinary view of the latest knowledge on a given topic. Social networking capabilities, such as social bookmarking, are also available with Ekatius™, which allow users to bookmark and share their bookmarks with others on popular social bookmarking sites such as Digg or Del.icio.us, increasing collaboration and knowledge sharing within and outside the association. These components give associations the ability to maximize the exposure and impact of their meeting content to an audience beyond the physical confines of a given meeting.

A bridge can be created from meeting content in its syndicated form on Ekatius™ to the per-access or subscription-based Archive site, allowing content to reach a wider audience. This provides an opportunity to collect non-dues revenue and drive membership on otherwise dated content, ultimately increasing an association’s bottom line. By capturing and disseminating their event knowledge, associations get far more mileage out of their conference programming—and subtly promote those conferences by giving web browsers a taste of what they have missed. Content today translates into new profit and members tomorrow.

Ekatius™ can help to increase your meeting’s exposure by disseminating your association’s event knowledge to a global audience. By integrating with the OASIS Content Discovery Suite – Archive, Capture, and To-Go – Ekatius™ can create a path for future customers, members, and partners to find their way directly to your meeting content, and indirectly to you as the sponsoring association. Meeting content remains accessible and relevant long into the future allowing your association to extend its meeting content’s reach further than ever, creating the best opportunities for science.

Oh! The Places Your Content Will Go!

2010-05-03T11:32:00.000-07:00

“Even as webcasts and virtual meetings become more user friendly, your members
are never going to stop wanting to get together in person to learn, network,
and
build relationships. As I always say, there's no such thing as a virtual
beer.”
- Corbin Ball

It is true that meetings, and attending them in person, are here to stay. Corbin Ball may have said it best with the simple reference to a beer. You simply can't share a beer on the web, no matter how real it might look on the screen or the latest iPhone app.

Nonetheless, there are ample reasons for ensuring that your content is poised and ready to exist and be widely distributed long after your meeting. Or perhaps even during your meeting.

Captured content has merits for all attendees, not just the ones who couldn't afford to or make time for travel. It is physically impossible to attend all sessions at any meeting with concurrent sessions, thus attendees aren’t exposed to all the content of a meeting regardless of whether they are there in person or not. A recent medical meeting which was held over the course of four days had a total duration, for the oral presentations presented at the meeting, of over 816 hours, or 34 days, worth of content.

An extremely important difference between a live meeting and an archived one is that the live meeting is a place of dynamic learning among peers, while the virtual meeting or archive is a place of static learning for an individual. This means that it is imperative your captured content is created in a format which can flow into the widest array of devices and playback methods possible. You simply have to cater to the personal preferences and needs of the individual when you are trying to foster static learning with a successful outcome. People want to use the tool, device, and media format that they are the most comfortable with.

Consumer devices range from computers to iPads to smart phones. Some devices, especially those by Apple, are limited to very specific video and media types that will function correctly for playback. Simply getting content into formats that will work well on these devices is a job by itself, let alone capturing it in the first place. If you want to scare yourself with technical considerations for a device, check out this page for example.

With Capture by OASIS, you can be assured that your content will be natively captured in a format that is ready for conversion to all of the specific devices and formats that you'd like to offer to your attendees. With OASIS Digital Media, eBooks may be created that will look and behave correctly whether your attendees' eReaders are Kindles or Nooks. It's not a simple piece of technology by any stretch, but OASIS is committed to offering your content on the widest array of consumer devices possible. Put simply, OASIS believes that this is necessary for self-learning and remote content usage.

Well archived content holds almost infinite value. Archiving allows international members that can not attend an event to still be exposed to, and benefit from, all the knowledge presented at a given meeting.

Providing year-round, global access to event knowledge represents a powerful means of experience marketing for an association, which helps create or increase brand awareness and loyalty.

By capturing and disseminating their event knowledge, associations get far more mileage out of their conference programming—and subtly promote those conferences by giving web viewers a taste of what they might have missed. It is not a stretch to say that your association's own "legacy" content can even serve as a recruiting vehicle for new membership if delivered correctly. When your content works this hard for you, it is easy to see why OASIS remains committed to allowing content to be discovered by as wide and vast of an audience as possible.

EBooks + the Association Industry

2010-04-27T12:45:00.000-07:00

Last month, we hosted a free webinar titled "e-Books for the Association Industry." Led by our CEO, it focused on the advancement of e-Book technology and provided real-life examples of associations using e-books to deliver content to their meeting participants and association members. This webinar also offered strategies for associations on how to integrate e-books into their next meeting.

You can click the following link to watch a clip of the webinar:

If you'd like to view the full version, complete our sign-up form and we will send it to you shortly: http://cttoasis.wufoo.com/forms/webinar-signup-form/

This webinar is the first in our OASIS Technology Leadership Series. We'll be posting information about our upcoming free webinar on Wednesday, June 23rd, so stay tuned!

