Some history IS important! When I’m advising clients on data conversion (moving data from one system to another) my advice is always the same: “Convert as little data as possible.” There is one big exception to this rule: volunteer and award history. Almost all volunteer history (and certainly all award history) should be kept, essentially …

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“Many mickles make a muckle.” “Many mickles make a muckle.” – George Washington Apparently, this was an old Scottish saying (and a favorite of George Washington’s) that means “things add up.” Over time, many little things can become big things. This is absolutely true when it comes to managing data. Many little decisions and actions we take …

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It’s easy to collect; it’s harder to manage The beauty of today’s highly configurable AMS products is that they make it very easy to collect and store data. But configuring the system is actually the easy part. The “hard” part is ensuring there is a process in place to collect and manage the data and that …

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Tell them why you want the data Because data is so easy to collect these days, there’s a tendency to try to collect all kinds of data about our members and customers, in the hopes that “maybe we’ll use that data eventually.” One of the (many) problems with this approach is that our members and …

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Don’t get hung up on something minor I’m a problem solver. I love to solve problems. Which is great until it’s not. One trap for problem solvers like me is trying to solve a problem that really doesn’t need to be solved. I see this happen a lot in data management, especially as it pertains to …

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