Matrix Group International

Category: Blog

  • How Matrix Group Chose an AI Note Taker App

    How Matrix Group Chose an AI Note Taker App

    It’s rare to be in a Zoom or Teams meeting these days that doesn’t have an AI note taker in the room. Sometimes, there are dueling note takers. Well here at Matrix Group, we have standardized on Fathom. For now. Here’s how we made the decision:

    Note Taking is Hard

    My Directors, Project Managers and I are in a LOT of meetings. And for every meeting, someone is tasked with taking notes. We take note taking very seriously at Matrix Group. I like to say that “she who takes notes, writes history.” And it’s true. If there’s ever a question about a discussion or a decision, we go back to the notes. Yes, today, we can go back to the recording, but that’s time-consuming and we don’t always keep the video or audio recording of a meeting.

    Note taking is so important that we train our managers on how to take effective notes. We cover things like: how to format your notes, when to document the details and when it’s okay to summarize, how to capture all of the next steps.

    The problem is, note taking is hard. You need to be a fast typist and you need to be accurate. After each meeting, you need to clean up your notes, send them out, and then parse the notes into tasks for team members. If a Project Manager is in back to back meetings, it could be a day or two before the notes go out. We decided there had to be a better way.

    Putting AI Note Takers to the Test

    Over a couple of months, anyone who was interested in trialing AI note takers took part in a test. We researched a bunch of note taking apps, assigned them to people, and told them to try them out. We asked them to:

    • Check the accuracy of the time stamps
    • Check the accuracy of the transcript
    • Check the accuracy of the notes
    • Explore the types of note formats available, e.g., summary, detailed, etc.
    • Check for the ease of turning on and off

    We tested a bunch of apps, including Fireflies, Otter, Tactiq, ChatGPT, and Fathom.

    We Chose Fathom

    After a lot of testing, we chose Fathom for the following reasons:

    • We carefully reviewed the Terms of Use and were satisfied that client confidential data that might get discussed during a meeting would not go toward training a public LLM (large language model).
    • The free version gave us all the functionality we needed.
    • The notes are terrific, especially the summaries of meetings that wind around and come back to topics.
    • The transcript is accurate.
    • Fathom largely ignores the irrelevant chitchat at the start of each meeting.
    • We liked the flexibility that Fathom offered. We could have Fathom always join, join only when requested, start and stop recordings, and connect to our calendar.

    Yes, we chose Fathom BUT we are constantly testing out different tools. There are new AI note taking tools that pop up every day and while we’re not going to jump at the slightest chance, we are monitoring the landscape. If a better tool comes along, we will make the switch.

    Our experience with Fathom by and large has been terrific. Project Managers report being able to get the notes out to clients much faster. Aside from one weird day when a set of notes, instead of talking about a website redesign, discussed the Three Little Pigs. Who knows? Maybe Fathom was reading some fairy tales over lunch one day. The next meeting was fine.

    In the next blog post, I’ll talk about HOW we are being intentional with our use of Fathom, training Fathom AND training ourselves to work better with our AI note taking tool.

    How about you? Is your organization using an AI note taking tool? What has been your experience? Why did you pick that tool?

  • Transforming Data Cleanup into a Strategic Opportunity

    Transforming Data Cleanup into a Strategic Opportunity

    We work with a lot of associations, databases, and data. Unlike a fine wine, data does not get better with age. It ages rather poorly, in fact, like a loaf of bread. One moment it seems fine, and the next moment it is in the trash.

    While a handful of organizations are truly not connecting the dots (I had one staff person tell me, years ago, ‘Why should I care if there is a 75% bounce rate on our newsletter? What I care about is that the email is being sent, not whether it is being received’), most staff understand the cost of bad data. They understand that each email bounce, for example, means a member isn’t receiving information, isn’t being prompted to register for the next webinar, and isn’t being engaged in understanding the value of their membership dollar. Each bounce also chips away at the association’s all-powerful sending reputation.

    But many people just don’t see making time for data cleanup a priority. They approach data cleanup as an onerous, time-wasting expense. No one wants to touch it with a 10-foot pole and the poor staff assigned to ‘deal with it’ are desperate for the fastest, cheapest, most automated solution possible so that they can push the whole data cleanup experience behind them, like waking from a bad dream.

    The most successful associations take a different approach to data maintenance. They approach data review as a treasure hunt. There’s gold in them thar bounces! 

    In a recent membership department meeting with one of my trade association clients, we dedicated a portion of the meeting to studying bounces on the key committees. We had bounces in one browser tab and LinkedIn on another tab, following the trail of each bounce to a person’s work history. One man had moved from a member to another member; easy fix in the database. One woman had moved from a member to a prospective member and immediately the membership team member was firing off a LinkedIn message to her, hoping to connect and win a new member.

