Data Mining – Friend or Foe to My Customer Lifetime Value
December 30, 2009
We just had a new Wal-Mart Super Center open about 3 miles from our house in Cincinnati, Ohio. They built it on land that used to have a “Big 3” automobile factory on it years ago. Vacant for at least a decade, it was torn down and then up sprang an Arkansas just-in-time building, the Wal-Mart Super Center. I normally don’t like shopping at Wal-Mart; I do value low prices although not as much as fast entry/exit and knowledgeable clerical sales help. As an IT Professional, I do admire Wal-Mart for their storied data mining and sales analytics platform. You know…the stories of just-in-time shipping of more beer to Florida when a hurricane starts to threaten the Sunshine State. They’ve been written up in almost every IT journal over the last 10 years as well as every national business publication.
So, I decided to venture into the Super Center 3 days before Christmas to specifically buy a popular board game, Risk, for my three boys. The store greeter told me “left and down 5 aisles or so.” I came upon the shelves where Candy Land, Trouble, Life, Monopoly and others were located. No Risk. There was a stocker, 45 years old, unshaven…reminding me of an auto mechanic…he seemed out of place and I wasn’t sure whether he’d even talk to me. He was just walking away from the game shelves. I ran after him stuttering with uncertainty to see if he knew whether they carried Risk and if I was in the right section? He stopped and said, “well, yes and no. We don’t sell much so it isn’t stocked very much.” I then asked about Candy Land, Monopoly, and Life and their stocking levels. “We sell tons of them.” So, that’s it.
My question is…does Wal-Mart really do analytics of all of their customers and prospects? If it’s the normal retail geography of “1-mile, 2-mile, 5-mile, 10-mile” I should be very near their sweet spot of 3 miles away! With their new grocery store there, should I be classified as the 40-something guy that wants to buy micro-beers, brie and gorgonzola cheeses, organic crackers and Risk?
Every media company in the country is publishing articles trending the growth of data volumes doubling and tripling! That includes Wal-Marts data as well. Business Intelligence and Customer Analytics are going to be key tools for retaining customers, finding new customers, and overall market share strategies. Leveraging them wisely through intelligence business questions and common sense will still be integral to the overall platform. Just because you use Business Intelligence doesn’t mean that you are going to be successful…setting specific goals up-front in the process is integral to success.
The Wall Street Journal article this week indicated that Wal-Mart’s web ordering is gaining market share rapidly. Perhaps they should have offered a web order entry for me with a quick ship program for Risk? Perhaps next year….for now, I’m going to venture out again and buy the Risk game at another retailer.
Recipes for Success
June 11, 2008
Using unique experiences to reach out to customers…. is the theme of a recent WSJ article that featured John Bostick, executive chairman of LUCRUM, and also President and CEO of dbaDirect. The article talks about how different small companies create unique opportunities to meet with their customers. The article was published on Friday, May 30, the very day after I attended one of John’s classes up at Jungle Jim’s in Fairfield, Ohio (another exercise in unique customer experiences – they have every imported food you never knew you needed ‘ 6 acres of food under one roof’ http://www.junglejims.com )_
The class I attended was called ‘Hot Thai Summer Sizzlers”. John prepared some wonderful Thai dishes, and Jim Hennessy showcased several unusual beers that enhanced the flavors of the food (except for the Paulaner Heffe – beer and clove are not good flavors in beer, in my opinion!). In the class, John prepared and discussed the origins of many of the exotic dishes he was preparing, but in an easy to understand and appreciate manner – demystifying many otherwise exotic dishes and convincing me that just maybe I should try this at home sometime. Everything was delicious, and while, a few offerings were too spicy for some of the attendees – don’t say he didn’t warn you about the peppers! – the different beer offerings were a great way to ‘cool the palate’. Several LÛCRUM customers and their family members attended, and as the WSJ article discussed, it was a great way to get to know people outside the normal business environment. John and I both share the common experience of having worked for IBM, and are rooted in the belief that ‘people buy from people they like’. So, having the opportunity to get to know our customers in a more relaxed environment is something ingrained in us, starting with our days at ‘Big Blue’. The best testimony to the value they received from the class is the number of folks that were signing up for the next class! – Obviously, it was an enjoyable, informative session.
