AtHomeNet, Inc., a web services company headquartered in metro Atlanta, is reflecting on a year of growth, expansion, and innovation. Most notable is reaching the benchmark of serving more than 2 million households throughout the entire world, and more than 75 significant enhancements were made to AtHomeNet websites at no additional cost to clients.
The company has an international clientele, and in the Tri-County area alone (Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade), there are nearly 400 condominium and homeowner associations with AtHomeNet websites (124 in Palm Beach County, 99 in Broward and 159 in Miami-Dade).
The year began with the launch of Newsletter Architect, a free service that allows clients to easily create professional newsletters for their organization from the convenience of their AtHomeNet website. The company's new partnership with industry-leading printing company, SouthData, Inc. gives users the ability to print and ship completed newsletters for an affordable price.
The company's steady growth continued in February with the hiring of several new employees throughout the company, and the launch of the Association Management Leadership Forum, an education and networking event founded and sponsored by AtHomeNet and other industry leaders, AssociationREADY, and TOPS Software. The forum's half-day presentations crossed the country, from Atlanta to San Francisco to discuss the state of the community association industry, new technology trends, social media, search engine optimization, and other topics trending within the industry.
"The Association Management Leadership Forum is an open environment that is designed to facilitate networking and discussion that elevates the status and success of the industry," said AtHomeNet Director of Sales and Marketing, Michael Curtis. "More than 600 people registered for 11 events in the inaugural year and we're looking forward to an even bigger year in 2012."
At the Community Association Institute's national tradeshow in May, AtHomeNet launched the Widget Wizard, functionality that gave website users the ability to completely customize their public and private home pages with widgets that feed fresh content to the home pages. In the summer, the company released social media integration for their websites, giving website administrators the ability to simultaneously update their organization's Facebook Page while creating new announcements on their website. Furthermore, the integration included a new widget, giving website administrators the ability to add their most recent Twitter updates to their public and/or private home pages.
Fall was kicked off with the launch of MultiConnect CallFast, the industry's first interactive voice response system. MultiConnect subscribers utilizing TOPS Software are able to call a unique phone number to hear their account balance, due date, last payment information and more, saving time for office staff.
Further growth occurred in October with the acquisition of MyCommunityAssociation.com, a Florida-based website service for community associations. Extra office space to accommodate new staff was procured in November, with plans for further expansion throughout 2012.
An important goal was achieved in November as the company reached the milestone of putting AtHomeNet web services in more than 2 million homes. The year closed by finalizing a new partnership with the Florida-based Community Advocacy Network, giving AtHomeNet clients access to media and legislators regarding community association issues.
"This year has exceeded all of our projections and expectations," remarked AtHomeNet CEO, Susan Sanders. "And, we're not coasting through the holiday season either-December has been a record-breaking month for sales and we're finalizing the details about new partnerships that will enhance our services."
Mrs. Sanders was also asked about her thoughts on new innovations in the HOA industry in 2011, as well as what she hopes the future holds. “The best thing to happen from a technology standpoint in the Community Association Industry – the integration of the old and new technologies. AtHomeNet’s multiconnect service is the perfect example of this – a manager or board member can go to their community web site and type a message which will be sent via email to residents, sent via text to residents and the residents’ phones will ring and the message will be played to them over their own phone! It’s incredible as it touches everyone at the level of technology that they’re most comfortable with.
I think our hope for this industry is a shared with many hope – that the economic outlook for the country will improve and all owners will pay their assessments!”
The increased influence of AtHomeNet in the West Palm Beach area has helped make it a rapidly expanding source of new material for this column in the past year. The West Palm Beach HOA Examiner wishes to think the CEO, Susan Sanders, as well as Heather McGowen, their director of communications, for all of their assistance in the past year, and looks forward to even more mutual cooperation in the future.
Be sure to subscribe to this column, and stay abreast of issues involving you, the homeowners of Palm Beach County! If you've had any issues with your HOA that you'd like me to try and delve into, and possibly write about later, please let me know. Also, if you'd like to join the discussion on Twitter, you can find me at http://twitter.com/#!/faborplumbs.
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