This year’s annual DMP Owners Forum took place the day before ISC West on April 10 at the Keep Memory Alive Event Center, located in the architecturally stunning Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. Designed by the renowned architect Frank Gehry and run by the Cleveland Clinic, the location proved to be an integral part of the event this year, with Clinic Director Jeffrey Cummings, MD ScD, on hand in the afternoon to tell attendees some of the latest exciting research into Alzheimer’s and other brain-related diseases.

Beginning with breakfast in the reflection garden, the all-day event featured three captivating speakers, DMP technical news and advice for dealers, and a spirit of connecting with others. In fact, host Jon Adams, DMP’s dealer development manager, began the day by asking everyone in the room to introduce themselves in order to help facilitate connections.

The day featured three keynote speakers, beginning with Jason Young, president of LeadSmart Inc. speaking about the effect corporate culture has on success, drawing on his own experiences at Southwest Airlines. Richard Turner, a “card mechanic” then wowed the crowd by showing how he could arrange the card deck to produce any outcome he wanted. His presentation, “D.E.A.L.T” tied in the themes of dreams, excellence, analysis, loyalty and tenacity as he performed tricks and explained how he learned how to do all of this even though he is completely blind. The final keynote of the day was Cy Wakeman, a New York Times best-selling author and thought leader who spoke to need to ditch workplace drama and dramatically increase productivity.

Interspersed with these presentations, DMP showed short video clips aimed at helping dealers with specific technical issues and how to solve them, as well as announcing a few exciting changes. The first, announced by Jeff Britton, DMP’s vice president of product design, was the new integration with Ring Doorbell. While DMP is still working on its own video doorbell solution, Britton said this integration would provide dealers with a competitive advantage. “It’s a pass-through integration,” he explained. “DMP is not charging for the integration so with distributor pricing you can offer competitive prices.”

In the afternoon, Brad Tucker, DMP director of product management and support rolled out VirtualKeypad, the company’s new cloud-based access control system. “We really believe this is the cloud-based platform in our industry,” he told attendees. “When you look at the cost of ownership, we believe we are substantially lower in cost per door and monthly services,” he said.

In opening the forum that morning, Adams had told the audience that DMP picked this location for a reason. By the end of the day, attendees definitely had a good feel for the special building and its history, as well as some food for thought on how to improve their businesses.