Blog: Wes’s thoughts, articles, and insights

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My most recent posts

Improvement is never linear

By Wes Trochlil | June 10, 2026

Improvement is never linear One of the many lessons one learns over a lifetime is that improvement, regardless of what you’re trying to improve, is never linear. That is, you’ll always have days where you’re better, and days where you don’t improve, or maybe even fall back. And so it is with data management. Even if you […]

Don’t forget to take a “before” picture!

By Wes Trochlil | June 3, 2026

Don’t forget to take a “before” picture! Whenever I start on a big home clean up or renovation project, I like to take a “before” picture, so that I can see the progress that was made when the project is complete. (Ironically, even though I’m the son of an award-winning amateur photographer, I often forget […]

Are you being penny wise and pound foolish?

By Wes Trochlil | May 27, 2026

Are you being penny wise and pound foolish? Two quick customer service stories to illustrate a point: First story: I’ve used the same email provider for more than 20 years. But for technical reasons, recently I needed to switch providers, so I canceled my service with them a few weeks in advance of my renewal. […]

AMS Products are getting better – and what that means for you

By Wes Trochlil | May 20, 2026

AMS Products are getting better – and what that means for you I’ve been working in and with AMS products for 36 years (27 years of consulting, nine years as an association staffer). And I can say with great confidence that the systems available today are much better than they were 36 years ago! (Shocking, I know.) But […]

Using AI beyond content generation

By Wes Trochlil | May 13, 2026

Using AI beyond content generation Recent surveys by ASAE and others suggest nearly 90% of associations are using AI for some type of content generation (e.g., creating blog posts, newsletter articles, “canned” responses to inquiries, etc.). That is great, but when it comes to data management, there are so many more opportunities for leveraging AI. Here are some ideas […]

Older Posts

Hot IT Trends for 2008 – The BI Buzz

January 22, 2008

SearchCIO-midmarket.com has a list of five hot IT trends for 2008, and surprise, surprise, business intelligence is on the list. […]

The rule of 100 and 1000

January 17, 2008

One of the steps during the database implementation process is data conversion. Part of the data conversion process is identifying which […]

Why you can't eliminate dupes

January 15, 2008

I’ll frequently hear from my clients and other database managers, “Our members keep creating duplicate records of themselves, rather than […]

About This Blog

January 11, 2008

This weblog is focused on the association management system (AMS) software market. The objective of this blog is to provide […]

Establishing a Users Group

January 11, 2008

Anyone who has heard me speak about database management systems knows that I’m a big fan of users groups. One […]

NTEN's CRM Satisfaction Survey is Released

January 7, 2008

I recently received a copy of NTEN’s CRM Satisfaction survey (you can get your own copy here). Here are my […]

Are you *really* listening?

December 13, 2007

Part of my job is to conduct interviews of database users. Another part of my job is to sit in […]

Testing your Training

December 11, 2007

Associations spend a lot of time and money on training (or at least they should). But I wonder if any […]

Don't let IT drive your business decisions

December 6, 2007

Let me start by saying I love the guys (and women) in IT. I really do. They are important to […]

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