Making It Personal: How To Profit From Personalization Without Invading Privacy [Hardcover]

Bruce Kasanoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 13, 2001

As technology has come to permeate every aspect of organizational life today, our ability to gain access to data in real time has grown exponentially, as have our abilities to share information, knowledge, and expertise across the enterprise; to communicate with customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders; and to customize working tools. But this freedom does not come without some profound consequences. At what point do personalization and privacy clash? Are there limits to how personal a company can get? Who owns personal information? In Making It Personal, business technology and strategy expert Bruce Kasanoff offers a mission-critical briefing for anyone who wants to know how to profit from personalization without crossing over into the unethical. Drawing from a wide array of primary sources, Kasanoff explores the cultural, political, legal, and technological dimensions of personalization and how they play out in the corporate environment. Making It Personal offers a unique perspective on a phenomenon that is revolutionizing business and will play out in dramatic fashion in the years to come.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With the state of technology and the world being what they are, it's increasingly apparent that today's fledgling effort to capture and use personal data is merely an embryonic practice about to burst forth bigtime. Making It Personal examines the implications from a corporate point of view, offering suggestions on using personalization tools and techniques to create a win-win situation for all stakeholders in an organization. Bruce Kasanoff, a specialist in personalization, marketing, and the technology that brings them together, begins with the "one-to-one" concept articulated in 1993 by Don Peppers and Martha Rogers (who penned the book's foreword). But Kasanoff takes off in a new direction by focusing on the contradictions inherent in systems designed to boost profits through personalized interactions--and do so without invading privacy. Combining fictionalized anecdotes with real-world research, he explores current practices;, ways that developing technologies may change this tomorrow; how meaningful information might be extracted from the mass of newly available data; and some unintended consequences that could ultimately result. Understanding and using these principles, Kasanoff argues effectively, will lead to "reduced costs, increased revenues, and stronger loyalty" on all levels. -- Howard Rothman

From Publishers Weekly

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.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (November 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738205362
• ISBN-13: 978-0738205366
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,846,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How to balance Personalization, Privacy & Profit, March 13, 2005

By 

Peter Leerskov "The Strategist, www.lace.dk" (Denmark) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Making It Personal: How To Profit From Personalization Without Invading Privacy (Hardcover)

There are very few books on the personalization issue so far. This is one of them. And it's very good.

The central DILEMMA of Kasanoff's book is this:
No one can enjoy the benefits of personalization if he is not willing to share the personal information necessary to make those benefits possible. And yet, by sharing that information, the person is risking his privacy in the bargain.

And the issue is much more complicated than most publications suggest: "Just as different customers have different needs from your business, different people have different levels of sensitivity with respect to protecting their own privacy".

Kasanoff refers to a story that we have all already heard, but this time it has a different ending: "We would all like to get back to the old-fashioned service where you return to your local merchant and he remembers that you buy large white eggs and that you like a special kind of fabric. But we wouldn't think so wistfully about this type of relationship if the merchant had run off and shared intimate details of your life with the blacksmith, the saloon owner, and the dressmaker".

Here are the four primary INDIVIDUAL BENEFITS OF PERSONALIZATION:
1. SAVE TIME: Eliminate repetitive tasks; remember transactional details; and recognize habits.
2. SAVE MONEY: Prevent redundant work; eliminate service components unnecessary to the person; identify lower cost solutions that meet all other specifications.
3. BETTER INFORMATION: Provide training; filter out information not relevant to a person; provide more specific information that is increasingly relevant to a person's interests; increase the reliability of information; replace "average" information with information specific to that person's environment.
4. ADDRESS ONGOING NEEDS, CHALLENGES, OR OPPORTUNITIES: Provide one-stop services; allow flexibility in work hours, job responsibilities, and benefits; accommodate unique personal preferences; recognize and reward achievement with special treatment.

Here are 11 WAYS TO MAKE IT PERSONAL, i.e. this is how a firm can deliver the benefits of personalization:
1. COMBINE: Merge information a person already has with that of others, to provide additional insights.
2. COMPARE: Show how prices, quality, or specifications of one option match up to others.
3. CONNECT: In most large firms, data exist in "silos" or departments. Firms can connect this data, providing a more accurate picture of the firm's interactions with that person. The flip side of this is that connecting previous disparate data removes a level of privacy.
4. EXPLAIN: Clarify how, when, or why to use a product or service, or to perform a task, precisely when a person needs such help.
5. FIND: Locate a person, product, or service based on supplied specifications.
6. MONITOR: Track the status of events, news, or actions of others.
7. RECOMMEND: Suggest a course of action based on historical data, the current environment, or predictive models.
8. REMEMBER: Most people are still more frustrated about what firms forget about them than what they remember. Mantra: "Never make a customer tell us the same thing twice".
9. REVEAL: Highlight a pattern or conclusion that was not previously evident.
10. SORT: Change the order or grouping of information, making it easier for people to see patterns.
11. TRIGGER: Prompt an action when certain criteria are met, such as the purchase of an item when its price falls below $150.

