When I became a member of a local swimming pool, I provided some basic personal details. The pool itself is part of a larger sports and leisure complex and when I’m there I look at the additional facilities available. Whilst I’m sure they are doing well as a business (I certainly hope so, I like the pool!), some clever segmentation and use of their data using CRM software would enable to really get the most from the data collected as well as providing information that would be a real benefit to their customers.

At the moment the only promotional materials I receive are advertisements for

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Sometimes in a company you find that the team all arrive at the same point at the same time, it gratifying really, that's what happened when we read a blog article recently by Babcock and Jenkins (a design agency in Portland Oregon) about their Pink Sombrero.

There is a term that is used across software development companies to describe when a developer steps outside of the normal structures that are in place to assure good delivery of code - Cowboy Coding.

This is not something that a developer sets out or plans to do and is definitely not part of our 'best practice' but there are

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After some initial bumps and hurdles, the Olympic Games have come to a very successful conclusion. There were ups and downs, laughter and tears, medals, records, personal bests as well as individual and team triumphs. Perhaps one of the real victories of the games from my perspective was seeing the level of dedication and engagement from the athletes, their support teams, the fans and the volunteers. Beneath the glossy surface of the Olympics you are left with a huge army of ordinary people that put an extraordinary effort into making the whole event a success. Now that the Games are over,

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I’m sure it’s a frustration you have all experienced – when you are filling in a form and you wonder – why do I have to fill all this rubbish in, most of it isn’t even relevant to me! Halfway through you’re thinking you can’t be bothered to jump through the hoops, do you know what - in the bin it goes. It would be interesting to see some statistics to show how much time is wasted daily or weekly by filling in irrelevant questions on forms, whether online or on paper. Actually that figure wouldn’t be interesting, it would probably be depressing – so let’s move swiftly

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Without a system in place, your data is like a random set of dots strewn across a landscape. A catalogue of customers. A set of services and products. A series of sales orders. A tally of tickets. A lot of lists and nothing to bring it into any kind of order or structure. CRM software comes in and connects these dots. A sales order becomes associated with a product, a customer and a supplier. Instead of a mass of random dots on the page, a network is created and the complete picture is revealed.