Help Us, Help You

Before becoming Chairman of the Direct Marketing Association, one of the things I’d noticed over the years was that the association didn’t have a ton of primary market research on itself, sort of a classic case of the cobbler’s children having shoddy shoes.

Today we are launching a new survey to help us establish a baseline for awareness and perceptions of all aspects of the DMA on behalf of all members of the marketing community.

Whether or not you are a DMA or EEC member …

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Four Unpredictions for 2012

I like to make what I call “unpredictions” – the things I think won’t happen in the coming year. (You can see my 2011 version here and the reckoning of the same here.) Here are my four for 2012: 1. …

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2011 Unpredictions: The Reckoning

Every year I make a few “unpredictions” (the things I think won’t happen in the coming year) and I also reckon my prognostication from the previous year. Here were my unpredictions for 2011 and my assessment of how I did. …

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Remembering J.D.

This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to write in 12 years as Return Path’s CEO. I hope it never has an equal.

One of our long-time employees, J.D. Falk, passed away today after a year-long struggle with cancer. J.D., which most people don’t know was short for Jesse David, was only 37 years old. Although I cannot claim to be a close friend of J.D.’s, I have known him fairly well in the industry going back about eight years, and he has been a trusted member of our team here for the last four+ years.

J.D. did great work for us at Return Path, but my admiration for him goes beyond that.

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Why Winning Matters (Especially When You’re Young)

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) has long been a leading voice for direct marketing for nearly 100 years – back when direct marketing was really only about postal. It has evolved in that time to include phone, fax (for the nanosecond that was relevant), and then interactive tactics, including email.
And one way it is doing that is by supporting and recognizing achievements among start-ups and new ventures, they’ve announced a new award called the Early Stage Innovation Award.

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A New Kind of Partnership for Return Path

As Return Path grows larger as a company, some imbalances that went unnoticed for years are becoming more obvious. One of those things is a lower percentage of women in engineering. We have a handful of incredibly talented women on our engineering team, however they probably represent only 10-15% of the total staff. And while it’s true that there are fewer female engineers in the talent pool, we felt we could and should do more to cultivate them.

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3 Bold Unpredictions for 2011

I don’t like making predictions. But my marketing people always make me. So I call them “Unpredictions” because I like predicting what won’t happen. This year I’m feeling particularly bold. Here are three things that many pundits have predicted, but that I’m pretty sure won’t happen…

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Security Alert: Phishing Attack Update

Yesterday, we updated on our report around the targeted ESP phishing attack that has been ongoing for almost a year now and has led to multiple known ESP system breaches. Our original post is here, and yesterday’s post is here. …

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Security Alert: Update on ESP Phishing Attack

As you saw from our blog post yesterday, we have become aware of a serious phishing attack aimed in part specifically at ESPs, some direct mailers, and other sites. Since the time of our posting and into late evening yesterday …

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Why I Love My Board

Today, Return Path is happy to announce that we are adding a new independent director, Scott Petry, the founder of Postini and now a senior email product leader at Google. Scott’s a fantastic addition to our already strong Board, and the process of recruiting and adding him has made me reflect a bit on my Board and its strengths and weaknesses, so I thought I’d share a couple of those thoughts here.

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