By David Sims

David at firstcoffee d*t biz

 

The news as of the second cup of coffee this morning, and thank the sometimes inspired vagaries of iPod shuffle for producing this gem — out of 4,777 options ranging from jazz to classical to spoken to children's music to hip-hop rap, the last two songs just happen to be from the two of the three best double albums released in rock's entire history: "Hip Shake" from The Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street, and currently "Long, Long, Long" from The Beatles' White Album. If we get something from Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde next we'll hit the trifecta… and it is… Louis Jordan's "(You Dyed Your Hair) Chartreuse." Oh well. At least it's from a double album.

 

Hoboken-based eglue, a vendor of customer interaction management software products for the enterprise, has announced that noted industry figure Martha Rogers has joined the company's board of directors, effective May 1.

 

Recognized for the past decade as an expert on customer-based business strategies and growing customer value, Dr. Rogers is an author, in-demand speaker and founding partner of Peppers & Rogers Group, now a division of Carlson Marketing Worldwide.

 

Business 2.0 magazine recently named Rogers one of the nineteen most important business gurus of the past century. The World Technology Network has called her "an innovator most likely to create visionary ripple effects." Accenture's Institute for Strategic Change has ranked her among the Global "Top 100 Business Intellectuals." And she is a proud recipient of the coveted First Coffee Tip O' The Pot award.

 

"Customer-minded corporations have figured out that to make relationships with customers last, it is important that they build and nurture these relationships with every interaction," Rogers has said. "Companies are now realigning their objectives around just that — their interactions with customers."

 

"We are thrilled to welcome such a highly regarded industry expert to our board of directors," says Dror Pockard, eglue President and CEO. "Combined decades of CRM experience and collaboration with foremost industry players have justifiably established Martha Rogers as the leaders of customer experience."

 

A privately-held company founded in 2001, eglue is headquartered in Hoboken with offices in the United Kingdom, in Spain and in Israel. Recipient of the 2007 Product of the Year award from Customer Interaction Solutions Magazine, eglue caters to Fortune 500 companies worldwide and is backed by such international VCs and private investors as Giza, Cedar and Evergreen.

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First Coffee must be psychic: Two songs after Louis Jordan, the iPod plays "Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again." Go ahead and look up what album it's from and which son of Hibbing, Minnesota wrote it. As Dave Barry would say, I swear I'm not making this up. Okay, let's see if I can really do this… what would #4 be… okay, let's have something from The Clash's London Calling before we're done for the day.

 

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Broadchoice has announced the introduction of an on-demand platform that lets marketers "improve the effectiveness of online initiatives based on the behavior and preferences of the target customers, partners, and prospects who use them," company officials say.

 

The product works with existing customer relationship management (CRM) and sales automation systems, so marketing-generated leads can fill the sales pipeline.

 

The Broadchoice Web Platform is described by company officials as a product to engage "community will" into Web-based marketing by "integrating metrics and analytics of actual target customer interaction through the Broadchoice Engagement Engine."

 

A company's customers, partners and employees can connect with each other through the

Broadchoice platform to collaborate and share content. The platform can be deployed within an hour, Broadchoice officials say.

 

The product lets companies offer self-provisioned on-demand service at a price of $1 per active registered user, regardless of the number of sites created or the amount of Web content deployed. Company officials say it "simplifies marketing and sales departments' ability to develop and launch online programs to collaborate with their corporate community -- customers, partners, and prospects — in personalized environments."

 

"The holy grail for most marketing professionals is to know what prospective customers really think and which campaigns are working," said Steve Asche, senior marketing director, Trapeze Networks. Using Broadchoice, Asche says, leads are "dropped directly into Salesforce.com."

 

"The current marketing value-chain is fraught with waste and inefficiency because companies don't have the business tools to show them in real time what's working and what needs adjustment," said Sergio Zyman, former CMO of The Coca-Cola Company and the author of The End of Marketing as We Know It, among other books.

 

The Broadchoice Web Platform is currently available as an on-demand software service.

 

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CRM analytics vendor Database Mining Lab has introduced a supply chain business intelligence product described by company officials as designed to "help companies analyze their supplier performance through scorecards, dashboards and data reporting."

 

The tool's geared to the director of the company's supply chain or logistics to help their team analyze aspects of the supply chain. It can specify and track goals against budget and let management use interactive dashboards in real time.

 

"With this product, companies will be able to analyze their delivery performance down to the customer level, monitor productivity and their related costs, review cost to budget and make sound business decisions based on 'on the fly' spend analytics" says Ambar Kumar, Director of Consulting Services at Database Mining Lab.

 

The Database Mining Lab product integrates with existing corporate financial, procurement and other operational systems. Corporate data is consolidated from systems throughout the organization into an integrated database for efficient data mining. Business data is converted into key performance indicators and presented in the form of an interactive scorecard on a dashboard with drill down capabilities.

 

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Oooooh: The iPod's playing "V. Thirteen," by Big Audio Dynamite, the band formed by ex-Clash guitarist Mick Jones. So close.

 

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IVoice has announced that it has redeemed $4,796,510.00 million in Secured Convertible Debenture Notes previously issued to Cornell Capital Partners, LP. After repayment, there is currently $1,250,000.00 million plus accrued interest outstanding. 

 

"We believe the redemption eliminates expensive debt that had the potential to be dilutive to shareholders," said Jerry Mahoney, CEO of iVoice. "The repayment of this debt improves  our balance sheet and reduces an overhang in our stock." 

IVoice officials recently determined that "the best way to create shareholder value,
separate and apart from the operating performance of iVoice," is to spin off previously wholly-owned subsidiaries of iVoice to its shareholders by distributing shares of these subsidiaries in the form of a special dividend.

 

To date, iVoice has spun off Trey Resources, iVoice Technology, SpeechSwitch and Thomas Pharmaceuticals.

 

Company officials say the common stock distributions are "part of a broader strategy relating to the transition of iVoice into a company focused on the development and licensing of proprietary technologies."

 

The company is searching for potential merger candidates with or without compatible technology and products, which management feels may make financing more appealing to potential investors.