I was speaking at an association meeting recently and one of the points I raised was that associations should practice what I call database PR or database public relations. In a nutshell, database PR is about proactively and regularly telling our users all the good work that is occurring in the database. (Here's more on database PR.)

We need to do this because when it comes to data management we tend to focus only on the things that aren't working. And so it often feels like there are only bad things happening in the database.

An attendee at the session offered a great example: As she explained it, for years staff has had to run four separate reports from their AMS in order to compile that data into one larger report. The association had recently worked with their AMS vendor to create a new report that would combine all four reports into a single report. As she put it: "At a relatively low cost, we now have the report at the touch of a button, which has saved many hours of work for staff."

This is a great example of a "win" that should be shared far and wide with staff users of the system.

If we only focus on the negative, we'll only think negative things of the database. Take every opportunity you can to brag about the things that are working well!