Metropolitan Regional Information Systems (MRIS), the Mid-Atlantic Multiple Listing Service (MLS) that facilitated $33.6 billion in real estate sales in 2011, has selected Imprev, Inc., a leading real estate marketing technology firm to power MRIS’s new “My Marketing Center.”

My Marketing Center will provide a vital marketing tool for MRIS’s “Gen M” (new generation) suite of real-time, integrated business tools, accessible by nearly 45,000 Mid-Atlantic real estate professionals based in Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia, and portions of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia.

The Marketing Center will provide MRIS customers with free and unlimited access to an integrated suite of professionally designed and simple to create digital and print marketing products and tools including Flyers, eFlyers, Postcards, ePostcards, and Virtual Tours. In addition to supporting marketing and promotional efforts, there’s productivity savings as well since MRIS customers will pull in real-time listing data – including photos –to create any of the marketing materials without having to re-enter data or upload images, tasks agents already complete when they create the listing.

“My Marketing Center will be the fastest way to reach home buyers and sellers with real-time, in-depth marketing information instantly. In seconds, a link to a polished Virtual Tour is posted to Realtor.com or to the agents website, another click and an eFlyer with the broker’s template and branding is posted on Facebook or sent out on Twitter,” said John L. Heithaus, MRIS Chief Marketing Officer, adding, “The faster an agent can respond in today’s digitally-driven economy in real time, the more successful he or she will be to generate more sales commissions.”

MRIS and Imprev also announced that a Premium suite of digital and printable marketing products and tools will made available to MRIS member agents and brokers at a low-cost. The lineup of Premium marketing products is expected to include access to premium Craigslist Display Ads, eCards (electronic Greeting Cards), Brochures, Digital Brochures, Newsletters, eNewsletters and more.

“Agents need three things from any business provider: quality, ease of use and value,” said Renwick Congdon, Imprev CEO and Founder. “At the end of the day, the finished product is what the consumer sees, so the quality of the product must reflect well on the agent and brokerage. Of course, if the agent can’t easily use the system they won’t, and cost is always a consideration. MRIS has addressed all three requirements with the ‘Gen M’ My Marketing Center. ”

About MRIS

MRIS is real estate in real time™, enabling its customers to list and sell nearly $93 million in real estate each day. In 2011, the company facilitated $33.6 billion in cooperative broker sales. A leading systems developer and integrator of real estate information technology and databases, MRIS connects its customers with timely, accurate and actionable data with a growing portfolio of technology solutions. This includes broker and agent software products, an industry-leading consumer real estate portal, HomesDatabase.com and many others. Behind the scenes, the CURE Solutions Group subsidiary of MRIS provides back-end technology to other MLS systems through CURE, a proprietary solution. MRIS serves nearly 45,000 real estate professionals spanning a 22,000 square mile section of the Mid-Atlantic region, including Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C. and markets located in Pennsylvania, Delaware and West Virginia.

About Imprev

Imprev, Inc. is the leading provider of private-label Marketing and Design Centers for real estate brokerage firms, and is licensed to more than 200,000 real estate agents worldwide.  Imprev-powered Marketing Centers provide brokers and agents with digital and printable marketing products and tools, including iPad presentations, Craigslist display ads, automated eMarketing, social marketing (Facebook, Twitter) material,  Virtual Tours, Video, Flyers and eFlyers, Postcards and ePostcards and more. Imprev helps agents simply and cost-effectively create an impressive personal image merged elegantly with the influence of their company’s brand.  Established in 2000, Imprev is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington.  Visit Imprev at www.imprev.com.

You can watch the official announcement here live:

Here is part of the official media release:

Planetary Resources Inc, announced today its plan to mine Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) for raw materials, ranging from water to precious metals.  Through the development of cost-effective exploration technologies, the company is poised to initiate prospecting missions targeting resource-rich asteroids that are easily accessible.

Resource extraction from asteroids will deliver multiple benefits to humanity and grow to be values at tens of billions of dollars annually.  The effort will tap into the high concentration of precious metals found on asteroids and provide a sustainable supply to the ever-growing population on Earth.

A single 500-meter platinum-rich asteroid contains the equivalent of all the Platinum Group Metals mined in history.  ”Many of the scarce materials and minerals on Earth are in near-infinite quantities in space.  As access to these materials increases, not only will the cost of everything from microelectronics to energy storage be reduced, but new applications for these abundant elements will result in important and novel applications,” said Peter H. Diamandia, MD,  Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of Planetary Resources.