Pages Without Pages

2010-03-18T09:21:00.000-07:00

It's a funny thing when you stop and realize how much something has changed that you took for granted. Recently I was at the ACC 59th Annual Scientific Sessions event in Atlanta. As I walked through the amazingly large conference halls, I kept noticing bins upon bins of printed program books, abstract books, and all kinds of handouts. Keep in mind that it was the last day of the conference, towards the end of the session events, and most of the bins I saw were very full. I picked up one of each book to see the quality of the production--ACC did a wonderful job of putting together a format that reads well and is very professionally done. Yet surplus in the bulky-print-book department must certainly be costing the organization some undue expense.

ACC is an association clever enough to consider alternatives to physical, printed media. In fact, they partnered with us this year for the 59th annual event to offer their program and abstract book in Kindle, iPhone, Nook, Reader, and other digital formats (http://cttoasis.wufoo.com/forms/acc10-i210/). The uptake of these formats, especially the iPhone version of their content, signifies a real shift in preference for how attendees want to access content. It's impossible to know (without quantitative testing) whether it is the cost/environmental concern or the simple convenience and portability of this type of content that is the primary motivator for "trying it", but it's clear that digital content consumption is on the rise for good reason. Fortunately, we're going to survey all willing participants in the digital content download group to see how to better cater to this progressive segment in the future! Data rules, and we want to hear the voice of our customer and their attendees loud and clear!

At OASIS, we've experienced a surge in demand for digital content offerings. PCMA's Convene approached us to do an article about our partnership with AHA and SfN with regard to e-Book creation. You can read it here http://bit.ly/bUAJI1 in the great article "Pages Without Pages". (Contrary to the one contextual error in the article, we're sure you know by now that OASIS is one of the original abstract management solutions with a history of over 15-years. Our Content Discovery Suite e-Book offering is what is new--the article references e-Books and OASIS interchangeably). We are optimistic that many associations realize the benefits of this important trend. It is a part of our core offering and we'll keep pushing ahead to create more opportunities in the digital content space.

The OASIS Advisor... Almost There!

2010-02-18T14:38:00.000-08:00

We are using a new email campaign management service this quarter for the delivery of our quarterly email newsletter. Campaign Monitor has rave reviews for many e-publishers, so we figured we should see how their deliverability fares. We are excited to arrive in your inbox in the near future, and we've created an enhanced look & feel to coincide with the change in delivery services.

As always, the next issue of the newsletter will include eBook versions and links to our blog (well, you're here, so that's not news!) and our Twitter feed. Stay in touch, sign-up, and receive our latest posts. The goal of using these social media tools is to keep you aware of the latest offerings that OASIS has, as well as a glimpse into our outlook on meeting content management and related technology. It's an exciting place to be.

If you have any questions, comments, or feedback about our newsletter, we're just a click away. Should you wish to sign-up for the newsletter, you can feel free to visit our website at http://home.abstractsonline.com/news/the-oasis-advisor-2010-q1/.

In short, we are excited to keep improving the way we reach our customers. Thanks for reading.

Got Mobile?!

2010-02-01T15:23:00.000-08:00

The demand for digital content accessibility has never been greater. When you think about catering to the many high tech professionals that your association serves in the STM space, it's imperative that you allow your attendees to access their entire meeting itinerary on any mobile device they’re already comfortable with—online or offline. iCalendar support enables direct-to-personal calendar imports for itinerary access from anywhere. iCalendar is a fascinating concept because it is not new. It was actually a specification developed several years ago that sets the standard for how to make many items of calendar-based content accessible as a single, portable file. Why don't more systems leverage this concept?! It seems like a no-brainer, so we ensured it got onto our roadmap here at OASIS.

It makes sense to let each user keep track of their own personal itinerary on the device or software that works best for them. Attendees with iPhones? No problem. Some find Google Calendar easier? Simple. OASIS iCalendar capability enables entire itineraries—not single sessions—to be imported directly into a user’s calendar device or application at once.

If this sounds as exciting to you as it does to us, please check out our newly released information sheet at http://home.abstractsonline.com/_transfer/OASIS_MobileItinerary.pdf

Second Meeting?

2009-09-03T08:31:00.001-07:00

Can you imagine a time when you might save the cost of plane tickets, travel time, and a real life, in-person experience, to attend a meeting entirely on your computer? As a software veteran who assisted with the creation of virtual tradeshows in the mid-1990's, I can assure you that thoughts of any viable virtual reality for association conferences have been far from my mind in recent years. However, as Moore's Law predicts (and Kurzweil's accelerating change concepts further embellish), technology only continues to get better, faster, and cheaper. Maybe a virtual meeting in the near future isn't so far-fetched.

