Sometimes It’s the Least Bad Choice Just like in life, sometimes when we’re making technology or management decisions, we’re faced with few good choices. And very often I’ll tell my clients, what we’re looking to do is make the “least bad” choice. For example, during a new system implementation, the vendor will ask for “blackout” […]
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Our Members Aren’t Tech Savvy Having worked now in the association space for more than 30 years, I’ve heard my share of association executives utter the phrase “Our members aren’t very tech savvy.” This phrase is often followed with (or preceded by) “Our members are older.” (And this is typically related to the members not
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Motion vs. Action One key to successful data management is understanding the difference between motion and action. Simply put, motion = planning but action = doing. Too often we spend a lot of time planning out all the different ways we’ll improve our data management. We make plans to clean the data, to establish clear business rules,
There is ALWAYS a Trade-off I’ve written many times about trade-offs (you can read a bunch here). In short, every decision you make, whether you realize it or not, involves a trade-off. And recent news reminded me once again, that not only are there always trade-offs, but often they are unseen. This article explains how
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Little by little, a little becomes a lot “Little by little, a little becomes a lot.” I don’t know where I first read it (a google search says it’s a Tanzanian proverb; I’m dubious), but I love the phrase, especially as it relates to data management. One of the many challenges of data management is
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Why do we treat data management differently? A recent post on ASAE’s community read: “Looking for recommendations for assistance with understanding how we can use our AMS more efficiently and effectively. Small international association, no in-house IT, and our staff AMS admin has left. Any suggestions?” On the surface there is nothing wrong with this request.
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Don’t Forget Your Speakers! A phenomenon I’ve noticed over the years is that my clients will manage speaker data outside of the primary AMS. Often this data is managed in spreadsheets or in a third-party event registration system. And too often, this data never makes its way back into the primary AMS. The key data point, that a
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90% of your data is never touched a second time I heard recently on a podcast that 95% of all the art New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art collects is never actually displayed in the museum. It’s stored in a warehouse in New Jersey! Which got me to thinking; how much of the data that we
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Newton’s First Law Part of Newton’s First Law states that “…an object in motion stays in motion…” What does this have to do with data management? Quite a bit, actually. One of the many challenges of data management is the constant grind of keeping data clean. (I refer to this as “weeding the garden.”) With most
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No System is Perfect While it may sound trite, it bears repeating that no data management system is perfect. I have yet to meet an association executive who thinks their system works perfectly. And yet, very often we’ll spend hours trying to find “perfect” software or trying to design the “perfect” data management process. The reality is, if
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