Dan Lipka Web Log

Constant Contact is one of the bedrock platforms for non-profits to community with their supporters.  It has tremendous advantages, which outweigh its limitations.  However, there are several limitations, particularly in how you can export data.  For example, if you wanted a master list of all your contacts and their response to all your e-blasts (did they open, not open, bounced, etc), that is virtually impossible.  This bothers me because it is the organization's data and they pay for this service.  Recently, I wanted to know who on my list has never, ever opened any of our emails.  If people aren't going to open the e-mails, than why bother sending them.  I searched the web and couldn't find the answer, but saw that many people has the same issue as me.   Here is a method that I just figured out.  It takes about 15 seconds per campaign, so if you have hundreds, this might take a while.   I had 70 blasts and the entire process (all the steps) took me only about 13 minu

There is so much about the election that I want to share, but I'll save that retrospective for another time.  Right now, I don't understand why the national political parties or super-pacs don't continue to push their agenda all year, every year.  For example, Trump is going to nominate Rex Tillerson, the president and chief executive of ExxonMobil, to be Secretary of State.  Why don't democrats run ads presenting his qualifications (from their perspective) and ask people to contact their Senator if they think he is a good choice.  The point isn't to actually make somebody change their vote, but it makes that Senator a little more accountable for his votes.  If he votes to approve Tillerson and either he (or the Trump Administration) falters, then the democrats have already planted a seed in the minds of voters that their Senator is not effective.  It is a simplification, but the point is that constant marketing works and I'm shocked that political marketing doe

It has been a couple years since I last blogged.  I really miss it in so many ways.  I'm not sure why I stopped, but I did and when I wanted to start up again, my new blog (2009-2013) had disappeared from the server I had stored everything.  Although I couldn't remember any individual post, I feel a loss for those forever missing posts.  There are a few that were on archive.org and from time to time, I'll re-post them as a glimpse back to my lost achieves.  Here is one from just after I made the move to the new (now lost) blog format.  It's about Molly, who at the time was only four years old.  Time flies... August 3rd, 2009 The other night, while driving home from the NJ state Fair, Molly was fast asleep in her booster and she started laughing.  She was completely asleep and this wasn’t a little giggle, this was something quite joyous.  Lindy says she does this every once in a while and I saw it only once before, but it makes me wonder if other children do this.  I