"Based on our continued focus to deliver the best possible products and services to our customers and to focus our efforts and investments on new technologies, we are no longer offering AT&T CallVantage Service. All of our current residential and business customer accounts will be retired by end of year 2009. Customers are currently being given the opportunity to migrate to another AT&T service, transfer to another service provider, or disconnect service completely."

 

"We are focusing our efforts and investments on developing and enhancing our new technologies. While we understand that it may be an inconvenience to transfer services, we are focusing our efforts on making the transition as smooth as possible for customers."

 

"In April, AT&T CallVantage customers began to receive several notifications informing them that AT&T CallVantage Service is being discontinued and urging them to explore other AT&T service alternatives. If a customer fails to take action, we will continue to reach out to the customer to make sure they are aware of their options to transfer services." *

Until now, AT&T has been doing a great job of sending letters warning me to port my numbers before they shut down CV. I don't want to lose my phone numbers, so I've been looking into my options for porting and using these numbers. I'm going to miss CV: their customer service has been pretty good, and the VOIP service has been excellent.

Today I received an email notice that they ported one of my lines. What I don't understand is why they decided to blame me for deciding to cancel the service.

CRM Rule #1: Don't blame the customer for your decisions or mistakes 

-----Original Message-----

From: AT&T CallVantage Service [mailto:CustomerNotifications@maillennium.att.com]

Sent: Friday, September 25, 2009 12:02 PM

To: xxxxxxxxxxx

Subject: AT&T CallVantage Service Disconnect Order Confirmation for (999) 999-9999

 

As requested on 09/25/2009, AT&T CallVantage (R) Service is in the process of disconnecting your 2nd Line service. You will not be able to place or receive calls using the AT&T CallVantage Service on your 2nd Line. If you have not done so already, you should immediately arrange for service with an alternate phone service provider.

 

If you have any questions or concerns simply visit https://www.callvantage.att.com/help. We are sorry you decided to cancel this additional line, but want to thank you again for being a AT&T CallVantage Service customer.

 

Sincerely,

 

AT&T CallVantage Service Team

Hey it wasn't my decision! I was a happy customer. I think this letter could have been a little nicer. Simple CRM rules can help make it better.

Keywords & tags: AT&T shutting down CallVantage VOIP service

* Links:

http://www.callvantage.att.com/disconnect

http://www.cnbc.com/id/30346565/for/cnbc/

http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/converg/2008/082508converge1.html?t51hb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT%26T_CallVantage

https://www.callvantage.att.com/help/genfaqs/disconnect_why.htm

I just booked a roundtrip flight from Dallas to Atlanta. The outbound flight is at 5:30AM CDT. The return flight is at 4:05PM EDT. Each flight is about two and a half hours long.

But according the Orbitz' email confirmation:

1. This is an overnight flight.
2. This flight arrives two days later.
3. This flight arrives on the previous day.
4. This flight arrives two days prior.
5. This flight departs from a different airport.
6. This trip starts and ends at different airports.  (see the rest of the email text below)

WOW! There is just way too much information here to absorb. I need to take this one step at a time so it can really soak in.

First, "this is an overnight flight." Do you know if you have to pay for pillows and blankets nowadays?

Second, "this flight arrives two days later." Apollo 11 took four days to get to the moon. (July 16-19, 1969)

Third, "this flight arrives on the previous day." Now that I can believe! Believe it or not, that would be the second time this ever happened to me. Once I flew out of Tokyo at night on my birthday. I arrived in Hawaii in the morning, on my birthday. The International Date Line is cool that way. (see http://bizrules.com/resumes/rh_mobil_story.htm) 

Fourth, "this flight arrives two days prior." Back to the Future. Sounds like a good time to buy some stocks before takeoff.

Next, "this flight departs from a different airport." I hope they have a fast shuttle bus.

Finally, this trip starts and ends at different airports. I guess that message is OK. The main reason I booked this trip is to get from one city to another. So this message is technically correct. I've never seen this message before in Orbitz email confirmations, so this could be a new system enhancement to improve customer service: it's good to let customers know that they will land in a different place than where they took off from. That's all good. So that's not really a bug. It's more like a feature.

This automated email has 5 or 6 mistakes, depending on whether you think #6 is a bug or a feature. Actually 10 or 12 mistakes, because the messages were listed for each flight. That's not good.

Orbitz has a business rule problem. Somewhere in the system, rules are missing or they are just plane wrong. Orbitz needs to improve their business rules management system. Orbitz needs to figure out what their business rules are and what they should be. They need rules that are correct, complete, compliant, consistent, clear, and concise.

That's what Orbitz needs. And what Orbitz customers deserve.

