Wes’s Wednesday Wisdom

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 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 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

If you’re training, PLEASE do this… If you’re doing any kind of software training, or you have outside trainers coming in to do training, I beg of you, please do the following: When you start the training, provide the learners with a complete overview of what you’re going to cover. Do not just say “Now

Don’t confuse motion with improvement I wrote recently how action can produce information. But an important corollary to that idea is that action alone does not necessarily mean improvement. For example, how much time do we spend preparing board materials that the board never looks at, and even if they do look at it, won’t

Perfection is expensive (in fact, it’s not possible!) “Perfection is expensive. The last 5 percent of quality almost always costs a disproportionate amount of time and money.” – James Clear “Seek success, not perfection.” – Alan Weiss When I give presentations on data management, I almost always mention this concept. Too often we’re caught up in the

AI is a journey, not a destination Lately I’ve noticed a lot of associations talking about AI like it’s a moon shot. “We need an AI project.” “We’re rolling out AI in Q4.” That language suggests AI is something you implement once and then check off the list. It isn’t. AI is a journey, and

Action produces information “Action produces information. If you’re unsure of what to do, just do anything, even if it’s the wrong thing. This will give you information about what you should actually be doing.” – Brian Armstrong, co-founder of Coinbase This is the great thing about data and why I’ve been in this business so long.

Why a single source of truth is so beneficial… The holy grail of data management is the “single source of truth.” As I like to characterize it, when someone asks “Where is the data about X?” everyone knows the answer and everyone gives the SAME answer. One of the most common challenges I hear from my

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should I’ve worked in and with associations for well over 37 years now. And one of the things I’ve always loved and appreciated about association staffers is their willingness to do whatever is needed to get the job done. But the problem is this “Yes, we can!” attitude can also