Did you hear? We launched Awesome.Net, our newest brand at DotNetNuke World in November.

Awesome.Net is an elastic, shared cloud hosting offering that provides customers with dynamic load balancing so sites automatically scale across multiple webservers as needed.  Built on top of Applied Innovations Hyper-V Cloud, the platform allows clients to scale from 1 to 5 web servers initially and the ability to scale to even more very quickly.

“This new Awesome.Net Cloud Hosting platform leverages our 12 years of experience in Windows Web Hosting and our leadership in Cloud hosting and Hyper-V Cloud Servers,” continued Coburn. “It creates a new breed of hosting that’s dynamically scalable, automatically protected from web vulnerabilities, fault-tolerant and most importantly optimized for best in class application performance.  This is truly an awesome product and rightfully branded as Awesome.net.”

So why launch Awesome.Net at DotNetNuke World?

“Applied Innovations has hosted DotNetNuke since its inception as the IBuySpy portal starter kit back in 2002 with the first release of ASP.NET 1.0,” stated Jess Coburn, president and CEO of Applied Innovations Corp.  “Since that time we’ve hosted thousands of DotNetNuke sites and have learned a lot about supporting the application and its specific application needs.”

“So we decided to kick off the brand Awesome.Net Cloud Hosting at DotNetNuke World to showcase a custom-tailored cloud offering for DotNetNuke,” continued Coburn. “Not only is this the first cloud of this type built specifically and optimized for DotNetNuke, it is in fact the first cloud built to be application-specific.”

Mark Turkel, president of Palm Beach Software and a long time customer of Applied Innovations, was among the early beta test customers of Awesome.net.

“I love that we’re able to dynamically control the load balancing and spread our sites across multiple web servers,” stated Turkel. “My sites have never performed better!”

The Awesome.net cloud is built on top of Applied Innovations’ Hyper-V Cloud using Windows Server 2008 and provides full support for PHP, ASP.NET, MySQL and MS SQL.  Awesome DotNetNuke Cloud Hosting plans start today at just $9.95/month and include everything needed to run a DotNetNuke based site.

Although the initial launch of Awesome.net Cloud Hosting is limited to supporting DotNetNuke, the platform will soon be offered for a range of popular tools and applications. Stay tuned for further developments!

For more than a decade, BV Software has been building and selling commercial .NET shopping cart software. Now, they’re releasing an open-source project – MerchantTribe – based on the award winning BV Commerce software. Applied Innovations met with Marcus McConnell, founder and president of BV Software, to talk about this exciting new launch.

Applied Innovations: Tell us about MerchantTribe, Marcus.

Marcus McConnell: MerchantTribe is a free, open-source ecommerce application that is designed specifically to help customers build better stores.  It’s an ASP.NET MVC platform in C# based on our flagship BV Commerce shopping cart application.

AI: What’s special about MerchantTribe?

MM: MerchantTribe is a free, open-source platform that provides specific intelligence to help build better online stores. It takes shopping carts to the next level beyond feature-focused to performance-focused.

More than 2 billion people will be online spending more than $1.4 trillion by 2015. But creating successful stores is more difficult than ever. MerchantTribe makes it easier by analyzing real-world data from our stores to identify best-practices and share specific things store owners can do to improve their sales.

AI: Is this just an open-source version of BV Commerce?

MM: MerchantTribe is a rebranding of BV Commerce, but it’s much more than that. 

We were inspired to develop MerchantTribe because we saw a lot of small business merchants struggling to be successful.  Early on, the problem was lack of good tools.  Now, they have great software and all these social networks at their fingertips but don’t know how to get traffic to their site or optimize it.

We are, in fact, rebranding the whole company and product line MerchantTribe, so we’ll offer both an open-source and commercial version of the software. An announcement has gone out to our existing customer base and we hope to have the transition completed by end of year.

AI: So an online store owner builds a great site, and he gets on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube. But he’s not sure how to really take advantage of that, or what impact it will have on his site’s success.

MM: Exactly.

AI: And MerchantTribe offers a solution to this?

MM: Yes. BV Software has been in the shopping cart business for over 10 years, and we’ve done a lot of research. Even the so called experts on ecommerce don’t have good data on the impact of using different sized checkout buttons, background colors or positioning of call-to-action elements.  Gartner and Forrester do great research and offer excellent analysis on large companies, but smaller ecommerce businesses don’t offer large enough samples individually. Collectively, however, all of these small online stores have this great resource. Thousands of little stores can aggregate data and grow by learning from best practices across the board.