Rolando Hernandez, CEO, www.BizRules.com

NOTE: Below is an excerpt of the Orbitz email

=================================================
Your Travel Document

Hello ROLANDO,

Thanks for traveling with Orbitz. This e-mail confirms the ticket number(s) issued for the "Atlanta <DepartureDate>" trip.

<DepartureDate>
Delta Air Lines # 1912
 
Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW) to Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson ATL (ATL)
Departure (DFW): <DepartureDate>, 5:30 AM CDT (morning)
Arrival (ATL): <DepartureDate>, 8:48 AM EDT (morning)

 This flight arrives two days later.

 This flight arrives on the previous day.

 This flight arrives two days prior.

 This flight departs from a different airport.

 This trip starts and ends at different airports.

<ReturnDate>
Delta Air Lines # 67
 
Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson ATL (ATL) to Dallas/Fort Worth International (DFW)
Departure (ATL): <ReturnDate>, 4:05 PM EDT (afternoon)
Arrival (DFW): <ReturnDate>, 5:34 PM CDT (evening)

 This is an overnight flight.

 This flight arrives two days later.

 This flight arrives on the previous day.

 This flight arrives two days prior.

 This flight departs from a different airport.

 This trip starts and ends at different airports.
=================================================

Update 1: An Orbitz customer service rep said this was due to Delta merging with Northwest. The inventory data from Delta is messed up she said. I wonder how many people received these warnings and error messages.

Update 2: A good place to go for more information on business rules management and rulebase techology is www.rulesfest.org

America faces critical challenges today (information overload, brain drain in government, sharing knowledge, automating knowledge, making laws easier to understand, etc.) and enormous opportunities in the years ahead.

I truly believe KM is part of the solution that can help us overcome the challenges and seize the opportunities.

Government and private sector KM executives have united and formed the Federal Knowledge Management Initative to convince our leaders in Congress and the Obama Administration to coordinate, formalize, and centralize America's efforts around knowledge management.

This presentation by Neil Olonoff summarizes the "Federal Knowledge Management Initiative Roadmap." The initiative, begun several months ago by members of the Federal Knowledge Management Working Group, aims to establish an official center for knowledge management in the Federal Government. With this center of operations as a start, the Federal government can begin to foster knowledge sharing practices and culture, build innovation, and find solutions to the Knowledge Retention Crisis. And there is much more to the plan. Learn how you can become a part of this exciting, ambitious new direction for knowledge management in Government, by attending via phone and computer.

Download Federal Knowledge Management Initiative PPT

Join the Federal KM Working Group. No dues are involved. To join the listserv, send a blank e-mail to kmgov-subscribe@list.jpl.nasa.gov

Read the Roadmap on their Wiki page:

http://www.km.gov

BIZRULES is looking for a Haley Rules Technical Architect *

The Haley Rules Technical Architect manages the design and implementation of the Haley rules engine within the context of the Seibel implementation.  The Haley Rules Technical Architect will design the integration into the target environment.  The Haley Rules Technical Architect should have extensive experience implementing Haley Rules within the Seibel context.

* by "Haley Rules" the client means
- RuleBurst Rule Engine (BRE)
- SoftLaw Rule Engine (BRE) / Expert System (ES) 
- Haley Office Rules
- Haley Expert Rules
- Haley Business Rule Engine (BRE)

This is for a long term project. RULEBURST/SOFTLAW experts anywhere in the world (Australia, UK, Canada, USA, etc.) are welcome to apply for this challenging opportunity! Relocation available for top candidates.

If you are interested and have experience with RULEBURST / SOFTLAW / HALEY RULES contact us or send your resume to

Careers8@BizRules.com

BIZRULES is looking for a Haley Rules Modeler *

The Haley Rule Modeler designs and implements the Haley Rules using the Haley data model and rules. The Haley Rule Modeler is expected to have extensive experience implementing the Haley rules engine and should have experience implementing the Haley rules engine in the context of Seibel implementations.

* by "Haley Rules" the client means
- RuleBurst Rule Engine (BRE)
- SoftLaw Rule Engine (BRE) / Expert System (ES) 
- Haley Office Rules
- Haley Expert Rules
- Haley Business Rule Engine (BRE)

This is for a long term project. RULEBURST/SOFTLAW experts anywhere in the world (Australia, UK, Canada, USA, etc.) are welcome to apply for this challenging opportunity! Relocation available for top candidates.

If you are interested and have experience with RULEBURST / SOFTLAW / HALEY RULES contact us or send your resume to

Careers8@BizRules.com

Dear CEO: 

I am sick and tired of reading about billion dollar IT projects that we both know are never going to work, change, or last. It's time to stop the non-sense and use common-sense.

