Ever receive a piece of mail that was personalized but that just didn't speak to you? Ever have an ad pop up on your mobile device that would be better suited for your 10-year old daughter? Ever go to your favorite website, which you login and visit daily, and the banner ads appeal to the other side of the country? These are all examples of how profiling, segmentation and modeling probably hasn't been done to reach you with the most relevant messaging possible. So what do these terms mean?

Do the words “Bipartisan Congressional Caucus” scare you? Well they should. As ethical marketers, we should be very concerned about what is going on here, as this would make an already very difficult job (marketing) even harder. I’m all about consumer privacy, but my gut tells me this is something much more and it can drastically impact our industry.

The annual AABB meeting and CTTXPO was held in Boston, MA this week and it was hard not to see just how much technology and innovation have changed our industry. It was interesting to witness this first hand and note the parallels between the blood center industry and (surprisingly enough) higher education, in what many consider the cradle of education. Apologies to Princeton and Yale...

According to a recent article in Information Week Magazine, research firm IDC predicts that the size of data – what it calls the “digital universe” – will grow to 2.7 zetabytes in 2012, up 48 percent from 2011’s record year. Data collection and storage is growing exponentially and the topic of Big Data is at the forefront of nearly every strategic enterprise discussion these days...