AI: Power in numbers, right? By pooling the analytics from multiple smaller sources, you have access to greater business intelligence.

MM: Yes.  And by design, we need as many people as possible using MerchantTribe for it to thrive. We need thousands of Merchants, Developers and Designers to participate and help us improve the software and the community. The more participants, the more robust and valuable the analytics will be. That’s why we made it a free, open-source application.

AI: When did you start building MerchantTribe?

MM: MerchantTribe is based on BV Commerce 6, which we stared building about two years ago.  For this version, we took a different approach: instead of selling individual copies, we built a hosted platform. Then about six months ago, we started developing the analytics component and rebranding it as MerchantTribe.

AI: So is MerchantTribe is essentially an open-source version of BV Commerce 6?

MM: The features and functionality are the same, with some additional product page templates and the analytics template.  But now we will offer both a free open-source version of MerchantTribe and a commercial version.

AI: What will be different about the open-source and commercial versions of MerchantTribe?

MM: There are three differences.

First, as with any open source license, any customization has to be given away for free. That’s the obligation of open source.

Second, the open source version doesn’t come with any support. Of course, the community will offer support, but there won’t be formal support.

Third, if an open source user switches over to the commercial version of MerchantTribe, they’ll have the option to turn off the analytics information sharing.  This means they’ll lose the insight that MerchantTribe provides, but they can integrate their own analytics. They will also be able to maintain propriety over any customization they may choose to implement.

AI: BV Software and Applied Innovations go way back.  What do you think is important about a partnership like this?

MM: Yes, BV Software has partnered with Applied Innovations for over eight years.  BV Commerce has long been available as a one-touch button install on Appliedi’s control panel, which is a testament to how committed you are to supporting our platform. And as soon as we have the latest installer available, the open-source version of MerchantTribe will also be available as a one-touch install through Applied Innovations.

AI: We’ve also worked together to ensure your latest version continues to support scalability, which is a key objective at Applied Innovations.

MM: Exactly. MerchantTribe is designed to easily scale up as a customer’s site evolves.  This leverages Appliedi’s environment, which is set up to handle that type of scaling.

AI: Anything else we should know about MerchantTribe?

MM: We recently integrated the software with Acumatica — a .NET ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) package — into the commercial version of BV Commerce 6.  This means a user can automatically send orders into the ERP system, integrate customer information, orders, shipments, etc.  

Merchants, Developers and Designers to are encouraged to download, contribute and join the MerchantTribe today to get in on the ground floor of this exciting new platform.

Download from CodePlex at MerchantTribe

Source Code Hosted at http://github.com/mmcconnell1618/MerchantTribe
Documentation Available at http://merchanttribe.com
Online Demo Create a free store at http://www.bvcommerce.com
Twitter Follow MerchantTribe on Twitter @MerchantTribe

Think of traffic to your site as prospective customers entering your store.  Great to have traffic, but what if no one is buying? Or as we like to refer to it, you’re not getting enough conversions.

What’s happening?  And more importantly, what do you do about it?

1)      Clarify and Rank Your Desired Conversion Activity

First off, let’s define “conversion.”  This has different meanings, depending on the nature of your website.  For a charity organization, a conversion may be a donation. For a consulting firm, a conversion may be an inquiry from a prospective customer. If you have an ecommerce site, an ideal conversion would be a completed sale.

In many cases, a site will have multiple types of conversion, each which may be accorded a different value. For an executive recruiter, a conversion could be either a company looking to hire or someone interested in a job. For a restaurant, a conversion may be a reservation, a gift card purchase, an inquiry for a private event, or a new opt-in to the marketing list.

Whatever your objectives, be sure to define and rank the different types of conversion you are seeking to achieve with your site. Measure each conversion category separately to identify what’s working and what’s not.

2)      Don’t Make the User Guess What You Want Them to Do

Make sure that the “call to action” is clearly defined on every page of your site. If you want visitors to click through to fill out a form, make that a button that is prominently positioned. Test green versus blue versus red buttons. Test different placement for the button. If the desired action is to call an 800 number, invest in a bank of 800 numbers so you can test the responses from specific landing pages.

When viewing web pages, eye movement usually follows an “F” pattern, which means visitors start in the upper left hand corner, scan to the right and downward, then return to the starting point. So make sure the most important information and call to action appear above the fold and toward the upper left quadrant of your page.

