My current title is "CRM Administrator." I'm our Tessitura DB, essentially. I have some SQL knowledge, but I'm not writing custom reports or stored procedures. But I do all FY and performance builds; I am responsible for TNEW content; I'm currently the only one building analytics dashboards; I do all training and onboarding; I maintain documentation of our system policies and procedures. My boss has never liked my title and thinks it should be Database Manager. I'm curious -- if your job sounds like mine, what is your title?
I get Tessitura Guru a lot! Also the ever popular "Chelsea we need you!"
on my less charitable days, I think of myself and my tess power users as Sauron with the One Ring, and the Rings of Power...
An old coworker referred to me as "Tessitura Grand Empress"
I would like to petition for that to be my new title.
I'm Director of Database, but I do essentially everything you do minus the performance builds. My title is in line with our organizational structure, but I usually just refer to myself as the Database Manager. I usually say I'm the first line of defense and translator between Tessitura and my org.
My official title is Database Manager and Ticketing Assistant, but I think I'm most often called "technical guru." In addition to almost all things Tessitura, I am very keen on documenting processes and procedures: hows and whys, and training backups with increased urgency since Covid nearly killed me. I was the original developer of our website and still help out with the backend of it. I also manage our live-streaming and on demand video (Brightcove sold via Donate2). I reported to Development when I first moved to my current organization from Development super user at a different organization. I went on what I now call a sabbatical to our consortium that totally accidentally coincided with the pandemic; I worked as DBA in Shared Data Services with a former colleague who mentored me further on SQL and learned more about ticketing and generally how it is for other consortium members. When I returned home to DBDT, it was to marketing under ticketing, but still all over the place just because of knowledge and need, including helping out with some consortium projects. I also do hardware, such as setting up Raspberry Pis to show slides and videos in venue lobbies, in our office lobby, etc. I am old and have been doing techie stuff a long time, including IT, and I've also been a freelance journalist, Argentine tango dancer and ran a furniture manufacturing business as my first career (IT, music, writing and dancing were side gigs). I've known my organization since their first public performances, and there is lots of love. It's interesting to me to see how focused the Tessitura life can be for others compared to what a wild ride it's been for me.
Fun thread! So my current title is "Director of IT". My responsibilities are split into thirds really:
Basically, when it comes to the three areas above, I am the advisor and director of how it all works, but I do not build individual things myself. I will help with a promo code issue, I do not build promo codes myself. I will help with issues putting text and graphics on our custom website, but I am not the one building a new web page myself. I do a little more hands on with the actual computer IT stuff because people always like to ask for help when "this is not working".
My duties have shifted a little over the years, but that is more or less what they have been for about the past 7 or 8 years. In that time, my titles have been "Patron Services & Database Coordinator", "Business Intelligence Administrator", "Business Intelligence Manage" and now finally "Director of IT". I have also been accused of being an "IT Genius" at times, and when I held the BIA title, I was told that I sounded like I had scary powers. All the fun!
I assume all of us here are aware of this, but, since it occurred to me as I wrote this out, most importantly to this conversation, make sure your organization knows what it expects out of you, what you expect out of it, that the pay matches the expectations, and that your responsibilities are appropriately doable for the amount of time you expect to work in any given week. There are different ways to lay out all of this stuff; two people with the same titles might have VERY different duties (one builds ALL the season's performance, the other never builds a single one), and none is the correct one. But overworked gurus end up being just as useless in the end, and underpaid gurus start getting annoyed at those they are helping when it might not be their fault. Constant communication with coworkers and superiors about all of this is incredibly helpful in maintaining a good working environment and work-life balance. As someone who has undergone a number of internal reorganizations and has fought for and gotten some changes for himself, communication is key. Do not try to complain in a negative fashion about how much work you have, but instead highlight just how much you are doing in a positive notion on all of your successes. Then we will not care as much about our exact title but that we are doing great work. But as titles can often be tied to pay and compensation studies, these are important things also not to forget. Glad to see the participation and variety here!
John A. Moskal II
Thanks for this, John! You hit the nail on the head. The reason we're trying to change my title is to get my pay grade changed. I honestly don't really care what it is, but we're trying to get it to reflect the full scope of what I do so I can be compensated appropriately.
This thread has been really interesting to read! As a follow up question for those have responded, I'm curious to know what your team structures look like. Are you a team of one, handling basically all Tessitura management/administration on your own (maybe you have specific tasks that get handled by your Ticketing or Fundraising teams)? Do you have someone who reports to/supports you, or do you report to another Tessitura administrator? And similarly, what department are you (and your hypothetical team) housed under? I'm under our IT umbrella, and I always find it fascinating to hear where different orgs put their "Tessitura person/people."
I'm basically a one-woman operation. My boss doesn't use Tessitura. I have a power user in development who does all of their processing and who helps me with testing, but that's about it other than end users. I'm in the Digital Services Division, which includes web development, interactive development, digital assets, our media producer, and a database manager who oversees our collections management system (as well as a handful of other smaller databases). They separated us from what they used to call "Technology" last year -- our network manager and desktop support people are now in a separate department.