Learning to drive

Learning new things is sometimes fun, and sometimes challenging. Often it’s both.

Do you remember learning to drive a car?

I'm now in the midst of teaching my child to drive — on a stick-shift.

It's been a long time since I was in her shoes, but I'm remembering now just how much of a mystery it was at first.

Steering, gas, clutch, shifter, and brake all have to be manipulated simultaneously for even the most basic driving.

And they're totally independent controls! You can twist and push each of them however you want. But if you don't do it exactly right, you can end up in a ditch or just go nowhere at all.

And that's not nearly enough to be safe and effective on the road.

Headlights, high beams, turn signals, mirrors, reverse gear, dashboard gauges, night driving, jerks on the road, gravel, rain, emergency vehicles ... it just seems endless.

Here's the thing:

CiviCRM (or any complex and powerful system) is a lot like that:

Dozens of completely independent settings, features, and configurations, which work together in ways that aren't immediately obvious.

A seemingly endless array of things to learn, options to implement, real-world conditions to navigate.

You can think of it as a burden if you want.

But my 15-year-old somehow doesn't think that way. She's just excited about the possibilities of being in control.

I hope you are too.

All the best,
A.

The roller coaster

Riding a roller coaster is super easy: sit down, strap in, hang on.

It's also pretty exciting. The first time. And maybe even the 10th time.

But the reason it’s super easy is because it's also super predictable.

There are zero variables for you to consider.

You’ll always start and stop in the same place.

You’ll never have control of the speed, or the acceleration, or the number of loops, or the height of the drops.

Driving a car is just about the polar opposite:

You have a thousand variables to consider. And you are in control of navigating all of them.

Which can also be pretty exciting. And not just the first time either.

Here's the thing:

If you're using CiviCRM (or any other complex and powerful tools), remember that it's a lot more like driving a car than riding a roller coaster.

It's probably not super easy all the time. But your destination, and your course to get there, are totally in your hands.

All the best,
A.

5 ways to increase efficiency

1. Invest in training for your staff.

2. Pick a frequent and tedious manual task, and automate it.

3. Pick a common report, procedure, or policy question, and standardize it.

4. Got a simple task to assign? Assign it to lower-paid workers, and save the expensive specialists for the really hard problems.

5. Pick a high-value problem (or opportunity) to focus on, before getting "lost in the weeds" over little things.

All the best,
A.

Imperfect estimates

A little more on estimating the value of automation:

No estimation is perfect, by definition.

• You'll have some uncertainty about some of the numbers.

• Human experiences such as stress and low morale are harder to quantify.

Regardless of these limitations, your estimate is still very useful, if you make it with reasonable care.

For example, say your estimate comes out to $100K. It's possible that someone else in your organization might estimate it at $90K or $110K.

But is it likely they'd come up with an estimate of just $10K, or of $1 million?

An estimate of "$10K to $1 million" is too broad to be very useful — the top end is 100 times the lower end.

But an estimate of "$90K to $110K" doesn't have that problem. Yes, there's some uncertainty in the range, but that top number is only about 1.2 times the lower number.

Here's the thing:

Every estimate, like every measurement, carries some imprecision.

If I tell you I'm 5 feet 10 inches tall, the actual truth may be that I'm 5 feet 10 and one-eighth inches tall, or 5 feet 9 and fifteen-sixteenths inches tall. And even those numbers might not be precise enough to reflect my actual height down to the 1000th of an inch.

But we don't let that stop us from taking such measurements, and then using them to describe the world around us.

It's the same for your estimates. There will always be uncertainty and imprecision.

Don't let that stop you from making careful estimates, and then using them wisely to apply your resources toward your goals.

All the best,
A.

The value of automation

Say you're looking at options to automate a tedious manual task.

How can you know whether the value of that automation is worth the cost of building it?

First you have to know (or at least estimate) it's value.