Here's just one example from InformationWeek. California is spending $3,600,000,000 (that's $3.6 BILLION) on these systems:

• Financial system: 11.8 years, $1.6B
• Strategic Offender System: 5.7 years, $416M
• Home Support Services: 10 years, $298M
• Automated Welfare System: 3.8 years, $263M
• Child Welfare System: 7.3 years, $254M
• Motor Vehicles IT Modernization: 6.8 years, $207M
• Consolidate IT Infrastructure: 2.9 years, $191M
• HR System: 6.1 years, $179M
• ERP for Prisons: 4.5 years, $176M 

Do you really want to cut your systems development budget?

Here's how:

Let's say you're planning an 18-month $18 million systems development project. Imagine that's the cost and time for analysis, design, programming, testing, and deployment.

Using business rules, rulebases, rulebased technology, and architecture and engineering principles, we can program that system in 12 months and $12 million. It's that easy.

We can save you 6 months and $6 million just by using rule-based programming languages instead of hard-coding your rules.

If you can tell us exactly what all your business requirements are, and how many business rules you have, well then we can bring your costs down even more.

We can find enough good qualifed experienced out of work programmers right now who are just as cost-effective and as productive as any programmer in any country who would love to work on your project. And they're ready to start as soon as you're ready to save $$$.

When do you want to start saving millions of dollars?

Hurry, you must act now. Call 1-800-SAVE. The first 50 callers will save an additonal $1 million if you call in the next 30 days. You must call before shareholders find out how much you're really spending on systems development.

PS - By the way, for every $1 billion you spend on development, you're spending $5 billion on maintenance. It's time to stop IT non-sense. You must call now!

Obviously there is a cost to creating enterprise architecture (EA) blueprints and models of data, rules, processes, events/schedules, strategy/goals/objectives, policies/procedures, rules, decisions, people, places, things, etc.

Doing EA is expensive. The good news is that EA is optional.

The bad news is that not doing EA is going to be even more expensive later.

Your company must decide which path it will take. Executives need to decide whether or not to do EA. The question of whether to do EA boils down to these three questions...

Read full article

I’d like to reach out and invite all my IT/business friends to join the Agility Alliance, a free online network that helps bring together technology experts and business leaders:

http://www.agilityalliance.org     

The Agility Alliance network is an open social network, for experts, by experts. We’d like to keep it technical, friendly, open, fun, and non-commercial (i.e. no marketeering).

If you are into BRM, BRMS, BPM, BPMS, CRM, SCM, EDM, CEP, etc. there is a group for you. If not, create a group! It's flexbile so you can create your own group, blog, or forum to share with all of us.

If you're a programmer, analyst, designer, architect, engineer, business executive, VP, CTO, or CIO, and you are a leader in your field, or you want to hear what the leading minds in these fields have to say, join the network and become a member of your favorite group.

I hope this network becomes a place to share great ideas, learn from the best, and find "the best of" links to blogs, presentations, videos, and discussions in your favorite topics. Mine, as many of you know, are managing rules and knowledge.

What do you know? Share... Show and tell. This is not the place to sell.

It’s pretty open and flexible, so you can add groups, blogs, photos, slides, videos, chat, links, forums, tutorials, articles, etc. There are individual pages each member can customize, and each member gets his/her own blog (if you want it). You can post articles, templates, links, and add discussions to the forum. Invite your friends and colleagues to join. If you can’t figure out how it works, ask your kids!

Two months ago the idea of building a professional network for rulebase experts and knowledgebase exeprts was first proposed at ORF2008. I loved the idea. I started creating it, but it didn't feel right. Something was missing.

A big problem in our field is that business people talk dollars and IT people talk data. Alignment, or lack thereof is the biggest complaint CIO's have had for years.

Creating a closed network for just the top rule experts in the world was an awesome challenge, but I also wanted CIOs to have access and see what these genuises have to say. Business people need to hear what geeks have to say.

Geeks landed us on the moon; But business people paved the path and led the way.

We all need to bridge the gap between business and technology. I am extremely confident that the Agility Alliance network will help connect business and IT experts.

The time is right to create a network of IT experts and business leaders. The network is just a few days old, so this is just a start.

The rest is up to you.

What are the rules? Did people break the rules, bend the rules, or ignore the rules?

Confidence in Wall Street went down the drain last week. The credit crisis gave business a bad name, and it gave government a bad name for not doing anything about it. Trust disappeared. 

It's time to rebuild trust in business and government.

Here are ten rules for restoring trust in business and government. These rules apply to everything from the global financial system, to Wall Street; from federal governments to local jurisdictions; from global corporations, to organizations and small businesses.

Companies that learn to define transparent rules that are sensible, consistent, easy to understand, and easy to follow will be easy trust. On the other hand, companies that rely on opaque rules that are complicated, confusing, illogical, inconsistent, or deceptive will be hard to trust. They will go out of business.

