Clients will sometimes say to me: "Can't you just tell me what the best association management system is so that I can buy it?" Frankly, that's like saying "tell me the best car to buy."

There are hundreds of software packages for membership management. There are dozens of software packages for association management (which typically involves more than just membership management). The question is: why? Why are there so many choices?

The simple answer is, there is usually more than one solution to any given problem. And in the case of managing the data for your association, there are literally dozens (if not hundreds) of technology solutions available. I personally track nearly 30 different vendors providing association management software to the association market.

And just like buying a car, you have to decide what's important to you, what features you need, and how the product will better serve you. The good news is, you have plenty of options to choose from; the bad news is, you have plenty of options to choose from.

The reality is, there isn't a single best solutions for all organizations. So you need to do your homework, identifying what your needs are, and which packages can best address those needs.

When converting to a new data management system, you are faced with many decisions regarding priorities. There is so much going on at once that you'll have to decide where you'll focus your time first and what can be held for later. (I call these issues "phase two  issues" because they can wait for phase two, which is simply defined as that which is not phase one.)

So here is a short checklist to help you determine what should be high priority vs. what can be held until phase two.

1. Does the process or data involve money, particularly money coming in (e.g., membership dues, events registration)? If yes, this is a high priority issue.
2. Does the process or data involve data that directly affects our membership and their livelihood (e.g., certification information)? If yes, this is a high priority issue.
3. If the process in not in place at go-live, can we develop a workaround that will address the need temporarily? If yes, then this is not a high priority issue.
4. Is this process a new process we've never done before? If so, and it doesn't involve money or members' livelihood (#1 and #2) then this is not a high priority issue.

Keep in mind that you can probably achieve more than you think you can in the first phase. But also be aware that if you try to do too much at once, you may wind up executing poorly on all priorities.

What else would you add to the checklist above?

When working with associations on implementation of their databases, there are points throughout the process where we will have to make a decision, whether it's about how to set up a particular part of the database, whether or not to convert or collect certain data, or deciding which processes to keep and which to change.

When making these decisions, it's important for all staff involved to acknowledge and understand that some decisions made now will turn out to be incorrect later. That is, not every decision made will be the correct one.

What we have to keep in mind is that making the correct decision every time is not what's most important (after all, it's impossible to make the correct decision every time). What's important is how we react and adjust to decisions we made some time ago that ultimately turn out to be the wrong decision.

There is a tendency to become paralyzed when faced with making a decision. My suggestion is that you make a decision and move forward, watching how the decision affects what we need to do, and making adjustments as needed. This is true of databases, new products, and decisions in our personal lives.

Not every decision will be the correct decision, but how you react and adjust to an incorrect decision will be the difference between success and failure.

The Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) has released a survey of how businesses are using social media. The contents of the survey can be found here.

The survey looks to be based on 134 responses of business to business (B2B) companies. Some interesting highlights:

1. The percentage of companies already offering social networking technologies is 42%. The percentage planning to in the near future is an additional 36%. So some time in "the near future" nearly 80% of these companies will be offering some form of social networking.
2. The primary benefit to these companies, from their perspective, is to reach new audiences and increase user engagement. Based on their own experiences, about 40% of the respondents believe they are reaching new audiences, while another 40% expect to. Thirty-three percent are increasing engagement while another 52% expect to.
3. Just over a third of those surveyed (34%) have user generated content, but another 24% expect to have it soon.
4. Over half (54%) have blogs. Interestingly, only 35% think blogging has had a positive effect. The other 65% felt it had a "mixed" effect. But none felt it was a pure negative.

The results of the survey are also worth reading for the open-ended comments that are provided.

I'd be interested to know how this compares to the association market. My gut says the numbers across the board would be much lower, but I'm unaware of any recent association industry surveys about social media. Perhaps my buddy Ben Martin can help us out here.