You can get a fairly simple estimation just by asking yourself a few questions:

1. What exactly is the task you want to automate?

2. How long does it take to perform this task once?

3. How many times (in a week, month, or year) does this task need to be done?

4. What would you be paying an employee, intern, or contractor to perform that task manually?

For a little more nuance, you could also ask:

1. How often are human errors made in this manual process?

2. What is the cost (translated somehow into dollars and cents) of such mistakes?

If you can answer those questions, a little multiplication and addition will tell you how much of your organization's limited budget could be saved by automating this task.

That's a pretty good measure of the value.

Naturally, estimates aren't perfect, by definition.

But assuming it's done with reasonable care, it's a useful measure of what you can hope to achieve.

And that, all by itself, can give you some clues about whether it's worth pursuing.

All the best,
Allen

Efficiency?

What would it mean for your organization if your department were twice as efficient as it is now?

We all love to talk about increasing efficiency, but what does that actually look like?

If you were twice as efficient, would you:

• Achieve the same output and lay off half your staff?

• Shift half of your staff to part-time work?

• Double your output with your present staff?

Those are all probably pretty hard to imagine.

But in the real world you might actually aspire to:

• Finally work through that back-log in your service case load.

• Have more time to respond to member inquiries.

• Reduce stress and increase morale among your staff.

• Spend more time on creative and forward-looking processes, and less time putting out fires.

• Reduce the number of mistakes that affect your constituents, donors, and members.

Here's the thing:

Efficiency can be just an abstract business concept, if you let it.

But where it really matters is in improving the lives of the people you care about — including yourself, your staff, and your constituents.

Sure, increased efficiency can result in increases in profitability or mission impact.

It can also just make the work — and its results — a whole lot more enjoyable for everyone.

All the best,
A.

Visual design: “Ongoing maintenance” for CiviCRM

This one is similar to yesterday's discussion of feature improvements, but different enough that I think it's worth mentioning.

What it is:

At some point you may decide that you’d like some part of CiviCRM to look “better.”

Usually, this comes up when your public-facing forms don't fit “exactly right” with your website’s visual theme. But I've also had clients who want specific layout or styling changes in CiviCRM’s back-office area too.

Who can do it:

Whether it's the front-end forms or the back-end layouts, your probably going to need outside help with this.

There's the design work itself - that, defining what the desired design should look like - and there's the implementation of it - that is, actually making the online content look as it should.

Just a with feature improvements, these are both very technical skills that you probably don't have in-house.

The difference is this:

Whereas feature improvements will usually require an experienced CiviCRM extension developer, the visual design improvements can often be handled by your existing WordPress or Drupal specialist. If you have a good relationship with such a provider, it's definitely worth asking them about it.

And, if you also have an advisory relationship with a CiviCRM specialist, they may also be willing to consult with you CMS designer to answer any technical questions they might have.

In summary:

• The designing and the implemention will require specialized skills and tools. This is a good candidate for outsourcing.

• Your CMS (WordPress or Drupal) specialist can probably handle this, though they may benefit with some advice from your CiviCRM specialist.

All the best,
A.

Feature improvements: “Ongoing maintenance” for CiviCRM

Sure, CiviCRM is awesome and does more out of the box than you could possibly imagine …

… until you’ve used it for a while, and you start to imagine even more awesome things that it can’t quite do yet.

Fortunately, CiviCRM is very extensible, as evidenced by the 100s of extensions in the CiviCRM Extension Directory.

And if one of those extensions won’t do the trick for you, you could create a new one — or have one created for you.

(That is, you can do it after you’ve carefully considered your goals and resources and still believe you’ve got a sound business case for proceeding.)

This is what we mean by feature improvement.

What it is:

We’re talking about the modification of CiviCRM’s features — or creating entirely new features — through custom development. This usually means creating a CiviCRM extension, but it might also rely on some other means, depending on the need.

The possibilities are basically endless, but some custom development will be required for anything that’s not currently possible with point-and-click configuration.

Who can do it:

Again, let’s look at this question using the in-house/outsource criteria from earlier in this series. I’d rate this item like so:

Each rating is 1-5; so each Total can range from 4 to 20, with a mid-point of 12.

