Episode summary

When Ellen Turner started her first iMIS database job, she didn’t have a manual. She had a community. Two weeks into the role, she was sent to her first iUG conference, where seasoned members took her under their wing, answered her “I’m brand new and have no idea what this means” questions, and sent her home with pages of notes. That didn’t just get her up to speed. It set the course for everything that came after.

Ellen is now a senior consultant at Bursting Silver and one of the most certified people you’ll find in the iMIS Learning Hub. She joins The Modern Membership Org to make the case for peer learning. She explains what the iMIS Users Group (iUG) actually is, why it matters that it runs independently of ASI, and how a community listserv can get you an answer in 15 minutes instead of 24 hours. She also previews Emergence, the joint iUG and ASI innovations conference this November, and why the hands-on training is worth showing up for whether you’re brand new or a seasoned administrator.

Her point is a simple one: nobody should have to learn iMIS alone. Maybe you’re about to upgrade to EMS. Maybe you’ve had staff turnover. Maybe you’re just trying to write a SQL expression that won’t throw an error. Whatever it is, there are people who have been exactly where you are, and they want to help. As Ellen puts it, not everybody makes their ice cream sundae the same way, but everyone walks away with a sundae.

In this episode

• What the iMIS Users Group (iUG) is, and why its independence from ASI gives members the freedom to ask questions they might not ask vendor support
• How the iUG listserv turns a 24-hour support wait into a 15-minute community answer — and how to tell which questions belong where
• What to expect at Emergence, the joint iUG + ASI conference in November, and why the hands-on training is worth attending at any experience level
• How iUG serves associations, unions, and regulatory bodies alike — and connects members at similar organizations to solve shared challenges
• Why free iMIS Learning Hub certifications (CiU, CiA, CiP and more) are worth pursuing, and which one fits your role

Resources

• Join ASI sprint review meetings: email `[email protected]` and ask to be added.
  
• Upgrade release notes: available through the iMIS help documentation (bookmark the page linked from the in-app upgrade banner).
  
• iMIS Learning Hub certifications: CiU (user), CiA (administrator), CiP (professional), CiSE (sales engineer), CTCA (TopClass), COWA (OpenWater). Free if your organization has the Learning Hub.
  
• Reach Ellen: [email protected] or on the iMIS listserv.

The Modern Membership Org Podcast

Full Transcript

Ellen Turner (00:00)
I’m going to freely admit I am biased here, but if your organization is not a member of iUG, you should really look into joining. think you would be highly surprised at just how beneficial that membership will be

just the value that you get back in terms of webinars and community support is worth it, especially if you’re in a situation where your organization is on the verge of upgrading to EMS or you’ve just upgraded

Riley Miller (00:39)
All right, welcome back to the Modern Membership Org podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today I have an extra special guest. This is an individual who, when I first started with Bursing Silver, we were working on a team. She brought me under her wing, and she was an early start as well, and we both gaining the firm and the flow. So, Ellen Turner is joining me today, and we’re going to be speaking on the importance of community, specifically in the iMIS users group community, and she has a…

rich history of database management that she worked in education sector for the past 10 years. I know we’ll get into it here for a little bit, but I’m going to hand it over now to Ellen Turner to maybe give us some background of what led you to this point and where you are now.

Ellen Turner (01:22)
Yeah, thanks Riley. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me. So. As you mentioned, I worked in education setting for over a decade and I had many roles. Why was working at a school? And at towards the end of my time there, I spent approximately three years as a database manager in a database management position with a completely different database, but.

I really grew to enjoy that. So when it came time to leave the school, I spent a lot of time looking for a similar position, maybe with the same database, maybe learning a new database. And from that position, I was able to transition to a database management role with a not-for-profit trade association. And that’s where I first heard of iMIS, learned iMIS and really cut my teeth on iMIS itself.

And after about almost four years there, I was able to transition to Bursing Silver as a consultant. And two months after joining Bursing Silver, we met and started working together.

Riley Miller (02:28)
Dynamic Duo, Power Team. Well, so when you’re cutting your teeth on the whole iMIS introduction there, what I gather too, and a lot of the theme that we’re going to draw on today, is that’s when you first heard of the iMIS users group, and even from transitioning from your association experience over to bursting silver, you kind of carried that torch. What’s it been like from first ⁓ on the association side?

