One whole decade in the ASP.
On this date back in 1999, I joined the ASP (Association of Shareware Professionals), so this is the 10th anniversary of my membership in this important trade organization. (As a side note, through some game playing, it is also the 5th anniversary of the second company membership for Sherry.) I was the last member to join in the 1900s, having taken almost ten years to join in the first place, and I immediately regretted not joining earlier.
In the past 10 years, I spent nearly half of that time in a volunteer position, mostly the 4.5 years during which I was a Director, including two stints as ASP Chairman of the Board. I do not currently hold any official job, concentrating on developing our company and products, but I still strongly believe in the value of membership for access to the private newsgroups alone, nevermind other benefits. In fact, I am now a Lifetime Member to be sure to always have this wealth of information and experience available to me. (Anybody who fails to join just because of the “shareware” word in the organization name is making a very poor business decision.)
Clearly, one of the biggest benefits of ASP membership to me was to network with successful shareware publishers, which led directly to our association with Goodsol Development, which involvement has now lasted more than 8 years and could easily have paid for annual ASP membership dues into the next millennium. That is only one contact I have made, but I have both learned and profited from many of the other members of the ASP. Join Now!
Speaking of Goodsol, in wrapping up the year, I had a chance to review the products we shipped during 2009:
- Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.00 (March)
- Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 1.01 (April)
- Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.01 (May)
- Most Popular Solitaire 2.00 (May)
- Pretty Good MahJongg 2.33 (May)
- Action Solitaire 1.30/1.31 (June)
- Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.02 (July)
- Goodsol Solitaire 101 version 1.02 (November)
- Most Popular Solitaire 2.01 (December)
- Pretty Good Solitaire Mac Edition 2.10 (December)
That is not too bad a list for year, but I bet that we can beat that in 2010! (We already have three products on the publishing schedule, and 5 more big projects in the immediate pipeline.)
[Note to self: Press the ‘Publish’ button when the article is finished and proofread.]
10 years! Wow! Actually, now that I think about it, I’m probably coming up on 5 years myself.
I am still a member, even though I haven’t put in nearly as much effort to get the value out of it that I would like. I’m making big plans and changes for this coming year, though.
>I’m making big plans and changes for this coming year, though.
We need to take more action on the ASP Indie Games SIG, too. I have a list of ideas around here somewhere, but I misplaced it and got too busy to find and forward it.