    An email bounce can also be a great excuse to engage members verbally. Yes, verbally. So often, people view a ‘cold call’ with great trepidation, but a polite inquiry to clarify contact information gets the foot in the door for a meaningful transaction, potentially leading to a conversation or even a conversion. ‘I’m calling from The Association. You are on our sustainability committee, but we noticed that our recent notes bounced from your email. Could I have 4 minutes of your time to update your record?’ and of course during that call, perhaps you note that they aren’t registered for the Annual Meeting … why not? Is it too far? Too expensive? Not valuable? Thank them for their time and insight, and tuck away your new tidbit of knowledge. After a dozen of these calls, you might even start to identify an even more valuable trend. 

    Here’s what I tell my clients, when they aren’t sure where or how to start with data cleanup:

    • ASAP – EVERYDAY – Deal with any email bounces on the core governance committees… i.e., the Board and Executive Committees. Why is this email bouncing and how can it be fixed? BOARD EMAILS SHOULD NOT BE BOUNCING. 
    • Then, slowly (1 or 2 a day) deal with email bounces on the other committees. Why are they bouncing? Has the person changed emails, or companies, or is there a delivery issue? 
    • What comes next will depend on your organization. You may start to look at bounces on special interest groups. Or perhaps you start to reach out to key organization members to verify their staff lists. Or perhaps you start to verify the titles/roles of your key C-level / upper management contacts. 

    Several years ago, I did a talk at the ASAE Annual Meeting, entitled “10 Minutes a Day Keeps the Data Doctor Away”. What I said back then is just as true today: data maintenance is a steady, ongoing process. Organization staff too often get so overwhelmed by the overarching task of ‘We need to clean up our data’ that analysis paralysis takes over. They don’t think that handling a few pieces of data each day will matter. But it will matter, and it will pay off. 

  • Celebrating 25 Years of Innovation and Impact: Reflecting on Our Journey

    Celebrating 25 Years of Innovation and Impact: Reflecting on Our Journey

    Matrix Group is officially 25 years old today. I say “officially” because May 1 is the date on our incorporation papers, but the real date is April 22, when I opened up shop in shared office space in Georgetown, Washington, DC. If you want to hear stories about when, why and how I started the company, listen to this week’s episode of Associations Thrive. For a change, Leah Monica, Director of Marketing at Matrix Group, interviewed me about my personal journey and the journey of Matrix Group.

    Although I love to take photos and videos, I’m not actually one to spend a lot of time looking back. If you want to read about the first 10 years at Matrix Group, here’s a blog post I wrote back in 2009! I’m not someone who looks to the far future, either. I’ve got my eyes on the next three years and boy do I expect a lot of change, challenges, and fun!

    Reinventing Matrix Group – Again

    I told my staff that we’re in a period of reinvention – again. Why? Because post-pandemic, I know that we can’t go back to offering our clients the same old services, in the same old way. Doing THAT would be the fastest way to planned obsolescence. So many of our clients are revisiting their strategic plans, most are upending their conferences, some are rethinking their member types, and so many are tweaking their governance. 

    So how do we stay relevant and continue to partner with our clients to create new services and amazing journeys for their members?

    The answer, of course, is that we need to reinvent Matrix Group – again. WHO we serve isn’t changing – we’re still committed and focused on the association and nonprofit community. HOW we do our work hasn’t changed either – we’re still committed to client education, we’re still fanatic about delighting our clients, we still like to go deep with our clients, and we work hard to keep the same team working with clients over time and across projects. 

    The WHAT of our work has changed, is changing, will always change. When NABTU (North America’s Building Trades Unions) came to use to help them better manage the process of contractors becoming signatory to their agreements and reporting work hours, we used a no-code/low code platform so that NABTU’s tech debt burden would be much lighter in the future and they would never be on an “old” version of their software. When SQFI (the Safe Quality Food Institute) came to us to redesign and help them do business better on a global scale, we integrated AWS Translate into their CMS so that the new website is available in 9 languages, visitors can search in 9 languages AND the site is indexed by Google in 9 languages.

    We are developing a lot of experience and fluency with AWS services, including their AI services, and their suite of cloud services. All of this new work is prompting new offerings by Matrix Group, necessitating new training for my staff, and creating a need for new skills sets and new positions at the company. I bet that by the end of 2026, I won’t recognize the company in terms of WHAT we offer our clients, even if the WHY, WHO and HOW remain the same.

    Work 4.0

    When I sent everyone home in March 2020, we already had a well-defined and well supported remote work policy. In fact, when we moved to our new office space in July 2019, Maki Kato, the Matrix Group CTO, declared that the new office would not have a server room and everything had to move to the cloud. So when the pandemic hit, we were well prepared technology-wise.