3)      Continuity is Key

If you want the visitor to start down a “sales funnel,” be sure to clearly indicate where each click of the button will take them.  The best way to keep a user engaged is to minimize surprises. This means if they click on a button, they should be delivered where they expect to arrive, and not land somewhere confusing.  Baffling your visitors is the easiest way to get them to hit the dreaded back button or abandon a shopping cart.

The best sales funnels provide a progress meter – “Page 1 of 4,” or “Step 2 of 6” or “You’re 25% Completed.” This gives the user a clear perspective as to how far they have yet to go.

Be sure there is a common, consistent theme throughout the process that assures the user that they are on the correct path. Graphical cues are important, but so is basic language describing what is expected from the user on a given page.  Eliminate any confusion and you will maximize completed sales funnels – and minimize abandoned shopping carts.

4)      Analyze Traffic Sources and Click-Through Behavior

Next, take a look at your site’s traffic statistics using a tool like Smarter Stats. Smarter Stats is included FREE with every Appliedi.net Shared hosting plan, and provides detailed statistics for your site, including where visitors are coming from, where they go when they exit your site, what keywords are driving traffic, and click-through patterns for each page. another great free tool for tracking statistics is Google Analytics, which offers a similar set of data.

Scrutinize what visitors are doing when they get to your site. If visitors aren’t clicking through, if they are leaving your site prematurely, or if they are consistently abandoning your shopping cart on a certain page, take a close look at where this occurs.

5)      Never Stop Testing and Benchmarking

Invite colleagues, employees, vendors and customers to give you feedback. Have your grandmother go to your website and tell you if it makes sense.  See if your kids can navigate the shopping cart. Ask your service staff to tell you what they hear from customers.  Go to your site with fresh eyes at least once a month.

But don’t get caught up in your own little world. Check out competitors to benchmark their sites.  Identify what you believe they are doing well and where they could improve.  Go through their sales funnel to see how it operates.  Adopt good practices on your own site, but be sure not to plagiarize.

These are just 5 tactics you can use to optimize your conversion rate.  There’s plenty of information out there, if you want to take the time to educate yourself.  Or, consider enlisting a professional SEO (search engine optimization) consultant or web agency to help you take your site to the next level.

About the Author:

Lyza Swearingen Latham is president of Acute Visability|BMO. Acute Visibility specializes in Brand Marketing Optimization – everything that goes into helping companies be found, recognized and profitable: Website Design, User Interface and User Experience Analysis, SEO, Social Media, Traditional Advertising, Customer Relationship Management, Branding, Events and Product Launches. Contact us at www.acutevisibility.com.

While this feature list is by no means comprehensive, it does provide a good sense of how these apps measure up.  For a more complete feature list and comparison with an extensive array of applications, check out the Wikipedia article Comparison of Shopping Cart Software at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_shopping_cart_software.

We can also offer some guidelines and provide resource suggestions you can use to stay on top of your site’s performance.

Call us today at 866-706-8691 and we’ll schedule your customized website performance evaluation right away.  Offer expires 10/31/11.

Google Panda is a significant update to the Google search algorithm that was launched late last month. While Google is constantly adjusting its ranking algorithms, most changes are not immediately or broadly evident. With Panda, however, we have a whole different story.

From the official Google Blog on 2/24/11:

“…in the last day or so we launched a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking—a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries—and we wanted to let people know what’s going on. This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

Okay, fine. Sounds like typical Google-speak, whether you are a fan or a foe of the search behemoth. But what does this all mean to you? We’ve culled through the editorials to identify some takeaways.

Trust
Many of the sites that were negatively affected by Panda are “spammy,” untrustworthy sites with a high ratio of ads to above-the-fold content (i.e. word count.) And while Google claims data collected from Chrome’s site blocker extension does not factor into Panda, they stated the results were used comparatively to confirm the efficacy of the algorithm.

Quality Content
Google puts sites like Wikipedia and the New York Times on one end of the quality spectrum. On the other end of the spectrum are low-quality “scraper” sites and “content farms” like E-Zine and Squidoo. So the answer is simple, and nothing new: keep updating your site with new, unique, relevant content for best results. Moreover, it’s not just bad practice to buy back links on spam sites, it may get you delisted by Google altogether.

Less Frequent Indexing
If Google determines that your site is less relevant or useful, it will probably crawl it less frequently. You can gather data on when Google last crawled your site by referring to your server logs or Webmaster Tools. Understanding which pages Googlebot is crawling – and how frequently – can help you manage expectations for rank improvement. If only 50 of your pages are indexed, and only every 30 days, you won’t see ranking changes any more frequently than that.

