Matrix Group International

Author: Joanna Pineda

  • The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Your Website: Keep Only What You Love

    The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Your Website: Keep Only What You Love

    I’ve blogged in the past about Marie Kondo’s best-selling book, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Last year, my husband and I set about tidying our house, with great success. While I wouldn’t exactly call my house neat and sparse, I am definitely more in control of the clutter.

    So what’s all this got to do with your website?

    Marie Kondo’s number one rule for deciding whether to keep something is pretty simple: Does it spark joy? In other words, does that article of clothing, book, or memento spark joy and love?

    I think we can apply the same rule to the content on our websites. The next time you conduct a redesign, or engage in an inventory of your content, ask yourself this about each page and document:
    • Is this content signature content, or content that one should find at the top of a search results page?
    • Is this content that members most want to find?
    • Is this content valuable?
    • Is this content of interest to lots of people? or your most important audiences?
    If the answer is no to specific content, consider removing it from your site — forever. Removing clutter from your site has all kinds of benefits:
    • Your navigation will be easier to navigate
    • Your search will return fewer, higher quality results

    If you find that you just can’t part with content, move it to an offline archive. Monitor the amount of traffic to the old URL and track requests for the archived data. Just like the dress you haven’t worn in x months or years, once a certain amount of time has passed, you should consider that content permanently removed from your site. Remember that 20% of your website pages will drive 80% of overall traffic, so why not focus most of your attention on that 20% and make it great?

    Just as our homes suffer from clutter, so too, do our websites suffer from digital clutter. Make 2018 the year your clear your website of unnecessary content that just doesn’t spark joy.

     

  • What Do I Need to Do to Become GDPR Compliant?

    What Do I Need to Do to Become GDPR Compliant?

    Guest post by Tanya Kennedy Luminati, MatrixMaxx Product Manager

    What are the next steps once you know what GDPR is?

    Officially start your security/compliance/privacy efforts

    This is your first step: Read about GDPR on the Matrix Group blog, and start to learn more.

    Track any efforts 

    Team meetings, staff meetings, webinars, research, actions. It is widely recognized that not everyone will be ready for the May 2018 enforcement deadline, so it is critical to show a good faith effort in starting your analysis process. Documentation of your efforts is critical to proving this.

    Learn more!

    Many groups and vendors are offering free webinars on GDPR. Sign up and attend one; the more you know the better informed you’ll be.

    A variety of organizations are hosting forums on this topic. For example, if you are an ASAE member, you have access to their GDPR collaborate forum.

    Figure out your organization’s role

    There is a shared responsibility for this between the Controller and the Processor.

    • A Controller is the person or organization that actually determines the purpose and means of processing personal data that they hold.
    • A Processor is the person or organization that processes data on behalf of the controller. (Matrix Group is a processor, along with countless other 3rd party vendors/providers that are providing services and systems like hosting, CRM, AMS, CMS, email marketing, marketing automation, etc.)

    Matrix Group, as a web services and software provider, is a Processor of data. Matrix Group’s clients are Controllers of their data. (e.g., The Association of Widget Makers, The Society of Professional People, ACME company, etc. are all Controllers.)

    In other words, we here at Matrix Group must provide tools to support the processes and procedures of GDPR, but Controllers have ultimate responsibility to determine how GDPR will impact them, and then use the tools vendors/processors (like Matrix Group) provide to put processes into place to comply with GDPR.

    For example, if a user requests access to all of their data …

    • The Controller is responsible for training staff to recognize this request for what it is and to gather necessary data from all systems (AMS, CRM, CMS, marketing automation system, email marketing system, etc.)
    • Matrix Group, as a Processor, is responsible for providing tools to help with this. (e.g., Our MatrixMaxx AMS has an Individual Participation Report that aggregates most of the data that we hold on the individual, and we’ll be upgrading it soon to include even more, such as the recent login and page request history)

    Do a gap assessment: Where are you and where do you need to be?

    The key questions to ask all revolve around your data:

    • Where are we getting data from?
    • What data are we storing and where is it being stored/
    • How are we using, handling, and securing the data while we have it?
    • Where are we sending data to?

    And once you’ve analyzed your flow of data, it is time to analyze what you need to do in order to comply with these new regulations. You may need:

    • Management resources, to help establish and enforce new policies for data collecting and handling
    • Technical solutions and tools to deal with the new rules
    • Legal advice to help rewrite your privacy policy or deal with the more complex aspects of the regulations

    Reach out to your vendors and partners

    At this point, any software/system partner should be thinking about their response to new privacy and security regulations like GDPR.