Most people have heard of the game "Second Life" by now. It is a simulated, digital world accessible through your computer, where it's not unusual to see characters (also called avatars) created by people, reflecting anything from a whimsical, cartoonish portrayal of themselves, to a vision of what they perhaps wish they looked like (and, in most of those cases, I doubt few actually do). During the odd time or two when I've been curious enough to try the game, I was shocked at the complexity of behavior I saw online.

However, to my surpirse, I've heard of many recent examples of these virtual worlds being used for far more than play. In fact, the U.S. Federal Government has used Second Life to train soldiers on how to operate a bomb disposal robot. That certainly holds more credibility than witnessing Second Life being used as an artificial dating site or an outlet for repressed behavior. I guess things are advancing.

In recent market research I have conducted with associations and the leaders who run their meetings and educational programs, statistics of interest in the virtualization of meetings are growing (46% of leaders believe their attendees "would rather have increased options to attend meetings and conferences virtually..."), but still not overwhelmingly. And when it comes to networking, leaders clearly state that technology will never replace in-person dialogue (only 17% of leaders "believe their attendees would rather network with technology than in real life"). So there is a dichotomy in response: the desire to attend virtually exists, but the primary benefit of in-person networking remains a physical world reality. What jumps out as intriguing to me is that based on what I have observed, Second Life is probably more beneficial for virtual interaction ("networking") than anything else I've seen it used for!

One of the facts about any shift in using technology to replace a former physical activity is that education, awareness, and proof are needed, before the support and the desire to transition to something new becomes evident. The proof remains to be seen. Simply by exploring a few of the virtual tradeshow experiences that are out there right now leads me to believe that effective virtual interaction is indeed getting closer.

http://www.goexhibit.com/demo/
http://vshow.on24.com/vshow/on24

As we consider remote content access options at OASIS in the future, it's helpful to keep an eye on this type of development and its uptake in the market. Cool stuff, indeed.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Fin

2009-08-12T21:14:00.001-07:00

In closing....

The bottom line, which spans across every single one of the mantras previously mentioned, is that good product management decisions yield efficiency on all fronts. This includes efficiency across team interaction, feature output, software usability, and customer process. If efficiency is created, countless interrelated objectives also become possible. Some of the more visible pain points that we hear in our industry everyday—such as the desire to have greener processes, the objective to foster remote education, and the need to reduce operational cost—are natural beneficiaries of efficiency. It is our goal for OASIS to ensure that efficiency is created in our product, but most importantly, for our customer.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Chapter 10

2009-08-12T21:13:00.000-07:00

Ensure that everyone (and everything) communicates openly … and remains open to change.

No process, person, or solution is ever perfect. Not even the best-designed product will survive without change and careful refinement over time. One challenge of software development is that foundational technologies advance so quickly, even though it is so easy to build a complex application on top of a particular platform or framework. Often, this development happens reactively, in response to immediate, perceived issues. Because of this, some of the smartest decisions that can be made include the use of best-of-breed design patterns that aren’t bound to a particular technology. Instead, well-selected design (and development) patterns ensure that an application’s distinctive competencies are transferrable, and may be considered to be portable for future technology decisions … with a predictable amount of work. Under the current OASIS design mantra, all decisions that are made related to the next-generation application are built upon best-practice agreements made across the product team early and often. This permits individual teams to run lean, as the former point suggests (since these agreements are known, documented, and communicated widely), but also ensures that architects and key decision makers have been involved with the foundational decisions from which all other concepts are derived. This empowers our teams to run effectively and autonomously, and ensures that decisions which get made today have consideration for the future. Change happens. The OASIS product team strives to be ready when it does.

Since not all change can be predicted, and even the best use of design patterns cannot avoid a certain amount of encapsulation in a particular technology, it is imperative to also acknowledge that the concept of open communication also applies to the software application itself. In a recent survey we conducted, a trend emerged early (and remained consistent) which confirms that “open, service oriented data accessibility” is a top-priority for modern software consumers. This includes concepts like web service availability and API-based access to the application. We will remain aware of these opportunities and ensure that open communication is a universal goal in all of our product management decisions.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Chapter 9

2009-08-12T21:12:00.001-07:00

Run lean … this includes teams, specifications, features, and nearly everything else involved in output.

This point is a perfect complement to the former. In order to achieve efficient, continual output, a product team cannot be laden with excessive processes and unnecessary constraints. Certainly, some processes are necessary to keep the product organized and operational. The Agile software development methodology, although perpetually driving progress forward, has many standard operating procedures. However, running as lean as possible achieves certain benefits through quick, intelligent decision making, the ability to self-correct, and a means to design from common sense instead of “design by committee." To quote a decent article I read not too long ago, “a camel is a horse designed by committee.” OASIS shall become a race horse … and a fast, efficient one at that.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Chapter 8

2009-08-12T21:11:00.002-07:00

Ensure that development output happens frequently … at the expense of formality and even some bugs.

