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The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article (subscription required) a few days ago talking about the trend in "management by data." In a nutshell, large corporations have figured out that if you analyze the behavior of your customers you can leverage that information into better performance. The dark side, according to the article, is …
On his Membership Marketing Blog, Tony Rossell has a post about membership dashboards. He provides a link to a chart that shows all kinds of membership information. I noted in the comments section: "…I must take exception to the use of "dashboard" with the example you provide. A dashboard, at a glance, provides instant information …
In this tip, I discuss how considering “worst-case” scenarios can help you decide whether or not to do something. There has been an interesting thread on one of the ASAE listservers about the “risk” of putting the membership directory online (and ceasing publication of a print directory). Anecdotally, about five associations said they had moved …
I had the opportunity to view a demo of the Computility AMS recently. For very small associations, I think the system is worth consideration. Here are the highlights: CRM tool. The system includes a neat area for tracking contacts and follow ups with companies and individuals, and even allows for assigning follow up to other …
I often tell my clients to avoid managing (or programming) to the exception. What I mean is too often when one or two members or customers complain about how we do something, we assume that we should accomodate their complaints and change our processes (or worse yet, reprogram the database to manage it). It's quite …
I was trading emails with my colleague (and fellow AMS consultant) George Breeden recently, and he raised an issue that I’ve long felt was missing from essentially every AMS vendor out there. George put it this way: The vendors should be taking proactive steps to maintain and build the relationships, not just in a reactive …
Recently I began receiving emails from a political advocacy organization that has views that are, shall we say, completely counter to mine. I suspect one of my "funny" friends may have signed me up. That's all well and good, except that the emails don't provide any opt-out information. There is a link to their "privacy …
In this post I talked about IT salaries in the general population. At the time I wasn’t aware that ASAE had updated their Association Compensation book, but now that I have a copy of it, I can report how the association salaries compare to the at-large IT population. It’s difficult to make an absolute apples-to-apples …
Many associations struggle with the relationship they have with their software vendor. There are many reasons for this, but a primary one is expectations. Too often, associations expect immediate response from their vendors, and perhaps more importantly, they expect immediate resolution to their problems. Rob Gates of SHRM recently posted the following note to the TMA …