January 1999

A New Year, a New AIM

As leaders in the document technologies industry, AIIM International (the Association for Information and Image Management, Silver Spring, MD) and IMC (the International Information Management Congress, Boulder, CO, and Datchet, Berkshire, U.K.) have served as resources for corporations seeking business solutions. In the past, there has been some confusion among vendors and users as to the distinctions between AIIM and IMC, and each organizationıs role in the document technologies industry. Many saw overlaps in our respective efforts and felt that it made sense to combine the resources of both organizations to create a single voice for the industry. As a result, AIIM and IMC recently announced they will combine to form a single, worldwide organization dedicated to bringing industry vendors and users together.

Our combined organization will be known as AIIM/IMC International. By bringing together the strengths of AIIM International and IMC, this new global association will focus on helping business and public-sector organizations to understand document technologies and solutions and apply them to improve critical business processes.

With the expected growth of the document technologies market to $33 billion by 2002 and the rapid rate of technological change, this combination creates a single international resource to develop more effective and timely industry events, reports, studies and standards. Membership of the new organization -- approximately 700 vendor members, 400-500 corporate user members and 10,000 individual members -- will be more comprehensive, encompassing a more even balance of vendors and users.

As document technologies go global, so must the organizations that support the industry. AIIM/IMC International will combine IMCıs strengths in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, with AIIMıs core strengths in North America. Weıll begin creating a greater presence in Latin America and Asia Pacific. AIIM/IMC will continue to expand upon its predecessorsı activities in the fields of conference, exhibition and tradeshow organization, publishing and membership development.

1999 will be an exciting year for all involved in the document technologies industry.

John Mancini is president of AIIM International and will become the new chief executive of AIIM/IMC International.