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International Data Quality News
Global-Z International Quarterly eNewsletter Winter 2012

in this issue

Global Postal Matters - The Year 2012 and the Universal Postal Union

Best Practices for International Mailings: Address Hygiene

TFM&A 2012: Where Great Minds Come Together

Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable


 

Building the Modern Family Farm in Vermont.
Are you Nuts?
~ by Dimitri Garder, Global-Z Captain

I sat there in the woods looking at the three piles of logs I had just finished dropping, limbing and cutting, trying to decide whether I should split them now or do it tomorrow. I was breathing hard and it was getting dark. Tomorrow then. The piles looked a lot smaller than I had expected. The wood stack had been getting low, and a rare free weekend gave me the opportunity to replenish it from three medium sized trees that had recently fallen, meaning the wood would be fairly dry. But damn, those piles look way smaller than they should be for all that work. You can't spend two decades running a business without habitually thinking about whether you're spending your time efficiently. "I wonder if all of that was worth it," I thought. Some people use log splitters, I'm the only guy I know who still splits wood by hand, with a maul. Heck, most people just order their firewood from a guy who does all the work for you. He backs his truck down the driveway and drops a giant pile of wood right in front of the house, split and ready to stack. It costs about a hundred and fifty bucks a cord. I just spent four and a half hours cutting about a quarter of that, and it's not even split yet.

Yeah, I realize that most folks don't spend their weekends splitting and stacking firewood. But here in Vermont, it's part of life, at least for a lot of folks. Working a little harder for the little things is a reality we just accept as part of the unique way of life that Vermont offers. Whether it's helping a stranger pull their car out of a ditch in a snowstorm, getting to work a little late because the neighbor's hens decided that the middle of the road was a perfectly reasonable place to convene, or accepting that electrical power is sometimes a luxury and not something to be taken for granted, there's a feeling here that having to work a bit harder for some things is part of what makes Vermont so special.

But there are times that we ask, "is all that hard work really worth it?" From time to time, we all ask that question about our jobs. Running the family business has been a real learning experience. We don't do things like a lot of other companies, in fact we can't afford to. When your primary goal is the long-term viability of the company and its jobs, rather than maximizing shareholder value, you can't always make decisions the way you're taught in business school. On the one hand, that means we get to break a lot of rules, which can be a lot of fun. On the other hand, I often think we need to work just a little bit harder at some things. Remaining privately owned and successful in the fast-paced technology business is no easy thing. And doing it in a rural northeast area is just plain crazy. We have infrastructure challenges, workforce challenges, cost of living challenges, and if you like six months of winter and six weeks of summer, you'd love it here. More and more I view us as the modern version of the family farm. Like a farm, our constituents are our people and our community, not our shareholders. Like a farm, we can't afford to put short-term results ahead of long-term viability. And like a farm, we don't do it because it's easy, we do it because it's what we have to do to survive.

Is the Captain nuts? Read on...
Greetings!

As we're already a couple weeks into 2012 we wanted to take a moment to wish you the very best in the year ahead, and to extend our sincere appreciation for taking the time out of your day to enjoy another edition of GZ News. Our goal is to help keep you up to date and informed on issues that matter to you. Thank you for your continued feedback! Please keep your thoughts and recommendations coming.

We welcome back WorldVu's Merry Law, sharing her ongoing series of articles on the topic of Best Practices for International Mailings. We're also pleased to welcome back Charles Prescott, offering insight and forecasts into 2012 global postal opportunities and challenges.


  • Global Postal Matters - The Year 2012 and the Universal Postal Union
  • ~ by Charles Prescott, International Direct Marketing Consultant, Executive Director of the Global Address Data Association and Editor of the monthly newsletter The Prescott Report

    This year will be a banner year for change and development in the international postal system. Here are two very important topics to keep an eye on as the year progresses. If your business has customers and contacts around the world, or if you want to have customers and contacts around the world, these developments will be significant for you.

    Learn more about fascinating, and money-saving opportunities for international mailers ahead in 2012...
  • Best Practices for International Mailings: Address Hygiene
  • ~ by Merry Law, President of WorldVu LLC

    International address hygiene has different meanings depending on who you ask. Basically, address hygiene is a series of related services that improve the quality, usefulness, and deliverability of the addresses. These may include:

    • contact name parsing, standardization, and gender identification
    • duplicate identification and merge/purge
    • address verification and correction
    • postal presorting
    • geolocational identification (latitude/longitude)
    • national change of address
    • suppression of deceased, gone away (moved) and "Do Not Mail" addresses

    Learn more on data cleaning advice from WorldVu...
  • TFM&A 2012: Where Great Minds Come Together
  • The annual Technology for Marketing & Advertising (TFM&A) conference in London continues to pack more resources under one roof at Earls Court, now colocating with a number of conferences bringing you:

    • Technology for Marketing & Advertising (TFM&A)
    • Online Advertising & Affiliate Expo (OA&A)
    • Direct Marketing Expo (DMX)
    • Publishing Expo

    We look forward to seeing you at the conference! We'll be exhibiting at stand F36, so please stop by to chat with us.

    _______________________

    Looking for some enjoyable networking while in London? DMI Magazine will once again host the Global-Z co-sponsored networking social the evening preceding the TFM&A, on Monday, February 27th. We've got all the details here for you. We look forward to catching up with you in London!

    Learn more about TFM&A 2012...
  • Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
  • ~ Book review by Marty Shaw, Global-Z Director of Sales & Marketing

    One of my favorite, forward thinking authors in the marketing field is Seth Godin. I have reviewed another of his books "Unleashing the Ideavirus"- in GZ News and recently picked up his often-quoted book "Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable". The book, like its title, is remarkable! I highly recommend it.

    Seth begins by suggesting that products or services are as boring as an endless field of cows standing as we travel through the countryside; an analogy I can relate to living in Vermont. The cows were indeed noticeable when I moved here a couple decades ago, though I cannot recall the last time one caught my attention. Seth's challenge is for us as marketers to create "purple cows" in our products and services; truly remarkable for others to talk about. If we're not remarkable, we're invisible. The Purple Cow offers readers the why, what and how of being remarkable.

    How to create your own purple cow...
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