    Here at Matrix Group:

    • We have obtained our SOC2 certification in security. SOC 2 is an auditing procedure that ensures we securely manage data to protect the interests of our organization and the privacy of our clients.
    • Our compliance committee meets monthly and has been discussing GDPR for many months
    • Our IT team meets weekly and GDPR has been on the agenda for months
    • The MatrixMaxx AMS team has been working on multiple upgrades to ultimately allow clients to better comply with the GDPR regulationts:
      • We already have in place several reports that would allow the association to quickly/easily share information with anyone who requests a report of their data. (Individual Participation Report, Login Report, Page Request History report)
      • We are in the planning/development stage of an Anonymization function, which will allow the association to anonymize anyone who wishes to be forgotten, without losing the core transaction history in the record
      • We are researching and planning the best way to offer Consent functionality that complies with the double-verification requirement
      • We are monitoring and discussing with our 3rd party partners, like forums and email and marketing automation

    Is there a checklist for GDPR ‘compliance’? Can we all get certified as compliant?

    The concept of GDPR compliance certification has been established in the regulations, but it has not yet been fleshed out to the point of actually going into practice. So at this point, as of March 2018, if someone tells you they are certified compliant with GDPR, that is false.  

    Looking ahead

    We are moving into a permissions-driven economy. The days are vanishing when you can get a hold of someone’s email address and then send them endless amounts of email. You are going to need to politely and persuasively ask them for their data and explain how you are going to use it. You are going to need to be thoughtful about it. And you’re going to need to respect their desire for privacy while also wanting to utilize of your services.

    As marketers of services, this can initially seem frustrating. But turn it around and think about yourself as a consumer. Haven’t you griped about the amount of email you get? Haven’t you wished your name would stop being shared with companies you don’t care about?  These regulations are coming in effect to force a worldwide respect of individual privacy and to make the cyber-world better for all us as individuals. In time, we may even view this focus on privacy and security as an implicit expectation, in the same way organizations are now expected to be think about sustainability as a key operations value. All of this is a good thing.

     

    PLEASE NOTE:

    This is one of Matrix Group’s installments on GDPR, Privacy, and Security. We at Matrix Group are not lawyers or GDPR consults; do not take this info as absolute. Use this information as a starting point in:

    • Gathering the documentation, processes and tools you need to assess and support your obligations under GDPR
    • Planning for a future where respect privacy and security are implicitly baked into our all our processes and systems, regardless of country

     

     

  • What is GDPR and What Does it Mean for My Organization?

    What is GDPR and What Does it Mean for My Organization?

    Guest post by Tanya Kennedy Luminati, MatrixMaxx Product Manager

    There is a new acronym taking the world by storm right now: GDPR

    If you’re in Europe, you’ve probably heard of this. If you’re here in the United States, you may not have heard it … yet. But the concepts of Privacy and Security that it champions are moving to center stage all over the globe, so it is important we all pay attention and start our process shift now.

    What is GDPR?

    The nations of the European Union (EU) take privacy very seriously, and each country previously had its own laws. The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was approved by the EU Parliament in 2016 in order to unify the various data privacy laws across Europe.  The EU has a dedicated website where you can read the full GDPR details, and it is quite a long read.

    Who does GDPR apply to?

    If you hold and process any Personally identifiable information (PII) in any of your systems for anyone living in the EU, this impacts you.

    PII is any data that can be used on its own or with other information to identify a particular individual: name, phone, email, address, etc. Processing is just about anything you do with that data. Any type of marketing, for example, is considered to be processing. The GDPR states that you can’t process PII data unless you have lawful grounds to do so. The GDPR affects your systems, your processes, your data, your customers/members, your 3rd party vendors, and your partners.

    Doesn’t GDPR only apply to European-based Companies?

    No. It applies to any organization offering goods/services to EU residents. The EU refers to this concept as Increased Territorial Scope (extraterritorial applicability).

    When do these new regulations go into effect?

    GDPR actually started 2 years ago. However, enforcement doesn’t begin until May 25, 2018. So as the humans we are, everyone has waited until the last minute to grasp these new regulations with both hands.

    What are the key facets of GDPR?

    You must have grounds for the lawful holding and processing of data. These include:

    • Consent
    • Fulfilment of a contract
    • Legal obligation
    • Necessary for interests of the individual or for the greater public good

    Consent is getting a great deal of attention as marketing now requires explicit “provable consent” in order to be considered lawful under the GDPR. For example, if you haven’t explicitly asked an EU resident in your database if they’d like to hear about some of your upcoming events, you probably can’t lawfully market to this person!