Additionally, water-rich NEAs will serve as “stepping stones” for deep space exploration, providing space-sourced fuel and water to orbiting depots.  Accessing water resources in space will revolutionize exploration and make space travel dramatically more economical.

“Water is perhaps the most valuable resource in space. Accessing a water-rich asteroid will greatly enable the large-scale exploration of the solar system. In addition to supporting life, water will also be separated into oxygen and hydrogen for breathable air and rocket propellant,” said Eric Anderson, Co-Founder and Co-Chairman, Planetary Resources, Inc.

Of the approximately 9,000 known NEAs, there are more than 1,500 that are energetically as easy to reach as the Moon. The capability to characterize NEAs is on the critical path for Planetary Resources. To that end, the company has developed the first line in its family of deep-space prospecting spacecraft, the Arkyd-100 Series. The spacecraft will be used in low-Earth orbit and ultimately help prioritize the first several NEA targets for the company’s follow-on Arkyd-300 Series NEA swarm expeditions.

Chris Lewicki, President and Chief Engineer, said “Our mission is not only to expand the world’s resource base, but we want to increase people’s access to, and understanding of, our planet and solar system by developing capable and cost-efficient systems.”

“The promise of Planetary Resources is to apply commercial innovation to space exploration.  They are developing cost-effective, production-line spacecraft that will visit near-Earth asteroids in rapid succession, increasing our scientific knowledge of these bodies and enabling the economic development of the resources they contain,” said Tom Jones, Ph.D., veteran NASA astronaut, planetary scientist and Planetary Resources, Inc. advisor.

Planetary Resources is financed by industry-launching visionaries, including Google CEO Larry Page and Ross Perot, Jr., Chairman of Hillwood and The Perot Group, who are committed to expanding the world’s resource base so that humanity can continue to grow and prosper:

• Eric E. Schmidt, Ph.D., Executive Chairman of Google, Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Planetary Resources, Inc. investor: “The pursuit of resources drove the discovery of America and opened the West.  The same drivers still hold true for opening the space frontier.  Expanding the resource base for humanity is important for our future.”

• K. Ram Shriram, Founder of Sherpalo, Google Board of Directors founding member and Planetary Resources, Inc. investor: “I see the same potential in Planetary Resources as I did in the early days of Google.”

• Charles Simonyi, Ph.D., Chairman of Intentional Software Corporation and Planetary Resources, Inc. investor: “The commercialization of space began with communications satellites and is developing for human spaceflight. The next logical step is to begin the innovative development of resources from space.  I’m proud to be part of this effort.”

The company’s advisors include film maker and explorer James Cameron; General T. Michael Moseley (Ret.); Sara Seager, Ph.D.; Mark Sykes, Ph.D.; and David Vaskevitch.

Founded in 2009 by Eric Anderson and Peter H. Diamandis, M.D., Planetary Resources, Inc. is establishing a new paradigm for resource utilization that will bring the solar system within humanity’s economic sphere of influence by enabling low-cost robotic exploration and eventual commercial development of asteroids.  For more information, please visit www.PlanetaryResources.com.

John will be talking about AIIM’s upcoming content management boot camp seminar in Bellevue which will be held free of charge at the Westin Bellevue on May 15th.

The pressure on information professionals to keep pace with the surge of digital data is greater than ever. Rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets in the workplace as well as the use of cloud technology are changing the way companies do business and requiring workers to address knowledge gaps. AIIM’s one-day boot camp will provide busy information professionals an easy way to get current on the latest trends and developments of the business process revolution including mobile, social and cloud technologies.

Boot camp participants will learn how to:

• Cut costs and reduce bottlenecks by moving business processes to the cloud
• Get content and information ready for mobile access and engagement
• Collaborate across geography and time zones with social technologies
• Make better decisions by exploring the analytics and new opportunities in big data

“Mobile, social and cloud technologies are combining to revolutionize business processes,” said AIIM President John Mancini. “The Bellevue seminar will equip local business and technology practitioners with the knowledge, tool kits and peer connections they need to navigate digital business content in today’s ever-changing technology landscape.”

The AIIM Content Management Boot Camp will be held at the Westin Bellevue from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. The first 100 registrants to arrive at the event on May 15 will receive a free Certified Information Professional (CIP) exam voucher, a $265 value. The Institute of Certified Records Managers (ICRM) has pre-approved four hours of ICRM Certification Maintenance Program (CMP) credit for attending the AIIM Content Management Boot Camp, and the seminar is also approved for four credits towards the Certified Information Professional (CIP) credential maintenance.

To register for the free, one-day AIIM Content Management Boot Camp in Bellevue visit: http://www.aiim.org/events/seminars/schedule/Bellevue-WA-2012.