    But sending everyone home and holding regular Zoom meetings does not make a culture. For the past few years, we’ve had an ongoing conversation at Matrix Group about what Work 4.0 looks like. With our office space lease expiring in March of 2025, we continue to ask ourselves questions like, “How do we make sure Matrix Group values and culture stay consistent and strong? If we don’t have an office in Arlington, VA, where will we be based? When and how will we gather in person?”

    I’m proud of the active and intentional culture that we’ve created at Matrix Group. How have we done this?

    • Through the company’s fundamentals that serve as our guiding principles. Every meeting opens with a fundamental and we work to integrate this code of conduct into everything we do. My favorite fundamentals are:
      • Do or do not. There is no try.
      • If we don’t hear joy in a client’s voice, our job is not done.
      • Don’t let your boss make a mistake.
      • Don’t let your client make a mistake.
      • Be curious.
      • Be coachable.
      • Within Matrix Group, assume good intentions.
    • We encourage in person interactions, but they’re optional. I have not mandated a return to office because there just isn’t an appetite on the part of the staff to be back in the office, even part-time. So directors and managers actively reach out to staff via Slack and email, and we devote the start of every meeting to socializing and sharing.
    • We do a lot of co-working. One of my favorite things when we were all still mostly in the office was co-working. If the biz dev team was crashing on a proposal, or a services team was launching a new website, we would gather in a conference room or the War Room (the War Room was a large, open area that had couches, standing desks, a large screen and lots of power). Today, we co-work by meeting in a Google Meet to literally work side by side with another person, sometimes collaborating on the same document or slides, and sometimes just co-working to be together, but not necessarily working on the same project.
    • I provide my managers with communications skills training. Effective written and verbal communications are even more important when most of your interactions are done over Zoom. How do you remind someone gently that something is due? How do you have a fierce conversation with someone over Zoom? Just how often should you be checking in with your team?

    25-Year Celebrations

    The pandemic changed how and when we gather. In addition, not only did staff scatter to other parts of the country, we have hired from around the country. All of this means that a big, in person party would be really complicated. So how are we celebrating?

    • Once a month, I’ll be interviewing association CEOs on our Associations Thrive podcast about how their profession or industry is changing, and how their associations are adapting to these changes.
    • I’m hosting a couple of staff lunches at the office this month, complete with amazing Asian food. 
    • My leadership team has made a commitment to try and see everyone on the team this year!
    • Before our lease ends, we are going to do a huge, blowout party at the office!

    Full of Gratitude

    As I reflect on 25 years of being in business, I am filled with gratitude. Gratitude for:

    • My amazing staff, both present and past.
    • Our wonderful clients, for their confidence in us, and for giving us opportunities to do great work and help them achieve their missions and change the world.
    • My loving and supportive husband, sons, and other family members. I don’t think I could have done what I’ve done, and gone out into the world with my message and services, if I didn’t have their support back home.

    To help me reflect on everything I have in my life, and everything I am grateful for, my husband and I are reading The Gratitude Diaries. Howard Pearl, CEO of CARS, was on my podcast a couple of months ago. He shared with me that he makes every employee read this book. I took inspiration from his words and I’m so glad I did!

    Thanks to everyone who’s been part of my personal journey and the journey of Matrix Group! Be safe, be well.

  • How to Make Your AMS a Revenue Generator, not a Cost Center

    How to Make Your AMS a Revenue Generator, not a Cost Center

    I attend a lot of webinars and conferences about non-dues revenue, including Non Dues-A-Palooza. At all of these events, there are presentations and discussions about new products and new partnerships that associations can invest in and offer to their members.

    I realized recently that hardly anyone is talking about AMS (association management system) as a revenue generator; this makes no sense to me! Yes, nearly every association uses their AMS to manage and process dues payments. But associations also use their AMS to track event registrations, purchases, advertising, subscriptions, and sponsorships. So why isn’t your AMS part of YOUR association’s non-dues revenue strategy?

    Historically, associations view their AMS as merely a cost center: technology with a fancy price tag to track what the association and members are doing. This is a mistake. We assume that the market for a product or service is influenced by marketing alone, i.e., once a member or customer gets past the marketing email or landing page to convert, the software will take care of the rest and it’s marketing moving the needle. 

    In my experience, however, a great online store will increase sales and therefore revenue. A user-friendly event registration system will encourage more registrations. Why? Because while there are highly motivated customers who will manage to get past even the crappiest of online ordering systems, a lot of customers will abandon when they encounter friction (e.g., confusing directions, bad login page). Sure, they have every intention of coming back or calling the association, but a percentage abandons for good. Does this audience represent an additional 1%, 10% or 20% of what could be your total sales? Hard to know.