Just like trying new foods and beers can provide an enjoyable experience, trying new business offerings and concepts can also lead to a positive experience. For example, one of the offerings that is unique to Lucrum is our ‘Strategic Alignment Session’. Using a guided methodology, our consultants facilitate sessions for customers – taking them on a journey – starting at the beginning, and discussing their history (which quite frequently, everyone has a slightly different recollection of!), and using that shared history to guide the participants on the journey, resulting in a shared experience, mutual goals and ways to achieve those goals. These sessions are one of those things that you just don’t fully appreciate until you’ve actually observed, participated in, or spoken to someone about. I sat in on one session during my first weeks with Lucrum, and was impressed by the way our consultant (Eric Duell, in this case) led a diverse customer group at a local chemical firm through this process as they attempted to design a new customer pricing system. In the past few months, Eric has conducted sessions for 2 of my customers – both in very different businesses – one, a large financial institution, where we helped an off-shore firm develop a new sale and marketing plan. And then most recently, we drove a few hours north and used this same process with another custom in the non-profit sector, bringing together a very diverse group including marketing, IT, creative, and education departments, resulting in a new vision for a major website re-design for their institution.
In both instances, there were participants who walked into the session, thinking “this better be good, they convinced me to give up 2 days (or 2 – ½ days) of my time”. By the end of the first session, or even sooner, you could see that their impressions had changed, and they were eager participants in the process – and walked away from the sessions with a new vision and ideas on how to lead their organization through the next phase of their business plan. And, some were even ready to ‘sign up again’ for more sessions – to utilize this process in other aspects of their business.
What is Consulting?
April 29, 2008
“Good Morning”
“Do you have a need for Contract Programmers?”
Here at LUCRUM, Chuck has done a great job at filtering our email solicitations. However, I still get the one above from some guy named Patrick Harris….it reminds me of how LUCRUM is positioned in the market as a consulting firm providing business and technology solutions.
There’s a real difference between “contract programmer” and “consultant.” The industry often mingles the definitions together and customers tend to negotiate for consulting services using “contract programmer” pricing.
LUCRUM has had a rich history of hiring IT professionals that thrive on “consulting” using their technology skills. With that statement, let’s ask ourselves “what is a consultant?” Consulting is bringing expertise of one’s experiences into a firm on a project or fee basis. One of the ironies of consulting is that the goal of the consultant must be to make him or herself obsolete.” All of us have been in the position of being frustrated (either as an internal or external consultant or even as a perm-placement worker) by management’s careful efforts to defeat any and all attempts on our part to transfer the knowledge we had to at least one (other) person in the organization. This puzzles me because I learned early on in my career that it is far more probable that a company will retain “intuitive knowledge” about their system/applications/data/whatever if more than one person has that knowledge.
To provide our technology expertise is simply not enough in today’s global economy. The disparity between India (and other Asian-based services) and the US will continue to have companies use “contract programmers” that are truly just “coders” and not consultants.
Why do I bring this up? It’s our livelihood! I also know that our mantra has been “85% social and 15% technical.” My ratio is skewed purposely to emphasize the requirement to “over-communicate” on every part of our daily assignment. The technology works; it doesn’t work if people are not communicating. As consultants, it’s up to us to take the lead responsibility with the customer on communications. That’s our largest challenge. You’ll see LUCRUM’s focus to grow our capabilities in this area with Customer Alignment Sessions, leveraging Whole Brain Organizational Development processes internally and with our customers, and a new larger emphasis on the consultant, and in developing unique professional skills. Jodie Heflin, as our Delivery Leader, has the proven track record of Customer-oriented 85/15 skills. It’s her goal to get all of our firm up to a higher level of capability; to “think” as a part of our customer’s business in addition to our technology capabilities.
Business Intelligence, Country Music, Peter Drucker and You!
April 27, 2008
I get a lot of emails every day! I got this one that I didn’t delete and then felt strong enough to comment on it.
“In a recent survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), nearly 80% of executives said that a Business Intelligence strategy would improve their company’s ability to enhance customer service and react quickly to market changes. However, fewer than 15% felt their organization has applied best practices to its use of business data.”