	Technical	Generic	Explainable	Inscrutable	Total
Feature improvement	5	2	2	5	14

On each criteria:

• Technical: Very.
  Creating a CiviCRM extension (or otherwise writing programming code to alter CiviCRM’s behavior) requires a highly technical set of skills, knowledge, and tools. Unless your in-house team is already very experienced in programming languages like PHP and JavaScript, it’s unlikely you’ll have this technical proficiency in-house.

• Generic: Somewhat.
  This will depend on the need, but it’s likely that what you need is unique to your organization, though a seasoned CiviCRM developer will probably try to find some way it can be generalized for use by other organizations. (That’s good for you, by the way, since it increases the interest of others in making further improvements to your new CiviCRM extension — from which you’ll benefit down the road.)

• Explainable: Somewhat.
  Again, this depends on the need. The less generic it is, the more time and effort you’ll need to invest in explaining to whomever is doing this custom development.

• Inscrutable: Very.
  Although you’ll definitely care that the new feature works correctly in all aspects, you’re very unlikely to care how it works under the hood. You’re not very likely to inspect the programming code or ask why the developer prefers one code editor over another.

All of this means that it’s a very strong candidate for outsourcing.

You’ll still need to explain it to your selected specialist in the beginning, and they’ll need to show you how it works in the end. But in between, you can focus on other matters, while your specialist builds this feature for you.

Of course you could do it in-house, but unless you’re going into the business of custom feature development for CiviCRM, you’ll be facing a steep learning curve in exchange for mastery of a skill that you’ll rarely use.

The juice ain’t worth the squeeze, as my uncle used to say.

In summary:

• Yes, you can improve CiviCRM’s features to do just about anything you can imagine (though I’d want you to be sure there’s a sound business case for it).

• You’ll almost certainly want to outsource this — it requires a very technical set of skills, knowledge and tools, and anyway there’s not much value in doing it yourself.

This brings us near the end of our discussion. Tomorrow: what about custom visual design?

All the best,
A.

Configurations: “Ongoing maintenance” for CiviCRM

Effective use of CiviCRM will involve a frequent need to make configuration changes. Your CRM is all but useless without it.

For example, you’ll need to:

• Create new users, and manage user permissions.

• Create and manage contribution pages, events, membership types, custom fields, and similar data structures in CiviCRM.

• Manage navigation menus and other content-related configurations in the CMS (usually Drupal or WordPress).

What it is:

This is the point-and-click configuration by which you’ll set up CiviCRM and the CMS to behave as you need it to.

This configuration will serve as a durable structure within which your users can perform the tasks they need to do.

For example, by properly creating and configuring an event in CiviCRM, you’ll create the forms and fields which your constituents can use to register online for that event.

What it’s not:

Don’t confuse this with data entry — we’re not talking about the task of creating or editing contacts or updating membership records.

That’s fairly low-skill work that’s usually performed as a day-to-day clerical staff task.

We’re just talking about the work of a site administrator in configuring the site’s features so that other users (staff and consitutuents) can use those features in a structured way.

Who can do it:

We could look at this question using the in-house/outsource criteria from yesterday’s email. I’d rate this item like so:

Each rating is 1-5; so each Total can range from 4 to 20, with a mid-point of 12.

	Technical	Generic	Explainable	Inscrutable	Total
System configuration	1	1	3	1	6

And specifically on each criteria:

• Technical: Not at all.
  This is point-and-click configuration; you may need to learn more about how your CRM actually works, and it may sometimes seem tedious, but this doesn’t require special knowledge or tools.

• Generic: Not at all.
  The configuration of your site is virtually 100% unique to your organization; there’s nothing generic about it.

• Explainable: Somewhat.
  Depending on the complexity of what you need, it could take quite a while to explain the need to an outsider.

• Inscrutable: Not at all.
  Even after this configuration is done, you need to know how it has been done. It’s not enough that “it works for now” — because you will need to modify it later. So you definitely need to understand how it works.

All of this means that it’s a very poor candidate for outsourcing.