    If your association or nonprofit is looking to increase non-dues revenue, be sure to include someone from the AMS team and ask these questions:

    • Conduct a usability study. How easy or hard is it to actually complete a transaction? Where are the friction points?
    • Is your product or service optimized for search, meaning can I find your product through Google or your site search?
    • Does your AMS have an abandon report that tells you who started to convert but abandoned?
    • Are you tracking abandons in Google Analytics?
    • Is someone from the AMS team included in discussions about revenue generation at your organization?
    • Can you make e-commerce on your website more like Amazon with its recommendations and use of purchasing?
    • Can you look at previous purchasers, create demographic profiles and market to others like them?

    Once you have some answers, work with your team and/or digital partner to make your customer journeys better. Track progress, celebrate results. Keep tweaking. And keep including the AMS in all discussions about non-dues revenue! 


    Looking for an Association Management System packed with features to help you increase membership, increase revenue, and become more high-performing? We’d love to show you MatrixMaxx, Matrix Group’s AMS. Request a Demo today!

  • The End of Expertise and How Associations Must Adapt

    The End of Expertise and How Associations Must Adapt

    Summary: Trust in higher education, media, and other institutions is at historic lows, while confidence in peers and social media is rising. For associations, this means members are seeking support to protect their credibility and strengthen public trust. This post looks at the data behind declining trust, its impact on associations, and practical ways associations can help members stay relevant and respected.

    “Trust in companies from global companies is in decline, worry over societal threats and establishment leaders misleading us is growing, while peers are as trusted as scientists for information on new innovations.”  – 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer

    A couple of weeks ago, I facilitated a discussion through UST Education about trust and associations with Melanie Gottlieb, CEO of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) and Tara Puckey, Executive Director of the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA). Higher education and the media have been hard hit with trust issues. Americans today question the value of a college degree and mistrust the so-called “ivory tower” experts. They also distrust the media, calling bias and questioning facts. Here are a few statistics that we shared:

    • 27% of Americans say they have not too much or no confidence in scientists to act in the public’s best interest (Pew Research)
    • 39% of Americans, a record-high, say they don’t trust the media at all. (Gallup)
    • 50% of Americans under age 30 have some or a lot of trust in the information they get from social media, just under the 56% who say the same about news outlets. (Pew Research)

    Here are some of the discussion points from the webinar, which was really more of a discussion. These insights came from Melanie and Tara, along with the nearly 100 people who attended and lit up the chat:

    From Melanie: How declining trust is affecting higher education

    • 2023 Gallup data shows that public trust in higher education has dropped 20 points over the last 8 years to a historic low of only 36% having confidence in higher education. This translates into the negative national narrative that college isn’t worth it. At a time when higher education is facing public funding cuts, changing demographics and a challenging student debt environment, institutions are facing an uphill battle to sustain enrollments and stay relevant. 

    From Tara: How declining trust is affecting the media

    • Declining trust is something that isn’t new within the journalism landscape; we’ve been dealing with it for decades. Unfortunately, it continues to rise, spreading from national news down to the local level at an alarming rate. The addition of AI and other technologies to rapidly deploy misinformation and disinformation creates a new layer of complexity that newsrooms around the country are grappling with. The good news is that smart people are working to identify ways that newsrooms and individual journalists can stem the decline and build trust within their communities. 

    How is declining trust affecting your industry or profession?

    • Many attendees expressed surprise over the trust statistics that we shared.
    • Many association execs expressed the belief that declining trust is affecting their industry, including execs from higher education, medicine, public health, foreign affairs, media, real estate, government, technology, science, veterinary medicine, and libraries.
    • A few execs said their industries are not affected, including tourism and agriculture.
    • Members report having to work doubly and triply hard to shore up their credibility.

    How is declining trust affecting your association?

    • Declining trust is leading members to leave the profession.
    • Members are increasingly distrustful of government and jaded about advocacy, leading to less engagement in advocacy and government affairs.
    • Members are turning to their associations to help them shore up their credibility and address increasing public distrust of their industry or profession.
    • Members are asking for resources they can use to bring people together and enhance trust within their communities.
    • One association said their communications strategy has evolved to include: government relations, public relations, and consumer relations.
    • Meetings and events are becoming increasingly politicized, with arguments over location of conferences, and the politics of keynote speakers.
    • Declining trust and polarization is affecting national organizations’ ability to partner with their chapters.
    • When a keynote speaker at an event leans one way politically, associations are more mindful of having another speaker who leans in the other direction.
    • Social media and sound byte journalism is making it harder for associations to share balanced research, facts, and perspectives

    What are associations doing/should be doing to shore up trust in their industries?