Ellen Turner (02:30)
Yeah.

Riley Miller (02:53)
as the user group ⁓ member to now with Bursing Silver as part of that community.

Ellen Turner (03:00)
You know, as somebody who had just started a position that was going to be managing an iMIS database, iUG was a real lifesaver to me. It was a great resource to just ask questions and be like, I am brand new. I don’t know what this means or how do I accomplish this? And the community is just always so welcoming to new people. And a lot of people were just always respond to my questions.

be a little list serve. And was just really comforting knowing that other people had been in the same boat and they were now able to answer questions and offering to help other people. And so it was just really comforting and reassuring to them like, yes, I can get this. I can do this. It’s OK. And just knowing that I can always ask questions and not feel stupid. Yes.

Riley Miller (03:49)
important.

Too many times I’ve been plagued by asking stupid questions. But I mean, I think that that’s an important thing that you highlighted as well, where you’re you have kind of a carte blanche, open forum to be able to ask questions and not feel like you are asking dumb ones.

Ellen Turner (04:08)
Yeah, and I mean, I think it’s important to know that, know, iMIS as a database has been around for decades. It’s gone through a lot of iterations. It’s gone through a lot of changes. And there are people in the iMIS users group who have been there for most, if not all of those changes in some cases. And so they’ve been there from version iMIS 15 to iMIS EMS. And so like they are like,

There’s like literally those people who are like, back when I first started, you had to do it this way. And now you have this whole brand new system, basically, based on that allows you to do X, Y, and Z that we couldn’t do when iMIS first came into being. So it’s really interesting to hear like how much change has occurred within the system and also to hear how they’ve adapted or had to adapt or how they’ve brought the organization through the multiple iterations over the years.

Riley Miller (05:03)
Yeah, you gotta like the old war stories. Badges of honor, if you will, in the trenches. So for those that are listening here, ⁓ could you please explain a little bit about what IUG is? I’m sure our listeners are familiar with iMIS as well, but maybe just kind of highlight what it is, what it stands for, and the relationship between the platform and the group.

Ellen Turner (05:06)
Yes, absolutely.

Sure, so iUG or the iMIS Users Group is a nonprofit users group for the system or software known as iMIS. And what’s really unique about it in my opinion is that while it is obviously affiliated with ASI, it is actually solely independent of ASI. So there is obviously a close relationship with ASI. They’re having the joint conference.

this fall in November together to have offer the training and merging the normal iUG training conference with the annual ASI innovations conference to host emergence. But it is solely an independent vehicle from ASI, which in my experience with the few other databases that I’ve managed.

Usually those user groups are run solely by the company that makes the software. So to me, that’s already unique because you kind of get like just that little step back of distance so you can ask questions about like how do people tackle this without always just kind of getting like the very cut and paste answer from the help documentation. So to me, that’s a huge benefit,

that iUG is separate from ASI just because it gives people a little bit more freedom in asking their questions. Maybe they’ve already tried to go to ASI support and they’re looking for other solutions, other options, or maybe they just need a little bit of help understanding what maybe their authorized

consultants or their current customer service representative is trying to tell them or they just don’t understand what process needs to happen. You just need that little bit of extra help while not affecting your company’s budget, for example.

Riley Miller (07:15)
Yeah, very true.

I mean, there’s something to be said to back to the war stories and people have been through it. it could be as simple as you’re missing this toggle or I’ve run into that before too. And here’s how I fix that. It’s, ⁓ I would say akin to looking on Google and finding that one person that has the troubleshooting guide on Reddit. You’re benefiting from a community because there’s a lot of people that have been through it and kind of from a for us, us.

Perspective you have people that are willing to support each other because they have been supported in the past

Ellen Turner (07:44)
Exactly, exactly. you know, it’s a lot of things. like I could spend, you know, 30 to 45 minutes trying to read the documentation or I can, you know, send in a support ticket. But when I know it’s a question that has most likely been asked within the iUG community, I know I’m going to get a response within 15 minutes as opposed to maybe 24 hours. So, you know, it just, it just depends on what the…

on the type of question you’re asking and you know by lurking on the listserv for a little bit or within the community you kind of get a sense of which questions over time are better to ask via the community versus where that’s very specific detail for a very specific configuration when you just need to go ahead and.

submit that ticket to ASI support to get the very

specific response for your configuration.

