Three thoughts on duplicate records Duplicate records are a reality in any database of any size, so as database managers, we always have to deal with them (or should deal with them!). So here are three thoughts on managing duplicate records: Duplicate records will always exist. Always. Unless you’re managing only a tiny number of records, you […]
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Please don’t do this… I’ve noticed a trend among online retailers that I want to warn associations away from. That trend is emailing me incessantly (as in, daily) shortly after I purchase something from the retailer. We’re coming upon Christmas so I’ve made purchases from retailers that I don’t usually shop with (think clothing and housewares for
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AI is perpetually patient My friend and colleague Noel Shatananda of fusionSpan was providing me some tips about using AI. During that discussion, he pointed out that one of the keys to using AI tools like ChatGPT successfully is to continue to ask it questions to refine its work. As he put it, “AI is perpetually patient.”
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User adoption is (almost) all that matters… I was speaking with an association recently about their needs for a new AMS. They had already tried and failed with two systems, and they were wondering if I could be helpful in getting them into yet another AMS, this time successfully! In the course of the conversation, it
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When “overcommunicating” becomes overwhelming There is a common belief in project management and general business management that overcommunicating is better than undercommunicating. And that can be true in marketing, as well. In my experience, it’s not unusual for members to actually know very little about what their association does, beyond the meetings they’ve actually participated in. So in
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Communicating when there is a major technology change For those of you who are ASAE members, you may be aware that ASAE recently when through a major technology infrastructure change, which had a direct impact on the member experience online. For example, because of these changes, anyone with a previous login had to update their password
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Everything works, until it doesn’t. “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” – Stein’s Law I was talking with a client recently and we were discussing how certain pieces of their system that had once worked well, no longer seem to work well, if at all. I replied: “Everything works, until it doesn’t.” The
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Some things are unknowable One of the most challenging aspects of moving to a new system and vendor is “not knowing.” There are some questions that just aren’t answerable in the moment. Here are some examples of questions my clients will ask that are really unknowable: “How much work will staff have to do during implementation?” Vendors
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Do we have access to that data? When I work with my clients on a data management projects, there are frequently conversations about querying and reporting on data. I’ll hear things like “We want to query for people who have attended previous meetings and are also volunteers, but we’re not able to pull that information.”
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The three “buckets” of contact data Broadly speaking, when collecting data on contacts (individuals or organizations), there are three “buckets” of data being collected: Contact information (name, address, phone, email) Transactional information (stuff they’ve purchased) Demographic data (information about the individual or organization, e.g., lines of business, areas of interest, professional status, etc.). Of these three, the most
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