Would you trust a mechanic with decades-old tools?

If you have a car that was manufactured in the past ten years and you've taken it into the shop, you've probably noticed something interesting: One of the first things your mechanic does is plug your car into a handheld computer, to run diagnostic tests. Today's cars have so many computers on them ...

Two New AMS Vendors Added to the List

I recently viewed demos from two new AMS vendors (well, new to me), which I've added to my list of software vendors providing membership management software. The first addition is MemberNation from Fonteva, which has built an AMS on top of the salesforce (force.com) platform. This marks (at ...

Kudos to ASAE

I've served as a volunteer for ASAE for many, many years. (My first volunteer effort was writing an article for their print(!) membership section newsletter back in 1994.) Over the years I've written many articles, spoken dozens if not hundreds of times, and served on three separate committees, ...

How Training Should be Done

I've written many times about the importance of training. (I've even done a teleseminar on it!) And far too often, training from AMS vendors ranges from mediocre to really bad. So I was pleased to have the opportunity to sit through some very good AMS training from Aptify this week, while working ...

See the man! – Speaking at NESAE

I'll be speaking at the upcoming New England Society of Association Executives' Technology Conference on Friday, March 30, 2012, in Waltham, MA. I'm presenting the opening general session entitled "Managing your Data and Finding the Gold" and a second session entitled "Selecting a New Association ...

Beware over-engineering

One of the greatest dangers of having access to the latest and greatest technology is over-engineering. That is, searching for ways to automate processes that really don't need to be automated. I was reminded of this last week by an email from a friend, which he has given me permission to quote ...

New Article Posted – Do They Know What You Offer?

I’ve posted a new article on my website. I recently received an email from a past client (and current colleague!) of mine, asking me if I could help her and her organization with some data management issues they are having. She outlined her needs and ended the email by asking, "Are these even ...

When training, provide context

One of the most important things you can do when training new users in a database is to provide context. That is, prior to actually training someone on how to do something, take just a minute or two to explain WHAT you're going to be doing, and WHY we're using the database to do this. Too often ...

It requires discipline to succeed

I was sitting in a  meeting recently for an organization I do volunteer work with. The organization was explaining that they are tracking "face-to-face" engagement by tracking in-person meeting registrations. When I asked if they were also tracking face-tof-ace meetings like the one I was sitting ...

Interview with Bill Stover of YourMembership.com

This is the fifth in my 2012 series of podcast interviews that I’ve been conducting with CEOs from providers of association management software. Today’s interview is with Bill Stover, President and CEO of YourMembership.com. In this interview we discuss yourmembership.com's AMS offering and ...