I love music. I love all types of music. I am not a Country Music fan though. I am a fan of Country Music Song Titles. There’s a title to a country music song (no music yet!) that I made up about the business problem that is one of the biggest problems in the entire economy. Here’s what it is: Companies go to great lengths to hire top notch people. Then they give them business responsibilities and the authority to act on the business responsibilities. Then, they don’t give them the complete tools to get the right analysis to get to the “right decision.” So, here’s my song title:
“You don’t know what you have done by the time you’ve already done it”
Is that right out of Nashville or what? Decision-makers and categorically speaking, Knowledge Workers” are nowadays tasked with making a lot of very timely and important decisions. After we have them on-board with what famous business professor, Dr. Peter Drucker, says is the 20% unique aspects of the business (he professed that 80% of all businesses are the same)…once they really gain expertise and experience in the business, we don’t necessarily give them the right tools to analyze their data and the general performance of the business. Perhaps another song title goes like this:
“I know she knows, but I can’t get it out of her”
Certainly, what we mean here is that the data is in the system. The person just doesn’t know how to get it out!” Conceptual thinking skills are not the norm in the Information technology world. Operating software systems, running networks, ensuring security, closing double-entry book keeping systems, and the normal “run the business” part of IT constitutes a majority of the activity. How’s this for another song:
“His left brain won’t talk to his right brain, so he won’t answer the door.”
OK, perhaps that one didn’t work….
The lack of relevant facts or real understanding in the decision making process is so apparent to person trying to sort through all of the data that surrounds them. Recently, I read 2 more statistics:
• More information has been produced in the last 30 years than in the previous 5,000
• Corporate data is doubling every 3 years
I am myself, “what happens to all of this data?” Another song title?
“I spent too much time looking for my data when the decision timeframe has come and gone”
Gartner calls it the “Fact Gap.” It’s kind of a “decision gridlock” which even with gas at $ 4.00 per gallon or higher is what we are going to see this summer on the construction-laden highways!
So, how do you figure out whether there is a Fact Gap in your organization or business? Perhaps there’s truly is a Fact Gap in your business? Here are some potential symptoms for this:
Excessive discounting
• Expensive marketing programs that do not result in revenue enhancement
• New product introductions are less successful than expected
• Low inventory turns per year
From a knowledge worker viewpoint, you can start to see symptoms where decision making that is unscientific resulting in …
• Inefficiency in production
• Missed opportunities
• Inability to react proactively
• Lost market share
• Excessive expense
• Lost revenue and profits
• Customer dissatisfaction
Perhaps one last song title will provide a summary of my topic:
“She turned data into information and he didn’t even know he had the answers!”
If we can turn data into information and empower business decision makers with the information they need to run the enterprise, there’s certainly a true opportunity to gain competitive advantage.
What’s Cooking?
April 4, 2008
One of the things many people don’t know about John Bostick is that he has a great love of the culinary arts. I was fortunate enough to attend a cooking class at Jungle Jims in which John was the guest chef.
The class, entitled “Get the Winter Cold Out with Hot Thai Food and Beer,” was held at the Jungle Jim Cooking School on April 2nd. Within a 2 hour timeframe, John and his team of helpers created a multitude of Thai dishes including an appetizer, soup, a side dish, two entrées, and a dessert. Students were provided a recipe syllabus to follow along with, as each dish was prepared. The menu for the evening included the following:
- Shrimp Sticks with Savory Dipping Sauce
- Kaeng Jud Thao Hu (Bean Curd Soup with Meat Balls)
- Gai Yang (Marinated Barbecued Chicken)
- Taeng Kwa Brio Wan (Sweet and Sour Fresh Cucumber)
- Jasmine Rice
- Beef Panang Curry
- Sticky Rice with Fresh Mango
Students not only learned how to prepare the dishes, but were also provided ethnic background on how food was prepared and served. An example of this would be that restaurants in Thailand do not have knives at the table because they have a belief that food should be prepared in bite sized portions for the guest. As each dish was prepared, John also provided interesting information and helpful hints about the ingredients. He talked about how to buy garlic – “it should be tight with no sprouts.” He prefers to use “the purple kind from Mexico.” “When using garlic, it’s better to chop or slice than to use a garlic press.” “Using a garlic press can change the flavor of garlic in dishes as the oils are extracted.” If students had questions about a particular ingredient, John is excellent on providing informative answers. He is extremely knowledgeable on the composition of the food item and provides suggestions on different ways to include the ingredient in other dishes.
After each dish was completed, a generous sample was provided to each student for sampling. Each one was flavorful and delicious. At the end of the evening, students were anxious to sign up for another class as it was truly an enjoyable experience.
Those interested in attending one of John’s classes should check out the Jungle Jim website (www.junglejims.com) under Cooking School. The Spring Quarter Class Brochure will be posted in the near future.