By the time you explain what you need to an outsider, and by the time they explain to you how they’ve configured it, someone on your team could have done it faster, cheaper, and probably more to your liking.

Getting help:

Sometimes you’ll hit a need that requires some fairly complex configuration. So you might want some help.

Pulling in an outside expert — to create a sound strategy for the best configuration, and to work through those configuration tasks with you — can be a great way to get yourself to the point of mastering these configurations.

If you’re not confident in how to configure your own CRM system, and you’re not satisfied with your progress through consulting the CiviCRM online documentation, I’d strongly encourage you to seek out coaching and training so you can start moving forward in a decisive way.

In summary:

• There’s no getting away from configuration management — without it, your CRM is virtually useless to you.

• It’s not a great candidate for outsourcing; the most valuable approach here is to have someone on your team spend the time to become confident in this kind of work.

• Help is available, whether it’s just by consulting the online CiviCRM documentation, or by pulling in an expert for coaching or training.

Up next, we’ll discuss feature improvements: What are your options when it’s time to make CiviCRM do something that’s really not possible through point-and-click configuration?

Tune in tomorrow.

All the best,
Allen

“Outsource” vs. “in-house”: a framework

So far we’ve discussed a few separate components of ongoing maintenance for CiviCRM:

Hosting and infrastructure; Security updates; and Non-security updates.

One reasons we’re even examining these topics is to help uncover the best way to get each of them addressed — should you outsource it to a specialist, or to a generalist, or assign it to one of your in-house team, or even do it yourself?

And you might have noticed a pattern here, which I’ll point out just in case you didn’t:

There are a few criteria by which you can evaluate any task to decide if it’s a good candidate for outsourcing:

• Technical: Is it highly technical — whatever that might mean to you? For example, does it require writing custom code or using special tools other than the CRM or CMS browser interface.

• Generic: Is it the kind of thing that’s done essentially the same for all CiviCRM sites?

• Explainable: Is it easily explained to someone outside your organization?

• Inscrutable: After it’s done, is it unlikely you’ll care about how its done?

The more you answer “Yes” to those questions, the more you should probably consider outsourcing it.

Consider the topics we’ve touched on so far. We can rate them on a 1-5 scale for each criteria, and count up the total rating:

Each rating is 1-5; so each Total can range from 4 to 20, with a mid-point of 12.

	Technical	Generic	Explainable	Inscrutable	Total
Hosting and infrastructure	5	5	5	5	20
Security updates	1	5	5	5	17
Non-security updates	1	1	5	5	12

You can see that our Total column is a pretty good indicator of whether I’m likely to recommend outsourcing or keeping it in-house:

The higher the Total value, the more likely it’s a candidate for outsourcing.

Homework:

So what about tomorrow’s topic: system configuration work?

This includes things like creating and managing users and permissions; configuring events, memberships, and contribution pages in CiviCRM; and other point-and-click configuration you can do in the browser.

How would you score that kind of work on the 4 criteria above?

We’ll dig on it a little more tomorrow.

All the best,
A.

Non-security updates: “Ongoing maintenance” for CiviCRM

Yesterday we talked about keeping up with security updates for your CiviCRM site.

But you'll also need to think about non-security updates.

What it is:

Your CiviCRM site depends on a number of components working together in harmony: the CMS (usually Drupal or WordPress) with its plugins or modules, and CiviCRM with its extensions.

These are all separate software packages, provided by a variety of development teams. And each of them will periodically release new versions that provide bug fixes or feature improvements.

Sometimes you’ll want those, and sometimes you won’t.

But either way, somebody will have to be in charge of applying them, and of deciding whether and when to do so.

Who can do it:

As with security updates, you can probably do this in-house.

And I generally recommend that you do. Here's why:

Any upgrade has the potential to create surprises — features that work differently, or even changes that break some behavior specific to your site — and because these non-security updates are discretionary, it's important for you as a site owner to make an informed decision about any such update.