In any organization, but especially at a small, lean organization, output matters more than almost anything else. This is our individual, internal measure of efficiency. In the Agile software development language, this correlates with a high “velocity” of software feature output. Without requiring a casual reader to understand the nuances of Agile software development, there are some very relevant by-products of this concept that are easily understood. For example, continual output fosters frequent input from users. This input, in the form of usability testing, customer feedback, and analysis of software usage trends (analytics), can be integrated into all future product plans. When this occurs, the benefit is immediate. Short feature release cycles are supported by tangible, real-life data on what has previously been successful. The voice of the customer is reflected in subsequent output almost as quickly as it is received. When this occurs, even the occasional bug or issue is forgotten in the face of how radically the software advances, and how revolutionary the features become for all customers. Oh, and even the bugs are corrected quickly.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Chapter 7

2009-08-12T21:11:00.001-07:00

Make sure that both you and your users can sum up your product’s key features … in 30 seconds.

This concept is also known as The Elevator Test. This is a great test for pitching your product, feature, or idea. Imagine that you are riding in an elevator with somebody that you just met, and that person happens to ask you what your product or feature “does.” You are traveling only a few floors with this stranger … could you successfully convey your concept in that short time? If the answer is “no,” then something is not right. In an enterprise-grade, robust product, this may not seem like an easy task. However, even SAP has a clear tagline. Clarity of explanation should arise from clarity of feature set scope. Clarity of feature set scope arises from clarity of user goals. Clarity of user goals arises from an acute awareness of real customer problems. This is a paramount goal in all future OASIS development. That is, to ensure that features reflect best-case solutions to real, proven customer problems. In many cases, less becomes more. This ensures that only the most valuable features, which solve the most common and the biggest customer problems receive the most attention.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Chapter 6

2009-08-12T21:10:00.000-07:00

Keep your product fun, innovative, and modern … but remember that some things deserve to be simple.

Technology will never stop evolving, and occasionally there will be cutting edge, contemporary graphical user interface concepts that will amaze us all as they are released. However, this bullet can best be illustrated with an example. A current, sought-after trend in so-called modern web application development is the autocompletion textbox. This Ajax-based concept (which really just means lots of updates, with no page refreshes) allows a field to suggest previously entered terms, which could successfully complete what the user is presently typing. Would it make sense to utilize this concept in a location where every entry was expected to be unique? No! Certainly, you could try to implement this feature as overkill, just in case two users were “kind of” trying to say the same thing. But that would just not make good sense. It might actually slow things down and confuse some users. That would be bad. With any new concept or metaphor that arises, this is a worthwhile consideration to make. If the feature doesn’t clearly add value and efficiency in a particular location, adding it risks losing value.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Chapter 5

2009-08-12T21:09:00.002-07:00

Cater first to your users with the least ability … they will dictate an exceptional level of usability.

While I worked in the E-Comerce industry, there was a prevalent mantra which arose as a result of how the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) legislation impacted (and benefitted) all electronic commerce. Users with disabilities impact software decisions in an immensely favorable manner. A significant amount of planning went into ensuring that any software path or process was accessible by impaired users, who utilized browsers that included screen scraping applications, which translated text into a computerized voice. This literally means that entire features were planned, from their inception, to accommodate users who might only be able to “see” a screen as a robotic voice that reads it to them. This technology is incredible! These ADA requirements, which were often nonnegotiable, led to an absolutely fantastic end product for all customers. If an application is so accessible as to accommodate a digital-voiced narrator, it is certainly able to accommodate nearly every other user on the planet. Navigation paths, alternate text-based descriptions, user intefaces, buttons, and graphical decisions become so well thought out, that they can’t help but become successful for all users. Coremetrics clickstream analysis proved that if we could cater to a browser which was a screen readers (literally), there would never be a lack of related, successful user activity across the board. When I saw regions of an E-Commerce site that were highly tuned to accommodate ADA considerations, there was never a lack of traffic, use, and (I suspect) efficiency.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Chapter 4

2009-08-12T21:09:00.001-07:00

All necessary options should be visible, intuitive, and accessible … think one degree of separation.

Kevin Bacon was not too far off the mark: there really are no more than six degrees of separation between you and just about anything you’d care to be in touch with—even in a software product. However, that is not to say that everything needs to coexist in the same screen real-estate. Immediate goals naturally lead to secondary, related goals. It is entirely possible to map out how goals cascade into one another. Within this view of an application, smart decisions about how to create interface flows can be made. In Agile software development, this might reflect a necessary concept of a “genealogical” map of story relationships. (For the layperson, a story translates into a contained, feature-requirement in product development—these are typically small, self-contained, and able to be described in a sentence). A recent story exercise we went through on the Product team yielded 43 stories within the first two days. It might make perfect sense to show how these stories are interrelated in some kind of a family tree. These series of relationships will most certainly positively-affected decisions about how to create software-level, graphical user interface navigation and paths between objectives.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Chapter 3

2009-08-12T21:08:00.000-07:00

Ensure that a minimum value product has been defined … and stick to that vision, especially at first.

