The second annual "Associations: digitalNow" conference will be held this September 19 to 22 at Disney Institute in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Co-produced by Disney and Fusion Productions and held in collaboration with the American Society of Association Executives, the event is billed as the "leading Internet strategy conference for associations." Association CEOs, and their chief volunteer members and IT managers are invited to attend the event, which sold out last year, drawing 250 association executives.

Program highlights include keynote speaker Jim Collins, author of the best-selling book "Built to Last: the Successful Habits of Visionary Companies." Other speakers include: Dr. Karen Stephenson, cultural anthropologist and founder of NetForm; Collins Hemingway, co-author with Bill Gates of "Business at the Speed of Thought"; and Kathy Bushkin, senior vice president, AOL Time Warner Foundation, who will speak on how organizations operate online to deliver services.

Hugh Lee, president of Fusion Productions, says this year’s digitalNow conference, like last year’s, will be highly interactive and solutions-oriented, including case studies and workshops on topics such as: top technologies impacting associations in the next five years; building an e-marketplace for trade associations; and understanding the difference between a Web-based association management system and a client server system.

The conference will feature the official unveiling and demo of the "first 100 percent Web-based AMS system." Lee declines to name the company, but says, "This is a fully tested operational system, with over 50 installations. Included in the core suite of solutions are applications for membership management, dues collection, committee management, contact management, event management, subscription tracking and fulfillment, customer relations, e-commerce, certification process management, broadcast e-mail, and integrated member-only portal features."

For more information about the conference, including registration and agenda, visit www.fusionproductions.com/digitalnow.