Get Connected!

Last month I gave a presentation to South Eastern Software Association board members on ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) and CMDB (Configuration

Dayton OH, Atlanta GA -- Ross Group Inc announced that they have entered into a long term software and support contract with AAA Motor Club Holdings, LLC (MCH). Under the terms of the multi-year contract, Ross Group will supply the motor club group with Membership Software and support services for the group’s membership and customer relationship management needs. Ross Group will supply its industry leading MemberzPlus™ membership management and customer relationship management (CRM) product suite to all members of the holding company. Under the unique agreement, MCH will receive all source code and documentation to the MemberzPlus™ software and can use it to manage all of the clubs under the MCH umbrella which includes AAA Southern New England, AAA New York, AAA Connecticut, AAA Carolinas as well as new clubs which may join MCH in the future. In addition, this relationship establishes a Ross Group team of software engineers dedicated to MCH support for the long term.

“MemberzPlus™ is an extremely robust membership management and CRM application,” explains Richard Spanier, Senior VP of Club Solutions at Ross Group. “By using Ross Group software and services, MCH is positioning themselves to continue growing their business utilizing the latest technology available in the market today.”

“This puts us in a great position to move forward with our initiatives of deepening relationships with members while expanding our reach through mergers. We see our relationship with Ross Group and their technology as a key benefit for any AAA club joining MCH in the future.” says Mark Shaw, CEO at AAA Southern New England. “Our goal is to continue to build on our already deep relationships with our members through innovation. Part of the reason we chose Ross Group was their leadership position in membership and relationship management software. At Southern New England we have a long history of working with Ross Group and know that they are the top firm supplying software to our industry which they back up with a knowledgebase unrivaled in the industry. We are very comfortable working with them and look forward to expanding that relationship across the other MCH clubs.”

Mark Ross, CEO of Ross Group, explains that “Our software suite uniquely positions a group like the AAA Motor Club Holdings to aggressively grow their group through the merger process. One of the major issues with growth in any company is making sure their core systems can handle the growth. Our software has been uniquely shown to not only handle the growth, but because our software supports distributed operations so well, the group will gain tremendous economies of scale as they continue to add clubs.”

AAA Motor Club Holdings, based in Providence, RI, has a member base in excess of five million members and is one of the largest motor clubs in the AAA.

Headquartered in Dayton, Ohio with a satellite office in Douglasville, Georgia, Ross Group Inc is a leading supplier of software to motor clubs in North America. The company supplies software to manage all touch points between the club and its member base. This includes membership management systems for back office and branch operations, web site management and software to integrate member management with other club systems like finance, insurance and road side assistance.

For additional information about our membership software, visit the Ross Group web site at www.rossgroupinc.com or contact Richard Spanier, Senior VP Membership Solutions, at (770) 942-5629 or richard.spanier@rossgroupinc.com.

July 8, 2010

Thompson Technologies, Inc. celebrates 15 years of success with a gathering of over 150 families including consultants, clients, associates and friends. On June 26, 2010, Thompson Technologies held its annual picnic at Lake Lanier Island and Resort. Over 200 children enjoyed the Water Park, use of a Pontoon Boat, volleyball, great food, Disc Jockey and more!

A raffle was held to raise money for two local Atlanta Charities, The Joy Foundation and MUST Ministries. Raffle Prizes, graciously donated by Thompson’s vendors and suppliers, included Braves Tickets, A Night on the Town, Restaurant Gift Cards, a Dell mini Laptop, and even a 16GB Apple iPad! The raffle raised over $3,000 for these two worthwhile causes.

Founder and Assistant CEO, David Thompson, was thrilled at the number of families that came out to help celebrate. “God is the CEO of TTINC and He has been pouring out so much favor and blessing on us – it is an honor, blessing and responsibility to give back to those in our community that are in need. In addition to supporting local charities, Thompson also supports three international orphanages.” Thompson added, “Our culture is unique and we are blessed with amazingly talented individuals. Our first half of 2010 has us tracking at over 60% revenue growth year over year while adding a large number of new local and national clients. I am as excited about the business today as I was 15 years ago starting out in my home office.”

Mark Adams, a client attending the event with his family commented on the “Good Spirit” present at the picnic. Mark also said, “I have seen the Thompson Team in action and they really walk the walk. David should be proud of what his team has accomplished and the success that has been achieved in the first 15 years. I wish them great success for many years to come!”