    Other important facets beyond the concept of lawful processing and consent include:

    • An individual may request access to all of their personal data. This may include any information stored in your main database, including contact information, login tracking, clickthrough tracking in a 3rd party marketing system, transaction data, etc.
    • An individual may request that their personal info be removed. (a.k.a. The Right to be Forgotten), meaning that they can request that their records be deleted or anonymized in such a way that it is no longer personally identifiable. (This includes data in backups and in any 3rd parties systems that may have acquired the data from you.)
    • Data Breach Notification to certain authorities and individuals within particular timeframes.

    Are Membership Organizations (Trade Associations, Professional Societies), Not-for-Profits, and Non-Profits exempt from GDRP?

    No. They are not exempt.

    But … Wouldn’t someone joining my association as a member be implicitly giving me lawful grounds to process their data?

    Not necessarily. If they join as a member, it would probably be lawful processing to send them a confirmation of their membership, but you can’t start marketing association products and services to them without consent. This is an area where a GPPR consultant could be useful to you, if you have a lot of EU residents in your data or you actively market/appeal to persons living in the EU.

    How is GDPR going to be enforced?

    The penalties and fines, which will kick in starting May 25, 2018, are steep. There are obvious ways that EU-based organizations and foreign organizations with EU locations can be penalized. The question of how external organizations will be held to GDPR compliance is being discussed in a variety of articles and posts.

    Next up, we’ll discuss how to become GDPR compliant. Stay tuned!

     

    This is the first of severalMatrix installments on GDPR, Privacy, and Security. Please note: we at Matrix are not lawyers or GDPR consults; do not take this info as absolute. Use this information as a starting point in:

    • Gathering the documentation, processes and tools you need to assess and support your obligations under GDPR
    • Planning for a future where respect privacy and security are implicitly baked into our all our processes and systems, regardless of country

     

  • The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Your Website: Part I

    The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Your Website: Part I

    Last year, my husband and I read Marie Kondo’s “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing.“ To say this book was life changing isn’t an exaggeration. Besieged by clutter, we went about decluttering our books, clothes, papers, kitchen accessories, and on and on. We gave away over 1,000 books, I donated 60% of my closet, we shredded mounds of paper, and we can finally see the floor in our garage. Are we done? Absolutely not! But I’m not overwhelmed by the clutter, the master bedroom is a sea of calm, and I love everything in my closet.

    Like closets and homes, websites need regular tidying as well. If you hear this from your members, “I can’t find anything on your website” or “I can’t find what I”m looking for because I get too many search results,” it’s time to tidy.

    Why The Clutter?

    First, let’s examine why our websites have become the equivalent of cluttered homes and self-storage units. This is what I hear from my clients:
    • We need a place to store our archives
    • Someday we might need that study from 25 years ago
    • We don’t know what’s valuable to our members or the public

    What Members Really Want

    And yet, in interview after interview with members, this is what we hear:
    • Just give me the best stuff when I do a search
    • I need my association to curate all the information on “x” topic
    • Tell me what I need to pay attention to
    • The navigation is overwhelming with too many choices
    • I just don’t know where to start looking

    Take the First Step Toward Tidying: What Are People Trying to Do On Your Website?

    This blog post is NOT about the art and science of information architecture. I can go on for day about that. This blog post IS about decluttering. If you want your website to be high performing, ask yourself questions like these:
    • What are people trying to do on my site? If your audience includes researchers who need the historical data, then please include a comprehensive library AND create an effective search. If you want to make the case for membership, chances are you need to do that in six pages or less.
    • Why do we have archives of the conference pages from the last 15 years? If people need the handouts, perhaps you’re better off creating a database of the presentations and creating a great search. If it’s just the staff that find the archive useful, take it offline and make it easily accessible on your local network.
    • Why do we have news and newsletters from the last 25 years? If people need the archives for research purposes, great. If legislative updates from even last year are irrelevant because Congress has a new set of priorities each year, ditch the detailed updated but do keep a list of your legislative priorities and what you’ve done over time.

    Over the past year, Matrix Group has completed about a dozen website redesigns. In almost all cases, the client, after reviewing the content inventory, looking at the analytics and discussing content strategy, ditched more than half of their old content. Tidying made content migration easier and less expensive, the information architecture is more streamlined, and site search is more effective.

