Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?

At least that is what Paula Cole sang ten years ago. In this case, my traffic dropped by 2/3 this week, as the Direct Marketing community convenes in San Francisco for the DMA conference. My loyal readers, where art thou?

A few notes for those left behind, those holding the fort down while our co-workers listen to Bruce Hornsby and eat exotic delicacies at a vendor-sponsored party.

• Brookstone Selects Abacus For All Direct Marketing Activities. The article reads as though Brookstone has outsourced the whole direct marketing department to Abacus. Database Marketing professionals, beware ... your industry is being attacked on all sides. The banking industry is outsourcing jobs to India. Online marketing, search and web analytics are gobbling up what used to be the circulation department. Brookstone has outsourced what is typically an entire department to Abacus. Brookstone has limited customer acquisition to only the pool of names Abacus chooses to provide Brookstone, and the names they can acquire via the web. Database Marketers, do something to prove your value to the direct marketing profession, before the rest of the industry follows suit.

• A shameless plug. If you enjoy this blog, nominate it for the ClickZ awards.

• A.T. Clayton reports that Banta named Alison Heiser as its President and Chief Customer Officer. Her background is from Accenture (consultant), Michelin, LensCrafters, Kellogg and Procter & Gamble. It is my opinion that we will see more leaders in the Direct Marketing industry with skill sets not historically congruent with our industry. I believe the internet is taking us in this direction. The online channel acts a lot more like a retail channel than a catalog channel. This results in needing a different style of President or Chief Executive.

• By now, you know that I really enjoy the Note to CMO blog. Take a peek at today's post.

• An interesting post from Brian Carroll on why sales people don't use CRM systems. I think CRM systems would have a better chance for success if the sales force were the sponsors of the CRM project, the ones leading implementation.