This one isn’t so much a philosophy as just a sensible business practice. You MUST have some type of disaster recovery plan in place. And not just for your technology, but for your entire organization’s operations. (By definition this includes all of your technology.) Back in late 2001, a colleague of mine managed a small […]
Technology philosophy #7 – Have a disaster recovery plan Read More »
This is somewhat related to philosophy #5, in that no matter what decision you make about technology (or any other decision you make in life!), you’re going to have to make trade-offs. In philosophy #5, I pointed out that “free” doesn’t mean “without cost.” In this case, the trade-off for free software was a cost of
Technology philosophy #6 – Everything comes with a tradeoff Read More »
The internet is awash in free software. I love it, of course. So much software, so little time! But just because software is free does not mean that it has no costs associated with it. Even the simplest of software will have some level of learning curve associated with. That means you’ve got to invest
Technology philosophy #5 – Just because it’s free doesn’t mean it has no cost Read More »
If you’re like me, when you have some type of internal challenge with managing information within our organization, you may first look to technology as a potential solution. For example, I have dozens of clients in the course of a year, so naturally, I have dozens of invoices I need to manage. I’ve got financial
Technology philosophy #4 – Outsource when you can Read More »
I first came across this line in the great Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. “Less, but better” was the design mantra of Dieter Rams from Braun. Braun, of course, designs all types of household appliances (I use a Braun electric razor myself!). And his design philosophy was that all things should be as simple
Technology philosophy #3 – "Less, but better." Read More »
Because I’m a tremendous geek and love software, I’m always open to exploring new software programs that may somehow make my life easier. Over the course of nearly 25 years, I’ve probably tested more than four dozen different “task managers.” You know what I’m talking about: these simple programs that allow you to track your
Technology philosophy #2 – Just because you CAN automate it doesn’t mean you should Read More »
Last month in Dallas I had the opportunity to speak at the AMC Institute on Technology Issues Facing Association Management Companies. As part of the presentation, I offered my philosophy on technology, which I’ll share with you over the course of these next seven blog posts #1: Technology should make us more effective not just
Technology philosophy #1 – More effective, not just more efficient Read More »
You’d have to be under a rock not be familiar with the phrase “member engagement.” A google search on the phrase returns over 300,000 hits. Count me as one who believes member engagement, is, in fact, critically important. But what is it? I especially like David Gammel’s definition: Member engagement is the result of a
Member Engagement – It's all the rage! Read More »
If you have a car that was manufactured in the past ten years and you’ve taken it into the shop, you’ve probably noticed something interesting: One of the first things your mechanic does is plug your car into a handheld computer, to run diagnostic tests. Today’s cars have so many computers on them that in
Would you trust a mechanic with decades-old tools? Read More »
One of the greatest dangers of having access to the latest and greatest technology is over-engineering. That is, searching for ways to automate processes that really don’t need to be automated. I was reminded of this last week by an email from a friend, which he has given me permission to quote here: We bought
Beware over-engineering Read More »