‘Data Management’ Archives

You Can’t Measure Success without Clear Objectives

I was speaking with two contacts at a client of mine about their multiple membership programs. One of the programs they told me about had 1,500 individual members paying $100 each (which by my math is $150,000 annually). They were asking my advice on whether the program was priced correctly. I ...

Why transactional databases don’t make good data warehouses

Very often I'm asked by my clients: "Why can't I get a report out of my database comparing year-to-year data on membership?" And the simple fact is, transactional databases do not make good data warehouses. Transactional databases, by their nature, are dealing with dynamic data. This means the ...

Either you’ll test it, or your customers will

During the implementation phase of a new association management system, one of the most critical phases is the testing phase. In this phase, the association develops testing scenarios that staff can run through the AMS, to see if processes make sense, and if we're getting the results we expect. ...

Did you expect them to just KNOW how to do it?

I was once on a tour of a plant where conveyor belts were being manufactured. I noticed that one of the machines had several people standing around it, and the machine did not seem to be working well (if at all). I asked the tour guide what was going on, and she replied "Oh, we always have problems ...

Of data, big and small

Two interesting articles on big data have come across my transom in the past few days, and I wanted to comment on them. The first article is from Inc. magazine entitled "5 Trends to Ignore in 2013" (Hat tip Elizabeth Engel). One of the five trends the author suggests small businesses ignore (and ...

Join me next week on David Nour’s IMPACT Webinar

I'll be a guest next week on David Nour's IMPACT Webinar Series, from noon to 1pm Eastern, on Tuesday, May 29. We'll be discussing data (natch), with a heavy emphasis on social ROI. Register here: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/574644768 More details on the IMPACT Webinar Series ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...