The other day my two-year old daughter and I walked to our mailbox to mail a letter. The mailbox is about 50 yards from my house, and about halfway to the mailbox, my daughter took off running to the mailbox with the letter in her hand. I stopped and watched as she went to the …
No, I’m not talking about data back up this time. I’m talking about having a back up plan for how you will handle incoming calls when your system is “down.” I called my doctor today to make an appointment. I was immediately told “Our system is down, can you call back in an hour?” Really? …
Recently while driving along the GW Parkway (just outside DC) I came upon an electronic road sign (you know, the kind that tells you about upcoming events or road construction). The sign read (and I quote): "On or about August 19th, roadwork begins." That's it. Ntohing about what kinds of roadwork. Nothing about how it …
One of the more common mistakes I see is organizations assuming that they can add new technology without considering what changes in workload the new technology will require. For example, one of my clients was considering developing a lockbox process for their AMS. Through this process, their bank would accept all of their incoming payments …
Many years ago while working as an association staffer, I was trying to kill some time on a Friday afternoon. I was planning on leaving at 2pm to head to the beach for the weekend, and with only an hour left in the day, rather than starting a new project, I decided to dig around …
“So when we get our new database we’ll be done, right?” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this from my clients. And I always tell them, “No, we’ll just be getting started.” Whether you’re buying a new data management system, or have had your current AMS for years, the reality is that …
When I talk with my clients about how they process orders at their organization (whether it be membership joins and renewals, product sales, event registrations, or something else), I always emphasize that it is most important to make it easy for the customer to buy from you. As I like to put it, the ideal …
Members Only Software has been running a quarterly giveaway of their association management software to “needy” organizations. According to the press release I received, United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan received their free software last Winter and has been live since April 2007. As I wrote here, “free” software can be a risky proposition for associations, …
Vinay Kumar of GRC Direct had a great post on one of the ASAE listservers a few weeks back about a service from Melissa Data called mCOA. In a nutshell, mCOA is designed to augment the US Post Offices's NCOA (National Change of Address) service. As Vinay pointed out on his post, this is a …
ARC Solutions is one of the many AMS vendors that I track (full disclosure: one of my clients uses them for their AMS). So I was intrigued and pleasantly surprised to hear that ARC has secured $2 million in venture capital funding to support the roll-out of their new product Polaris. I've seen an early …