Finally, Kasanoff suggests that by making two changes in the ways employees are compensated; any company can simultaneously become more profitable and achieve the right balance between privacy and personalization.

Change #1: COMPENSATE EMPLOYEES TO SATISFY MORE NEEDS OF EXISTING CUSTOMERS.
In Kasanoff's experience - and I agree -, most privacy abuses stem from efforts by firms to use personal information to acquire new customers, not to better serve existing customers.

Change #2: DEVELOP MODULAR CAPABILITIES
To make the first change, companies need to accommodate the differences between individuals. Mass customization or Modular capabilities make it profitable for a firm to support personalized relationships. Customization becomes routine and cost-efficient, and in many cases costs will go down, not up. Much of the savings comes from the elimination of waste and the reduction of inventory levels.

Kasanoff was one of the original partners of the Peppers & Rogers Group that coined the term "one-to-one".

Having May 2004 finalised my Graduate Diploma in E-business with a thesis on Online Personalization, I must say that this book was one of my key sources, especially on the complex issue of balancing Personalization, Privacy and Profit.

If you're really interested in personalization, you may want to read my online review of: "The Power of One: Gaining Business Value from Personalization Technologies" by Nirmal Pal, Arvind Rangaswamy (2003).

A final quote from the foreword by Peppers & Rogers:
"Big brother is almost here. His sister is the telemarketing operator who called you during dinner last night. His nephew runs a sweepstakes and magazine-subscription service just outside of London. The same rapid advances in information technology that are pushing businesses into a new paradigm of competition - the one-to-one marketing paradigm - are simultaneously generating more and more opportunities for the abuse of consumer privacy by mass marketers. Making databases of sensitive, individual consumer information available to marketers interested only in next quarter's sales is like providing chain saws to a tribe of slash-and-burn farmers."

Peter Leerskov,
MSc in International Business (Marketing & Management) and Graduate Diploma in E-business

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Writes like a novelist, inspires like a guru., December 15, 2001

By 

Ben (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Making It Personal: How To Profit From Personalization Without Invading Privacy (Hardcover)

Here's an idea: Forget about the web personalization that makes Amazon such a wonderful site, or that has writers from Wired still breathing heavily, and instead imagine a world where personal memory is "everywhere" -- where your every conversation, trip, purchase, phone call, or jog with the dog is recorded, turned into a data file, and shared with parties beyond your control. Kasanoff explores this world, and notes that it's coming the day after tomorrow. This book is one-third business strategy guide, two-thirds global forecast, and the tale is plausible enough that executives who read it may want to pull the CEO aside at the holiday party.

Consider:

- Data trails are proliferating, and most companies have no plans in place to manage the privacy, legal, ethical, moral, managerial or competitive impacts of this information boom.

- A plan requires anticipating new privacy laws -- and there are ways to do this by examining history and the fundamental constructs of personal protection legislation.

- Acting on information can provide the economic benefits outlined in every 1to1 book or CRM software manual, but success requires self-critique. There are proven models to gauge your firm's ability to succeed with new products and services.

- Personalization means moving beyond technology to carefully migrate to a diverse business system, where complexity is constrained to keep costs to a minimum and modular capabilities change everything from product design to employee behavior.

These ideas are powerful. Along the way, Kasanoff shares stories about data pitfalls and exercises that inspire a team meeting at the nearest coffee shop. Consultants can always explain which way the wind is headed, but for a look at the weather beyond the next quarter, I recommend this book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I'm taking this one personally, January 11, 2002

By 

Elizabeth Rech (Hingham, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Making It Personal: How To Profit From Personalization Without Invading Privacy (Hardcover)

An enjoyable and provocative read, but very importantly, Bruce adjusts the dial and focuses a great deal on stakeholders and employees, who are, after all, critical elements in the achievement of customer satisfaction,loyalty, and profitability.

Bruce provides lots of examples personalization and privacy (and the lack thereof) that make one gasp, think, and question some of the longer term ramifications. He also offers some reasonable solutions and guidelines to help companies prevent a privacy faux pas.

Your next visit to the grocery store, weekend getaway, or web site will never be the same after you read this book!

Enjoy and beware!