I thought I'd write a bit about the purpose of iMISCommunity as envisioned by ASI, and how ASI, customers and partners can work together at this site to get even more out of iMIS. But first, a little background.

Web 2.0, collaborative groups and more

If you will, the world has changed tremendously over the last 5 years, and in particular, the last 2 years. According to Thomas L. Friedman's book "The World is Flat", there has been a general "flattening" of the world, the way we work, and the ways we get our information. Folks expect to be able to Google-up information on any subject. Many individuals prefer to find their own answers on the Internet. There are open source movements and some notably successful collaborative projects.

Here at ASI, our reaction to the dramatic change is quite simply stated... The world has changed and we and our customers and partners need to take advantage of the change, by embracing it! No, that doesn't mean iMIS is to become open-source. But we are in the process of adopting many if not most of the successful practices of collaborative groups and open communities as a part of our overall customer for life commitment.

Mission of iMISCommunity

iMIS Community facilitates the collaborative development of iMIS applications and solutions among the customers, partners, and developers of Advanced Solutions International. In particular:

• Promote and support the development of iMIS applications and add-on features
• Provide an idea exchange for people interested in iMIS
• Community based support for the more technical aspects of iMIS and installation of iMIS

Who can participate?

• iMIS customers, partners, and ASI personnel

What kind of projects and information are anticipated?

• Product development projects from ASI and other iMIS developers, consultants and customers. This may include:
• Program APIs (Application Program Interface) and API support
• Alpha and Beta programs
• Binary or open source
• Support for collaborative style development. (iMISCommunity includes a VCS that can be used for projects)
• iMIS Wiki, Knowledge base and Solution repository
• Community driven and maintained
• Wikipedia style knowledge collection and governance
• Solution types might include programs, scripts, processes, workarounds, etc.
• iMISCommunity Blog
• iMIS and technology blogs of interest to the iMIS community
• Forums
• For discussion of projects, product suggestions, technology and knowledge

How can I participate?

• As a knowledge author. Create and maintain Wiki pages in your area of interest individually or part of a group. Answer forum questions. You may blog useful iMIS or technology articles.
• As a product or add-on author. Do you have an iMIS project or add-on of general interest you care to share in the general iMIS community? A project you might want to work with others on to complete? Need testers for your project?
• As a user or tester of iMIS extensions or solutions. As of the writing, ASI has two projects up that you can participate in: iBO for .NET and LDAP (Directory Service) for iMIS.

What are the rules of participation?

Well they are not all written yet, nor will every rule ever be written I suppose. It is our intention to follow the generally accepted approach for Wiki style sites, which I suppose would mean only civil behavior will be tolerated; don't worry about making a mistake; if you notice a mistake, please help correct it; don't be offended if your content is corrected or moved to another place in the site. The site is being built up mainly from an organic view, meaning we learn as we go. We are not in a hurry to take on all 30,000 iMIS users at one time, but rather would pace ourselves to work out issues as we go.

We should have an article out shortly to tell you more about how and where to contribute your content, more about how to author content, subscriptions, create and run your own project, etc. Again, don't worry about making a mistake. If there is a better place for your content, someone will move it and let you know.

You can find out more about iMIScommunity at related_to/imis_community_web_site.