    • Execs agreed on the importance of educating members about trust issues in their field.
    • Some associations are partnering with peer organizations to push out messages and expand their reach. 
    • Some execs recommended more explicit communications about their professional code of conduct guidelines or code of ethics to increase public trust of their members.
    • Organizations are having to remind members that discourse should always be civil and open-minded. 
    • Many execs say you always need to circle back to your mission.
    • The American College Health Association (ACHA) has developed a trust toolkit for its members.
    • The Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) holds a three-day conference + ongoing training for members about advocacy and communicating the value of the profession, members and association to different audiences, called the STR Program.
    • Some medical associations are developing patient resources that have been double- and triple-vetted and that members can share with patients, building up the members’ credibility and authority.
    • Some associations are doing more public education and public outreach, eliminating the jargon and focusing on the WHY.
    • One exec expressed interest in resources to share with our members to teach them how to have conversations about controversial topics.
    • Many execs reinforced the idea that communications should be clear and transparent.
    • Some associations are providing more training for Board members and other leaders to be effective spokespersons for their industries.

    Are you having conversations within your association about declining trust, credibility and authority?

    • Most associations said not yet, but after the webinar, they are planning to start discussions with their Boards and staff.
    • One association conducts an annual brand tracker; trust in the association is one of the metrics.

    The key takeaways from this discussion are:

    1. Start conversations at the staff, leadership, and Board levels.
    2. Consider: can you/should you offer tools and resources to help your members address trust issues with their stakeholders?
    3. Educate your members to be discerning consumers of information: webinars, blog posts, podcasts.
    4. Track trends in your industry.
    5. Collaborate with other associations in your field.

    More Resources

    I had been thinking about trust and associations for some time now and I am so grateful to Melanie and Tara for jump-starting the conversation with me, and thrilled at the insightful comments from all of the attendees. Here are more resources as your organization embarks on your trust journey:

    This topic was so popular, that I hosted a second session on “The End of Expertise and How Associations Must Adapt” with UST Education in July 2024, and was joined by:

    • Lindsay Currie, Executive Officer, Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR)
    • Matthew Hughes, President & CEO, World Affairs Council of America
    • Tara Puckey, Executive Director, The Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA)

    Watch the second session here!

  • 6 Tips for Successful AMS Onboarding for New Staff

    6 Tips for Successful AMS Onboarding for New Staff

    When welcoming a new staff member into your organization, the onboarding process plays a pivotal role in shaping their future at your association. It’s not just about acquainting them with the organization, their colleagues, or the physical workspace; it’s also crucial to empower them with the tools and knowledge they need to thrive. And your Association Management System (AMS) is one of the most powerful tools you have!

    Your AMS is the lifeblood of your operations, streamlining processes, managing member data, and facilitating communication. Ensuring that new staff members are well-versed in the system is not just about helping them perform their immediate tasks; it’s about equipping them to contribute meaningfully to the broader goals and strategies of your association.

    Let’s dive into the steps that will pave the way for your new staff member’s success and ensure they are using your Association Management System to its maximum potential.

    1. Start Them Off with a Good Introduction

    Schedule time to have a training session that includes real examples of tasks they will be performing in the system.  This can be with an in-house expert or with your AMS provider. 

    1. Document and Record Training Sessions

    Anytime your AMS provider provides you with a training session, ask for a recording of that session.  Keep them someplace where new staff can watch so they can also get the benefits of that training.  Just remember to ask for the recording before the session starts so it is properly recorded. 

    1. Take Advantage of Existing Resources

    Does your AMS provider offer a Support Center or other help resources?  If so, they likely offer articles or videos specifically to help a new employee get started.  These introductions can help orient a new staff person to help them feel more comfortable with the system.

    1. Assign a Mentor or Buddy

    Assign an experienced staff member as a mentor or buddy to the newcomer. This mentorship can facilitate a smoother transition by offering guidance, answering questions, and sharing practical insights about using the AMS. A mentor can help the new staff member navigate the way your organization uses the system. 

    1. Hands-On Practice and Simulations

    Implement hands-on practice sessions and simulations to reinforce the theoretical knowledge gained during training. Encourage the new staff member to explore the AMS in a controlled environment, enabling them to experiment with different features without the fear of making mistakes in the live system.

    1. Regular Check-ins and Feedback Sessions

    Instead of a single training session where the newcomer is expected to learn everything at once,  schedule multiple sessions that are spaced out with at least two weeks between each.  This allows the staff who is learning to use the system in real-world scenarios and then have built-in time to ask any questions that come up while using the system. 

    A well-structured onboarding process is instrumental in setting the stage for a new staff member’s success with your AMS. By combining comprehensive training, mentorship, and ongoing support, associations can ensure that their team members are proficient in using the AMS to contribute effectively to the association’s goals. Investing time and resources in the onboarding process not only benefits the individual staff member but enhances the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the association.

    Looking to increase membership, increase revenue, become more high-performing, and stay relevant? MatrixMaxx, a full-featured CRM hand-crafted for associations and nonprofits, is on a mission to help organizations better manage data and understand membership trends to achieve all of their goals. Become the association you were meant to be through MatrixMaxx! Schedule a demo today.