Following on the heels of the last topic, another concept introduced to me by Softletter is closely related. When creating a new product or feature set, always focus on defining what the minimum value product (MVP, according to Softletter) is. This set of decisions related to “what is mission critical” ensures that you work to define the stories which must be developed first to make an initial release successful—and it also drives a clear rank and prioritization for those tasks. This step cannot be overemphasized because when reflecting on a true minimum for your product offering, you are simultaneously focusing on items with critical value, avoiding feature bloat, allowing real-life usability to shape future iterations, and adhering to the “less is more” philosophy without even trying. Keeping software simple at first also allows usability to be more malleable. In the case of developing for a wide array of users and platforms, testing and improving upon an initially focused feature set is far easier than a bloated application. Additionally, it is entirely possible to redefine a minimum value product at each stage of development, thereby reaping the same benefits across iterations.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Chapter 2

2009-08-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

Don’t show more options than necessary ... but ensure that if more options are needed, they are available.

Coe-Truman is an organization that has successfully catered to many of the most prominent associations in the science, technology, and medical space. We have unquestionably created some great, industry-leading features in our software. Nevertheless, there are, at times, conflicting opinions about how a certain feature should be implemented. This can lead to a tug-of-war of sorts if we are not careful … a proverbial case of catering to one set of demand, only to backtrack and try to appease another set of related (but different) demands, later. A successful way to manage this effect in a SaaS (Software as a Solution) system is to ensure that there is careful consideration for doing only what is essential and universally valuable in any given region of our software. This is not to say that extended, specialized features cannot also exist. This is to say that no single user should ever be confused by a particular feature-set they have arrived at in our software. Quite simply, if more options become necessary, they should be available if they are carefully planned. The location of their availability should be situated in a separate, focused region of the application that may be arrived at intuitively. Again, even when features exist in a specialized location in the application, there should be careful consideration for doing only what is essential and universally valuable in that region … even when the request seems complicated.

OASIS Product Management Mantras, Introduction & Chapter 1

2009-08-12T21:03:00.000-07:00

Introduction

In the perpetual quest to make highly-efficient, usable, relevant, and downright enjoyable software, Coe-Truman Technologies has recently taken a major stride forward in how it approaches its software vision. Led by our Chief Product Officer, Todd Wyder, we have pursued many parallel paths of self-education, in order to become more capable and impactful with every single feature we plan and release. While pursuing this aggressive objective, we have performed field studies and taken on homework assignments which are (considering this is still “work”) pretty awesome. From collaborating on a thorough review of CNet’s Webware Top 100 supplemented with a careful study of UseIt.com 10-Best-UIs, to pondering SlideShare’s course on Designing Rich Web Applications and freaking-out at how relevant 37 Signals’ Getting Real felt even in the first two chapters ... we are clearly on a mission. We subscribe to Pragmatic Marketing and Softletter, whose concepts fit right into this vision as well.

What follows here is a personal self-reflection from me, your OASIS product manager, on concepts that you can expect to see evolve exponentially in our software in the days to come. This article is a compendium of some of our recent education, but distilled (therefore, I have clearly borrowed from my influences in presenting this). I am excited, and I hope that our users begin to feel this excitement and know that great things are brewing in our laboratories. We love serving our associations and their individual quests for community-born, specialized knowledge. Effectiveness and efficiency in our software can drive these goals forward, and this inspires us.

If you don’t know how to use it, don’t need to use it, or don’t want to use it … don’t work on it.

First and foremost in any product manager’s mind is the concept of feature uptake and acceptance in the market. Just as we ensure that there is solid market demand for our software and related features, it is absolutely imperative that we ensure that every member of our team know how to use, need to use, or want to use our very own software. Considering that we serve a specialized industry comprised of the various doctors, scientists, engineers, and specialists who form our partner associations, I believe it is mandatory that every single one of us want to use and know how to use the software we create. In no uncertain terms, this means that our software must be intuitive, efficient, and fun. This strikes me as the most important concept we can follow in this regard. We are developing a product that no one individual on the Product Team may ever truly need to use as a meeting owner (we are not meeting managers by trade, after all. But without question, every single one of us should want to use, and know how to use, our own product. Wanting this knowledge because our software is efficient and elegant will result in us knowing how to use it ... exceptionally well, in ways that can drive best-practice decisions for our customers in the future.

