Because most of us don't have the benefit (like I do) of seeing how other associations are managing their data, we tend to think our situation is much worse than it really is. So I like to collect stories of organizations that really ARE in bad shape. Here's the latest example:

A Wall Street Journal article entitled "What Can’t the Internet Handle in 2022? Apostrophes" discusses how certain data management systems are unable to manage certain characters (e.g., umlauts in names).

One of the examples is Aer Lingus. From the article: "Aer Lingus’s booking system, called Astral, is nearly 60 years old and doesn’t cater to special characters." SIXTY YEARS OLD!

And what special character can't it handle? Apostrophes. This in a country where many surnames have apostrophes!

So when you really start feeling down about how bad your systems are, remember, it could always be worse! Your system could be 60 years old and not accept apostrophes!