Wes’s Wednesday Wisdom

Seek forgiveness rather than permission “Seek forgiveness, not permission.” I can’t remember when I first heard it, but it made so much sense to me. Rather than asking for permission to do something (which may then require a lot of discussion and haggling), just do what you’re going to do and see what kind of response […]

Is a 360 degree view necessary? “A 360 degree view of our members should NOT be our goal.” – Joe Colangelo, CEO of Bear Analytics For years, nay decades, I have talked about the desire to have a 360 degree view of our members and customers. It is the holy grail of data management, to be

Why data matters I write about data because managing our data effectively will help us better manage our organizations. Better data can lead to improved marketing and communications, improved revenue, and ultimately help us achieve our mission. Which is why I become so frustrated when I receive email marketing messages from organizations that clearly demonstrate the organization

It’s about process I’m in the midst of adding an AI agent to my website that will allow visitors to query all of the content I’ve created over the past quarter century. I asked the agent what my most common themes have been, and one of the answers I received was “business process.” This doesn’t

Data integrity reports I speak and write a lot about data integrity reports. So I was pleased to see a post recently on ASAE’s Collaborate from Shaun Holloway, Director of Information Technology, at the American Motorcyclist Association, outlining a list of what he called “data hygiene checks.” As a reminder, the purpose of a data integrity

The most important training tip I’ve been sitting in a lot of database training sessions recently, and I’ve been reminded of the following: whether you are doing the training yourself, or you use your vendor or a third-party for training, when you’re teaching a process… Tell them what you’re going to do Do it Tell

Be careful about getting tangled “We had done a lot to tangle ourselves up.” – Bridget Walsh, Chief Operating Officer at Emergency Nurses Association In a discussion at AMS Fest this week, this is how Bridget Walsh characterized what their AMS of 17+ years looked like as they worked to move from their legacy system to a

Discipline. Always discipline. I’ve been producing a newsletter in some form for over 25 years now. I’ve found that certain topics are evergreen; they come up all the time and I feel compelled to write about them again and again. One of those topics is discipline. A quick search of my blog posts shows I’ve

Simpler is better Recently, a client of mine was discussing how they manage membership reinstatements. For example, if a member doesn’t renew within the grace period, is dropped from membership, and then rejoins in less than a year from dropping, are they called a new member, a renewed member, or a reinstatement? After several minutes

Baby Steps A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. You have to walk before you run. Baby steps. Just do it. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. (My personal favorite.) My clients often lament how overwhelming it can be to think about cleaning up their data.