Love these Links

This week was a great week for bloggers. Perhaps bloggers are finally settling into 2008, because we saw lots of creativity.

This post, from the Big Idea Blog is an inspiration to all entrepreneurs, or wanna-be entrepreneurs. It provides the story of how one woman (Lesley Mattos) turned an experience in her personal life into an idea for a new business. I won't spoil the story for you--you'll have to take a look at the blog post to find out what her idea was. All I can say is that this reminded me to keep my eyes open for that next great idea, no matter what I'm up to.

And, we enjoyed this post by Phil Bernstein (my Portland neighbor), Direct Mail By the Pound. It's actually kinda scary how much direct mail is sent over the holiday season. His post brings this home.

Another post that generated lots of discussion on direct marketing ethics is Robert Rosenthal's IQ Derma and the Grand Illusion. I have to tell you, this really got me thinking about just how far some direct marketers go to make the sale--even if it means misleading their customer...

Since we're always an advocate for the customer, this post from the Customer World blog resonates: NYSE CEO Report 2008 - Focus on the customer. Let's all hope that there will be some major mind-shifts in 2008 and that customer focus, is indeed, pushed down from the very highest levels within an organization. This mindshift, by the way, ALWAYS bodes well for database marketers. In order to best serve your customers, you better understand what they want and need, right? Time to mine that database!

Along those same lines, check out this post from the 1 to 1 Media blog: Wall Street Should Take Cue from Amazon. It talks about how Amazon has maintained their solid growth primarily due to focusing on the customer experience. Yes, those customers are, indeed, pretty important...

That's it for today! Have a wonderful weekend, and don't forget to wish Nancy Arter (my partner in crime and fellow blog-author) a Happy Birthday!