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2 weeks ago | 
ibm.com | Keith O'Brien |Teaganne Finn
It is more complicated to manage customer support today than at any time in the past. Long gone are the days when customers would try to reach organizations individually through the two dominant channels of the time—a customer service phone line or by writing a letter.
Organizations often deploy a customer support strategy where all customer service issues go to one help desk. There, those issues can be routed to available reps that can address the issue based on their expertise or availability.
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Oct 25, 2024 | 
bostonglobe.com | Keith O'Brien
In the latter half of the 20th century, it was a given that the World Series would draw a massive television audience. It didn’t matter who was playing or where the teams were from; if they were small-market or big-market; if the stars were household names, like Pete Rose and Reggie Jackson; or if the players were just “baseball famous,” like Paul Molitor.
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Oct 10, 2024 | 
orlandosentinel.com | Keith O'Brien
In Pete Rose's old neighborhood on the West Side of Cincinnati, kids were taught to look both ways when crossing U.S. 50, to be home by supper, to fight for everything in life and to never speak ill of the dead. Rose - Major League Baseball's all-time hit leader and most notorious gambler - learned these lessons well.
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Oct 2, 2024 | 
latimes.com | Keith O'Brien
Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Reds in 1978. He was banished from Major League Baseball in 1989 after betting on his own team and died Monday at age 83. In Pete Rose’s old neighborhood on the West Side of Cincinnati, kids were taught to look both ways when crossing U.S. 50, to be home by supper, to fight for everything in life and to never speak ill of the dead. Rose — Major League Baseball’s all-time hit leader and most notorious gambler — learned these lessons well.
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Jun 19, 2024 | 
theatlantic.com | Keith O'Brien
Professional athletes are now playing sports in a gamblers’ world, and it isn’t going well for them. In April, the NBA banned Jontay Porter, a 24-year-old role player for the Toronto Raptors and a younger brother of the Denver Nuggets star Michael Porter Jr., for allegedly wagering on NBA games, including his team’s, and throwing his own performances to influence prop bets.
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May 17, 2024 | 
ibm.com | Keith O'Brien |IBM Consulting
Business leaders worldwide are asking their teams the same question: “Are we using the cloud effectively?” This quandary often comes with an accompanying worry: “Are we spending too much money on cloud computing?” Given the statistics—82% of surveyed respondents in a 2023 Statista study cited managing cloud spend as a significant challenge—it’s a legitimate concern. Concerns around security, governance and lack of resources and expertise also top the list of respondents’ concerns.
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May 11, 2024 | 
bookreporter.com | Keith O'Brien
The nickname “Charlie Hustle” was originally meant as an insult offered by none other than Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, both Hall of Famers for the New York Yankees, when they first saw Pete Rose sprinting down to first base after a walk in a 1963 spring training game. But it was nevertheless appropriate: no one hustled more than Pete Rose. On and off the field it seems, as reported in Keith O’Brien’s expansive new biography on the disgraced ballplayer.
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Apr 14, 2024 | 
audiofilemagazine.com | Keith O'Brien
Ellen Adair handles this biography of Pete Rose beautifully, with clear enunciation and pronunciation, letting the rich and troubled life of baseball's all-time hits leader stand for what it is. Rose was a homegrown Cincinnati guy who went on to star for the Reds. But his off-field pursuits--gambling, an extramarital affair, and a lack of solid friendships--mar his legacy. Adair carries the narration of this fascinating, well-researched audiobook with a consistent tone and no imitations of quotes.
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Apr 11, 2024 | 
airmail.news | Keith O'Brien
The first time I met Pete Rose in person, I made sure to arrive 15 minutes early. It was the fall of 2021, and I was in the early stages of writing a book about the baseball legend and controversial American figure. Rose had been granting me interviews on the phone for more than a month, and had invited me to meet him in Las Vegas for three days of meetings. Anyone who knows anything about Rose is aware that hustle is central to his success and mythology.
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Mar 29, 2024 | 
ibm.com | Keith O'Brien |IBM Consulting
Customer retention must be a top priority for leaders of any company wanting to remain competitive. An effective customer retention strategy should support the company to maintain a healthy stable of loyal customers and bring in new customers. Generating repeat business is critical: McKinsey’s report on customer acquisition states (link resides outside of ibm.com) that companies need to acquire three new customers to make up the business value of losing one existing customer.
