Wes’s Wednesday Wisdom

Share your successes! I was speaking at an association meeting recently and one of the points I raised was that associations should practice what I call database PR or database public relations. In a nutshell, database PR is about proactively and regularly telling our users all the good work that is occurring in the database. (Here’s more on database PR.) We need […]

What are YOUR data integrity reports? Sitting in an AMS demo with a client recently, I was pleasantly surprised to see the AMS vendor had a short list of reports they called “Data cleaning” reports. These reports included a check for potential duplicate records, checking for erroneous emails, and checking for other missing data (e.g.,

You might have to do SOME of the work yourself! Many, many years ago I met with an executive director of a small association to discuss their needs for a new association management system. In the course of the conversation we determined that one thing she’d like to be able to do is capture key points

Don’t manage to the exception! One of the universal truths about data management is, wherever possible, avoid managing to the exception. What I mean by this is to avoid developing any process that is designed to catch some arcane or unusual circumstance. Instead, the process should capture what happens the vast majority of the time, and

It’s always about improvement Talking with a client recently, she expressed frustration about one particular project around data. As she put it, “It feels like no matter what we do, we’re never able to get all the data we want from our members.” My response? “You’re right. You never will. And that’s OK.” Because the reality

Don’t be a hoarder! The simple truth is that it’s almost “free” to collect data. Or at least that’s how it seems. Set up a field in the database, send out an email and ask for the data, and voila, you’re collecting new data. The problem is that, in many (most?) cases, the data that we

With data analytics (as with most things), keep it simple! Over the past several years I’ve spoken with many clients and other associations about their experience with data analytics. I have been surprised to learn that many associations have implemented fairly expensive analytics tools but have not had great success with them. So I was pleasantly surprised to

Don’t forget about periodic maintenance Just as most automobiles need periodic maintenance, keeping your data as up to date as possible requires maintenance, as well. And while most cars have a “typical” maintenance schedule, they are not all exactly the same (all-electric cars, for example, don’t need oil changes!). The same is true for the data

Users Groups are ALWAYS Valuable I am a huge fan of users groups. (Here’s a bunch of stuff I’ve written in the past.) A client of mine recently attended their users group meeting, and I was reminded once again of one of the key values of the users group: peer assistance and validation. As I like

But will you DO anything with that data? I frequently exhort my clients to always answer the question “What will you do with that information?” when they talk about collecting new data or creating new reports, queries, and dashboards. Because it’s “easy” to do these things, we often want to collect or report on data without