Sponsors of the AIIM Content Management Boot Camp Seminar in Bellevue are Adlib, Canon, CMMC, EMC, Fujitsu, IBM, KnowledgeLake, Kodak, Kofax, Opex, and Oracle.

About AIIM

AIIM has been an advocate and supporter of information professionals for nearly 70 years. The association’s mission is to ensure that information professionals understand the current and future challenges of managing information assets in an era of social, mobile, cloud and big data. Founded in 1943, AIIM builds on a strong heritage of research and member service. Today, AIIM is a global, non-profit organization that provides independent research, education and certification programs to information professionals. AIIM represents the entire information management community, with programs and content for practitioners, technology suppliers, integrators and consultants.

“As a company we regularly challenge each other to imagine more for asset management and to find new, innovative ways to use technology to make processes faster, easier and more affordable,” stated Vizualiiz President Bob Cartwright. He added, “With Scout, a person simply carries a tablet throughout the data center and all asset information is wirelessly collected from RFID or Barcodes and completely integrates with the central LightsOn solution. This changes a days-long critical activity that often doesn’t get prioritized, into a fast, efficient and streamlined process.”

Announced early this year, LightsOn is a game changing asset management solution and the first to offer 3D visualization of assets for RFID tracking. The portable, Bluetooth-enabled Scout tablet includes software that integrates with LightsOn. Certified to run on hardware from Asus and Samsung, Scout, like LightsOn, is technology agnostic and works with any tagging and scanning products including RFID and Barcodes.

About Vizualiiz

Founded in 2010, privately-held Vizualiiz has created the patent-pending LightsOn™ solution to completely redefine the way data center assets are managed. LightsOn combines advanced 3D visual game-like technology to enable advanced asset decision making; completely integrated software; and wireless, tablet-based data collection to improve asset collection speed and accuracy. Completely agnostic, LightsOn accommodates a range of asset tagging technologies from RFID to Barcodes. The turnkey solution is delivered as SaaS or premise-based and makes asset management simple, intuitive, more reliable and cost effective. For more information please visit Vizualiiz.com.

Online education, a realm historically reserved for higher education, is becoming a widespread tool for high school students. No longer just a pipedream, the Insight School of Washington and the Washington Virtual Academy are providing students with exactly that opportunity, from kindergarten through high school.

When the two schools online were erected in 2006, conservative estimates projected that they would have about 250 students. When enrollment opened, they found themselves with over 1200 students enrolled, and 1500 waiting for their shot at a computerized education. Currently,

Online high school offers huge benefits to some students. Luke Schneider, a student at the Insight School of Minnesota, another school in the Insight program, elected to go the online high school route to take someoftheburdenoffhisparents. With two autistic siblings and working parents, Schneider decided it was most important that he could provide some balance with his family by staying at home with his sister. Previous generations of students in the same situation didn’t have the option of continuing education and taking care of a sibling at home. With Insight, they do.

Washington’s online schooling system is not for everyone. Though the Insight network holds parties and proms for their students, at the end of the day, you don’t have the full social experience of high school, which can be a deterrent for many potential applicants. However, for students who are already outside of a conventional school setting, like those in very rural areas, or those who have been homeschooled, online schooling can be a great framework and support system for the continuation of nontraditional education.

The cost of online school is the same for students that it would be at any public school – free. Sweetening an already sweet deal is thecomputertheInsightprogramprovidesforitsstudents, who might not have access to a computer otherwise. And as a benefit to the public school system, the price is almost exactly the same to support students. Maybe even slightly less, since education systems save on the cost of a brick-and-mortar edifice.

Curriculum is equally matched between online high schools and their traditional counterparts in most cases. While, of course, the classes at a conventional high school particularly in the sciences will have more of the necessary course materials – lab materials, and the like. However, Insight schools in Washington have a wide variety of classes to offer their students: from vocational classes to AP and honors classes.

The Insightnetwork in particular has special opportunities for their students outside the classroom. The Experience Series brings together students from around the nation together to hear from leaders in their fields, from artists to athletes to archaeologists. There are also opportunities extended to students to work at online internships that can earn students elective credits while working in their community.

At the moment, though there are a number of online schools, the Insight network is currently only in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, California, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. However, as online schooling continues to gain credibility in educational circles, online schooling at the pre-college level is indisputably on the rise.

Pineapple Hospitality recently leveraged buuteeq’s cloud-based, subscription service to deliver high-performance web, mobile and Facebook sites aimed at the savvy traveler.  With buuteeq, Pineapple Hospitality aims to increase occupancy rates through enhancement of their digital communication and immediate access to real-time insights into what prospective guests really want.