Riley Miller (08:37)
Absolutely.

So, you mentioned earlier the Emergence conference, and so you and I, some background for the listeners here, attended the annual iUG meetup in Nashville last year. Based on what you’re allowed to share, we’re not going to be ruining any surprises, but for an individual that’s looking at going, even just specifically for the nature of those conferences, what can they expect for that?

go into a little bit of why should they show up. If they’ve never been before, what is the value that they would get out of attending?

Ellen Turner (09:06)
Absolutely. with the iUG conferences, historically what those offer is hands-on training. And there’s always pre-conference and post-conference offerings for either half-day training or full-day training that is hands-on, in-depth training on specific topics. And then during the conference days itself, there’s 30 minutes to hour long generally.

sessions on again specific topics that are not going to be as hands-on, but they’re going to give you real-world examples on how to do specific things like committee management, sending, you know, how to use process automation plus or automating your workflow. Things that, you know, can help people get the most out of their iMIS configuration and it doesn’t really matter, you know, how your system is configured versus

the presenters configured versus other people in the audience. I think that’s one of the great things about iUG is just that they try to offer training that is applicable to everybody. When I lead these trainings, you have to pick examples to show people, but you always know that the example is not going to be applicable to everybody in the office or everybody in the audience.

And I try to help people understand this by saying, not everybody makes toast the same way, but in the end, no matter how you make it, everybody ends up with toast. Or maybe a better example now would be to say,

Everybody makes an ice cream sundae differently. Everybody has different likes, different flavors of ice cream. Everybody prefers different toppings. But just because you put caramel on yours and nuts and I prefer just chocolate syrup and whipped cream, that doesn’t make my ice cream sundae any less of an ice cream sundae than yours. It’s just the way that your sundae is configured. But like we would still be able to get, you would get the same type of information.

out of the presentations that I’m going to get out of the presentations.

Riley Miller (11:14)
Absolutely. Yeah. I love the mix and match Sunday. Yes, at its core, definitely. I think you’re building on the same thing where it’s support, it’s an avenue or an outlet to come in and learn. I remember when we were back in November, there was sessions that were staggered throughout the day, dedicated entirely to getting your certification, which I think is huge, especially for

individuals that are new with the system are coming in bright-eyed bushy tail and want to have that hands-on experience because that’s how they learn, not just through the online learning hub. It’s a better learning conduit to your brain when you have somebody being able to walk you through and you can ask those questions that are coming up. So I think that is an amazing opportunity for new users especially. You did mention too when it comes to like

in the office space at least, you have that one person that may not be able to ask the rest of their team, their peers, their colleagues, because they’re not in the same system. But there’s also the idea too that iUG serves many different organization types, much like we do, associations, regulatory bodies, unions. How does the iUG community address or approach or keep those conversations alive?

for such a wide audience.

Ellen Turner (12:32)
You know, again, I have to just kind of go back to just the online community or listserv just because, you know, people say like, hey, I work at this type of organization. We’re trying to accomplish X, Y, and Z. I run into this roadblock. How do I get this IQA to pull the information I need? Or I’m trying to write this SQL expression to display this information, but it’s giving me an error. What am I doing wrong in the SQL expression? Like that’s how I learned SQL.

at my previous employer. would try to do it and then it wouldn’t quite, I’d either get the error message or I would get something different. And so I finally just like paste it in the list server and be like, this is not doing what I want it to do. I’m trying to get it to do X, but it’s doing Y. And somebody would immediately write back like, try this. And I try it and that worked, thank you. And that’s how I eventually gained the knowledge to actually start doing.

