ACTION NEEDED

1. In a highly controversial move, your favorite social network has just agreed to allow Walmart access to the postings, messages, and photos of its users. Walmart will also gain access to user names and email addresses-in violation of the network's privacy policy.

Walmart plans to mine this data to learn more about what its customers want and to develop targeted direct mailings and emails promoting those items. You are so strongly opposed to (or in favor of) this change in the privacy policy that you are motivated to send a message to the social network expressing your opinion. What do you say?

2. You are the sales manager of a software firm that provides BI software for reporting, query, and business data analysis via OLAP and data mining. Write a paragraph that your sales reps can use when calling on potential customers to help them understand the business bene- fits of BI.

3. You are the new operations manager of a large call center for a multinational retailer. The call center has been in operation for several years, but has failed to meet both the custo- mers' and senior management's expectations. You were hired three months ago and chal- lenged to "turn the situation around."

As you are sitting at your desk one day, you get a phone call from your boss asking that you lead a pilot project to implement the use of dash- boards in the call center.

The goal is to demonstrate the value of dashboards to help monitor and improve the operations in many of the firm's business units. How do you respond to your boss's request?