Rafe has posted his Aggie review. He gives it good marks.

I’ve been using Aggie for a few weeks and like it quite a bit. I have started storing my subscription list (generated by Aggie at home) on my site and then point Aggie on my work box at the list. That solved my need for a portable subscription list. I just have to remember to update the file on the web server occaisionally.

Just finished the conversion from CityDesk to Movable Type for the weblog parts of this site. The home page now has the more traditional weblog layout.

The conversion was pretty painless. I wrote a short CityScript script to export the old weblog entries into the Greymatter export format, loaded them into MT, assigned categories, rebuilt the pages and here we are. I spent more time tweaking the templates and css than I did converting data or setting up the core software.

Still to do: change the CityDesk templates for the rest of the site to match the home page.

Let me know if you spot any broken links or problems with the site. The RSS feed has the same name and is in the same location so there should be no problems there.

Shane McChesney is writing about some very exciting possibilities with automated RSS newsfeed generation (using his company’s product, Fetch, as an example):

“Basically, though, we’ve put a scheduling engine and a SQL query interface together to allow users — IT users, analysts, not the end-user / reader — to write and schedule SQL queries on any ODBC datasource in the enterprise.

The query results are formatted into two text strings, which become the <title> and <description> elements of an <item> in a Fetch RSS <channel>.” 

The information can then be read in the Fetch reader on the desktop or they can use any reader that supports RSS. Their focus right now is on the call center but it can really be used throughout a company. Plus, you can query any system that supports ODBC. No worries about integrating with a multitude of different systems. Very cool.

I can think of a lot of applications specifically for associations:

• Total members that day compared to a year ago.
• Names of new members that day/week (with a link to more information about that person/company).
• Names of people/companies whose memberships have lapsed that day/week (with a link to their info). Or even better, members who are about to lapse in the next two weeks. Call those folks and get them to re-up!
• Total conference/convention registration numbers compared to same time last year.
• Members who were recently given an award or other achievement recognition by the association.

Now, I realize that any association management system can create these same reports for you. However, the immediacy of having that data show up on the desktops of staff automatically when they boot-up in the morning is much more powerful and likely to be acted upon than a report sitting in your AMS. 

Check out the klogs group for more discussion on automated RSS feeds as well as weblogs as a KM tool.

Rafe of rc3.org just published his first in a series of RSS newsfeed aggregator software reviews. Current review: FeedReader. My favorite line:

“First, let me say that it’s the best application written by an Estonian that I’ve ever used.”

I’m looking forward to the full series.