    In the next blog post, I’ll talk about love. What’s love got to with your website and clutter? Stay tuned.

  • How to Make Your First Day Back at Work Productive After a Vacation or Leave of Absence

    How to Make Your First Day Back at Work Productive After a Vacation or Leave of Absence

    I used to dread my first day back in the office after vacation. After being away for a week or two (or more when I had my sons), I did not look forward to coming back and being buried in emails and getting caught by surprise by someone who needed my urgent attention.

    But not anymore. Not since Matrix Group started creating “while you were out” documents for anyone out of the office for more than a couple of days.

    Here’s how we do it:

    • We review who’s going to be out during managers meeting on Fridays.
    • If someone is going to be out for more than a couple of days, we create a shared Google doc called “While x was out, week of January 19, 2018.”
    • We put someone in charge of making sure the document is populated.
    • We ask specific team members to put in their notes about what happened during the week. We put in notes about anything and everything that the person on vacation would have been part of, or heard, had she been in the office.

    The update is ready the day before the person comes back from vacation or leave. An email goes out, telling the vacationer to “read this update first.”

    What do we cover in the “while you were out” document?

    • The update will vary, based on the person and role. For example, project managers get a summary of everything that happened on all of their client accounts. A Director gets a summary for the entire company. A developer gets a summary of what happened on his accounts and projects.
    • Beyond specific clients and projects, we also report on what was discussed during meetings. This is really important. If we discuss a project that’s been stalled and come up with a solution, it’s so helpful for the vacationing staffer to know how we got a project unstuck. If we don’t report on it in the brief, that knowledge may never get passed on to the manager or developer.
    • We also report on the social stuff that happens at the office, things like happy hours, birthdays, who got pranked, movies people are raving out, puppy visits to the office, who got engaged, and visits to the climbing gym. God forbid you be the person who didn’t know that Alex got married or that Roger got a new puppy!

    Why go to all this effort?

    • People coming back from any type of leave don’t have to spend all day reading their emails in order to know what happened while they were out. In fact, we often do not cc: the person on vacation so they don’t come back to hundreds of emails to process.
    • Returning staff can immediately be back in the swing of things.
    • People feel like they can get away without missing important events or milestones.

    It takes a whole team to write these documents, but they are so worth the time and effort.

    What do you do to make the transition back to work easier on your team members? 

  • A Good Site Search Requires an Investment of Time and Money

    A Good Site Search Requires an Investment of Time and Money

    I hear this a lot from prospects: Our website search sucks! It seems many organizations are in pain with search. Here’s the thing: a good site search requires an investment of time and money. This investment can be substantial and I think it’s worth it.

    In many ways, Google has spoiled us. Google is a free, powerful, really amazing, awesome, spot on search. “Why can’t I have a search like Google?,” ask many of my clients. Google used to license its search technology, but no more. So what’s an organization to do?

    There are many search options: free, open source, commercial, at all price points. Here at Matrix Group, we have developed expertise at implementing SearchBlox, Solr, Algolia, Zoom, WordPress and Sitefinity. 

    In our experience, a great site search involves:

    • Great technology
    • A good understanding of the desired search experience
    • Great data hygiene where pages have unique title tags, all content can be crawled, meta data is populated, etc.
    • Search analytics
    • Ongoing tweaks

    No search technology is fabulous out of the box, unless you were willing to pay $200K+ for Google, and even that’s no longer available, which is why you’ve got to invest in the steps listed above to have a great search. And yet I hear this time and time again:

    “Our site search sucks. We want and need a good search. An effective search is critical to my site’s success. But I’m not willing to invest staff on data hygiene, and money on good technology and services from a great vendor.”

    Yikes. What’s a vendor like us to do?

    Instead of thinking about how Google is free, think about how search is just as important to wayfinding as good navigation and user flows. And if that’s the case, shouldn’t you be spending at least as much on search as you do on information architecture, e.g., navigation review, wireframes and user testing?

    The next time you’re considering a website redesign, or remarking on how bad your site search is, think about the steps needed to have a great search and budget accordingly. If it’s a small site in WordPress, you won’t need to spend a lot of money to have a great search. But if you’re looking for a search that will index multiple sites, weight content according to your rules, display a members-only icon, support an advanced search and filtering of results, etc., etc., please, please budget accordingly.