Instant Meeting Signage Updates: Fact, Not Fiction

2009-08-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

Imagine that your team has just finished setting-up your session break-out rooms at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago. This is a massive facility, and countless hours of your team’s hard work designing, printing, and setting-up signage provides ample visual proof that this is, in fact, your largest meeting of the year. Actually, make that your largest meeting ever. Suddenly, you learn that a room needs to be moved due to technical issues. Then you learn that two speakers have cancelled and alternates will be filling-in. The frustrating news continues, and the madness is escalating all around you. Now a choice: Would you prefer to scramble to redesign, reprint, and replace all of those signs? Realistically speaking, how can you? All of your staff are already inundated, and far too busy to assist. However, what if your only task was going into your meeting content management system and rekeying a few lines of data—thereby updating all of your signage digitally … and immediately? For the American College of Cardiology, partnered with Coe-Truman Technologies OASIS platform and Freeman Audio Visual Solutions, it was actually that easy.

In the age of high-tech hardware, software, and people it is only logical that talented providers find a way to bridge the information gaps between critical systems. However, it requires qualified and reliable partners to play well enough together to make this happen. Fortunately, all OASIS customers have access to a system that exposes all of its essential meeting data through industry-standard web services, meaning that any OASIS data can connect directly into other systems. This makes data updates and synchronization a breeze. Freeman Audio Visual Solutions represents one of the largest onsite technology providers in the world, but that isn’t the only partner that OASIS has successfully integrated with in this fashion. OASIS web services have integrated with other, smaller onsite audio-visual vendors just as effectively, proving itself as a system designed for this type of open collaboration. When AHA used MEvents for one of its meetings, OASIS was capable of integrating and empowering their meeting signage updates as well.

"The ability to integrate OASIS data with our audio-visual vendor at our annual meeting is game-changing. Not only were we able to directly feed up-to-the minute session/speaker/room information from OASIS to the digital displays this year, I can envision many more ways in which attendees and speakers will benefit in the future from creative uses that will happen as a result of the integration."

–American College of Cardiology

Speaker-ready room and session break-out room signage can be updated immediately when OASIS is connected to your on-the-ground audio video system. Most customers quickly realize that this is what digital signage was designed to do! If you think this is a process that requires excessive planning and expertise, think again. ACC was able to accomplish what they needed simply by providing Freeman with the OASIS web services API documentation, coupled with a series of short phone calls to their OASIS account representative. Freeman is so committed to this as a viable, successful process that they recommend the solution to any customer they encounter who uses OASIS and has an interest in digital signage.

In an economy where budgets are thin and resources, even temporary meeting staff, are hard to come by, why not consider utilizing technology to assist your on-the-ground meeting process? OASIS web services are truly a bridge to empowering your association to use its data in a highly-connected fashion. Freeman Audio Visual Solutions, MEvents, and other vendors have all proven that OASIS is built to integrate. Contact us today to learn how to make this solution a reality for your next meeting.

Grounded

2009-07-30T11:57:00.000-07:00

Many of us have experienced the dreaded announcement from the cockpit: “Ladies and gentlemen, due to inclement weather at our destination, we will have to wait just a short time (yeah, right) until we are given clearance for take-off. Our spot at the gate has already been taken, so please remain seated, with seat belts fastened, until further notice. If you’ll please draw your window shades to keep it cool …” Keep it cool? Typically these delays have allowed me to finish a book or more. How’s that for cool? Travel only seems to get more difficult. In fact, according to a recent air travel forecast, travel conditions and regulations aren't the only things getting tougher … airlines are eliminating unprofitable routes (domestic capacity has been reduced by 12%) and since April, 2009 alone, domestic, economy-class fares have increased in cost by 8.2%. Gas prices will continue to climb back up (jet fuel costs 58% more than in March, 2009) and the vicious cycle of a sluggish economy's effect on travel will continue. What say you, fellow conference planner? This certainly doesn’t sound like great news. At least, not great news in the short term until we develop a way to overcome enough regulation to follow China’s lead in pursuing standing room-only fares. Yikes.

The meeting lifecycle is such that many parts of the process are most beneficial when conducted in-person. In fact, all qualitative input I’ve ever had related to the meeting planning process indicates that people would much rather perform program and session planning activities in-person, even if the technology was competitive and conducive to allowing a remote planning session to occur. There must be something about gathering around a board full of cards or post-it notes that holds a certain, nostalgic charm. Or rather, there is something about simply being there that will never be replaced. I can’t imagine anyone ever uttering “I guess you would have had to have virtually attended” in lieu of “been there.” But in the future, this might actually be the mindset….

It is critical that the modern, cost-conscious association discover new options for preparing, planning, and disseminating their meeting collateral and program plan. It is also essential that the association create ways for their attendees to benefit and save time using technology. For an organization who has never worked with a packaged, robust meeting content management solution before, gathering awareness of how such a solution can provide cost savings and efficiencies requires education. Here are a few ways your association might consider helping those members and leaders, who will sometimes remain “grounded” in the future as travel becomes tougher.

