November, 2011 Archives

New Article Posted – Four Reasons to Establish an Internal Users Group

I’ve posted a new article on my website. A few years ago one of my most successful clients told me that with all the advice I had given her for improving the management of her AMS, the single best piece of advice was to have her organization create an internal users group. My advice was ...

AMS Vendors Providing Educational Opportunities

I've noticed an uptick, lately, in the amount of free education being provided by AMS vendors. This is a promising development, as any real and useful information (i.e., not advertising) is welcome. Here are just some examples of vendors providing online education, very often for free. These are ...

Interview of Wes Trochlil by TMA Resources

TMA Resources has begun a new series of weekly educational videos on their website called "Association Tech News." In this week's installment, there is a brief interview segment with me. Association Tech News can be found here. The complete interview with me can be found ...

A great example of managing to the rule

I've written often about "managing to the exception," the idea that all of our business rules have to apply to every case (i.e., the exceptional cases), instead of just the most common types of cases. One of my favorite examples of managing to the rule rather than the exception is the Dulles ...

Effective Change Requires Leadership

Effective change requires leadership. Leadership from the top. Compare these two situations (true stories, clients of mine from the past): Association 1 has never had a centralized data management system. However, the CEO as well as key senior leadership understand the need for a centralized ...

Short-Term Gain May Cause Long-Term Pain

When it comes to managing our organization's data, we too often allow our staff some short-term gains which create long-term pain. Let me provide some examples (all of these are actual cases of clients of mine): Managing the list of board members in Outlook because that's easier than managing ...

Are you doing the work, or just talking about it?

I've worked with well over 100 associations in my years as a consultant. In my experience, those of my clients that are most successful are those that don't just talk about doing things, but actually do things. I know this may sound obvious, but stick with me a minute. When I work with my ...