Have the courage of your convictions Having the courage of your convictions means you’re willing to do what you believe is right, even in the face of others disagreeing. I remember really hearing this for the first time from a coach early on in my consulting career. In that context, the coach was saying “You’re …
Even your online directory is out of date! Back in the day of printed directories, there was an aphorism: “By the time your directory hits the street, it’s already out of date.” This was because the data had been collected six months in advance, then had to be collated, designed, sent to the printer, reviewed …
Start small When I work with my clients on projects that involve measuring member engagement, business intelligence, or data analysis, my advice is always the same: start small. Any one of these types of projects can be overwhelming, which is why it’s important to start small. This will allow you to focus and will provide opportunities to …
Some context, please A pet peeve of mine: A report about associations (e.g., marketing benchmarks report) where the report defines associations by the number of members, but fails to discriminate between trade associations and individual associations. In other words, the report will talk about “associations with fewer than 500 members” as if a trade association with 450 members is somehow the …
Eventually automated emails get ignored During the discovery and development phase of implementing a new AMS, it is not uncommon for staff to ask for automated emails from the system to alert staff to certain changes that are occurring. A couple of common examples: I’d like the system to send me an email when a …
The challenge the AMS providers see Over the years I’ve asked AMS providers what they see as the biggest challenges their customers face when it comes to successful data management. Two issues always rise to the top: Not knowing all of the features available in the system. I see this a lot with my clients. Very often …
Be careful about “solutioning” too quickly One of the great things about software developers is that they tend to be “solutions-oriented.” By that, I mean that if you give them a particular data management challenge, they want to figure out some way the software can address that challenge. This is a good thing! But too …
What’s our next action? As you can imagine, I spend a lot of time in meetings (I bet you do, too!). If the meeting has to do with a specific project (e.g., a system selection or implementation project), there are two rules I try to adhere to as much as humanly possible: Anything that can …
Don’t automate for the sake of automation I’m the laziest person in the world. I LOVE it when I can make the computer do the work for me. For example, I have all kinds of macros set up on my computer to type words for me faster than I could type them myself. So I’m …
Don’t forget about what got better Negativity bias is the tendency to focus on only those things that aren’t working, rather than focusing on what has improved. I’ve observed that during a switch from one AMS to another, frequently staff will fall into this trap. The result can be as simple as spending too much time on …