Giving Back – Continued
March 26, 2008
I was checking out our new blog today, and saw a post by one of our newest employees, David Bowman. It is great to hear about people in our company giving back. It is an important part of our culture and frankly, it’s one of the most special parts of living on this earth.
I guess when I think about giving, I go back to my parents and the stories that they taught me about their growing up in the Great Depression. In today’s world and the complex financial crisis that the sub-prime mortgage market has along with the recent failings of some of Wall Street’s giants, I have to admit: I still think we as a society have no clue about the real impact of what our families and relatives went through in the Great Depression. My parents were fortunate. My mother is First Generation American. Her parents immigrated from Eastern Austria-Hungary and the Ukraine shortly after the beginning of this last century. Coal-miner, shoemaker, Goodyear Rubber & Tire factory work, her parents always put food on the table and had a modest life of comfort and stability. During the Depression, they constantly had people coming to their door asking for chores. Back then, pride was 100% of your character. One never took hand-outs. You would not take “free food” even though my grandparents were willing and able to share. My father grew up the 6th child of a Southern Alabama farm family. Again, lots of people were very unfortunate in the South during the Depression. He learned to give to his neighbors and support the community. This was a practice that he continued throughout his entire life.
Fast forward over my years growing up with them. My 2 brothers and I were in Boy Scouts in our formative years. Outside of camping in the Upstate New York Adirondacks once a month, community service was the core of our activities. Weekends were spent participating in newspaper drives, helping in the neighborhood parks, cleaning up the “teen center” and many other volunteer activities. We learned to support our community.
Fast forward to today: I still have it in my blood. LUCRUM is committed to participating in Community Service through providing 4 approaches: economic, leadership, professional, and material assistance to local and regional organizations. Economic simply means donated cash. Leadership is where people in our firm invest their time in guiding, assisting, participating in community organizations. Professional is where LUCRUM provides consulting, web development, and general software development services. LUCRUM’s community support initiatives have recently included: The United Way(www.uwgc.org) and the Tocqueville Society Campaign, the Central Clinic (www.centralclinic.org), the Boy Scouts(www.danbeard.org), the Evans’ Scholar Golf Outing, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Cincinnati Art Museum (www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org), the Fine Arts Fund (www.fineartsfund.org) and their new Technology Sector campaign, and the National Father-Son Tennis Tournaments to name a few. As you can imagine, it’s contagious with our employees and their commitment to the community amplifies ours.
So, “thank-you” David Bowman. “Thank-you” to all of our LUCRUM professionals in their commitment in supporting our community.
Are People the Answer? Not Necessarily…
March 17, 2008
Happy St. Patty’s Day. We owe much of our country’s early infrastructure development to the large group of Irish immigrants that came over in the 1800′s. Masses of capable workers were the solution to getting the canals, railroads, and roads built in this country over a century ago. My wife’s family is Irish. She’s the 6th of 10 kids and has quite a nice family. In the 1800′s “people” were the answer to most economic growth initiatives. Nowadays, I’m not so sure that’s still the answer.
In a March 4th article in the Dayton Business Journal (Dayton, Ohio….the one team that should have made it into the NCAA March Madness and didn’t) there’s an article that quotes Robert Half, the Menlo Park, California-based IT Staffing firm, that shows Ohio has a robust hiring plan in IT for 2008. By polling CIO’s at Ohio-based Headquarters of large firms, they see a “fertile job market” where 10% of them are predicting adding staff in Cincinnati while 4% are predicting staff reductions. There’s other cities mentioned as well that show an increase in hiring people into IT. I have a problem with the very concept the article was written on. It’s really a “nothing article” since IT isn’t about “how many people are in your organization” but rather how are you increasing productivity of your end users, your vendors, your clients! We are in a race to add more computing power unleashing the power of DATA. Everyone defaults their focus on IT meaning Technology and thus, Technology is taken care of by PEOPLE. Then we talk about “how many people are in your organization?” as if one has an army of talent to lead into battle in the world economy…not so, from my viewpoint. The article didn’t say what the other 86% of the CIO’s are doing in the Cincinnati market??? The stronger companies are focusing on creating collaborative environments where the power of INFORMATION and not TECHNOLOGY is the key to their value proposition.Nick Carr in his recent book The Big Switch is espousing that the IT world is going to change significantly one more time. This metamorphosis is going to close down separate Data Centers just like the industrial revolution 100 years ago reallocated individual power generation dynamo’s into a centralized power generation model shared through the electric grid. In their case, the grid had to be built after the centralized power generation facilities went up. In our case, the grid is the Internet and all of that fiber that started to be laid 10 years ago and is now providing huge bandwidth. Centralized data centers needed centralized people to run the physical aspects of them. Frankly, the logical attributes are virtualized just in the same manner the centralized data centers’ hardware and processing infrastructure are being virtualized. Everything from developing logical architecture (SOA), application requirements, application development and testing, and even managing all of the databases once in production can be done “anywhere, anytime, by anyone.” People are certainly needed and yet, processes are even more important. For maximum productivity, the people shouldn’t be in Ohio. Let’s be frank. The people should be where the processes are most mature and their costs become the lowest common denominator (read: Asia although our falling dollar may make other places and even the US more competitive). By providing computing power “just in time” with managed services on a “just in time” basis as well, there isn’t much of a need for an IT organization. Perhaps we rename IT the “Processes and Measures Services Organization.” Even the word “Information” is not needed since Information is an assumed need every time!
