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 […]
Why You Should Have a Test Environment Read More »
“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
It's a Process, Not an Event Read More »
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
Making It Easy To Buy From You Read More »
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,
AMS Vendor Offers Free Software Read More »
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
ARC Solutions Secures $2 Million in Funding Read More »
Just got back from Chicago and the ASAE Annual Meeting. I think ASAE outdid themselves once again with this meeting. I'll go so far as to say that the opening general session, with "An Association Musical" as its theme, and featuring Lee & Bob Woodruff, was the best ASAE opening session I've ever attended (and
Some ASAE Annual Meeting Thoughts Read More »
I'm off to ASAE's Annual Meeting in Chicago. I serve on the ASAE Technology Section Council, so I'll be in that meeting on Saturday, and then generally wandering around for the rest of the conference. (This is one of those rare years that I won't be speaking at a session.) If I see something of
ASAE's Annual Meeting Read More »
In the storage room of my house is a box from a printer that reads "Data Processing Forms." The picture on the outside of the box is of paper that has those "tractor feed" pinholes on the sides, for feeding through a dot matrix printer. Mind you, this box is no more than 15 or 16
How far we've come… Read More »
A colleague of mine tells me that his hard drive on his laptop has crashed, and it’s unlikely he’ll be able to recover it. The kicker is that he hasn’t run a back up on that drive for almost a month, so he’s probably lost a month’s worth of work. What’s amazing is that even
It just keeps happening… Read More »