Wes’s Wednesday Wisdom

Is that meaningless data? I’m not a big quotes guy, but one of the few I love comes from Peter Drucker in The Effective Executive: “”The greatest wisdom not applied to action and behavior is meaningless data.” Put another way: If the data tells you something but you don’t act on it, that data is useless. […]

Be aware of unintended consequences I’ve written before that every decision involves a trade-off. When considering the trade-offs that every decision requires, you should also keep in mind any unintended consequences that the decision may create. Consider the following example: A client of mine recently changed AMSes. As part of that change, members have to

Positive change is harder to see Humans are wired to see negative change because we need to protect ourselves; a negative change is seen as a risk and a danger. Positive change is much more difficult to see; there’s no risk involved. Think about it this way: When there’s a negative change with your data (e.g.,

MVP: Minimum Viable Product In product development there is a concept known as MVP, or minimum viable product. Simply put, this means getting the product out into the market with the least amount of features, in order to get customer feedback and to just get something out there! This concept can be applied in multiple

You always need a reason for collecting data When you ask for data from someone (member, customer, prospect, etc.) there has to be a clear reason the person you’re asking will provide that data. (The reason needs to be clear to the consumer!) If you’re selling a membership or event registration, asking for contact info,

If you’re unhappy, speak up! My clients will often ask me something along the lines of the following: “I’m not happy with how this project is going. Should I say something to the vendor?” My answer is always the same, regardless of circumstance: Yes! Say something! You never want your vendor to say to you

Does it advance the mission? Because associations are mission-driven, everything you do should be seen through the prism of this question: “Does it advance the mission?” This applies to everything you do in your database, too. Does the data you’re collecting help advance your mission? Does the software you’re using allow you to extract and analyze

How should you start a new data project? When you’ve got a new data project on the horizon, and you’re feeling overwhelmed about where to start, what’s the best way to start? Here’s my answer (and stick with me now): Just start! Take one action! Do something that will move you one step closer to

Simple rules for complex systems I first heard the phrase “simple rules for complex systems” from Jonah Goldberg, who was commenting on rules for political/social systems. But I think this maxim is very applicable to data management. After all, most AMS systems are complex, so the rules that manage them should be as simple as possible.