Ironically, Robert Half does have a division called Provititi whose main services offerings are centered around “Processes and Measures!!!” Now that’s cool! So, next time, I hope the Dayton Business Journal writes a story about Productivity Improvement measures for the Ohio-based companies! (I would be happy to serve as a source.)
Move Forward One Step…
March 16, 2008
As we continue to experience the global economic correction in the US economy, we hear about the perfect storm: inflation, recession, credit markets becoming unbelievably tight, and the general struggle with the value of the dollar. Day after day, this is all we hear, and yet, if you read a lot of financial performance news, you understand that many companies are at or ahead of their forecasts and the economy is more sound. Who’s right?
What you can’t do is bury yourself in the sand. “No action” tends to be the less-than-optimal solution, for sure. “Back to the basics” theory historically says, “one step at a time” and you’ll have a lot of progress in anything you try to accomplish.
It is the same way for the world of Fine Arts. Cincinnati, Ohio, has historically made an economic name for itself as a predominant manufacturing economy. It is more likely that a person outside of this area knows Cincinnati as a sports town with the Cincinnati Reds and the Cincinnati Bengals. In fact, Cincinnati is really a “Fine Arts” town. At the center of the Fine Arts is the Cincinnati “Fine Arts Fund.” It is distinguished by having the oldest arts fund in the United States. Founded by the esteemed Charles Taft in 1923, the fund has continued to grow and prosper supporting hundreds of fine arts organizations and programs over the years.
Did you know that a lot of IT professionals are also artists? I know several that are musicians and still play in bands. Others are artists using paint and other medium. We once even had a former ballet dancer as a client-server developer! I’m a brass guy (trumpet) that now is constantly playing jazz on my Gibson Les Paul guitar. On this last week’s business trip to New York, I crashed in on Stanley Jordan at the Iridium Jazz Club, one of my favorite hideouts in New York. Stanley is still young looking and fresh. In fact, he told me afterwards that he’s 48 and playing as well as ever. I purchased a CD from him that I have never heard of before: “Relaxing Music for Difficult Situations.” It’s a 60-minute jazz guitar solo. Perhaps we play it for our economy!!!
LÛCRUM continues to be a great supporter of philanthropic causes in the greater Cincinnati community. This year, LÛCRUM is proud to participate in our first Fine Arts Fund Campaign. As you may or may not know, the Fine Arts Organization is also one of our clients. In addition to being a client of LÛCRUM, the Fine Arts Fund (FAF) does wonderful work within the Cincinnati community and throughout the region supporting more than 95 arts organizations, promoting the arts, and developing outreach programs to thousands of area schoolchildren.
Recently, LÛCRUM and the Fine Arts Fund co-hosted an “IT Entrepreneur Leadership Networking Event” late last month with Chris Hjelm, CIO, of Kroger, as the guest speaker. Chris’ talent outside of being an IT executive, is that he’s a weekend chef. Cherry pies, chili, and other delights can be found at the Hjelm residence.
LÛCRUM put a lot of time and effort into making this year’s campaign as well as making a modest monetary commitment. From a time and effort contribution, I am committed to doing as much as possible to support the FAF in their efforts to reach the $12 million goal set for the 2008 Campaign.
