Blog: Wes’s thoughts, articles, and insights

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My most recent posts

Why bother with a consultant when I have AI?

By Wes Trochlil | October 14, 2026

Why bother with a consultant when I have AI? As AI becomes increasingly powerful, the value of using an AMS selection consultant (and many other types of consultants!) starts to come into question. After all, with very well-constructed prompts and responses, an association could develop a very solid needs analysis and RFP that could be used to […]

Guardrails can be helpful!

By Wes Trochlil | October 7, 2026

Guardrails can be helpful! When selecting a new AMS, I find my clients are often very tempted by custom software or “platform” systems (e.g., built on Salesforce or MS Dynamics) because these systems are infinitely configurable. After all, if I can make the system do anything I want, that’s a good thing, right? Well, maybe. In […]

“If you knew this information, what might you do differently?”

By Wes Trochlil | September 30, 2026

“If you knew this information, what might you do differently?” I had a conversation with a client recently about developing KPIs, reports, and queries from their forthcoming data warehouse. My client said: “We have a ton of requests for KPIs and reports. How do we determine which to focus on first?” My response: “When someone requests a dashboard […]

Showing is not teaching

By Wes Trochlil | September 23, 2026

Showing is not teaching In my experience, when new staff members are taught how to use their AMS (or LMS, CMS, FMS, etc.) they aren’t really taught how to use the system, they are shown how to use it. So what’s the difference? In a nutshell, showing only covers the “how” and “what.” But teaching […]

Data management is improvisation

By Wes Trochlil | September 16, 2026

Data management is improvisation I was listening to a podcast recently featuring TV writer Rob Long. During the podcast he said (I’m paraphrasing) that, in order to be successful, one needs to learn to improvise, because nothing in life ever goes as planned. One of my favorite sayings is, “If you want to make God […]

Older Posts

Garbage in, gospel out

November 22, 2018

Garbage in, gospel out We’ve all heard the phrase “Garbage in, garbage out.” If the data entered into the system […]

Dramatic change does not happen overnight

November 15, 2018

Dramatic change does not happen overnight Like most things in life, dramatic change does not happen overnight, and the same […]

"How does this compare?" That's not the right question to ask…

November 9, 2018

“How does this compare?” Comparing retention rates, without context, provides absolutely no information.

You Can't Learn if You Don't WANT To

November 8, 2018

If you don’t MAKE the time to learn, you never WILL learn…

Implementation Intention

November 8, 2018

Implementation Intention Editor’s note: I have a new email newsletter, sent weekly, called Wes’s Wednesday Wisdom. Click here to subscribe In […]

New Article Posted: You Can't Just Plan, You Must "Do"

April 19, 2018

There’s a book by David Maister, one of the preeminent consulting gurus, entitled “Strategy and the Fat Smoker: Doing What’s […]

New Article Posted: How Cognitive Biases Can Affect Data Management

March 22, 2018

Anyone who has ever taken an intro level course on psych (or just reads a lot) has probably encountered the […]

There's no need to run parallel systems

February 1, 2018

Back in the day (I mean WAY back), the standard practice when switching from one database system to another was to […]

Standardize before you optimize

January 25, 2018

I first read this phrase in a James Clear blog post. And what it means, simply put, is that before […]

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