SQL expressions on my own and to start querying the SQL database because at the time the organization was self-hosted on iMIS 2017. So I had to really teach myself a lot of SQL to start really managing and getting into the nitty-gritty. But I think that because iUG serves such a wide variety of organizational types, that means members

are from all those organizational types. So if it’s somebody from a specific organizational types, like, hey, does anybody else have this experience? All the other members from that organizational types like, yeah, here’s how we solved it. people will ask like, are there any other members from this type of base were thinking about joining? And the executive director and the other staff member at

iUG can put them in touch with similar organizations so that they can chat about the pluses of having iMIS or other uniquely shared challenges so that they can brainstorm solutions.

Riley Miller (14:26)
I do like the trial by fire SQL approach. Just a bang in your head against it. So maybe drawing back on when you were but an early adopter of the iMIS was there a standout moment with your experience in IUG that is kind of like your eureka aha moment? This saved me plenty of hours from.

Ellen Turner (14:30)
Yes. Yes.

Riley Miller (14:48)
banging my head against the computer? it just specifically for that sequel moment where you’re like, yes, that is what I needed? Or was there another more in tune moment that propelled you to become more involved with the community?

Ellen Turner (15:02)
So two weeks after I was hired, I was sent to my first iUG conference. And it’s great because everybody’s there saying, how long have been working in iMIS? One year, two years, I’m like two weeks. And so it was just so great how everybody just took me under their wing. And I learned so much at that first conference. I came back with just pages and pages of notes. And I finally understood like,

what some words meant that people had been talking about. And I was like, okay. one of the employees at our AISP, or Authorized iMIS Service Provider, she was there and she took me under her wing, helped introduce me to other people who could help me learn things.

And so, like I said, just people are very welcoming. They want to help people learn and understand how to make iMIS work for them and your organization. So it’s just a very welcoming community. And I see it happen every time I’m at a conference. People find somebody who’s literally brand new to the system, and everybody just wants to help them and give them the tools and the information they want.

Riley Miller (16:13)
Just a bunch of helpers, they come under my wing. Well, I mean, on that point then, you’re, we looked at from when you started and you kind of highlighted or you’re getting into it here already, but now as an individual who’s a seasoned veteran, who’s doing sessions and teaching and walking people through those eureka moments, what’s one that has stood with you during your time with Bursing Silver or just being so in depth with the conference committee?

It could be a one-on-one session, a conversation in the hallway, or even a session that you attended. Is there anything that stands out to you as a lasting moment?

Ellen Turner (16:51)
Sure.

I think, so my very first conference that I was presenting at was in Chicago a couple of years ago for iUG And I did a half day training session on events using the events module. And I was very nervous. I think it went well, know, did the whole, did, so, you know, it’s three and a half hours of just talking about the events module. And I mean, I love the events module, so I had no problem filling the time, but it was good. And then,

The next conference, which I think was back in DC, I was asked to do it again. I was like, yeah, sure, no problem. I can do it. tweet the presentation. And I was surprised when the session started because there were one or two faces that I recognized from having attended the Chicago presentation. I was like, weren’t you in this last year? She’s like, yes, but last year I was so new I didn’t really understand everything. now but now.

I understand the events module more and I feel like I’m going to get so much more out of this class. I was like, well, welcome back. Happy to help. see what else I can teach you this time. So that was really cool for me to be like, she recognized that there was value in the class. She was able to take some of it back. But then she was like, OK, I understand more about iMIS now. I feel like there were things I might have missed. I don’t care that it’s the same class. I want to come back.

And then she had a couple other colleagues at the next conference, and she was telling them, go to Ellen’s sessions. and I was able to help her answer questions about which sessions she would go to if she was looking to learn about specific things.

Riley Miller (18:29)
Alright, round two, ding ding.

Ellen Turner (18:31)
Yeah,

yeah, so it was kind of nice to be like, okay, she came back, like I presented something of value, so nice little reassurance.

Riley Miller (18:40)
Nice. And then make sure you fill out your comment card. Let me know what you think, what you liked.

Ellen Turner (18:43)
Right, always

for those of you listening when you go to the iUG conferences, please fill out those session evaluations.

Riley Miller (18:50)
Very important. So I think, like, we’ve talked a lot about the conference. We’ve talked a lot about the community. Now, I kind of want to put the spotlight on you. And mostly, the elephant in the room, the amount of acronyms that you have on the end of your name, you are the most decorated iMIS Learning Hub individual I think I seen on LinkedIn. Could you tell me a little bit?

about all the certifications that you have at the end of your name. Maybe just give a little highlight of what they mean and what it took to get those.

