AT Newsletter Volume 1, July 2020

 
 
AT Tech Tips
 
 
Move Off Your Kitchen Table: Setting Up Your Home-Office To Maximize Productivity

We have learned that our current situation with COVID-19 is not going to change quickly.  Many of us will continue to work primarily from home for a long time.  Even those who return to the office will likely spend more time working from home in the future.  Follow these tips to ensure you are as comfortable and productive as possible when working from home.

Setting-up your work-from home equipment:
  • Consider upgrading your bandwidth.  If you have a spouse and children all working remotely with simultaneous video calls, you should have one of the top bandwidth plans offered by your ISP.
  • Review your WiFi equipment.  Modern WiFi devices must deal with both high-bandwidth video calls and numerous connections from all of the Amazon Echos, Ring Doorbells, Nest thermostats, etc.  If you have not upgraded your WiFi equipment in the last 2 years, you probably should do that now.
  • If you do not have a spare room for an office, find a dedicated spot so that you are not commandeering your kitchen table and wasting time setting-up every morning before work.
  • Keyboards are cheap, chiropractors are not: if a keyboard and/or mouse helps you be more comfortable, then buy one.  Keyboards are fairly universal, so there is rarely a reason to involve us in finding compatible devices; just buy what you like.
  • Get a laptop dock for home or bring your office dock home.
  • Find a comfortable office chair.
  • Setup multiple monitors – take care to buy monitors with the proper ports, reach out to AT with questions
  • Cover your camera when it’s not in use, so you are not joined to a video call unexpectedly.
  • Find a comfortable headset for calls. Don’t get more complicated than you need: the earbuds that came with your phone will work for most purposes (and headsets are difficult to find right now).
Help keep your equipment operating optimally:
  • Do not set your laptop on a couch cushion or blanket: the laptop can sink down slightly, which will block hot air exhaust and cause the laptop to overheat.
  • Be careful putting a laptop on your lap: modern laptops can be hot to the touch.
  • Place your laptop away from small children, pets and beverages. 
 
 
Partner Showcase
 
 
   
 
Adapting to a world where technology is rapidly evolving can be challenging. We are pleased to introduce our newest partner- HighRoad Solutions, an ASAE-endorsed marketing technology agency. With expertise in iMIS integrations, as well as email and marketing automation, the HighRoad team is small, smart, and committed to providing unmatched service to their clients.

In April, Association Technologies signed on with HighRoad to adopt a new email automation platform. During the onboarding process, HighRoad's expert team of digital strategists evaluated and identified areas to advance so as to enhance the sophistication of our email program.  After prescribing a strategic blueprint, their training specialist collaborated closely with our team to leverage the full capabilities of the new tool. In a short timeframe, our team has been able to tap into the platform to optimize our emails and develop campaigns that will continue to deliver value.

HighRoad leads with strategy, so clients gain a partner for the long haul as technology needs continue to grow and evolve. For educational content on industry-leading strategy around association marketing technology, sign up for HighRoad’s weekly blog digest: https://www.highroadsolutions.com/blog and register for their Email Deliverability webinar on Tuesday, July 28 in the Events section.  

To learn about more of our partners click HERE
 
 
Delightful Employee Spotlight
 
 
Bryan Hartsock, CEO and Chief Technology Officer
Welcome to our brand new newsletter.   A few years ago when we went through a re-branding process with a local marketing firm they came up with several "tag" lines.  One of those tag lines (and still one of my favorites) is "Our People are so Delightful, You'll Want to Adopt Them!"  We have a great team at AT and we thought it would be nice to share a little bit more about each person.  So who better to start with then our very own Bryan Hartsock.

Bryan is one of the original founders of AT (fun fact: there were actually four initial founders).  He spent his time growing up in the little town of Tremont in central Illinois.  He didn't end up traveling very far for college when he attended Illinois State University and received his degree in Computer Science.  More importantly that is where he met his wife (also part of the team), Julie.  Before starting AT Bryan worked at several large organizations: Daimler Benz, Smith Bucklin, and CNA Insurance.    

