Fashion is not my strength.  When it comes to shopping for clothes, especially shoes, I’m a pragmatist.  I tend to buy the shoes I can wear often and really get my money’s worth.  This does not please my fashion focused better-half.  She’s constantly urging me to splurge for the expensive and trendy shoes.  On occasion I break down, spend the big money and head home trying to imagine under what circumstances I will actually wear these fancy shoes.  I realize this is boring and I’m missing some critical DNA element that makes me cool, but I’ll get over it :).

Each time I visit my closet those expensive shoes (still in their box) stare up at me, reminding me how expensive they were and cause me to think about all of the other ways those funds could have been spent.

Recently I read the excellent blog post from my colleague Taylor about keeping your email house file clean and this is what started me thinking about shoes and data integration. 

You see, for organizations, it’s literally impossible for all data to come from a single source, or be stored in a single repository that can support the creative and strategic ideas they have to engage supporters and constituents.  Ergo the need for data integration, in some form or fashion is always necessary.  But “total” integration is not only incredibly difficult, expensive and resource consuming - and almost always unnecessary.  A better approach is to consider replicating your shoe buying habits.  Determine which data sets are most valuable and will best support your priority strategic goals and spend your integration resources on developing the most efficient synchronization of these data sets in a deliberate order.  In other words… be an integration pragmatist, don’t try and achieve 100% replication between systems, think about which pieces of data are most valuable and focus there first.  Start with the most obvious constituent profile fields like name, email, address, etc. and then expand to transactional data, interest values, group membership, etc.  If you prioritize the data that will be used the most, you’ll never have that wretched feeling of buyer’s remorse.

Hey techies, the next time a boss from your organization requests the integration of two data sources, ask the following questions:

• Specifically how are you going to use the combined data?
• Will this integration increase our results?  How?
• To achieve these results, will you need recurring synchronization or would a one-time or infrequent sync suffice?
• Once combined, do you have the tools you need to segment this data or will you be needing my help with that as well?

Understand, I’m not advocating data silos and a closet full of dirty old slippers, quite the contrary, in order to succeed in multi-channel (online, direct mail, etc.) marketing, integration is imperative.  But just as with my shoe shopping, there is a cost and we must always rationalize our investments with sound reasoning based on the results we expect to achieve.

Do we have an answer to the age old question - "can money buy happiness?"

Maybe not, but researchers from Harvard Business School and the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, say their research suggests that how people spend their money may be at least as important as how much money they earn.

The study, published this week in the journal Science, was featured in an article in the Monday, March 21 edition of The Boston Globe. The article and study, Money makes you happy - if you spend it on others, suggests that money, spent on other people can make you happier.  

It is a fascinating article. The people who reported the highest level of happiness were those that were giving money to people or causes in need, regardless of income. 

So tell your volunteers, advocates, and other supporters it's time to be happy - give. We can all make the world a happier place.

According to the article one of the researchers, Elizabeth W. Dunn, wrote up the study, close to Christmastime. She "decided that instead of giving her family things, she would get them gift certificates to a website that allows people to choose various philanthropic projects to support.

"I've never gotten more positive responses to any gift I've given my family," she said. "I was giving them the gift of giving."

Shout out to Watt Hamlett, one of Convio's fine Solutions Engineers, who shared the article with me.

Welcome to Connection Café, a blog created from the hearts and minds of the employees of Convio. Our vision for this blog is to aggregate the latest trends, ideas and best practices for nonprofits online. Through discussions about online communication tactics, the latest in Web 2.0 strategies and integration of offline and online campaigns, we hope to share insight and create an open and honest dialogue in the nonprofit technology world.  

Unlike other corporate blogs you may have looked at, you won’t find information or sales pitches about our latest product and service offerings here. Instead, we are venturing out and doing something different - we’ll be writing about the issues you care about and the topics that can help you succeed online. From time to time that means our products and technologies and how clients are using them to get results will be part of the discussion, but we don’t want it to be a sales pitch, so let us know if we cross that line.

Connection Café will discuss how the Internet is fundamentally changing the way people connect with causes, forcing nonprofits to rethink the traditional models for communication, advocacy and fundraising. We want to share our internal resources and expertise with you, as well as information from our Fusion Partners and point you to other online sources that are having the same, or better, discussions. Bottom line, we want to keep you better connected and engaged with the people, ideas and technology that are driving the industry.

Over the past eight years, we’ve kept you connected with our Convio Connection newsletter, presence at industry events and our online client community. Now I’m inviting you - the nonprofit Executive Director, the weekend volunteer, the marketing/communications expert – to connect with us once again by being a part of our online discussion.

So, when we think we have something valuable to share, you’ll see it here. And while it may be natural for us to draw from past work experience, this blog is not about Convio as a company but rather the people, ideas and technology that are fueling the industry we serve. If you see us veering off that path or becoming too Convio-centric, send a note or post a comment to let us know. You have my word that we’ll listen to what you have to say.

I hope that each person who reads this blog will find something beneficial in the editorials, news and multimedia content we produce.  We also want to read your comments, get your suggestions and do our best to answer your questions – or find someone to answer them.  I encourage you to reach out and give us feedback from time to time on what we’re doing well and what we can improve on.

 -Gene, CEO