What You Can Learn From Wine Sommeliers

Kody Jackson

Of all the professions I know, there’s one that totally blows my mind: wine sommeliers.

Here I am, barely able to distinguish between a merlot and a cabernet sauvignon, and they’re tasting notes of cherry, chocolate, and cappuccino and just a hint of toasted oak. It’s just flat out amazing how well they’ve trained their tongues to pick up those little differences.

I’m pretty much hopeless with wine, but I’ve started to figure out some of those little differences for Blackbaud Award Management. Did you know, for example, that it’s better to create questions with radio buttons and multi-select checkboxes than single or multi-select lists? Or that your reviewers won’t receive any review notifications unless a) they have assigned reviews, b) the review period has already started, and c) you set your review period before 3 a.m. the day of?

Those were just two of the little differences I learned while creating our system build courses, Writing Quality Questions and Qualifications and Managing Reviews.

If you liked this small sip, go ahead and try the whole glass … I mean class. I promise it’ll be full of tips, tricks, and maybe even a hint of rosemary.