If you have never heard of a digital poster before, then you probably don’t realize that not only can it save you exhibit floor space because it’s, well, digital, but it can also serve as content that may be accessed remotely and live on long after your conference. In many cases, if video presentation is captured well, feedback suggests that the digital poster is every bit as effective as attending a poster presentation in-person, from an educational perspective. A recent US Department of Education study presented at the annual CESSE meeting indicates that e-learning actually has better outcomes and retention than in-person. Don’t tell that to your on-the-ground attendees! The point is, digital posters are accessible, enduring multimedia and just plan effective.

One of the most common pre-conference, preparatory meetings is the program planning meeting. This meeting typically serves as the formation of the educational tracks of your conference. Although your association may choose to continue doing much of this work in-person, online session building tools exist, which allow remote attendees to see the updated session plan in real-time and even contribute session updates via the Internet. For even a modest-sized association, the session grid is not something that could be easily communicated any other way but visually. A well-executed online session builder allows meeting planners, both present and remote, to share in the collaboration of building a session plan. If you’ve never seen a digital session grid, you would be interested to know that you can observe a complete view of a meeting’s session plan in real-time through the Internet … and drag-and-drop to change your program plan, also in real-time. Sounds exciting? It is. A digital session grid is a different kind of collaboration than a post-it note board.

Finally, members need to benefit from the use of technology as well. For the increasing number of members who might choose to arrive on the first day of a conference and leave prior to the last networking reception in order to save a night or two on hotel costs, offering optimized program visibility and the ability to wisely choose how to spend their time is essential. If you already have an online view of your entire session grid, shouldn’t members be able to benefit from that data as well? Of course! An online view of “my meeting” is a concept that, if well-executed, can add value to an attendee’s time. For instance, navigating all available sessions, selecting those which look interesting, and accessing select session information on a mobile device or on a personal calendar can cut down on the amount of legwork attendees have to do on the ground. Furthermore, peer interaction and networking is essential at conferences; an online view of the meeting can foster peer and exhibitor interactions in order to make the most of limited networking time.

There are many software packages out there which can accomplish some of these tasks individually. It is important to remember that there are cost-savings to be had when you discover a solution which integrates many of these capabilities into a single solution. Benefits from keeping your meeting data centralized and having these types of features integrated into a “one stop shop” will save your association countless headaches when trying to bring it all together. Even more cost-savings can be had when you aren't required to task your already burdened IT department with implementing new software. A key component to consider in this regard is whether the software is available as a service. It takes a certain amount of experience to support an infrastructure that can make all of these technologies play well together and be delivered as a service offering. OASIS, by Coe Truman Technologies, has been bringing these solutions to life for hundreds of association meetings for nearly 15 years. OASIS is a service-based solution (SaaS) so benefits can be achieved faster than you ever thought possible. Your members and attendees will thank you. Even the remote ones.

Learning From Each Other

2009-07-30T11:55:00.000-07:00

I had the chance to recently visit with a client of ours during their program planning meeting. The meeting attendance was impressive: a consortium of some of the best-and-brightest at one of the leading medical associations in the world. There were individuals in the room I’d met before: an austere, stern doctor from a local hospital who was somehow even able to remain gruff in communicating the great news that he’d received a position as a department chair at an East Coast university. I congratulated him and indicated what a great place I considered that city and university to be. “That’s not my motivator, he replied briskly before walking away. There was the ever-present Doogie Howser stand-in; a prodigal, man-child doctor whose colleagues kept highlighting how smart he was—ever exaggerated by the fact that he was the spitting image of college buddies during our sophomore year (and I can assure you, none of them were “prodigal” on a daily basis). Yet at twenty seven, he is a leader in a major medical society. Impressive. There was the diligent, steadfast Middle Eastern doctor who looked somehow saintly in her hooded veil, as she works until long after midnight (I can attest, I stepped out for a breath of fresh air before bed after reading, and she was still in the lobby working just as hard as when I left her at 6:30 that evening). It made me pause to appreciate how committed all of these individuals are at staying focused on the reason they flew across the country, perhaps world, to be together. To properly answer my own question instilled by the terse doctor of the group, "What is their motivator?” The answer remains simple: to learn from each other. And, in turn, to help others.