  • Google and Yahoo’s 2024 Email Policy Updates: What You Need to Know

    Google and Yahoo’s 2024 Email Policy Updates: What You Need to Know

    2024 is shaping up to be THE year of safer email, starting with big email authentication policy updates from Google and Yahoo, which will take effect on February 1st, 2024. These policy changes will impact what email Google and Yahoo will accept and deliver to their users’ inboxes, in an effort to decrease spam and spoofing. 

    These changes primarily affect bulk email senders, which are defined as any email sender/domain that sends 5,000 or more messages to personal accounts within a 24-hour period. As of now (but this may change), Google is not counting emails sent to Google Workspace accounts in this number – just personal Gmail accounts. 

    It’s important to note that even if you don’t qualify as a bulk sender right now, this appears to be the way of the future for email. All of these updates are now considered email deliverability best practices and more email providers will likely roll out similar, or even more stringent,  requirements in due time. 

    Key Changes to Google and Yahoo’s Email Guidelines

    Google and Yahoo’s new policy updates center on three main elements: email authentication, easy unsubscribe, and spam complaints.

    Email Authentication

    The first policy update affects your domain architecture. You now must use SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to authenticate your emails and prove they’re coming from a legitimate source. Alphabet soup, we know. Here’s a high level overview of what these records do:

    • DKIM & SPF records verify whether mail is legitimate. They prove that the domain in your “from” address is, in fact, yours, and that a sender (this could be your own mail server, a bulk email provider, CMS, AMS, LMS, Community platform, etc.) has permission to send on your behalf. 
    • DMARC suggests what to do with mail that isn’t legitimate. To pass DMARC, a message must pass SPF and/or DKIM authentication and alignment. DMARC tells the receiving mail server what to do if an email from your domain fails DKIM or SPF but appears to be from your domain – a sign that it may be spoofed. Check out this great resource from Sendgrid to learn more about DMARC.

    Google and Yahoo will now require that SPF, DKIM, and DMARC be in place for all bulk senders. If not, deliverability will be affected. 

    Easy Unsubscribes

    It now needs to be as easy as possible to unsubscribe from bulk emails, which Google defines as supporting one-click unsubscribes in email headers. No more burying unsubscribe links in tiny text in the footer! Also, all unsubscribes must be honored within two days. 

    The hope here is that by making it easy to unsubscribe, users will be less likely to hit the “spam” button, ensuring that legitimate email and senders are making it to inboxes. 

    Spam Complaints

    Both Google and Yahoo are cracking down on spam, with advanced algorithms to identify and block spam. Senders with spam complaints averaging 0.3% or higher will start experiencing issues with deliverability, but you should always aim to maintain spam levels at 0.1% or below to ensure your emails are landing in your members’ inboxes. 

    How do you reduce your spam complaints?

    • Make it easy to unsubscribe. The new one-click header policy should help with this.  
    • TELL your members to unsubscribe and NOT to mark emails as spam. Sometimes this is done innocently, but can have a big impact for your org. Let them know that!
    • Monitor your undeliverables and remove them from your list in a timely manner.
    • Respond promptly to members who request to be removed from lists.
    • Be thoughtful about what you are sending and how often you are sending. Don’t give your recipients a reason to feel you are ‘spamming’ them!

    Steps to Get Ready for Google & Yahoo’s Email Updates

    1. Determine IF and HOW these new requirements will apply to your organization, and make a plan for addressing them. 
    2. Make it EASY to unsubscribe from your lists. Most bulk email senders, such as MailChimp, HubSpot, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, etc., are already on top of this, rolling out new templates, requirements, and functionality for one-click unsubscribes in email headers.
    3. Talk to your IT Director or Managed Services Provider about DMARC, DKIM and SPF.
    4. Make sure you have DKIM and/or SPF records for all systems that send emails from your domain. 
    5. If you put in a DMARC policy, be sure to consider ALL of the systems that send out emails from your domain. Even a record of ‘none’ can affect deliverability. Here are examples of some systems that may send emails “from” your domain:
    • Your official email server
    • Your bulk email providers
    • Your website (e.g., emails from forms)
    • MatrixMaxx/any AMS
    • Community platforms
    • LMS
    • Custom applications

    What happens if I don’t comply?

    If these new requirements apply to your organization and you don’t comply, your bulk emails will be delayed, blocked, or directed to spam. 

    While these words and changes might feel big and menacing, remember that the email providers have put them in place to reduce spam AND make it harder to spoof your domain and fool email recipients. Now is the time to audit your systems, policies, and procedures to make sure that you are in compliance, no matter how well you followed the best practices in the past.

    Email authentication makes everyone less vulnerable to spoofing and spam attacks, easy unsubscribe helps to keep our spam rate low, and cracking down on spam helps us clear unwanted and potentially malicious emails. 

    As always, we are here for you if you have questions or need help navigation the brave, new world of DMARC!

