For those who joined us on April 4^th, both customer and partners, we sure had a great time talking tech-y and BYOD all day at the fabulous Doubletree resort in Scottsdale!

A GREAT SUCCESS for CPFS – LAI collected 46 Cell Phones for Soldiers! Each phone valued at $5 translates into 2.5 hours of calling time for our military personnel. That means we collectively donated 115 hours to our troops!  Ledgerwood Associates matched each phone donation with a half an hour of FREE consulting time!

Keynote speaker, Joe Granneman, had the audience in a state of highly entertained shock as he shared stories of security gaps in super-powers like Google and Facebook, and how easy it is to crack 7-character passwords in under four seconds (make sure yours is at least 8 characters, and no “dictionary” words)! That information alone may have saved thousands of dollars in potential fraud!!

Our friends Diane Haines and Todd Juhnke from Sage Construction & Real Estate put on an amusing skit (complete with a fake marriage) on the frustrations of timecards between the field and office, and how Sage Construction Anywhere will allow you to watch more football! How many software solutions can claim that?!

After lunch by the pool, attendees split up into two afternoon sessions with a choice of four different tracks. SMEs from Sage, TimberScan, Trapp Online, Piracle, True Wireless, Hard Dollar, and Ledgerwood Associates spent quality time demonstrating integration strategies, hardware, and mobile solutions. CFMA was there too, to answer questions and talk about their great organization (LAI is a member)!

Everyone regrouped for Ed Ledgerwood’s closing remarks, and mingled for the last time during Happy Hour on the patio! Check out pictures of Technology Day on our FB Tech Day album.

Military families often have difficulty connecting with loved ones while troops are out in the field serving our nation. That is exactly why the non-profit organization, Cell Phones for Soldiers (CPFS), was established. Since 2004, free communication tools have been provided to our service men and women abroad in order to help connect them with their families.

Over the last nine years, this organization has helped to provide 181 million minutes of talk time to our soldiers. They mail about 12,000 calling cards each week, and have recycled nearly 11 million cell phones! What’s more remarkable, is CPFS was founded by Robbie & Brittany Bergquist when they were only 12 & 13 years old, and is still operated almost entirely by the Bergquist family from Massachusetts. At this years annual Technology Day event, Ledgerwood Associates, Inc. will be an official collection center for Cell Phones for Soldiers. Sponsor a heart-felt call yourself by donating a gently used cell phone at the Technology Day event, and LAI will deliver to it Cell Phones for Soldiers.

If for some reason you can’t make it to Tech Day, you can still donate online.

Last week I attended the World of Concrete (WOC) show in Las Vegas and it was awesome! WOC was Disneyland meets the Superbowl compared to other trade shows I have attended during my 25 years in the software industry.

WOC made me feel like a kid again, tugging at my Dad’s hand at the state fair, eager for a chance to climb up on a big tractor or truck.

There were lots of big (I mean “How did they get that through the door?” big) trucks and concrete pumpers; and some really mean-looking pieces of heavy equipment like this 5,000 lb. demo rig attachment (one of their smaller units):

I particularly enjoyed the outdoor lot where several vendors were demonstrating the ride-on troweling machines like they were one-man military hovercraft. One vendor’s “booth” consisted of a mock 4-story construction site.

Besides touring the cool exhibits, I got to meet some great people in the Construction Technology section. Field access and input to accounting systems was a big theme.

Recently announced and demonstrated for the first time at World of Concrete was “Sage Construction Anywhere”. This cloud offering from Sage will provide exciting field access reporting functionality for Sage Timberline and Master Builder users as well as any other parties involved in a project with a need to know. Sage Construction Anywhere will be rolled out in stages with more functionality to come in release 2 later this year.

What’s YOUR favorite trade show?

For more information on this and other topics, visit www.ledgerwoodassociatesusa.com.