Most people know that Bryan is a very active member of his church.  One of the great things he does (and has done many times) is to support their mission trips to the Dominican Republic and Mexico.    But instead of simply writing a check or donating supplies, he takes a week off to travel to these places.  They dig ditches, restore buildings, lay brick and much more.  His church also brings supplies for these local churches including old refurbished laptops including some donated by our generous clients.   These efforts help support an orphanage, a soup kitchen, a space for after school activities and a center for men recovering from substance abuse.  Bryan has made the trip seven times since 2012 and twice brought his entire family to help support these missions.   
For more information about their mission you can visit their website:  https://chapelstreet.church/serve/serve-world-partners/open-doors-ministry/

To learn more about the rest of our team click HERE
 
 
Upcoming Events
 
 
JULY
23 & 30
1:00 PM CDT
REGISTER
2020 iMIS Process Automation Webinar Series
Location: Virtual

Join us for the next iMIS webinar training series.  Process Automation (PA) is an essential tool in the iMIS system.  It is used for scheduling reoccurring tasks and creating alerts within the iMIS system. 
 
JULY
28
11:00 AM CDT
REGISTER
High Road Solutions: Getting to the Inbox - the In's & Outs of Email Deliverability
Location: Virtual

Is it just us, or is it becoming harder to get your membership emails to the inbox? While email has always been a key channel in building member engagement, it's only effective if someone actually sees your message in their inbox. We are, after all, in an election year in the midst of a global pandemic- and with so much extra digital noise, it's no wonder emails are getting stuck in spam filters or ignored by recipients altogether. It's not all doom and gloom though - there are things you can do to cut through the noise, improve your sending reputation and create email campaigns that convert. Join our subject matter experts as they talk through deliverability details that can help you make sense of it all.
 
AUGUST
10-12
00:00 AM EST
REGISTER
ASAE Virtual Annual Meeting
Location: Virtual

The ASAE Virtual Annual Meeting & Exposition is where thousands of association professionals and industry partners gather to exchange time, resources, strategies, solutions, and more. Over three days of learning, growing, and finding inspiration, attendees are equipped with a year’s worth of support in their daily responsibilities as leaders in the association industry.
 
SEPTEMBER
16
9:00 AM-12:00 PM CDT
REGISTER
NIUG Virtual Chicago Area Users Group Meeting
Location: Virtual
 
 
SEPTEMBER
30
8:30 AM - 4:45 PM
REGISTER
Association Forum SmartTech Conference® 2020
Location: Online

Association Forum is Transforming for the Digital Revolution.  Our revamped SmartTech Conference® will help you navigate a new decade and transform the digital side of your business with tools and techniques for incorporating AI and emerging technologies.
 
 
 
 
Service Showcase
 
 
 
Introducing AT Virtualizer 
We are excited to announce the release of our new suite of products, the AT Integration Station.  These products have been designed to improve staff productivity and customer/member service.  The first product we are releasing is AT Virtualizer.  This product works with several virtual meeting platforms including Zoom and GoMeeting (more to come).  AT Virtualizer makes it easy to setup a new virtual event, link it to your iMIS event and automatically register the user on the virtual platform.  AT Virtualizer doesn't require any software installation and is easy to setup.  It is hosted in Microsoft Azure for secure and reliable performance.  We just recently beta-tested it with two different clients and are now offering to everyone.  For more information contact Jim Meyers or your application consultant.
 
 
Training Tidbits
 
AT Learning Center
Finally, after much internal work and planning we are releasing our learning center.  This free video library for our clients includes training videos for many of the products we support.  We have approximately twelve videos with many more planned.  

To access the learning center click on the following link: LEARNING CENTER

To login you will need to request a new password by using your Email address.  If you have any problems you can contact Lisa at lkulig@assctech.com.
 
 
Industry News
 
 
Optimize Your Web-Surfing Strategy For A Remote Work World
Thanks to our newly remote lifestyles, we have to lean on web apps to do our jobs more than ever—and browsers can struggle to keep up, even on modern laptops. The best solution (for now) may be a bit more browsing efficiency.

The good news about working in a remote environment these days is that nearly all of the apps you need are just a browser click away. The bad news is that your browser may not be managing all those apps and tabs efficiently. And that means performance is a constant struggle on many modern browsers, especially Chrome.
Read More
 
Four Things You're Not Doing to Boost Search Traffic (But Should Be)
From installing Google AMP to giving the long tail some appreciation, here are a few tactics that can help you boost your traffic from major search engines.

Search traffic is an old, consistent standby, but it sometimes gets less attention than newer, more attractive sources of traffic. That means many organizations aren’t taking full advantage of search to draw an audience—and that could be costing them opportunities to make an impact or drive new membership.

So how do you fix that problem? You try a few things to boost your search engine optimization, or SEO. A few ideas:   
Read More
 
 
 

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