And, because those decisions are unique to your organization and your site configuration, you're not very likely to find an external service provider who will "just do it" for you without your ongoing input.

It's a lot like the job of maintaining your own house: fixing a loose doorknob is something you could call in a specialist for; but once you know how to do it, it's faster and easier to fix it yourself.

And regardless of who actually fixes the doorknob, it must be you, as the owner, who decides on getting it done.

Getting help:

Fortunately, you’re not entirely on your own here.

You can get some very good training and/or coaching to help you make these decisions. You might need a lot of guidance in the beginning, but you will soon become familiar with the process and be in a position to make good solid decisions without outside help.

In summary:

• The owner of any CiviCRM site has to be closely involved in deciding on non-security updates.

• This kind of thing needs your attention at least every couple of months.

• Once you get the hang of it, it’s typically quicker and easier to handle this in-house than to hand it off to a specialist.

• Coaching and training can help you to get familiar with this part of maintaining your site.

Tune in tomorrow for a brief look at ongoing configuration management and why it’s usually best to handle this in-house.

All the best,
A.

"Ongoing maintenance" for CiviCRM: Website security updates

Yesterday we talked about hosting and infrastructure for your CiviCRM site.

Today let's look at something that's not quite so generic: Website security updates.

What it is:

Your CiviCRM system is going to run inside of a content management system (CMS) like Drupal or WordPress. And both CiviCRM and the CMS must be kept up to date with the latest security improvements.

Security is an arms race, and while the bad guys continue to look for new ways to compromise any popular software, the developers at CiviCRM and your chosen CMS are continually releasing updates to address those potential vulnerabilities.

These updates typically come out on an as-needed basis, several times per year, and somebody needs to apply those updates to your site.

Why you need it:

New security vulnerabilities are discovered on a surprisingly frequent basis.

Applying security updates is the easiest step you can take to deal with this.

If you're not doing it, you are needlessly leaving yourself open to attack, and potentially the misuse of all of your contacts’ personal information.

Who can do it:

This is less technical than the hosting component, and there's a good chance someone on your staff can handle this.

They may need some advisement or training, and they may have questions from time to time. But it's mostly a matter of paying attention, and clicking a few buttons in the admin interface, or unzipping a few files on your hosting server.

On the other hand, because it has so little to do with your internal rules and policies, and is a fairly generic task, it’s something you could outsource pretty easily.

Some hosting providers include this service as a feature of their hosting packages. Joinery does that, and we also offer a separate subscription service to cover these security updates even if you’re not hosting with us.

In summary:

• It's not so techincal, so you're probably able to handle this in-house; or you can outsource it as a matter of convenience.

• This not something to be neglected. In-house or outsourced, somebody needs to be on top of this.

Tomorrow we’ll look at a related but separate topic: non-security updates. They’re optional and more specific to your own site’s needs, so are worth considering in a different light.

All the best,
A.

"Ongoing maintenance" for CiviCRM: hosting and infrastructure

The foundational element of maintaining a CiviCRM installation is hosting and infrastructure.

If you’re thinking about getting started with CiviCRM, you'll definitely need to give this some consideration.

But even if you're already running CiviCRM, and you're looking for help to keep it running smoothly, it can help a lot to know what's actually required at this foundational level.

(Quick note: There are several fully-hosted CiviCRM offerings which, while fairly limited in what they can do, will allow you to sidestep this topic entirely. See my recent email, “No money, no time? CiviCRM Spark”)

What it is:

CiviCRM is an online system that has to be hosted somewhere. It lives on a server somewhere, and you usually don’t care too much about where, as long as it’s secure and reliably connected to the internet.

That hosting server has to be maintained: it has to stay online; regular backups must be taken; server-level security must be kept up; and any service outages must be dealt with.

What it isn't:

What we're describing here is only what's needed to keep your hosting server up and running.

Hosting services don't typically include security updates for CiviCRM, and they often don't include high volume outbound email, as for your newsletters or other email appeals.

This topic also doesn't include the other things I'll be talking about in this series, like configuration and user management and graphic design and content management. It's worth considering those things, but they’re separate from hosting and infrastructure.