  • New Year’s Resolutions For Your Website in 2024

    New Year’s Resolutions For Your Website in 2024

    It’s the New Year and all of us are bubbling over with resolutions. So many of us resolve to exercise more, be kinder, spend more time with family, and so on. What about our websites? Shouldn’t we have resolutions for making our websites, email, and social media accounts better?

    I am a big fan of Dan Pink, author of the best-selling books Drive, When, The Power of Regret, and so many others. He also has a video podcast that he calls the Pinkcast. Each podcast is only 2-3 minutes long and they’re full of amazing insights and advice. In this Pinkcast, he talks about how to make New Year’s resolutions like a pro. The process includes making a list of your regrets, picking the one thing that bugs you the most, and then focusing on just that in the new year.

    What Are Your Website Regrets?


    Getting back to your website, what are your regrets about your website from the last year? Here is what I hear from clients. They wish:

    • They blogged more often
    • They had better visuals on their website
    • They had cleaned up their website by deleting the old stuff and making sure what was left was current and fresh
    • Their website was better optimized for mobile
    • They had a better handle on their website analytics and what it means for their organization
    • Their content was better optimized for Google
    • Their site search was better
    • Their website did a better job of storytelling
    • Their join or registration process was easier
    • Their website templates were more flexible

    This is a pretty long list of regrets. Each of the items above is important and worth focusing on. BUT if you focus on all of them, it will be sometime before you see progress. AND not making any progress on your goals and resolutions early in the year could set you up for another year of regrets. So how and where do you start? 

    Pick 1 or 2 Regrets to Focus on in 2024


    Start by picking just one of your regrets, or maybe even 2, and turn them into goals. Which one is most important that if addressed, would yield the most benefit for your organization? 

    The key here is making specific enough goals that you end up with an action plan and a timeline. 

    For example, if one of your goals is to make your organization’s join process better, your action plan might have these steps:

    • Look at Google Analytics to see what kind of traffic the join page gets and where people abandon.
    • Meet with your membership database and marketing team to map the member join process and map the journey. Where are the friction points?
    • Ask your web team, AMS team or website vendor for suggestions for making the journey better.
    • Resolve to have something, anything done, by the first quarter of 2024.
    • Monitor the results weekly.
    • Repeat until the next set of improvements will bring in only marginal benefits.

    If your goal is to clean up the dead and outdated content on your website, your action plan might look like this:

    • Ask your web manager or web vendor to create an updated inventory of all of the content on your website.
    • Look at your Google Analytics to see where traffic is going and where it’s not going.
    • Do some searches on your site. Is old content dominating the results?
    • Resolve to make some decisions about 5 types of content, eg., news, blogs, annual meeting information, etc. A decision could be: Delete all but the last three years of news, or delete all but the last two years of annual meeting information (except session handouts, which will live in a separate database).
    • Set aside 1 hour per week to do this work. If you set aside too much, it will become onerous. If you allocate less time, you won’t make enough progress.
    • Distribute the work to a team of staff and monitor your work and results monthly, including whether and how traffic and site search are improving.

    Once you’ve got one one of your regrets tackled (at least for now), tackle the next one. And so and so forth. 

    Of course, your organization could opt for a total website redesign, which would presumably help you tackle a whole lot of regrets, challenges, and issues. Barring that, however, focusing on one thing at a time will give you the mental energy to actually make a difference on that item that’s been bugging you.

    What are your biggest website regrets from last year? What “regrets” are you planning on tackling first this year? Leave a comment and let us know!


    Need some help planning, strategizing, and/or getting the right technology in place to reach your goals and clear your year of regrets? That’s our expertise! We’d love to partner with you to help your organization thrive this year – in the digital space and beyond. Get in touch and we’ll schedule a time to tackle those “regrets” together!

  • When Do Your Customer Journeys Actually Begin?

    When Do Your Customer Journeys Actually Begin?

    I have two friends who have walked the Camino del Santiago. The friends are Peter Schwartz, who is my business coach, and Gordon Bernhardt, a member of my CEO peer group. Both of them did the French route, which takes you from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. It’s a 500-mile journey that you do on foot over 30 to 35 days.

    My friend Gordon’s journey began when he walked out of his hotel room in France and started his Camino journey. He said something really interesting to me when I was talking to him about the Camino. He said, “Joanna, back in the day, if you were a pilgrim a couple of hundred years ago, your journey actually began when you walked out of your house in Germany or some other part of Europe, wherever you might have been.”

    Joanna Pineda and Gordon Bernhardt
    Joanna with Gordon and his book, Buen Camino

    This comment from Gordon got me thinking. I am in the business of helping associations and nonprofits create amazing member journeys. My company creates online shopping carts, online meeting registration forms, resource centers, etc. All of my clients are concerned with creating seamless and effective customer journeys so that their members and non-members find what they’re looking for, purchase the items they’re looking for from the store, or register to attend a conference or seminar.

