There was a thread on the ASAE technology listserver a few weeks back about whether an association should choose an AMS based on .net or PHP or something else. There was some interesting responses, but one of the best was from Bob Nedbal, Director of IT and Web Services, at the American Educational Research Association. […]
On Wednesday of this week I spoke at ASAE's Marketing & Membership Conference. Another sold-out show for the MMC, which has become a premier event for membership and marketing folks. My presentation, along with Mary Pat Paris of IRP, was on managing the email opt-out process. One of the points that struck me as particularly
As I mention in this post, having an issue tracker is a key tool for managing all the different issues that arise during the implementation and live usage of an association management system. But for some reason, until just recently, most of the AMS providers did not provide any kind of online system for submitting
I was meeting with a potential client recently, discussing their need for a new association management system. During the conversation we talked about the services I would provide and the responsibilities they would have. One thing I emphasized to them was the importance of having an internal project manager. Frequently associations (especially smaller ones) want
While attending a users group meeting yesterday, I asked how many people in the room were using the baseline reports provided by the vendor. (Mind you, this is a system with literally hundreds of baseline reports.) Out of 40 attendees, three raised their hands. Fewer than 10% of the vendor's customers were using the baseline
When implementing a new AMS (association management system), we typically see all value of the functionality it brings: Things like the ability to process online orders, or being able to capture key data in one system. But one of the greatest values of implementing a new association management software system is often overlooked: re-engineering business
I spoke at a users group meeting a few weeks ago, and asked if anyone in the audience had a users guide or documented business processes for their AMS systems. In a room of about 50, I saw exactly two hands go up. Two! Frankly, I don't know how an organization can successfully use an
I was reading this article about the introduction of IBM's Thinkpad laptop and was struck by these two thoughts: At the time, black PCs were not allowed in Europe because it was believed that anything other than off-white put too much strain on the eyes. So IBM put a sticker on the laptop that read
I spent the day at the Users Group meeting for JL Systems last week. JL is introducing a new product, called “New NOAH” (as far as I can tell). The system is fully browser-based (which is a change from their Access-based legacy system) and is based on the DotNetNuke development framework. This is significant because
I was recently called by a potential client who was looking to move from their existing software to another AMS package. As I talked with them, I learned that they're using what I consider to be a really good AMS package, but they are not happy with it. They find it too cumbersome, not flexible