At the Crossroads

WITH THE millennium only six months away, it might pay to bone up on best practices and get a glimpse into the future of database marketing. And there’s no better place to do it than the National Center for Database Marketing Conference, at the Hilton Chicago & Towers in Chicago on the 28th to 30th of this month.

Titled “Database Marketing at a Crossroads-Choose Your Direction,” this year’s summer NCDM features a wealth of good speakers, many of whom will address technological changes and customer relationship issues.

For example, keynoter J. Walker Smith, of Yankelovich, will speak on the changing relations between buyers and sellers. James Canton, president of the Institute for Global Futures, will speak on the “Network Enterprise of the 21st Century,” which will deploy electronic customer service, neural net-based data mining, on-demand multimedia, interactive marketing, virtual sales, intelligent agents and knowledge management, among other things. And don’t forget the pre-conference intensives run by leaders like David Shepard, Vic Hunter, Rob Jackson and Mary Ann Kleinfelter.

Of course, we’re forgetting one of the most important things of all (to us, anyway)-that the conference, which is co-sponsored by DIRECT and the Direct Marketing Association, will for the third year in a row have its own DIRECT Show Daily.

Transition Readers will notice some changes on our masthead next month. One involves our managing editor and star columnist Beth Negus.

Beth, a New England native, is returning to live in Boston. She will continue as a full-time DIRECT staff member, but in a new role-as senior editor in charge of our ancillary products.

Beth will edit TeleDirect, B-to-B Direct, and our show dailies and supplements for various DM conventions. (TeleDirect will be the first teleservices title edited by a telecommuter.) And yes, fans, she’ll continue writing Pushing the Envelope. Her new e-mail address is [email protected].

We’ll all miss seeing her every day, especially those of us who worked with her before we got to DIRECT. She has been a great managing editor and a good friend to everyone on staff; guess the only thing to do is create some more Show Dailies so we’ll have a chance to see her on the road.

Replacing Beth as managing editor is our senior writer Thom Weidlich. Thom, who worked at the National Law Journal before coming to DIRECT, is a seasoned pro, well-versed in editing. He will remain in charge of DIRECT Newsline, our daily online news service.

For Beth, good luck in Boston. For Thom-hang on to your hat.