NUCLEUS ANALYTICS BLOG

Making the case for Data Analytics being budget-neutral in Year One

At most associations, it is difficult to argue that better information is not a good thing – that better understanding your current members, potential members, and the broader constituency would not benefit the organization.

It’s also difficult to argue that Data Analytics, in today’s era of so much member data spread across so many systems, does not provide better information. 

When association leaders and staff want to gather information and opinions from their members, often the first idea is to conduct a member survey. With the number of data collection tools available on the internet for little or no cost, it’s tempting to inundate members with surveys about everything from the color of the annual meeting theme to crucial issues like dues increases or social issues.

Excerpted from "Why Is It So Hard to Become a Data-Driven Company?" by Randy Bean - published February 5th, 2021

According to Harvard Business Review, thriving as a mainstream organization today means being data driven. Those that have lagged on this front have observed their data-driven competitors seize market share and make inroads into their customer base over the course of the past decade.

Terry Dowdy is a 23-year association IT veteran – he has managed the IT departments at four associations and is currently IT Director at the Tax Executives Institute (TEI). In 2019, Terry and TEI decided to use advanced data analytics to help reach organizational goals and they selected the Nucleus solution to do this. In sharing his experiences and recommendations, he writes:

“I hope to help somebody out there - we were making decisions that were not necessarily data driven. They were anecdotally driven. We really were flying kind of blind when we think about it now, and I hope this helps others at associations in similar situations”.

ALEXANDRIA, VA - December 1, 2020 - Gravitate Solutions is pleased to announce that Nucleus has been named the official data analytics solution of the Association Laboratory Research Alliance.

Back in July, we responded to the waves of client interactions we were having regarding the entirely new types of member data that were being generated by virtual events - things that can be known about attendees of virtual events but not live ones. 

Julie Sweet is the CEO of a 500,000-person consulting firm with thousands of clients, all of whom rely on her to be focused on changes, trends, and opportunities for the future.

In an interview on Oct. 8th, she made the following remarks, all of which we at Gravitate believe directly apply to our beloved association space:

For associations offering courses and certifications, having basic metrics on things like participation counts and revenue are critical - but just the start. To grow your education business, you need to take advantage of the sophisticated metrics now available through modern data analytics – trends, behaviors, preferences, popularity, geography and much more.

The Nucleus data analytics platform has two dedicated and ready-to-use packages for precisely these types of analysis: Learning Management and Certifications.

2020 is providing member-based organizations with opportunities as well as challenges, and the technologists at DelCor and Gravitate teamed up on September 15th to offer something that many associations will find most welcome – insights into how to make meaningful improvements to your processes and your member offerings in this very unusual year, presented by those that are actually doing it.

When executives and data analysts think data analytics, the vision that likely pops into their heads is an executive dashboard. An executive dashboard is a collection of metrics and trends that shows the current state of a department, an initiative, or an organization overall. A common analogy is an airplane's cockpit array (which have also improved dramatically). When used effectively, Dashboards can be invaluable in identifying changes, monitoring progress, timely decision-making, and even strategic planning.

John Egan, Growth Engineer at Pinterest, believes that it is critically important to only track metrics that you are going to use. He says, “Don’t build metrics that aren’t going to be part of your day-to-day operations or don’t have potential to be incorporated as such. Building reports that no one looks at is just activity without accomplishment and is a waste of time.”