    The question is: when do these customer journeys begin? Do they begin with the customer at the point of registering for a meeting or at the point of adding something to the shopping cart? Or do they begin when the customer starts with a Google search, clicks on a link in an email, or has a conversation with a friend about something that they might need?

    I believe that we all need to think of these customer journeys as starting much, much earlier. When a person ultimately registers for a conference, that attendee journey probably started days, weeks, or even months before the actual registration. It started when they had a conversation with their boss, did a Google search, or visited the website.

    When thinking about your customer journeys, ask yourself and your web team: 

    • How do people find whatever it is we’re trying to sell them or whatever it is we want them to use or do on our website? 
    • How findable is a specific product in our store on Google? 
    • How findable is a specific webinar from our site search, especially when a person doesn’t have the exact title? 
    • How findable is a specific resource on your website that perhaps was mentioned during a keynote presentation or a webinar?

    And even though you may not have complete control over the platforms they start their journey on – Google, email, social media, etc. – there are things you can do to make those touch points better. For example, to improve the journey from search to your store you can: 

    • Talk to your web team to make sure that every product in your store is actually indexable by Google. 
    • Make sure that each product has good navigation. 
    • Make sure that each product actually has a primary link URL, and each product page has a URL. 

    When we do these things, we make it easier for Google to find our products and also make it easier for the site search to find products.

    The next time you’re thinking about a product or service that your organization has to offer, think about the customer journey and when exactly those journeys begin. 

    Chances are you need to go much, much earlier in the process to make that journey better for your customers.

    Need help rethinking and retooling your member journeys? Let’s talk! We’d love to help.

  • Verifiable Credentials: New Technology for Association Membership?

    Verifiable Credentials: New Technology for Association Membership?

    Our online identities are, unfortunately, not in our control.

    The internet was created for communication between computers, but our presence as individuals on the internet is less formally defined. We create online accounts and over time we may forget they exist, if we haven’t already forgotten our passwords.

    Technology advocates argue that we need an identity layer for the internet. We need a new way of managing our digital identity so that it’s in our control. Decentralized identity and verifiable credentials can provide this identity layer.

    What is a Verifiable Credential?

    Think of a verifiable credential like a diploma or driver’s license, but digital. This digital credential is cryptographically signed by its issuer for its specific holder. In other words, it’s practically impossible to fake.

    How Could Associations Use Verifiable Credentials?

    In many ways! Verifiable credentials could be used for membership, continuing education, certifications, credentialing, and more. Today, let’s explore how it could be used for membership:

    When an association accepts a new member, it could issue a proof of membership credential to that member. The member would store that credential in a digital wallet, either on their phone or computer, and would later be able to present that membership credential to prove their membership to a particular association.

    Why would a membership credential be useful? For starters, it could erase the need for passwords. Rather than creating a new account on an association’s website, members could use their membership credential to login by simply scanning a QR code. A member’s personal information could be restricted to that membership credential and that member would have the authority to decide who can access their data and when.

    Membership credentials could make it straightforward to provide vendor discounts for specific associations. Members would present their credential to a vendor. The vendor would then check whether the credential has been issued by an association they offer a discount to and seamlessly grant the discount.

    It could also be used to verify member application requirements. Perhaps an association requires proof of certification to become a member. If the certification is a verifiable credential, that association can trust that that certification is valid without the hassle of checking with the certifying authority.

    The Current State of Verifiable Credentials

    There are a lot of exciting possibilities for verifiable credentials, but the technology is still maturing. There’s a lot more work to be done in the space before it can be put into practice.

    Right now, Indy and AnonCreds credentials require a distributed blockchain ledger, which is a sizable barrier to entry. In order to interact with a mobile wallet, that wallet needs to be set up to work with the distributed ledger chosen by the credential issuer. Other credential types work without a blockchain ledger, but with a loss in other privacy-preserving aspects. Additionally, issuing and verifying credentials is a two step process. First you establish a connection, and then you can complete an action.

    But, we’re getting closer! This summer, as a Matrix Group intern, I researched verifiable credentials and have learned a lot about how to manage our digital identities. I even have a proof-of-concept WordPress plugin to show for it that allows users to login to their accounts with a verifiable credential, rather than a username and password. It interacts with a separately running “agent” that handles the actual credential issuance logic, however troubleshooting issues with this agent is difficult, and is one of the barriers to widespread implementation of this technology, for now.

    Eventually, verifiable credentials will simplify membership and membership management for associations, but we’re not there quite yet. Here at Matrix Group, we’re monitoring the state of verifiable credential technology and we continue to experiment with new options. We will be sure to keep associations in the loop as this decentralized identity technology develops!

    Check out our proof-of-concept WordPress plugin for verifiable credentials!