Did you know that if you give a personal gift this year of $75 or more, you get to receive the “Fine Arts Fun Card.” This discount card allows you to enjoy the arts and save money at the same time! There are even more benefits for donors at the $150 and $500 levels in 2008. Please go to
Breathe deep and keep taking “another step!”
Applying Exponential Principles to Personal Growth
March 14, 2008
I recently had an opportunity to listen in as our CEO, John Bostick, spoke to and fielded questions from Xavier Professor Tim Kloppenborg’s project management class. John captures an audience’s attention with his wisdom and propensity for great story telling. And he’s not afraid to share the hard lessons of his experience founding and running multiple multi-million-dollar businesses. This talk, although about project management and the trade offs of time, scope, and budget, hit so many inherently valuable life principles.
John reads voraciously. I’ve known this. Over my four years at LUCRUM I’ve listened to John apply lessons to his life and our business taken from content that he’s read and shared with us. Today I found the source of his motivation.
John described a very simple principle that he called the principle of exponents. I’m not sure that’s the clearest title, but the concept became as clear as day as he explained it. In essence, the principle is that if you spend 15 minutes each day improving yourself you will become exponentially stronger in character, will, knowledge, and understanding than the average person over time. Not that your goal is to be better than the next guy, but to become a generally stronger person with more to give.
John broke it down like this. If the average person can read, say, a bit less than a page a minute, then in 15 minutes that person can read about 12 pages. If the average book is about 350 pages long, then a person can read about a book a month. That is 12 books a year. Read three books purely for entertainment purposes (because all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy). Read three personal growth books, like Covey’s 7 Habits, or Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. And then read 6 books about the business and profession you’ve built your career on. 12 books a year, every year, and you will have come a long, long way in a relatively short amount of time.
Then John graphed the principle on the chalkboard, and it looked something like this:
At point 1, both person A and person B graduate from college and enter the workforce. The graphs measure personal growth over time as the two people apply growth principles and life lessons learned. Person A out of the gate begins reading about his business and profession, networking into relationships that will help forward his career, takes entrepreneurial chances and learns some great lessons. Person B doesn’t.
Clearly, with the passage of time, person A experiences personal growth at a rate that far exceeds person B. 10 or 15 years down the line we might look at person A (point 2) and talk about how lucky that person has been in his life and career because we’re looking at a point in time. If we look at history, though, person A established a pattern on day-1 that guaranteed the trajectory of personal growth if it didn’t all but guarantee personal success.
And all that from just 15 minutes a day.
Tell us: how much do you read? How do you apply habits to guarantee personal growth? We’d love to hear about them.
- Andy
LUCRUM: 15 Years and Counting…
February 16, 2008
Today’s the 15th anniversary of the founding of LUCRUM. Wow, that’s seems like a long time ago! At the same time, it also feels like yesterday! Our industry is a great industry because it never gets boring. The idea that we can problem solve in our customers’ business using some of the latest technology and techniques is still as rich in opportunity as the first day we were in business. I still remember that first day. I called about 20 different customer/prospects that I knew in the regional marketplace with the announcement that I had formed a new consulting company called, “Client Server Associates.” We were going to focus on the new paradigm of developing business software outside of the mainframe on PC’s and their network servers. It was a very “bleeding edge” concept at the time, and as you know, the rest is history.
It was also very “new” to think of business cycles lasting only a few years instead of the normal 7 year cycles. In fact, I was brash enough at the age of 33 to tell customers that the cycles were going to be “months-long” instead of years long. Boy, was I ever disruptive! In today’s economy, the switch from “build product and the market will come” to “mass customization of all products and services” has created such a huge market in business consulting and developing software solutions. I’ve skied out in Utah this season a few times and the ski “ticket” is now an RFID card that “swipes you” when you go through the turnstiles onto the ski lift! No more checking your ski tag! They also allow for you to go to their website and see how many ski runs you made and what the vertical feet added up to! Another benefit for the avid skier! Our whole world is going to change over the next five years in leveraging the RFID technology, mobile computing with Blackberries and other platforms, as well as the whole concept of “predicting” what the customer wants and suggestively selling or recommending your services in a way that you think they “really know you.” The fact is, they really do know you! “Predicting” needs and requirements is a big portion of the “data management” strategy of any company. They won’t be able to do this themselves in most situations since most companies don’t have an “inventive and build” culture. This is where LUCRUM is going to leverage our strengths and brain-power to provide these kind of services for the market. It’s going to be a very interesting “next 5 years!”
Happy Anniversary! JB
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