Wes’s Wednesday Wisdom

You CAN compete with the big guys… In my experience, associations often undersell their actual ability to provide high level service to their members and customers. I often hear association staff say “We can’t compete against the huge budgets of giant for-profit companies.” But I think it’s important that we keep in mind that even […]

Join (or start) your users group! Today’s message is simple: If the AMS you’re using has a users group, you should join it and be active in it. If they don’t have one, start one on your own! (Click here for tips on how to do that.) On an almost weekly basis I’m reminded of

They don’t care, until they care. One of the more common questions I get from my clients is “How can we keep contact info up to date on our members, especially when they change jobs?” My (glib) answer is always the same: “Your members don’t care about you or even think about you…until it matters

Longfellow and data management “We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing while others judge us by what we have already done.” – From the novel Kavanagh by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow And what does that have to do with data management, you ask? The first half says “we judge ourselves by what we feel capable

Do you really need all that historical data? A question I’ll often get from my clients as they’re making the transition from one AMS to another is “How much historical data do we need to convert?” My preferred answer is always “None.” The easiest data conversions are those with the least amount of data. But

AI actually requires thinking “I don’t think AI introduces a new kind of thinking. It reveals what actually requires thinking.” – Chip Huyen, author of the book AI Engineering. I have very little to add to the current expansive discussion of AI surrounding us, but this simple quote encapsulates an important point. AI won’t replace the thinking

It’s not the mistakes, but how you respond Recently a client was complaining about a bug that had been introduced in the latest release of their software. She was very upset that the bug hadn’t been caught before the release. While I understand her frustration, bugs are a reality of software. The real test here is how the

The hidden costs of bad data Nobody likes bad data, and presumably we’re all working tirelessly to minimize it. After all, bad data has a price. Some obvious “costs” of bad data include poor deliverability of email/snail mail, inability to target market/message, inability to analyze data effectively, and potential reputational embarrassment. But there are also many

Don’t let your customers edit their names online! This issue came up recently and I was surprised because I thought we were past this. The issue is this: If you allow your members and customers to view and edit their profile online, as a rule, you should never allow them to edit their first or

Once is an accident, twice is coincidence, three times is a pattern. We’ve probably all heard this phrase: “Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.” What this means is that when we see an actual pattern of behaviors or results (and not just random one-offs), there is an underlying issue to