“As a local independent hotel collection, we’re always looking for ways to partner with other local and innovative companies as we strive to provide the best guest experiences; buuteeq was the perfect solution for our online presence,” said Michelle Foreman Barnet, president and COO of Pineapple Hospitality. “With the integration of buuteeq’s unique DMS services, our guests can now enjoy the complete Pineapple experience from the time they visit us online, on mobile devices or social networks to the time we welcome them through our hotel doors.”

buuteeq gives Pineapple Hospitality the digital marketing solution needed to analyze how potential guests interact with its online communications as it happens and the control to seamlessly adapt to it. Pineapple Hospitality’s hotel websites have each been redesigned and streamlined using buuteeq’s unique DMS and the company anticipates a 20-30% increase in direct bookings using the system.

“By managing its digital marketing channels in-house, Pineapple Hospitality is now positioned to drive incremental business through mobile and social media conversions,” said buuteeq Co-founder and Chief Customer Officer, Adam Brownstein.  “Our friends at Pineapple now have the power to evaluate the effectiveness of their digital marketing activities and make content enhancements in real time to increase direct bookings using buuteeq’s easy-to-understand tracking reports.”

buuteeq enables hotel managers and marketing professionals to populate and manage compelling content on their websites, social media sites and mobile applications from anywhere with a browser. Featuring rich analytics and reporting tools, buuteeq enables properties to increase occupancy and reduce costs by converting more direct bookings through online reservations, and eliminates the need for custom hotel website design and development.

About Pineapple Hospitality

Pineapple Hospitality, launched in March 2011, is a hotel management company headquartered in Bellevue, Wash. The pineapple logo symbolizes the warm, genuine hospitality that Pineapple Hospitality strives to provide for every guest. Pieces of the Pineapple include Hotel FIVE in downtown Seattle, The Maxwell Hotel in Queen Anne, and the Watertown Hotel and University Inn, both in the University District. For more information about Pineapple Hospitality, including reservations at any of its properties, visit http://www.StayPineapple.com or call (866) 866-7977.

About buuteeq

buuteeq, the world’s first Digital Marketing System for hotels, helps hoteliers increase occupancy and reduce costs by converting more direct traffic into confirmed reservations. buuteeq’s Cloud DMS includes a content management system, hotel website design, mobile and social digital marketing, online reservations and integrated business intelligence. Hoteliers simply upload their content and in a few clicks, publish it to the world. buuteeq was founded in February 2010 by former Microsoft executives Forest Key and Adam Brownstein and is headquartered in Seattle.  Learn more at www.buuteeq.com

“We realized we required more visibility into the operations of our Windows Azure deployment and Opstera allowed us to simply, quickly, and consistently monitor our entire application,” said Chip Aubry, Co-Founder of Elicit Search. “AzureOps’ ability to automatically scale up or down to meet changing demands on our application has increased our operational efficiency and saved us money.”

Since AzureOps is a cloud-based management solution, customers can realize the benefits of increased visibility and control of their Windows Azure application immediately without installing or maintaining any software. This approach allows small and medium-sized organizations to have a deep level of insight over their application that was previously available to only large enterprises. The solution also provides automatic provisioning of servers, scaling up to meet increased demands during busy periods and scaling down again at off-peak times. This allows customers to benefit from the elastic nature of the cloud and save operational costs.  In addition, AzureOps offers smart default settings based on workloads, so each customer can easily identify and monitor the parameters that are most relevant for their specific application.

Opstera co-founders Paddy Srinivansan and Ranjith Ramakrishnan have a proven track record of building a leading cloud company based on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Azure. Their previous company, Cumulux, helped customers realize the benefits of SaaS computing by moving on-premises solutions into the cloud. Cumulux was twice recognized as Microsoft’s “Cloud Partner of the Year” before the company was sold in 2011.

Opstera’s AzureOps solution is available in five SKUs including Starter, Standard, Plus, Corporate, and Enterprise, starting at $50 per month.  For more information, visit www.opstera.com.

About Opstera
Opstera is the only cloud-based operations management provider for Windows Azure. Opstera’s AzureOps provides the industry’s most comprehensive view of health management and capacity optimization, monitoring the underlying Windows Azure platform, the application itself, and the dependent cloud services. AzureOps provides enterprise grade functionality for optimizing application performance including auto-scaling, smart analytics, and proactive alerts and notifications. For more information, go to www.opstera.com, visit Facebook, or follow Opstera or on Twitter at @opstera.