Cloaking is ALWAYS Black Hat
Industry wisdom may have previously condoned “white hat” cloaking, but Google doesn’t buy it. Matt Cutts of Google stated clearly “White hat cloaking is a contradiction of terms at Google.” This means that any site configured to display different content to visitors than what is available to the bots is in danger of sanctions by Google.

More Changes to Come
Google reports it will continue making changes to the algorithm in the coming months, including rolling it out internationally. We’ll keep an eye on the subject and bring you the news as it evolves.

“We have always sought to identify and offer the best backup and data protection technologies available,” said Jess Coburn, founder and CEO of Applied Innovations Corp. “With Continuous Data Protection 3.0 Enterprise Edition, R1Soft has really taken backup to a new level, allowing us to offer enterprise-level backup capabilities to all our hosting customers.”

R1Soft CDP 3.0 Enterprise Edition includes a number of industry-leading features:
• Reduces the time it takes to backup Windows servers from hours to mere minutes
• Facilitates Centralized Backups, so you can manage backups and restore for up to 30 servers from one control panel
• Includes Bare-Metal Restore and Disaster Recovery for Windows servers
• Utilizes a multi-tenant, central data repository
• Offers maximum data protection for MySQL databases and MS SQL Server
• Features an easy-to-use, web-based interface

“Continuous Data Protection is just one of the ways Applied Innovations is leveraging the Cloud to offer superior solutions to our customers,” continued Coburn. “The benefit to our customers is improved efficiency, total reliability and the utter confidence of knowing their data is totally secure and retrievable, even down to ‘bare metal’ in the case of a catastrophic data loss at the client level.”

“R1Soft is committed to partnering with industry mavericks like Applied Innovations to introduce CDP technology to their customer bases,” said David Wartell, vice president of R1Soft, a division of BBS Technologies. “CDP backups offer many convenient and innovative features that will enhance the hosting experience for Appliedi customers. By offering a premium backup service like our CDP 3.0 Enterprise Edition, Applied Innovations proves that they are serious about uptime and offering leading edge solutions to their customers.”
To view the complete Press Release, click here .

Because of the increase in online shopping during this season, we ran a promotion on SSL certificate pricing and found that many people didn’t know what SSL Certificates are and how they benefit online businesses, so I thought I’d explain.

SSL stands for Secure Socket Layers, which are used to protect private information such as client details, credit card numbers, and emails. When you send information over the internet, all that information can potentially be seen by people other than the recipient. However, using an SSL certificate encrypts the data and protects you and your customers from intruders stealing information.

These days there are many different providers and levels of SSL certificates. When a site has an SSL certificate, there are a few things that show up. In regards to most SSL certificates first you’ll notice the “http://” found in the browser address bar will change to “https://”on secure pages. You’ll notice this on most sites when you are shopping online and begin the checkout process. Next, in Internet Explorer you’ll also notice a padlock icon in the browser address bar, when you are on a secure page. If you click on the padlock, you’ll actually be able to view the certificate and company details. In Firefox, the certificate is displayed prior to the URL in the browser address bar. You can also click on that and expand upon the certificate details.

The best security certificate on the market currently is the Extended Validation (EV) SSL Certificate. This is what Amazon, PayPal, and EBay all use today. The certificate authorities who issue these EV SSL certificates verify the following:

• The legal identity of the business
• The operational and physical presence of the website owner
• The domain name owner and their exclusive control of that domain name
• The identity and authority of individuals acting for the website owner
• The legal documentation is signed by an authorized officer

When an EV SSL is used the browsers will display a green address bar like the following:

As Comodo states, “The green address bar, exclusive to EV SSL certificates, assures website visitors that they are transacting on a highly trusted and secured domain. This type of visual assurance helps e-merchants increase trust, reduce shopping cart abandonment, and build revenue.”

Because I shop online so often these days, looking for a secure site where my data isn’t compromised is an absolute priority. Make sure you do the same!

Applied Innovations has a partnered with Comodo for a number of years now and because of our partnership we can offer all of our hosting clients discounts on their SSL certificates. Please contact our sales department (sales@appliedi.net, 866-706-8691) if you’d like to learn more.

Happy Shopping & Happy Holidays!

Now I didn’t do a ton of research on the new bank (they ultimately hooked me with a promise of $125 for a new checking account) but I have been very impressed by their customer service and level of follow up, so now I am bringing them more business. Not only am I opening CDs (with these low interest rates sadly) but I am also referring my friends to them because honestly they are great.