Ellen Turner (19:22)
Sure. So let’s see, I have the CiA, the little i. That’s a certified iMIS administrator. And then once you take the CiA and you’ve had a certain number of years of experience working in iMIS, you are eligible to become certified as a CiP, again, little i. And that’s a certified iMIS professional. And then

I also have a CTCA, which is a certified top class administrator, and that’s specific to implementing and configuring and supporting the top class LMS. And then I also have the COWA, which is a certified open water administrator. And so that’s for supporting implementing open water. And then just last year, I… ⁓

completed the work in the exam to become a CAPM, which is a certified associate project manager, which is outside of iMIS.

Riley Miller (20:23)
Collecting all those

certifications like infinity stones, I like to say. ⁓ So I mean, among those credentials, obviously each one is worth its weight. But which would you say is the most underrated? Not necessarily from ⁓ an iMIS perspective. I think a lot of them are geared towards features and understanding the platform. But for you professionally, which one do you think you got the most out of it to when it came to understanding the product or understanding

Ellen Turner (20:26)
Yes.

Riley Miller (20:50)
your consulting support role. Yeah.

Ellen Turner (20:53)
I also forgot the size, which you and I both have. The size of Ci, little i, SE is the certified iMIS sales engineer, which is mainly for people in your position, Riley, for giving demos. Yeah. Me personally, I just like learning. The fact that I got certifications at the end was just a bonus.

Riley Miller (20:55)
yes.

Yeah, little demo magic.

Ellen Turner (21:18)
I like I just like knowing what’s available, what’s out there and for example for learning for achieving or attaining the. CTC A in the COWA was just knowing. More about those particular products so that I would be able to support any clients who wish to move forward with them in the future just.

I didn’t want to have to be trying to learn that on the fly. wanted to already have that certification should the need arise for me. And then in terms of the CiA and the CiP once you have the CiA you’re so close to getting the CiP it was just very easy to just continue that path. Because once you take the CiA, because you’ve taken all those classes, it’s just a little more effort.

in terms of like the requirements to get the CiP. So was like, oh, I might as well. I’ve already invested the time. I think that for anybody who is working with iMIS on an everyday basis, if your company or organization already has the learning hub, you should definitely look at either the CiU which is a certified iMIS user, and just kind of goes through the very basic overview of

how to use iMIS as somebody who needs to maintain data, enter data, perform billing, events management, the whole kind of overview of this is how you can make iMIS work for you. And I say if your organization has the learning hub, because if you have the learning hub, achieving those certifications through the learning hub is free.

⁓ So it’s really to your benefit to take advantage of those courses and achieve that certification. If you are a database manager or maybe who’s a high user who’s actually entering records or needing to create new tables to manage data, importing data in or out, doing high level content management, then I would highly suggest going for the certified iMIS administrator.

And that’s just the next level above that certified iMIS user certification. Because that means you’re the high level user. You’re most likely the iMIS expert or one of the iMIS experts at your organization. And it’s going to, again, give you some tips and tricks. Whenever I have to renew that certification, I always learn something new just because of the constant upgrades. So you know, I’ll.

as you renew, it’s going to be a lot of the same information, but every once in a while in one of the courses is going to be something that’s like, that’s a new little trick. I didn’t know that was there now just because it’s so hard to keep up with all the updates on top of everything else that you’re doing on a day-to-day basis. So it’s just a good way to keep up to date. If you’re not already in tune with the ASI customer sprints or in tune with updates,

that are being talked about within the iUG community.

Riley Miller (24:16)
Right, yeah. think knowledge is power. And for a lot of those certifications, I’ve noticed that they cover the language. You get the compass and the map, and you can actually navigate your system. For a lot of individuals who are diving into iMIS first time, I remember me, when I first got started, was figuring out where to go was difficult. And then that just compounds when it’s your everyday workspace. So those are.

or as much as certification as they are enablement programs as well, helping you at your own workspace. Now, you did mention a couple of things too with the sprint reviews, the new releases. I know we’re in the land of EMS cloud and a lot of new features are rolling out. Some are requested from users and some are just new developments and ways to work more efficiently.

