You're a lot more tech savvy than me, Mark - so I'll take your word for it. I just find myself wondering if the bureaucracy is getting a little out of control. Its hard to believe, but the guild was thriving before any of us were ever on a computer. :) Ryan <div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 8:44 AM, Mark Purney <<a href="mailto:mark.purney@mesapiano.com">mark.purney@mesapiano.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"> Ryan, You're comparing apples to oranges. A piano technician typically has a very simple website, which exists only to provide some basic information and look pretty. It serves the simple needs of one person who makes all the decisions without committees, boards, or councils. Clients are usually kept track of with a simple spreadsheet or database program, and the website and database have no need for online integration. The PTG requires tons more technology to support the needs of the Home Office and all the other groups that must work together within the organization, and the membership tracking has to be extremely sophisticated and flexible. Everything must work together on a server, and there is a huge amount of data that must go back and forth to make it all happen. To a non-programmer, it may all look like simple stuff. But the reality is that even the most basic-looking functions on a website like <a href="http://ptg.org" target="_blank">ptg.org</a> took some programmer many hours to implement. And when all of these simple-looking things must work together reliably, the server-side programming to support it all becomes incredibly complex. It's more than we can expect inexpensive, consumer-grade tools to handle. The growing needs of our organization make it necessary to use much more expensive, sophisticated, yet generic tools that don't necessarily do everything the way we'd like. <div><div class="h5"> On 7/5/2011 7:40 AM, Ryan Sowers wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"> You will also find piano technicians who manage over 4000 clients without having to invest in software that costs tens of thousands of dollars. </blockquote> </div></div></blockquote></div> -- Ryan Sowers, RPT Puget Sound Chapter Olympia, WA <a href="http://www.pianova.net">www.pianova.net</a>