Make a Good First Impression

First impressions are KEY! Within the first minute of me waiting at the new bank, a representative greeted me and told me that somebody would be with me very shortly. She was right. Minutes later I was at a desk with a banking specialist.

Make the Client Feel Important

After setting up my new checking and savings accounts, my representative brought over the bank manager who “wanted to personally introduce herself to me”.  I wish I could say that was because I was opening a huge new account, but truthfully she must do that for everybody and even though she does I felt super important.

Make the Client’s Life Easier

What probably surprised me most about the experience was that my banking representative offered to submit my new direct deposit to my company and follow up with them for me. So wait, I don’t even have to set-up my own direct deposit? HOW FABULOUS!

Make a Follow-up Call/Visit

Even though they had “sealed the deal” with my business already, the new bank earned even more of my business (and more importantly my referrals) by simply following up with me. A couple of days after I opened my new accounts, the personal banking representative called me to check-in, make sure I got my ATM card, and see how things were going. Then two days later her assistant called to let me know the direct deposit process was complete. Both of them asked if there was anything else they could do to help, but I already felt as if I had the royal treatment.

Now THAT is a way to make an impression, provide good customer service, and ultimately gain more business!

(For those of you wondering…my praises are directed at Chase!)

The Indianapolis GiveCamp

Indy GiveCamp is a weekend-long collaboration between local developers, designers, database administrators, and non-profits. It is an opportunity for the technical community to celebrate and express gratitude for the contributions of these organizations by contributing code and technical know-how directly towards the needs of the groups.

The Significance of Applied Innovations Sponsorship

Applied Innovations, Windows Hosting Experts, is pleased to once again have the opportunity to help sponsor a GiveCamp event as official hosting sponsor.  GiveCamps are interesting in that you bring a group of diverse individual developers each with different backgrounds and expertise together to help a series of worthy charities solve a business related problem.  Because the developers can come from different backgrounds and have different skillsets and are building a solution in such an abbreviated period of time it’s really important they have a wide range of tools available to them. It’s this need that makes Applied Innovations an ideal sponsor!  You see, Applied Innovations is offering free shared hosting accounts to all of the charities. Each shared hosting account includes support for:

• ASP
• ASP.NET 2.0, 3.5, 4.0
• ASP.NET MVC 1.0, MVC 2.0
• PHP w/FastCGI enabled
• MySQL 5.X databases
• Microsoft SQL Server 2008 & 2005

And the list goes on and on. The beauty is that because we provide support for such a robust and broad range of programming languages the developers are able to use the best tool for the job and aren’t locked into using something they may not be familiar with or experts in.

The Charities being Helped in Indiana

Marion County Commission on Youth (MCCOY)

MCCOY champions the positive development of youth through leadership on key issues and support of the youth worker community. Established as an independent not-for-profit organization in 1993 after several years in city-county government, MCCOY serves as the catalyst for positive youth development, working with youth serving agencies, youth workers and the entire community to make sure that every young person has access to the supports, opportunities and experiences necessary to become a positve, productive and contributing adult.

The Haven Youth Center

The Haven is a non-for-profit drop-in youth center located in Martinsville, Indiana. They cater to middle and high school aged youth. The center is open for middle school youth right after school and for high school youth on Friday nights. They provide a safe place for youth to hang out with their friends while offering various programs throughout the year. They offer drug, alcohol, and tobacco prevention programs a couple of times each year. The Haven’s main goal is to simply give youth an alternative to going home to an empty house where temptations may lurk. They encourage youth to be the best they can be, and offer some incredible adult mentors to be readily available for the youth to play games with or talk if they need to.

Shepherd’s Center of Hamilton County

The Shepherd’s Center of Hamilton County, founded in 1985, is a non-profit organization whose Mission is to support and empower older adults to have enriched lives while maintaining independent lifestyles. The Shepherd’s Center of Hamilton County is a affiliate of the Shepherd’s Center of America which was founded by Dr. Elbert Cole in 1975. We fulfill our Mission through two primary programs: Community Caring and Together Today. Through Community Caring, volunteers are matched with homebound and isolated seniors (65 years and over), to provide FREE services so that the seniors can live independently in their own homes for as long as possible. (Services include friendly visitors, home repair, house cleaning, yard work, and more). We reach those people who are financially fragile, physically/mentally impaired and who have few options for assistance. Through Together Today, seniors 55 and older get together on a regular basis for fellowship and to engage in fun, educational, and healthy activities. This program allows seniors to meet with friends new and old on a regular basis, and to look forward to participating in activities every week. For more information and/or to check our website, please visit www.shepherdscenterofhamiltoncounty.org.