Who can do it:

This is fairly geeky technical work, and it's unlikely you will want to manage this in-house, though I have some clients who do.

Because this is both fairly technical and rarely specific to CiviCRM, you probably going to get more bang for your buck by paying the relatively small amount to have an outside provider ensure that it's all done right.

Fortunately, such services are quite easy to find. Almost any hosting service that can host a Drupal or WordPress site will do fine with this.

Joinery offers such a service, as do several other CiviCRM partners. If needed, we can even offer customized hosting solutions in case your site has special needs such as very high visitor traffic.

If you're tight on funding and just need something basic, you can also check out CiviHosting. Their shared hosting packages are very reasonably priced and have a good reputation in the community. (That’s not a referral link, either; I’m just happy to recommend them.)

In summary:

• It's fairly technical and generic, so you're probably better off outsourcing this.

• it only includes the task of maintaining the internet server where your site lives. Anything else related to making your site do exactly what you want is generally not covered here.

Tune in tomorrow for a similar discussion on keeping up with security updates for CiviCRM and the rest of your website.

All the best,
A.

“Ongoing maintenance” for CiviCRM

What does it take to keep a CiviCRM system running well and continually meeting your needs?

We generally call this "ongoing maintenance," but that term needs to be defined, because it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

And that difference in understanding can create some problems. For example:

• If you sign up for a “managed hosting” service, what does that really include?

• If you’re just trying to set aside a reasonable budget of money and time to keep your CRM running properly, what areas should you be considering?

• Is it possible — or desirable — to outsource all of these things to an external service provider? Can you — and should you — increase efficiency by handling some of it in-house? Is that even an option?

Over the next few days, we’ll be looking into different aspects of this topic to help tease apart each one. What it is, why it’s important, and who you can look to for making it happen.

Some areas we’ll be looking at:

• Hosting and infrastructure

• Security updates

• Non-security updates

• System configuration

• Feature improvements

• Custom visual design

We’ll talk about which of these you can (or even should) expect to handle in-house, and which are good candidates for outsourcing, and even some steps you can take to make sure you’re not assigning tasks to folks that are over- or under-qualified for the work.

Tune in tomorrow for a brief discussion of that first item: hosting and infrastucture.

All the best,
Allen

“Could you do this for me?”

When you need something done, and you’re not sure how to do it, it’s smart to ask for help.

But what kind of help will actually be the most valuable?

For example, here’s a real conversation (paraphrased) with one of my clients last week:

Client: Hey Allen, we’ve hired a new staff member who needs to start using CiviCRM. Can you create a user account and get them set up?

Allen: I could, but how about I show you how to do that, so you don’t have to wait on me (and pay me) every time you need something similar?

Client: Oh, can we do that? Yes, that would be great!

Maybe you think “creating a new user” is a silly example, because to you that’s a simple task.

But that’s a relative matter. For this client, it was a mystery — until it wasn’t. We all have something new to learn next.

Once you’ve learned it, you no longer have to pay someone to do it for you, which is nice.

But what’s even better: you never have to wait for someone to do it for you. When you know (or someone on your team knows) how to do it, it’s often faster to do it yourself than to describe the need to someone else.

Having someone do it for you sounds appealing at first.

But learning how to do it is often the better option.

All the best,
A.

Bang for buck

If you're at a small organization, limited funding is a perennial problem.

The problem we're trying to solve is that there are rich teams and there are poor teams. Then there's fifty feet of crap, and then there's us.

— Oakland A's General Manager Billy Bean (as played by Brad Pitt in Moneyball)

In the film, Beane and his assistant manager turn around a struggling small-market baseball team with an elegant implementation of a fairly simple principle:

Hitting your goals is not about spending lots of money; it's about taking the most effective action you can with the resources that you've got.

In terms of your CRM, that means prioritizing the improvements that will get you the biggest bang for the buck.

Fancy new feature? Not a bad thing, as long as you can clearly articulate exactly how it will pay for itself.

