I have posted the full text of the RSS for Associations article that was published in Association Forum of Chicagoland‘s Forum Magazine this month.
Also, I wanted to remind you that the Understanding the Potential (and Pitfalls) of Integrating CMS and AMS Systems event is being held next Thursday. This is one of the few places to learn about the somewhat tricky topic of creating value for your association by integrating your data and content management systems. Register today!
Microsoft just released some sample code with which to create RSS feeds from Microsoft CRM. I think this is a great development and provides a lot of value to users of the product. Being able to subscribe to a feed for a particular person, or class of persons, in a CRM database allows you to track them within your existing tools rather than having to remember to login to a portal page or application.
In fact, I talk about RSS for association management systems in an article I wrote for Forum Magazine that should be out in the April issue. Below is an excerpt of the bit about adding RSS to AMS:
I believe that the potential of RSS as a communication and productivity tool is just beginning to be fully explored. In addition to continuing to use it share and raise awareness of web-based content, I believe that RSS can be put to use in strengthening the relationship between a member and her association.
One use specific to the association market is around increasing member awareness. Take the common scenario of an association staffer who manages a committee or board and serves as an ex officio member of the group. What if your association management system provided an RSS feed for each member, providing updates every time something new happens with that member. You could then subscribe to the feed of each member on the committee and be immediately updated when they register for a conference, renew their membership, buy a product or miss an important continuing education deadline. Imagine the value of being fully aware of your committee members’ individual interactions with the association in a way that comes directly to your desktop rather than you having to mine your AMS on a daily basis to find the same information.
The same kind of feed could be exposed to your members, secured with their user name and password. This feed could alert them when a product they purchased from you ships, deadlines to renew membership or continuing education credits, etc. This would allow them to be much more aware of what your association is doing for them on a daily basis without having to take overt steps to find it out.
This kind of awareness raising could improve the experience for everyone in the association by making better use of the data that flows through your systems on a daily basis to strengthen the relationship between members and the association.
(Via Scoble.)
Ever wondered if you should integrate your association management system with your web content management system? Everyone says you should but have you really evaluated the benefits and costs of doing so?
If the answer to that question interests you, then join me and Wes Trochlil for an online event about AMS-CMS integration: Understanding the Potential (and Pitfalls) of Integrating CMS and AMS Systems. This is a must attend event if you are contemplating integration or are not happy with your current situation.
This event is a 90 minute online seminar on April 27, with pre and post activities in an online community for participants. The first 10 registrants will get one free hour of remote consulting with either Wes or myself. Those first spots won’t last long, so act quickly!
Gunnar Langemark has been highlighting numerous web sites that are published using Drupal, an open source content management system and community platform. If you are researching Drupal, you should review the sites that Gunnar has highlighted. Really impressive stuff.
This is fun: Warning Label Generator.
(Via Ben Martin.)
The W3C is forming a working group to look standards for Web APIs. This will be good in the long run for making AJAX interfaces much easier to develop across browsers and platforms.
The W3C Web API Working Group is chartered to develop standard APIs for client-side Web Application development. This work will include both documenting existing APIs such as XMLHttpRequest and developing new APIs in order to enable richer Web Applications.
I have been looking into Yahoo!’s mapping service API this week (Google offers one as well). What they have done is opened up their mapping services so that you can display your data on their maps. I have created a example on Yahoo! that displays my upcoming speaking gigs. Kind of silly but it took me all of 15 minutes to put this together which is quite amazing. It is all driven by this little xml file.
I think this kind of thing could be quite useful for association meetings where you could develop your own custom map of the meeting and lodging facilities related to your event. You could even create a special map for VIPs with all the locations of special dinners and other invitation-only events.
Google is launching an RSS reader service.
(Via evhead.)
Just heard that NewsGator has bought Ranchero Software, the makers of NetNewsWire, which is my RSS newsreader of choice on the Mac:
Q: How does NetNewsWire fit into NewsGator’s plans?
Greg: Over the last 2.5 years, we’ve built a comprehensive RSS aggregation platform. We have clients for the web, for email clients, for mobile phones and PDAs, and even for your TV. With the acquisition of FeedDemon a few months ago, we added the industry-leading Windows desktop aggregator. NetNewsWire really completes this story for us – we now have the best client on the Mac, which lets us serve this exciting part of the market as well. And make no mistake – we’re very excited about the Mac. Just looking at our data shows a huge penetration of RSS tools among Mac users – clearly you’re all early technology adopters, and that gives us a unique opportunity to try out new leading-edge stuff with you.
Funny thing is that the picture on the announcement page is of a guy using a Windows laptop. 🙂 This should lead to some great integration features for NNW in the future.
NewsGator should have a big knowledge lead on their competitors since they have hired by acquiring the developers of the two premiere RSS desktop applications. That’s probably worth more in the long run than the software.
Here are two new blogs I started reading recently that I would recommend adding to your subscription lists:
eHub is a constantly updated list of web applications, services, resources, blogs or sites with a focus on next generation web (web 2.0), social software, blogging, Ajax, Ruby on Rails, location mapping, open source, folksonomy, design and digital media sharing.
Garr Reynolds blog on issues related to professional presentation design.
eHub is great for keeping tabs on the latest web applications and services that are fully 2005 buzzword compliant. Presentation Zen is wonderful source of ideas on how to create presentations that won’t put people to sleep.
C. David Gammel, CAE 