NuAfrica, Inc.

We provide water and education to the impoverished. Our serving started in 2008 in Mali, West Africa, the 3rd poorest country in the world. On 1/1/10, we dug a solar-powered well for 3,000 people who’s nearest access to clean water was previously a 7 mile walk. Our annual fundraiser, Drill4Water, is a tennis gathering at Carmel Racquet Club, where we raise money with volunteer pros drilling players on donated courts, serve dinner, and hold a silent auction. Each May, we also do a "locker clean-out," at Carmel High School. We take our children’s basically new pencils, pens, spiral notebooks and transport them to Mali village children who have no supplies at school. Finally, we collect agricultural supplies (seeds & tools) from Brebeuf Jesuit soccer families and transport them to Mali as well.

Northside Twins & Multiples

Northside Twins & Multiples (Formerly Charter Chapter Mother of Twins Club) is an non-profit organization with over 120 members. We offer monthly support groups, semi-annual clothing and equipment sales, educational/social activities, and many other club benefits. We believe the best advice on raising multiples comes from those members who have already lived the experience. We are committed to service projects in the community and have sponsored park-clean-ups, holiday giving projects, baskets for premature babies and charity walks.

The Tina Marie Arens Foundation

"Helping Single Mothers in Need." The Tina Marie Arens Foundation is a nonprofit organization providing counseling, education and financial assistance for single mothers, giving them a chance to fight against addiction and it’s threat to the health and wellfare of their children. Through outreach and consultation, we also seek to educate the community about the issues of alcoholism and addiction and its impact on all our lives. Our programs and services are designed to contribute to a significant reduction in the legacy affect of addiction and to help break the intergenerational cycle of substance abuse.

Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic

The Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic (the Clinic) promotes justice through both legal representation and preventive law education to Indianapolis’ low-income population. Since opening its doors in 1994, clients whose income is at or below 125% of the federal poverty level have received critically-needed legal services regardless of religious affiliation. The Clinic has a broad civil practice representing low-income clients in the areas of family law, immigration, wills and estates, housing, landlord/tenant disputes, debt and bankruptcy, tax controversies, and other civil areas. In addition to legal representation, the Clinic also regularly hosts preventive legal education workshops and provides printed materials in English, Spanish, and two Burmese dialects to increase awareness of the legal rights and responsibilities of low-income families and individuals. Currently, the Clinic operates eleven (11) neighborhood-based intake sites throughout the Indianapolis area to ensure services are convenient and accessible to low-income residents. Furthermore, the Clinic collaborates with other local non-profit organizations—including local homeless shelters, Latino-multi-service centers, and domestic violence programs—to make critically-needed legal services more accessible to low-income individuals.

Autism Advocates of Indiana

The mission of Autism Advocates of Indiana (AAI) is to increase and broaden public knowledge and awareness of the behaviors, social issues and emotional needs of individuals on the autism spectrum so that all individuals can participate in and contribute to our community without fear of bias or loss of individuality. We carry out our mission through funds from the annual "Answers for Autism Walk" and contributions from private organizations. It is our intention to use the proceeds from this event to promote the advancement of autism research and provide grants for programs in Indiana that serve individuals on the autism spectrum and increase public awareness. Proceeds from the Answers for Autism Walk will help Indiana families touched by autism in many ways. Since 2001, Autism Advocates of Indiana has been able to contribute $205,000 to national research, $260,347 in grants to community organizations across Indiana that provide programming or supports for individuals with autism. Currently, 1 in every 110 or 1% of American children has a diagnosis of autism, including 1 in 70 boys. There is no cure for Autism. Though various treatments and therapies may provide some children with advancements, research and programming are limited due to lack of available funds.

What you can do to help.

1. 1. If you’re interested in volunteering for the indy givecamp 2010, visit: http://indygivecamp.org/Volunteer. 

2. 2. If, a givecamp sounds like a great idea and you’re interested in coordinating one in your local area, visit the national givecamp website: http://www.givecamp.org/

I hope if you are considering a givecamp that you’ll reach out to your friends here at Applied Innovations, www.appliedi.net and allow us the privilege to sponsor the givecamp with you.

Finally, I’d just like to compliment Jay Harris from Arana Software for all the work he’s put in on coordinating multiple givecamps including this one.