Data Management

Just received my copy of the book Membership Essentials from ASAE. The book is a collection of writings by association executives on such topics as understanding your value proposition, membership categories and dues structures, and financial metrics for the membership professional. And why do I think this book is so good? Because one of the […]

One of the steps during the database implementation process is data conversion. Part of the data conversion process is identifying which data sets you want to convert (e.g., membership types) and which you don't (e.g., payment details for events from four years ago). One of my simple rules of thumb for data conversion is the rule

I’ll frequently hear from my clients and other database managers, “Our members keep creating duplicate records of themselves, rather than using their existing database record. What can I do to eliminate duplicate records that are created by my customers and members?” This is a common problem across all of my clients, without regard to the

Anyone who has heard me speak about database management systems knows that I’m a big fan of users groups. One of the singular values that an off-the-shelf database provides is the potential to tap tens if not hundreds of other organizations that are using the same or similar software. I’ve written about the value of

Part of my job is to conduct interviews of database users. Another part of my job is to sit in with my client on interviews being conducted by vendors when they are gathering user requirements for a new system. One thing that has struck me in these meetings is that not many people have very

Associations spend a lot of time and money on training (or at least they should). But I wonder if any associations test for comprehension following training? And what about three-month or six-month "check-ins" to see if the training has "stuck"? Do you provide a venue for trainees to provide feedback about the training? Training is

I was cleaning up my internet favorites the other day. One of the folders I have within my favorites is one called “Client databases,” which, oddly enough, are bookmarks to some of my clients’ online databases. Included in that folder are clients from as many as four years ago. Just for fun, I checked to

I’ve been working with a client recently on consolidating all of their data into a single data management system. They have an association management system that is robust enough to manage just about every data set they have, but they haven’t centralized all of the data yet. As a first step in the process, we’ve

One of my (many) soapboxes is tryi to get people to back up their data and make sure it’s backed up. I’ve written about it here. So I was pleased to see Newsweek magazine writing about it recently here. But what was shocking was what the author wrote: “I’ve been a tech writer at NEWSWEEK