This article was first published as “Marianne’s Mining Minute” in the APRA Upstate New York chapter’s newsletter, 2010.
In his book, Business at the Speed of Thought, Bill Gates writes about the issue between reporting and knowledge management. He writes, “Information blow is the lifeblood of your company because it enables you to get the most out of your people and learn from your customers.”[1]
Every time we get a new technique, we like to sweep everything under that umbrella in order to get resources for it. We did it with data mining: what used to be called looking at a list became data mining. Donor modeling was called data mining. People standing around scratching their chins would say later that they were data mining. In a sense, it could all be thought of as true, since data mining itself is the act of smooshing a lot of data together and looking for a pattern.
Now we’ve moved onto Analytics, thanks to my hero, Joshua Birkholz, who reminds us that the skills that we use to massage data for modeling and mining can also be applied to management. I have been proselytizing for years about the need for a central dashboard. And then we hit the question: what is all this for?
Management needs immediate and drillable data to look at to determine if they are raising enough money, which programs have open opportunities, which deadlines are looming, and where staff are resourced. Middle management needs information on staff productivity, deadlines, prospect pools, portfolios, tracking, and how much money is coming in. Staff need to know their assignments, their pools, what’s next, and what’s expected. Oh, and deadlines.
Given all of this, why do upper management send us e-mails asking us things like, “Can you find all alumni who live in Hawaii and work in optics?” When the question really is, “Where are our best prospects?”
So, here’s my mining minute for the day: what is mining to you? Does your shop have a comprehensive plan for analytics, or do you get assigned to do mini projects? Is working with data only essential for finding major gifts prospects or does your shop use your scoring to assign prospects to different pools and giving levels? And, if you think like I do, that planning starts at the top, how do you want to start asking that question?
To get started on asking that question, see the book, Difficult Conversations: How To Discuss What Matters Most, by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen.
[1] Gates, Bill. Business at the Speed of Thought. (1999, New York. Warner Books). I wish I could find the page number on the Google docs version of this book. The quote comes from section I: “Information Flow Is Your Lifeblood”.