NUCLEUS ANALYTICS BLOG

InformationWeek just ran an interesting article titled “Why Everyone’s Data and Analytics Strategy Just Blew Up”. They sum it up starkly: "Customer behavior has changed and company operations have changed. If your data and analytics strategy isn't keeping up with what's happening, then you have important work to do, quickly." We couldn’t agree more – you need Fast Data.

On April 14^th, Associations Now published an article titled “How the COVID-19 Crisis Is Accelerating the Shift to Online Member Engagement.” In putting forth these ideas, ASAE is emphasizing to the member industry the fact that trends towards online member engagement are not new and not subtle – just that they are accelerating in response to the pandemic.

Gravitate is thrilled to announce that we added a self-service visualization builder to the Nucleus Data Analytics platform.  Self-Service is a game-changer for our clients as they can now add an unlimited number of charts and graphs to Nucleus without needing our help. 

Salesforce.com rightfully deserves the credit for ushering in the technology innovation of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and the mantra of configuration rather than customization.   Over the past 20 years, they have relentlessly improved the flexibility of their solution, turning it into a robust platform, while offering third-party companies the opportunity to tightly integrate their products and solutions – further extending the reach and capabilities of the overall Salesforce offering.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Gravitate Solutions is pleased to announce a partnership with Americaneagle.com, an industry leader in professional website design and development. This partnership will make it simpler for mutual clients to bring valuable member activity and engagement data into Gravitate’s Nucleus data analytics solution.

Americaneagle.com has helped hundreds of associations maximize their presence on the web and effectively integrate membership and communication efforts. More recently, the firm has invested heavily in Salesforce and offers an array of services with the platform including consulting, implementations, and custom app development.

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. 

One of the ways in which Associations differ from many commercial businesses is in the requirement of associations to draft and approve an annual budget. The budget cycle drives the annual organizational cadence and often elicits protracted debates to establish the rates for membership dues, annual meeting registration fees, the price of a 10X10 exhibit booth and much more. The problem is that the data points to support the debate are often limited – mostly historical activity, some trend data, and some minor input from the association board. 

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Gravitate Solutions is pleased to announce a partnership with Naylor Association Solutions. This partnership will empower mutual clients to more easily bring valuable member data from Naylor products into Gravitate’s Nucleus Data Analytics solution. Platforms will connect through an open API integration available via the Naylor Marketplace, the online app store for Naylor’s career center and association management software technologies.

As data continues to grow at a phenomenal rate, data governance is becoming an ever-more important organizational activity for associations and for more reasons than ever should probably be an ongoing initiative at yours. Data Governance has been defined as “a collection of practices and processes which help to ensure the formal management of data assets within an organization. Data governance often includes data stewardship, data quality, and others to help an enterprise gain better control over its data assets, including methods, technologies, and behaviors around the proper management of data.”

We spotted a visualization published by MarketingCharts.com recently that is striking. They surveyed more than 200 marketers at major North American brands and asked, “if you had extra marketing budget, where would you invest it first?” They found that the leading response (more than double the next response) was to spend extra marketing budget on data analytics technology.