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RSG’s 20th Partners Conference Review: A High Level of Education and Interaction
By Ken Ancona, Managing Director and SVP
RSG’s 20th Partners Conference, held February 24-26 in Point Clear, AL, featured a full agenda of meetings, classes, and networking. RSG’s Client Advisory Council members arrived early to attend a council meeting Tuesday morning. Discussion was frank, informative, and useful. At the conclusion of the Client Advisory Council, RSG’s Service Quality Group met to focus on ways to improve our account service processes.
Conference registration was Tuesday afternoon, with clients receiving their name badge, conference itinerary, map, notebook, and a gift from RSG—a 2GB flash drive plug-in that included all of the PowerPoint® presentations given at the conference. Our Tuesday evening reception provided an opportunity to see friends, establish new acquaintances, and meet Pathfinder Associates, the company retained by RSG to work on the design of our next generation RMIS. Ken Martino, CEO of Broadspire (RSG’s parent company), addressed our guests and thanked them for their attendance and their business. He also expressed his full support for our web development project with Pathfinder, which will ensure that RSG remains a premier RMIS vendor.
Pathfinder had two staff attend the conference for the purpose of capturing, from one-on-one and group sessions, our clients’ user experiences with Sigma EncoreSM and other web-based business applications. Two risk management sessions were replaced with Pathfinder conducting client interviews, and several one-on-one sessions were held so clients could share their experiences. Pathfinder found the research very valuable and helpful as they begin the user interface of our new web application. Our clients appreciated the opportunity to share their user experience and influence RSG’s next generation RMIS.
From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday were packed with basic and advanced training classes and risk management sessions. The most popular classes were reporting instructions. The migration to Oracle® provided an opportunity for RSG to improve our reporting flexibility, and these classes focused on the new features. Oracle® Discoverer (OD) Plus, a web version, was released at the conference, and many of our clients deemed its export to Excel®, with minimal formatting and transfer of pivot tables, a must have. The improved graphics in OD Plus, which provide greater flexibility of the presentation of the data, were also demonstrated.
Twenty-four companies were represented at this year’s conference. The atmosphere of the Grand Hotel Point Clear Resort & Spa was relaxing and inviting, and the food was delicious. Traveling from Chicago, the 68-degree days and 48-degree evenings felt like an early summer. The resort staff provided impressive Southern hospitality. The conference concluded with the premiere appearance of RSG’s Wizard. RSGuru fielded questions of all kinds from attendees while promising not to cast spells on RSG staff.
Clients appreciated how well organized the conference was and the quality of useful information provided that will assist them in their daily jobs. To quantify this, we asked attendees to fill out conference evaluaions. Out of 136 evaluations received, 75% of the sessions were rated ‘Excellent,’ and the balance were rated ‘Good.’ The one-on-one consulting sessions, which included Pathfinder Associates’ research of client user experiences, scored 81% ‘Excellent.’ The Grand Hotel Point Clear Resort & Spa received an 80% ‘Excellent’ rating, with entertainment and food receiving a 76% ‘Excellent’ rating.
We selected more than 60 pictures to illustrate the happenings at the conference. For a CD of the presentations conducted at this year’s conference, please contact your account manager.
RSG’s next Partners Conference will be held in 2011. Planning for that conference will begin next year, and we already envision a training schedule packed with RSG’s next generation of web applications.
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