⁓ However, for the individuals that are listening that aren’t maybe on those communication channels or in those sprint reviews, if they are interested, where would they go to sign up for those or alternatively, who are resources in the community that would also be on the beat and know what those things are if they wanted to start to reach out to like-minded individuals.

Ellen Turner (25:30)
Sure, that’s a great question. to be notified of those sprint reviews, you have to send an email to ASI. I believe the email address is productowners at imis.com and just request to be added to the sprint review meetings. There’s also a a link within the help documentation.

that lets you see all of the upgrade release notes. And whenever you log into your database and it sees, and you see the banner notifying you that there’s going to be an upgrade coming soon, there’s usually a link there that takes you right to that page within the help documentation to see what the release is going to entail. Bookmark that page, just because it’s good to have that readily accessible.

And then you can always like review back and see like, what was just upgraded into my system? Or like, I don’t remember this feature being here. When was that upgraded? And you can just go back through. then sometimes they also give an indication of what some future releases are just because they say that, you know, it’ll literally say in the release notes, we’re doing this because it’s in preparation for this future release.

So that can also give you a little bit of a hint as to what the future plans are as to why this change is being made. Because let’s say we’re doing this change because it’s going to support this future change. So that’s another sneaky way, less publicized way to really stay on top of what’s happening and what changes are forthcoming.

Riley Miller (27:05)
Following the thread, if you will. Well, yeah, I’ll make sure to include that email or that link for the bookmark page in our show notes here for our listeners. But I’m just looking at the time. It’s an easy way to burn half an hour. It was excellent speaking with you, Ellen. Before we do our closeout, though, I usually like to offer our speakers an opportunity to leave a gem or a nugget or a little piece of wisdom to pass on.

Ellen Turner (27:06)
Yes.

Riley Miller (27:34)
And maybe from your perspective, it can be in regards to the importance of community or even what you’ve known over the years as a seasoned senior consultant. What is one thing that you could pass on to the listeners today that would empower them in their workspaces or something that you find extremely valuable?

Ellen Turner (27:51)
think honestly, I’m going to freely admit I am biased here, but if your organization is not a member of iUG, you should really look into joining. I think you would be highly surprised at just how beneficial that membership will be even if you aren’t necessarily able to attend.

the conference every year, but just the value that you get back in terms of webinars and community support is worth it, especially if you’re in a situation where your organization is on the verge of upgrading to EMS or you’ve just upgraded or maybe you’ve had some staff turnover and so you have some very new to iMIS users or, know, young.

iMIS users in terms of length of time using iMIS. It’s really worth the money in my opinion. I don’t think I would have gotten on the path to where I am today if the organization I worked at previously had not been an iUG member.

Riley Miller (28:56)
Fantastic. I think that is kind of the common theme that we’re talking about today. Knowledge is power. And when you have access to a community of seasoned vets with their war stories, it’s definitely an opportunity to empower yourself in your own workspace and share that wisdom or pass that wisdom on, if you will. You like a good feel of the story and helping others who helped you. That is, I think, a really good part of that community. Well.

Ellen Turner (29:23)
Yeah, absolutely.

Riley Miller (29:24)
Ellen, thank you so much for being on the show here today. If individuals want to reach out, where can they get a hold of you?

Ellen Turner (29:31)
My email is eturner at burstingsilver.com. And if you’re on the iMIS listserv, just feel free to give me a shout and I’ll see what we can do to help.

Riley Miller (29:42)
Sweet, sounds good. thanks again so much for being on board here and maybe we’ll have you on another follow-up episode after Emergence there to recap the conference activities and see how it went.

Ellen Turner (29:54)
Yeah, I’d love to, that’d be great.

Riley Miller (29:56)
Thanks so much, Ellen

That’s wrap, another episode down, the Importance and Community with Ellen Turner. She gave you her email, but you can also grab her on LinkedIn. Highly encourage you to check that out. If you like this episode, please consider subscribing. Give us a rating. on Spotify, Apple Music, anywhere you digest your podcast, and we will see you on the next episode.