I'm attending the Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit in beautiful Ft. Lauderdale for the next three days. Among other things, I want to get a sense of what the for-profit side of the world is doing with CRM. Everything that happens there will eventually affect the not-for-profit arena. If I see or hear anything worth […]
Off to the Gartner Customer Relationship Management Summit Read More »
Kristine Metter at AcademyHealth has been working with her staff as they go live with a new association management system. Kristine made some observations about their experience after the first week of being live in a new system, which I thought were valuable enough to share (with her permission. Thanks, Kristine). Kristine writes: "All in
Tips for Managing Your AMS Kick-off Read More »
Over the past couple of months I’ve written two articles for ASAE’s magazine Associations Now. In both cases, once the article was published, I received a couple of extra copies of the magazine and a handwritten note from Lisa Junker, the deputy editor of the magazine, thanking me for my work. Both times I was very
The Power of the Handwritten Note Read More »
Forrester Research is an independent technology and market research company. Forrester recently released a list of its CRM “best practices.” The list includes the following: Build strong executive sponsorship of the program. (See my article “The People Factor.”) Have business units lead CRM with support from IT. (Again, see my article “The People Factor.”) Put
Even Forrester Research Agrees with Me Read More »
Recently my wife and I went out of town and left our four kids with a babysitter for the weekend. As an incentive to good behavior, my wife developed a little game where each kid could earn one or more marbles a day for good behavior, and could lose one or more marbles per day
Focus on the Real Objectives Read More »
Why aren't more of your staff comfortable with working in your association's database? One reason may be micro-management. I've been working with a client and recently realized that a huge hurdle they face is that their executive director micro-manages everything they do. As a result, staff is fairly paralyzed and unable to make any decisions on
Micro-managing Kills Initiative Read More »
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?
You gotta have a back up plan Read More »
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
Is there any information here? Read More »
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
New Technology Requires Additional Attention Read More »