  • A New CMS Won’t Fix Your Broken Web Strategy

    A New CMS Won’t Fix Your Broken Web Strategy

    I read a lot of RFPs (Requests For Proposals) for website redesigns, and I sit through a lot of demos and presentations. What strikes me is the number of projects where the focus is on the content management system, and not the goals and strategy of the project.

    Why do we have such an obsession with changing platforms and technology when a “website isn’t working?”

    I believe this is because we think the problem all along has been the platform. And I believe that in most cases, this approach is wrong.

    As a technology vendor and implementer of technologies and platforms, this thinking might seem counter-intuitive. But the truth is this: web content management systems have come a looooong way and most systems do more than any organization can ever hope to use. Yep, there are differences between WordPress, Sitefinity, Drupal, Sitecore and Ektron for sure, but today, I think these differences are at the margins.

    Ultimately, the things that really matter are the strategy behind the website redesign, the ability of an organization to rally behind the strategy, a solid implementation that includes lots of training, and the quality of the technology vendor.

    If your website isn’t working for your organization, investing in a new CMS with a fancy WYSIWYG editor, drag and drop interface and complicated workflow won’t’ solve your problems. They will help, for sure, but if your content strategy isn’t in place, if you don’t make a commitment to fabulous images, you don’t have a plan for marketing your site, you don’t measure results, and you don’t have the right team in place, you’ll be replacing that CMS in a few short years.

    BTW, don’t confuse my being CMS-agnostic with the idea that once you invest in a CMS, you can let it sit as is — forever. Content management systems must be upgraded on a regular basis so you have benefit of the latest security patches, new functionality, and vendor support. I tell clients to use the upgrade process as an opportunity to reevaluate their businesses processes, get staff trained and retrained, and make optimization tweaks to the website.

    The next time you find yourself saying, “our website sucks, we need a new CMS,” ask yourself this: Is it really the CMS or does your strategy, process and/or training need the reboot?

     

  • The One Thing You Can Do Now to Protect Your Website From Hackers – Create a Strong Password

    The One Thing You Can Do Now to Protect Your Website From Hackers – Create a Strong Password

    A couple of weeks ago, there was a lot of news about a massive brute force attack against WordPress sites to install Minero Miner, Minero is a javascript Crypto miner. The attack used information from the site, like the domain name, common logins and common passwords, to try and gain access to the site.

    Let me say this again. The attack used common logins and password to gain access. This means the attack basically used a whole lot of computers to try and guess credentials. And guess what? If a site uses “admin” and “password123” as the credentials, it was compromised in about five seconds, probably less.

    So this is my regular please to please, please use strong passwords and don’t reuse passwords. What’s a strong password? My tips are below:

    • Create a long password. Some sites recommend 6-8 characters. That’s outdated information. Make your password as long as you can. My Windows password at work is 15 characters.
    • Don’t just add numbers or replace letters with numbers. DOgFi$h123 may have been an acceptable password in the past, but no longer.
    • Don’t use a common phrase from life, a book or the movies. It’s easy to think that “DoOrDoNotThereIsNoTry” is a great password because it’s really long. But guess what? This phrase exists in dictionary attacks used by hackers. Don’t use this password.
    • You are better off stringing together words that are meaningful to you, but don’t commonly belong together. For example, I was staying at the Bellagio Hotel one time and I needed to change my password. So I looked up, saw some balls on the ceiling and came up with “99BouncingBellagioBalls)).” How Secure is My Password says it would be 15 octillion years to guess this password, which I don’t believe, but you get the point that this password is strong because it’s long, it’s got a combination of upper case, lower case, numbers and non-alphanumeric characters. And yet, most importantly, this password was easy for me to remember. I will sometimes string random English, Tagalog and French words together and add in some numbers in the middle of the password to create a strong password.
    • Use a password manager. No, Excel is not a password manager, especially if the file is called passwords.xlsx. A Word doc is not a password manager. A spiral bound notebook locked in your house is much safer than an Excel file on your laptop or share drive. Instead, use a manager like LastPass, KeePass, 1Password or Dashlane. At the company level, use an enterprise password manager like Secret Server (which Matrix Group uses as a company.) Me, I use KeePass.
    • Commit commonly used passwords to memory; let the password manager handle the rest. Me? I remember my office network password and my KeePass password. For everything else, I create long passwords or let KeePass generate them, and then I store them in KeePass.

    Want to learn more about passwords? I like these articles:

    https://lifehacker.com/how-to-create-a-strong-password-1797681069
    https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542576/youve-been-misled-about-what-makes-a-good-password/
    https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/08/18/nists-new-password-rules-what-you-need-to-know/

    Make it one of your 2018 resolutions to replace your passwords with strong ones NOW!