My two take-aways from the survey:

1. Clearly, social media is important to the vast majority of these companies. It's not going away.
2. Blogging is a net positive. Even if most of the respondents felt it had a mixed effect, I've got to believe there are more positives than negatives, especially since not a single company responded that blogging was purely negative.

FAQs are "frequently asked questions." My question for you is: Do you have FAQs on your website for your members and customers? And do you have FAQs available internally for your staff (on an intranet or even just a network-accessible file)?

A recent article in Customer Relationship Management magazine (sorry, it's not online yet) explained how Carfax has used RightNow Technologies to develop an ever-expanding list of FAQs which customers can search online. The kicker: within two weeks of deploying the new technology, Carfax saw a decrease in calls to their customer service department of 50%! The number of calls was cut in half because now customers could find the answers they needed on the Carfax website.

This is important for two reasons:

1. Carfax is able to cut their call center expenses, since the number of calls has decreases so sharply.
2. Customers are able to get the answers they need immediately and in a manner they want to get them.

I think the second point is actually more important than the first. Sure, cutting costs is important. But improving the experience for the customer is even more important, because happy customers will return.

So what kind of FAQs do you offer on your website for your customers and members? And how often are you updating them?

I was having some crackers and cheese spread (Wispride Port Wine) the other day, and noticed something on the side of the cheese spread container: serving suggestions. That's right, suggestions on how to use my cheese spread.

Now why do you suppose the manufacturer would waste space on suggestions for servings? I mean, c'mon, it's cheese spread, I think I know how to use it.

The reason, of course, is to get you to increase your consumption of the cheese spread. The more ways you can use it, the more often you'll use it, the more you'll need to buy.

The same can be said for our databases. Why don't we offer our users more "serving suggestions" to encourage them to use the database more? After all, chances are good they're only using the database in the one or two ways they know how, and haven't really thought about other applications for the system.

So what are some "suggested servings" for your database? Here are three:

1. Use the database for all of your contacts, not just your customers or members. Working with a print or hotel vendor? Put 'em in the database.
2. Track all of your ad hoc lists in the database. Does your organization send out holiday cards every year? Most of the people on that list are probably in your database, so why not track the list there? Then you can see who received a card, from year to year.
3. Use the database to track all significant conversations. Did you talk to a member or customer today about something important? Make a note of it in the database. The more entries of that kind, the better informed all staff will be.

What would you put on your database "serving suggestions"?

If you do training, whether one-on-one, or in a classroom setting, here's a tip that will increase the learning retention of your students. When you are walking them through a new process (e.g., selling a product in the database) follow these three steps:

1. Demonstrate the entire process without interruption, simply stating each step as you do it.
2. Demonstrate the same example again, explaining each step as you go.
3. Demonstrate the entire process again, answering questions as needed.

So you actually demonstrate the process three times (at least). What I see in training too often is the process is demonstrated once, with questions and interruptions. So the user never gets a sense of what it "feels like" when the process is done without interruption.

Walking through an exmample three times may increase the time needed for training (and may require more prep on your part) but will vastly increase the users' retention, which is, after all, our goal.

"CRM Continues to Disappoint" says the headline of this article on SearchCRM.com. In a nutshell, the companies that were surveyed are still not pleased with their CRM implementations, for a variety of reasons. But the reason why these implementations are disappointing is not stated until the very last paragraph:

The survey's dismal results usually reflect poorly conceived strategies that lack a focus on improving a specific set of business capabilities to increase revenues or reduce costs, according to Forrester.

In other words, the companies implementing these CRM initiative never really set clear objectives for the project itself. They've never answered the questions "Why are we doing this?" or "What do we hope to accomplish with this project?"

When I work with my clients on selecting new data management systems, I try to identify four or five core objectives for the selection of a new system. We answer the question "What will the new system do for us that the existing systems don't?" And that way we can measure if we've been successful with the implementation.

Remember: if you don't have measurable objectives, how will you know when you've achieved them? Or as the old saying goes: if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there.