The Yardi Senior Living Forum will return to the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort on April 25-26, 2018. The event is a targeted, intensive learning and networking opportunity designed for senior living professionals including directors, nursing staff, sales and marketing, executives and more. Attendees will gain deeper insight into the Yardi Senior Living Suite, including Yardi Voyager, Yardi Senior CRM, Yardi EHR, Yardi eMAR and RentCafe Senior Living. “The Forum is a great way to brush up on existing product knowledge, learn about recent product enhancements, and get a view into our product roadmap,” shared Ray Elliot, vice president of senior living at Yardi. Why the Forum? The Yardi Senior Living Forum draws curriculum from the popular Yardi Advanced Solutions Conference (YASC). In addition to tracks targeted to senior living providers, the Forum also offers accounting, reporting, and technology classes. While YASC will continue to be a valuable resource for general senior living education, the conference now offers limited senior living courses. For more in-depth training on the Yardi Senior Living Suite, the Forum is now the go-to event for senior living clients. “The exchange of information when we come to these conferences [builds] the kind of relationship that helps our business, make our lives better and makes using the system better,” said Latonya Lawson, previous Forum attendee and Business Systems Manager for The Shelter Group. With education offered for basic to advanced users, the Forum has something for everyone! “Based on feedback from prior forums and new product features, we’ve added a number of new classes this year. In total, we are offering 52 unique classes with five courses to choose from in each session,” explained Elliot. In addition to courses, the Forum will provide one-on-one training with Yardi Senior Living technical staff, roundtables, and product roadmap sessions aimed to offer the latest scoop on what’s next from Yardi. A returning feature of the Forum, attendees will have access to Knowledge Central. This is the place to be if you want to learn more about new products and upgrades, or if you have questions about your current software. New to 2018, attendees can find RentCafe, EHR and eMAR experts in this space. Conference registration includes access to specialized education courses, roundtable discussions, breakfast and lunch buffets, along with networking and entertainment opportunities. Going Green We’re going green at the Forum! The Yardi Events app offers a paperless, mobile conference experience. Attendees can access all conference information, courses, social networking and in-app messaging all from their fingertips. The Yardi Events app is available for download in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. A browser-based version, synced to the mobile app, will also be available so attendees can access all features from their desktop. User log-in details have been emailed to all registered Forum attendees. We’re looking forward to welcoming our clients at the Forum. Join us and register today! Already registered? Let us know you’ll be there and join the conversation on social media using #YardiForum. For more information about the conference, visit the Yardi Senior Living Forum...

Our second Yardi Marketing Forum of 2016 is coming up next week, and we couldn’t be much more excited! Multifamily marketers from across North America will meet us in Seattle to talk tech, trends, and best practices during this multi-day conference. Talented guest speakers – from within and without the real estate industry – are a huge part of the success of this biannual conference. In preparation for the fun and learning ahead, we asked three of them to share some insights into their marketing roles. Keep reading to learn how these marketing pros got started, what they love about their jobs, and what’s inspiring them right now (spoiler alert: if you’re into Snapchat and Pokémon, you’re not alone). Meet the speakers: Kelly Cook, Chief Marketing Officer at Kmart Alex McGhee, Digital Marketing Manager at Pinnacle Karen Kossow, VP of Marketing at FORE Property Company Yardi: How did you get started in marketing? Kelly: I actually started out in finance, can you believe it?! From there, I managed a reservations call center, and was eventually asked to come to marketing to manage the new marketing IT systems. In marketing, I fell in love with inspiring our employees to deliver magic to our customers. Alex: I first got a taste of marketing in college when I obtained a minor in Marketing at the University of North Texas. After I graduated, I tried my hand in sales and financial services for a few years then landed a job with a small insurance startup overseeing SEO and SEM. That was really when I got hooked on the marketing career path! Yardi: What do you like best about your current role? Kelly: We have 100K passionate and member-focused employees at Kmart working hard every single day to transform our business. They inspire me to be a better leader, better colleague, better employee. Seeing them be the hero to our member – and seeing the member’s reaction… that’s the best part. Karen: Tough one… there are a number of things. I love that I’m getting to expand my knowledge base by working with new markets. There are a lot of great people here whom I really enjoy. Although it’s not a full rebrand, I am getting to be the driver of a FORE “brand tweak” with new corporate brochure and website. It’s a lot, but I’m a bit of a challenge junky – if everything were easy, I’d be bored. Yardi: Which marketing trends are inspiring you right now? Kelly: I’ve been on Snapchat for a long time, but now I’m getting snaps from our members and their kids. My Snapchat ID is runwayroadkill (nickname –  it’s long story, ha). Our members and their children snap me all of the time telling what they want more of or less of. It’s super fantastic! Alex: Snapchat’s geofilters are very intriguing at the moment. I have also very recently been exploring the benefits of piggy backing off the current global Pokémon trend. Karen: Yes, I’m also excited about Pokémon Go, and not necessarily for all of the same reasons as others. I do love how people have been leveraging it through social and other marketing tools, but for me it’s the fact that it’s such a successful use of augmented reality. Augmented reality has fascinated me for years, and I can’t wait until the costs to create/implement come down enough that we can find lots of ways to apply it to what we do. Hopefully I’ll still be alive and marketing when that happens! Yardi: What are you looking forward to most about the Yardi Marketing Forum in Seattle? Karen: I’ve met and gotten to know so many great people at the forums I’ve previously attended that I’m looking forward to doing so again. I love the ability to brainstorm about the RentCafe platform products and to be able to talk to the experts about them....