Opening Session

The conference opened today with the traditional update from Jerry Kline the CEO of III. Innovative continues to be the leader in the ever-shrinking ILS market. They added 93 new partners over the past year and did not lose any customers to other systems.

He made a point of emphasizing that III will be gradually moving away from yearly, large system software updates to a more streamlined model of development that will get products and enhancements out much quicker than with the traditional once-a-year model that they have used up to this point. He does not expect new products to be perfect before making them available and has had to repeatedly remind the staff at III of this new thought process. They will strive to get more products out that will receive much more frequent updates. fixes and additional functionality. This philosophy meshes very well with SWITCH's commitment to make new products and services available ASAP instead of waiting until everything is perfect. There is no perfect time to make changes or add modules so just get it done as fast and prudently as you can.

There are nearly 1600 attendees at the conference this year with nearly 25% of them attending for the first time.

All that was great, but the highlight of the opening session was when I won a $25 Borders gift card during the raffle.