     

  • Getting Started with eLearning and How Mobile is Transforming Professional Development

    Getting Started with eLearning and How Mobile is Transforming Professional Development

    At the ASAE (American Society of Association Executives) Tech Conference last week, I attended a terrific session called “Anytime, Anywhere eLearning: How Mobile Transforms Education.” Wendy Rath and Mary Rehm of PRMIA (Professional Risk Managers’ International Association), as well as Ken Parker from NextThought, did a terrific job of articulating PRMIA’s eLearning journey.

     

    Background on PRMIA and its Professional Development Program:

    PRMIA is a professional society that creates an open forum for the development and promotion of the risk profession. A big part of how PRMIA accomplishes its mission is professional development and education. But recently, PRMIA education appeared to be in trouble. Registrations were way down and the association had to cancel a number of meetings.

    What did PRMIA decide to do? Instead of just blasting out more emails, PRMIA decided to go deep and learn more about what’s really happening with their members and their educational needs and objectives.
     
    PRMIA conducted a member survey and learned:
    • Members want more learning opportunities, not less.
    • Members are constrained in terms of time and money.
    • Members want online learning.

    The eLearning Solution

    Knowing what they learned about members’ education need and desires, PRMIA got to work.
    • They took a long, hard look at their technology and realized that much of it was already conducive to eLearning. Much of it supported a mobile experience. The rub was that PRMIA was not taking advantage of these features.
    • PRMIA invested in a new learning mangement platform; they selected Articulate Storyline.
    • They started re-developing their in person courses to be offered online.
    • They offered courses online, in real time, but also recorded courses for on demand viewing later.

    Lessons Learned

    After about a year of effort and redevelopment, here’s what PRMIA learned:
    • When re-developing courses, their winning formula was to split up a course into 10 nano lessons, each about 5-10 minutes long.
    • The sessions work best when they are standalone, i.e., members can pick and choose the sessions that interest them, and don’t need to have taken any prerequisites in order to take a specific sesson.
    • When offering online courses, you need a really dynamic speaker AND really great slides. Otherwise, it’s hard to keep the attention of the students.
    • eLearning must be mobile-friendly. Test out your online courses yourself on a phone and tablet and make sure you can navigate the environment easily.
    • Solicit feedback from registrants and have a plan to respond to comments.
    Is your organization ready for an eLearning strategy? 
  • Lessons from a CIO on Work, Senior Staff Engagement and the Permission-Based Economy

    Lessons from a CIO on Work, Senior Staff Engagement and the Permission-Based Economy

    At AMS Fest a couple of weeks ago, I got a chance to sit down with Reggie Henry, Chief Information and Engagement Officer at the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE).

    I always ask Reggie “what’s new?” and “what are you thinking about?” Reggie *never* fails to impress me his insights and curiosity. Here are some of the things he’s been pondering lately:

    We need to change how we work. Reggie says there isn’t a shortage of tools out there to facilitate work and collaboration, but we’re still too focused on the tools themselves, whether it’s Microsoft Word, or Slack or Skype. Instead, he says the tools should be secondary to the goals and the work, which is why he loves Office 365.

    He gave me a tour of how ASAE uses Office 365 and it’s breathtaking. Every team has projects and each project has notes, conversations, reports and so much more. Staff work within each project to share information, ask questions, author documents, etc. They make great use of Teams, Planner and Delve and I have to admit to being really jealous!

    Senior staff need to use the tools. Reggie says organizations are innovating and investing in fabulous tools and systems, but senior staff are not using them and that’s a mistake. Senior staff need to show their staff that they, too, are interested in the tools, that they are part of the conversations, and willing to try new things.
     

    Be wiling to forget what we know to design the future. Reggie and I talked about how “experts” are often the enemy of innovation because experts think something can’t be done, what can go wrong, what has gone wrong, etc. But how many awesome things have happened because someone didn’t believe it couldn’t be done? I’m thinking about the fabulous badge builder that a junior staff person created in MatrixMaxx. He asked his Product Manager what her dream functionality was and then he just did it.

    How prepared are you for the permission-based economy? We’re moving toward the day when organizations need to get permission for nearly everything they do with member and customer data, from location services, to cookies, to purchase history, to demographics. Is your organization ready to handle this level of granularity in your handling, storage and use of your customer data?

    Many thanks to Reggie for his insights!