If you can't, it's probably worth considering alternatives: creative use of existing features, better training for your staff, better analysis of the data you're already tracking.

The specific steps you take will depend on your actual goals.

But the principle is the same:

Put aside the notions of “how we’ve always done it” and “how the big players are doing it,” and focus instead on actions that will get you measurable results toward goals that you care about.

All the best,
Allen

Striking out

Are you afraid of failing?

Afraid that your next project or campaign won't be the home run that your organization needs?

Or that it might even be a complete strikeout?

Everybody wants to hit a home run.

Here’s a fun fact:

Babe Ruth — often called the greatest baseball player of all time — held, when he retired, the all-time record for career home runs.

Did you also know he held the all-time record for career strikeouts?

If you want to hit the ball, you gotta swing.

Sometimes you'll strike out.

Don't let that stop you from getting up to bat.

All the best,
A.

Consent and interest

Yesterday I wrote someone and asked them to take me off their mailing list. (Yes, emailing them about it was the only "unsubscribe" option. And no, I had never actually subscribed to get their mailings.)

Their response was, er, not what I expected:

Done. I'll never send you anything remotely useful ever again.

Okay then. I'm glad at least that you've removed me.

But here's the thing:

As a vanity metric, it can feel good knowing that you have X thousand people receiving your emails.

But if they're not actually happy to read your emails, such a metric is just that: vanity.

That's why I will always caution against adding people to your mailing lists without consent. It's probably illegal, but worse, it's largely a waste of effort if you're genuinely trying to build support for your cause.

Instead, look for opportunities to capture interest and capitalize upon it.

For example, a client I spoke with today is putting up an advance information page for their annual student film competition.

The submission period won't be open for a few more months.

But you know what is open? A simple sign up form at the bottom of the page for people who want to be kept informed on the competition.

Those people are demonstrating their genuine interest.

And they've not only consented to receiving emails; they've actually asked for it.

And that's the point.

Folks who have asked to receive your material are the ones you want to reach.

Those that haven't are not very likely to be interested in the first place.

Look for interest. Deliver value. And then maximize the relationship.

That's how to turn consent and interest into advocacy and action.

All the best,
A.

Driving and navigating

Navigation is a separate task from driving.

• Rally racing teams rely heavily on the co-driver's navigation skills.

• Commercial airlines, which haven't had a dedicated navigator on the crew since the 1980s, rely on automated navigation systems.

• When you're alone in your car, you're both driver and navigator (probably with some less-than-perfect advice from your phone).

It doesn't matter how the navigation gets done.

Somebody has to do it.

Without it, you can drive all day and never get anywhere.

Here's the thing:

Somebody will need to operate your CRM system, your membership programs, and your fundraising campaigns.

But somebody will also need to navigate: identify the goals, read the terrain, chart a course, and adapt that course as needed.

It can be tempting to put your head down and just work, and now and then that's what you'll have to do.

But don't forget to look up now and then. Check the road. Check the map. Try to foresee the challenges. Try to spot the opportunities.

That's how you get where you want to go without driving in circles.

All the best,
A.

Scale and value

Say I've got a nagging problem with one of my systems.

And, say I finally decide to put aside one whole day this week to fix that problem.

Is it worth it?

Maybe.

What if I told you I only encounter that problem once a year, and the real problem is that it takes me an hour to do something that could take 5 minutes?

Sure, that's frustrating.

But is it worth a whole day of my time?

That's 8 hours of work. Considering the scale of the problem, the fix won't save me that much time in 8 years.

And there's a very good chance I won't even have this problem 8 years from now.

That's why scale matters.

Here's the thing;

A little math goes a long way.

A problem that feels like a big headache — but that only comes up now and then — may be frustrating, but it may not be worth solving.

Or, maybe there's an alternative solution that's less sexy but more pragmatic. Like handing that onerous task to an intern.

Time and money are always limited, so it makes a lot of sense to pick your battles …

… and to consider the scale of a problem when estimating the value of a solution.

All the best,
A.