Articles by Pam Baker

WiFi was supposed to effortlessly connect us to the world on the run Instead, we're all on the run seeking a connection....

Despite the overwhelming success of e-commerce, there are still consumers out there too terrified to click their cart through a virtual checkout Are they just a silly-nilly group, nutty as a bunch of conspiracy theorists? Or are the rest of us just too naive to get it?...

Casinos have been on a roll when it comes to customer relationships. The house has learned it always wins when it places its bets on the fact that humans are creatures of habit. Unlike other industries, however, the gambling lot does not leave the odds to a stack of faceless data mirroring only transactional data. In the eyes of the likes of Harrah's and its competitors, knowing the sinner is far more profitable than simply making a record of his sins...

Despite repeated pleas of "Do you hear me now?" from customers the world over, few companies have done much more than turn a deaf ear. As a result, consumer frustration is at an all-time high while brand loyalty has hit an all-time low The technologies that were supposed to open lines of communication across many channels merely cut the line on all...

E-books are still plugging along, not quite an afterthought in the publishing industry but not the hailed champion either. Like their newspaper cousins, book publishers are at a crossroads but completely stumped as to which way to turn, so they are largely sitting around just talking about it. At some level, they all know something digital this way comes and they are OK with that -- it's the silence of the cash registers they have a problem with...

The power of community is grossly underestimated in this country. Current collaborative trends on the Internet, from Web 2.0 to Wikipedia models, are seen as merely social or arguably informative in nature. That's a bit like saying the U.S. Constitution, another collaborative work, is a fetching flight of fancy thoroughly detached from real world application. Such a claim may be attempted, but it doesn't make a dent in the enduring truth of a multigenerational community commitment.

Despite some impressive showings in robotics lately, the accolades are slow to come from industry outsiders. We, the general public, watch Honda's Asimo slowly make its way down a few steps, for example, and unfairly compare it to the glib and golden C-3PO of science fiction, and thus blind ourselves to the miracle before us. But it's not just Asi...

Part 1 of this two-part series explores the ways in which governments are attempting to use CRM technologies to improve services Like their peers in the private sector, government agencies are under pressure to deliver services around the clock and in digital form....

The fact that we pay the taxes that support the costs of government ought to make us the customers of the government, right? That seems logical, but often taxpayers and constituents (or drivers, in the case of the DMV) are treated more like an annoyance than a valued customer However, some government agencies are starting to see the light and work ...

Call center reps get a bad rap. They're expected to be constantly nice in the face of increasingly not-nice customer interactions, field the blunt of management's never-ending drive for increased performance, and solve every problem that randomly hits their line. It's no wonder the industry faces a lightning-fast turnover rate "It's a problem our c...

Despite the overwhelming success of e-commerce, there are still consumers out there too terrified to click their cart through a virtual checkout Are they just a silly-nilly group, nutty as a bunch of conspiracy theorists? Or are the rest of us just too naive to get it?...

A big bugaboo standing in the way of making m-commerce a bankable asset is about to be squashed Until early this morning, enterprises had to crawl their way through hundreds of handset specs to develop mobile Web sites to fit each. Today they can hit the ground running. dotMobi has launched a low-to-no cost, comprehensive database of global mobile ...

WiFi was supposed to effortlessly connect us to the world on the run Instead we're all on the run seeking a connection....

In the beginning, man adapted to the environment; shortly thereafter, the environment adapted to man. Al Gore's "inconvenient truth" is fast becoming an uncomfortable reality, and the race is on to find new ways to cope before nature hands us the ultimate eviction notice However, are the super-cities and hyperstructures under consideration today re...

For decades, sci-fi writers have painted a picture of utopia as a crystal-domed city appointed with shiny-steel accents, ultra-modern furniture and gadgets ranging from food replicators to floor-hugging maintenance drones. Tranquility and efficiency extend from work to sex, and the human aging process is "curable," as is every other form of disease...

Change may no longer be the only constant; danger is proving omnipresent and therefore a constant variable in enterprise IT planning "In today's world where a shooter can walk in the front door of a church and open fire, there is really no place that is safe," Henry Dewing, analyst at Forrester Research told TechNewsWorld. "Companies must take step...

In the ultimate game of bait-and-switch, several Web sites try to pass off a bot as a bod. That is to say that Live Chat is offered to users, but there's no flesh-and-blood person on the line, there's only a chat bot making a robotic guess at what the user might want to know. Few are fooled by the switcheroo, but nonetheless, could the tactic be working?...

Cruising the Web on a smartphone is about like cruising for a date on a tricycle -- the basic concept is there, but the delivery is laughable. If you are using an iPhone, then it's more like cruising in a Volkswagen Beetle -- better, but still short of the Lamborghini speeds we're used to on the open cyber-highway Considering everyone -- from carri...

Online retailers agree that it's better to give than receive, yet they stand to receive more than most. Santa will barely have time to shuck his boots for his slippers before the merchandise misfits begin a return journey to the warehouse to wreak havoc on the season's sales numbers "The reality is that returns are nearly always higher for e-commer...

So you want to give the best this holiday season? How about a nice bundle of free software? Hold on, this isn't a lesson in Scrooge 101 but a way to give some really good software on a shoestring budget, or to lend a hand to charities, struggling college students, underprivileged kids, even help out the un-geeks who want to do more on their computer but haven't a clue about software...