MUST Ministries is a faith-based, charitable organization dedicated to providing services to persons and families in crisis while maintaining their dignity. MUST is a place where one's faith can be put into action and where we can minister to the poor, the brokenhearted and those who are in crisis - in a place where "your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." (Frederick Buechner).
For more information about MUST Ministries: www.mustministries.org

The Joy Foundation is an Atlanta based charity that helps children purchases gifts for their families and “Shop with a Hero” The program pairs children from less fortunate families with local heroes such as Military, Firemen or Policemen and are given the opportunity to shop for their families for the holidays.
For more information about The Joy Foundation: www.joyfoundation.org

About Thompson Technologies
Founded in 1995, Thompson Technologies is a precision IT staffing firm that provides high-quality services with a reputation for value and unwavering integrity. Thompson provides exceptional IT talent to clients across diverse industries on a contract, contract-to-direct and direct hire basis. The company excels at filling challenging positions and identifying qualified candidates for its clients’ technical environments. A certified Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB), Thompson was twice named one of Atlanta's Best Places to Work by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. It has also been awarded the Atlanta Pacesetters award, which recognizes Atlanta’s fastest growing private firms.

For more information:

David Thompson
Founder & Assistant CEO
Thompson Technologies
(770) 794-8380
dthompson@thompsontechnologies.com

The words “hit song science” tend to set musicians on edge.

Rather than inspiring curiosity about a new piece of technology, the idea of a hit predictor, or some kind of perfect pop song analyzer, usually conjures up images of soulless homogeneity, of computers issuing ruthlessly effective and perfectly empty radio hits, of true creativity and artistry being wiped off the face of the earth as if it were a computer virus.

But according to David Meredith, the CEO of Music Intelligence Solutions, the company that runs uPlaya, that’s actually the exact opposite of what it’s for.

“With the explosion of creativity that’s happening these days, we need more sophisticated tools to help the content creator get the recognition they deserve,” Meredith explains, “and for the fan to filter through it.”

He’s not wrong. According to Tom Silverman, there were over 81,000 albums released last year that sold fewer than 100 copies. According to Meredith’s research, there are over 10 million songs available on the iTunes Music Store that nobody has ever bought. A decade into the 20th century, artists are done celebrating the fact that they can make a professional-sounding recording on their own. Now they’re wondering how to get those recordings noticed.

“We all need a way to curate this massive amount of stuff, and the tools aren’t there for it,” Meredith observes. “There’s a need for actual evaluation.”

The evaluation part is what tends to make musicians squirm the most: if a computer’s going to evaluate my art, how is it going to do it? But Meredith and his researchers have done a lot of homework. In building up uPlaya’s two services, hundreds of millions of songs were analyzed at a multitude of levels. “We can look at timbre, pitch, chord progression, melody, vocals, harmony, everything about the song [including the song's language],” Meredith explains.

uPlaya can analyze a song’s variables two different ways. The first, called hit potential technology, takes stock of past and current trends to determine the likelihood that your song, given a requisite amount of marketing money, will become a hit. It is, according to Meredith, supposed to be predictive rather than reactive, and the songs that score high enough are given awards that denote a strong likelihood for success.

An example of uPlaya's Music Universe.

The second, and more important type of analysis is called the Music Universe, or as Meredith likes to think of it, “Google Earth for music.” This type of analysis provides users with a visual display not only of what songs their music resembles, but of the likelihood that their song will appeal to fans of established hits.

This helps artists on a number of levels. It can help artists find kindred spirits or help them market their music to bloggers. It can help convince a label manager to try and introduce an artist’s song to a new audience.

It can also help smaller artists looking to score licensing deals. If a music supervisor wants a song like Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” for a soundtrack, but he can’t afford to pony up the $200,000 fee that song commands, he can jump into the Music Universe and find that song you wrote that pushes all the same emotional buttons. This theory is actually being put into practice by the Second City. The legendary comedy troupe is releasing its first branded feature film, Buzzkill, and they are letting Variety choose songs for its soundtrack using the Music Universe.

Meredith’s also encouraged by the fact that others see uPlaya as a critical tool for A&R. “There was a really interesting music blog who said that within five years, your Hit Song Science score is going to be more important than how many plays you’ve had on Myspace,” he says.

Of course, there will be dozens of things more relevant than Myspace plays in five years. But Meredith is confident that his company’s technology will be valuable to the entire industry, and for years to come. The artificial intelligence technology that powers uPlaya’s services is used for poring over mountains of data at incredibly high speeds. It’s been used in the financial services industry. It’s been used to optimize power grids and communication networks, “anywhere you need to sort through massive amounts of data and make informed decisions.”

The music industry might not change as quickly as financial markets do, but it is a very complex, dynamic business. The musical, financial, and cultural definitions of a hit song, like most cultural phenomena, are changing. But even as personal tastes, economic ecosystems, and models shift beneath everybody’s feet, one thing is never going to change. “Everybody on that continuum, they all need feedback,” Meredith says. “They all need attention on their songs. We see people using it on all levels.”

We All Make Music Feature by Max Willens on July 27, 2010