This is an association at its core. As a software vendor, it is often easy to become caught up in the fact that all of the bits and bytes can feel more important than the member-user of our product. In fact, for association software vendors, the problem of appreciating this realization is often compounded by the fact that our buyer is most often not any real recipient of the knowledge-based collateral which our system manages. The buyer is most likely the administrator of this system, serving the members, yet providing a barrier between the software vendor and the true heir to the value of the product. I can definitively state that any supplier of association software, at any level, should consider attending a true member-focused event at least once a year to be reminded of the diligent individuals who benefit from their product offering. Certainly, not all associations that are gathered in a room, exhibit hall, or tradeshow floor are in the business of saving lives like my doctor friends mentioned above. However, regardless of whether you are talking to über-skilled hypothalamus-only brain surgeons or a trade group comprised of change-sorting apparatus-operators (I made those two up; they very likely exist), it is imperative to remember that they are serving a group of committed members whose goal is to become more effective, more efficient, and more educated. Association-lead meetings could never have a bad outcome, if done effectively. They serve each other, and the general public inherently benefits as well.

This brings me full circle to my own role in this whole process. As a product manager for software which serves associations, it is important that I set some of my metrics and measures for success around some of the many intangible variables which I have described above. "Have I made my end-users more effective and efficient at reviewing and planning quality programs for their members? Has the content and collateral, which our system manages, been able to be distributed to the most accessible, syndicated, enduring content channels? Have continuing education credits-earned increased as a result of a process that our system has helped to impact? Were members, who were unable to attend, able to take advantage of any of this knowledge remotely, using our technology?” Many of these questions might be answered with a simple “yes” or “no;" however, it makes sense to search for ways in which the true success-metrics we bind to our product take some of these considerations into account. I think that I will have my work cut out for me. In this particular case, attending a member event not only helped the members to learn from each other… I most certainly learned something as well.

The Show Must Go On

2009-07-30T11:35:00.000-07:00

Difficult financial situations will always remain depressing. We’ve all noticed the precipitous decline in market value, stability, and personal wealth over the past months. It’s not just occurring locally either; this trend has now spread worldwide. Wants and needs have suddenly become painfully polarized, whereas in better times they would have overlapped in a much more satisfying manner. Education and obtaining best-practice knowledge definitely fall within the "needs bucket" however, these budgets are typically some of the first to be cut. Can you imagine this scenario?

"Well, there is a technique available—albeit cutting edge—that could save 6% more lives a year if understood and used properly … but we just can’t afford to send you to the conference to learn about it.”

Suze Orman probably doesn’t need to be around to remind you that this would be a “good debt” to incur.

Never before have there been so many reasons to make an investment in opportunities and technologies that will streamline effort and cost required to stay connected, educated, and ahead of the competition. Demand for education has certainly not declined proportionally with market financial trends: ACCME reports that CME-related activities are up 20%, participant volume is up 5%, and credit issuance is up 4% in 2008 (outdated material -- anything for 2009?). These trends certainly don’t describe a recession. Nevertheless, Las Vegas has seen 402 conferences cancelled from October, 2008 to mid-March, 2009 (at a cost of $166 million to the local economy) and the city has suffered a loss of an equivalent 95,000 hotel rooms. Now, these trends certainly do describe a recession. What is the gap? Where is this demand going? (Hint: It’s probably not to Atlantic City, just because it’s a little less chic.)

The fact is that the demand for knowledge and education will never change. However, the way in which people approach getting this information will change in a highly reactive fashion. Technology has enabled many advances in the ability to not only conduct research, to network and to attend “virtually,” but also to reduce costs like print and travel. Sounds like a solution, right? However, how many association events can you name that are suddenly taking place on Facebook with a overwhelming success? The proof is in the reality: it is much easier to identify ideas that feel like slick wins than to actually execute and deliver.

“You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.”

– Warren Buffett, 2001

Proven technology is hard-to-come-by since technology is always changing. The organization that I work with, OASIS, has been the leading provider of abstract submission, invitation, and event content planning software for over twelve years. That is a long time! Although the initial benefits that are apparent from using OASIS include gained efficiencies, such as reduced staff involvement and travel cost from an online abstract submission and review process, the visible member benefits are clear as well. OASIS offers tools such as Digital Posters, which offers the ability to have access to multimedia presentation content without ever leaving home. Remember the Facebook example? In comparison, associations are using and loving Digital Posters today. In fact, the European Congress of Radiology is not only using it to allow attendees to participate from home, but also to show their poster long after the congress. This is a concept that works immediately.

Another consideration when making a reactive change in a volatile economy is choosing your battles wisely. If the strength of your organization is not running complex technology, why bother to start now? OASIS is delivered as a service, meaning that your already stretched-thin team will not have the burden or overhead of additional IT infrastructure and cost. It seems smarter to focus energy on delivering the best programming content possible, which is what your members need now, more than ever.

In a chaotic world, being idealistic about how to stay afloat simply will not work. Your organization and members require substance that is proven and allows your organization to retain the essence of what an association stands for: access to community and collective knowledge. OASIS can help you save cost and gain efficiency to survive the storm. Send me a note or a comment today. I’m excited to share all the different ways in which OASIS is preparing to help your association stay not just afloat—but ahead—in these trying times.