Making It Personal: How to Profit from Personalization Without Invading Privacy

In Making It Personal: How to Profit from Personalization without Invading Privacy, Bruce Kasanoff, founder of the consulting site HowPersonal.com, advises business execs on how to win customers via personalization, or ""when companies use technology to treat individuals like, well, individuals."" First and foremost, he says, companies must modify indiscriminate telemarketing, mass mailing and other often invasive marketing practices. Zeroing in on psychological, legal and financial aspects of interactions between individuals and enormous corporations, Kasanoff has high hopes for a dynamic that will satisfy both parties: individuals will feel taken care of and remembered (e.g., once they give their personal information to a company, they won't have to go through that rigmarole again); companies will win loyal customers and won't waste resources (e.g., having their telemarketers hung up on). Businesses looking for slicker approaches in today's iffy economy will appreciate this cutting-edge advice. ( Dec.)