Search Results for “trade off” – Page 3 – Effective Database Management

Use your data to communicate with first-year members differently

Leave a Comment / Data Management, Marketing / Wes Trochlil

Long ago, I was a membership director in a couple of different trade associations. And as any membership professional knows, the most difficult members to retain are first-year members, those who have joined in just the past year. The reasons should be obvious. Unless you have several programs designed especially for first-year members, most first-year members […]

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The inherent conflict between staff needs and customer needs

Leave a Comment / Association Management Systems, Data Management, Executive, IT / Wes Trochlil

One of the greatest benefits of the internet revolution is that data management has been moved from staff to customer. For example, back when I started my first membership director position (20 years ago now), nothing was being processed via the association’s website. This meant that ALL membership joins and renewals had to be processed by

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ALL resources are limited

Leave a Comment / Data Management, Executive / Wes Trochlil

I’ve written in the past (here, here, and here) that it’s important to understand that all decisions require a trade-off. A corollary to that is that all resources are limited. Whether we’re talking about time, money, or people, any resource that is required to complete a project is, by definition, limited. And once you know

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Privacy Policy

Wes Trochlil

www.effectivedatabase.com Privacy Policy This privacy policy has been compiled to better serve those who are concerned with how their ‘Personally identifiable information’ (PII) is being used online. PII, as used in US privacy law and information security, is information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate

How diverse is your product palette?

Leave a Comment / Executive, Marketing / Wes Trochlil

Over two decades ago, I worked for a small trade association whose primary product was a very large trade show put on every two years. The association itself had been around for over 100 years, and the trade show was in the top 50 in the US in terms of square footage. And yet, ten

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Titles vs. Roles

1 Comment / Data Management / Wes Trochlil

All of my trade and professional association clients track titles. Your title is what you put on your business card. But titles vary broadly. For example, the senior staffer at an organization might be President, CEO, Chief Executive, Chairman, Executive Director, or even Principal. So if I want to pull a list of all these

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CiviCRM a Year Later

3 Comments / Association Management Systems, Data Management / Wes Trochlil

Just over a year ago I posted this item on how the Evangelical Press Association is using CiviCRM as its association management software system. To my knowledge, CiviCRM is the only open source product on the market that directly addresses…

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Have you ever actually MET your members?

Leave a Comment / Rants and Kudos / Wes Trochlil

I was recently reading about a speech that Emily Yellin, author of Your Call is (Not That) Important to Us, where she recounts meeting a customer service representative (CSR) who had worked as a CSR for two and a half years but had never met a customer. She was, naturally, appalled by this, and suggested

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Less work now means more work later

Leave a Comment / Data Management / Wes Trochlil

Very often I learn my clients are managing data in a way that is “easier” for now, but winds up creating much more work later. Some immediate examples: Using a third party registration company to manage meeting registration (less work) and importing the attendance data back into the primary database (more work). Managing lists of

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About This Blog

Leave a Comment / About This Blog / Wes Trochlil

This weblog is focused on the association management system (AMS) software market. The objective of this blog is to provide a forum for discussing issues that affect the AMS market and the associations that use off-the-shelf AMS software packages. Wes worked for nearly ten years in associations as director of membership, marketing, customer service, and

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