Rule 10 - Have guiding principles. Act on principles, independent of influence by greed or friends.

Rule 9 - Follow policies and guidelines about what is permissible and what will not be tolerated.

Rule 8 - Establish rules of behavior concerning what is right and wrong. Success in business depends on understanding the rules. The rules of the business are the way the business really operates. Design transparent rules that are logical, sensible, easy to understand, and easy to follow.

Rule 7 - Leverage knowledge and judgment. Know what you know, and know what you don't know. Document and retain what your experts know and how they think so their knowledge can be shared with those who need to know. Use wise judgment. Know when to follow the rules, when to bend them, and when to forget them.

Rule 6 - Make smart decisions informed by facts, rules, knowledge, principles, and judgment. Decide using clear, logical, and unbiased rules that explain each decision clearly. Use sound reasoning to make rules-based, principles-based, and knowledge-based decisions.

Rule 5 - Create enterprise architecture to deal with change and complexity. Use architecture to simplify complexity, and to understand how the whole business and the whole system works; Understand who, what, when, where, why, and how. Design the architecture to ensure that all the parts fit (interoperability), connect (integration), work (quality), work as intended (alignment), last (reliability), and can be shared (reusability). Design the architecture so the business can handle increases in complexity and increases in the rate of change (flexibility). Design the architecture to reduce time-to-market and reduce operating costs. Design the architecture to support rules-based and principles-based compliance.

Rule 4 - Do the engineering, to design systems that work, change, and last. Apply architecture and engineering design principles to ensure alignment, flexibility, quality, interoperability, integration, reusability, reliability, compliance, reduced time-to-market, and reduced costs. Build in risk management safety factors so the business and the systems can handle extreme stresses and excessive loads.

Rule 3 - Have a clear vision. Stand for brand.

Rule 2 - Instill confidence. Improve the quality, consistency, and accuracy of decisions and actions.

Rule 1 - Build trust. Align actions, decisions, and transactions with management's intentions. Align execution to goals, strategy, and mission. Align systems to business. Align implementation to intention.

Sept. 25, 2008   Rolando Hernandez   BIZRULES

More judgment and knowledge needed

While the finance industry is moving toward more rules and exceptions, and rules-based regulation, financial accounting and reporting is moving in the opposite direction, towards fewer rules and exceptions. Accounting and tax is moving towards more principles-based regulation.

The US is moving away from GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) and towards IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards). IFRS is the reporting framework used by most of the world today, and it has growing support in the US. IFRS relies on professional judgment rather than detailed rules. Under this principle-based approach, management will have a mandate and obligation to exercise its own best judgment when making decisions.

Companies will need to implement systems that use knowledge and judgment to make principle-based decisions.

It is time to adopt knowledgebase technology and knowledge management. It's time to build knowledge bases and embed knowledgebased technology into operations and existing systems.

Knowledgebased systems that are engineered and architected properly can

• follow principles and guidelines
• automate management's best judgment
• ensure compliance
• and deliver trust. These expert systems can be trusted because they use expert judgment to make the same decisions top experts would make, thus improving the quality, accuracy, and consistency of decision-making.

I don't believe there is any other practical or proven way of automating human judgment, other than building intelligent, knowledge-based systems.

Knowledgebased systems are the solution for principle-based compliance.

More rules and regulations are coming

To restore trust in the financial system, the government is moving towards more rules and exceptions, and more rules-based regulation. The trend towards de-regulation is over. Regulatory reform is coming back. That means more rules and regulations than ever before.
 
Management will have an obligation to follow the rules and laws when making decisions. These decisions better be consistent, correct, complete, and compliant if you really want to stay in business. 

Companies will need to implement systems that follow the rules and make rule-based decisions.

It's time to adopt the business rules approach and business rules management. It's time to build rulebases and embed rulebase technology into operations and existing systems.

Rulebased systems that are engineered and architected properly:

• follow the rules
• automate management's decisions
• ensure compliance
• and deliver trust. Rule engines can be trusted because they implement the decisions management intended.

Rulebased systems and business rules management are the solution for rule-based-compliance.

On Sept. 10, the world's largest particle collider and atom smasher was turned on for the first time. Skeptics warned that the Large Hadron Collider, a 17-mile circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border designed to smash protons so they shatter and recreate the Big Bang, would create a black hole inside the Earth. 

In a world where homes could go down the drain and disappear into a black hole, the mortgage mess and global credit crisis seemed trivial in comparison.

Four days later, on Monday Sept. 15, the credit collider smashed Lehman Brothers to bits. Lehman filed for bankruptcy and instantly disappeared into the credit black hole. 

By Thursday Sept. 18, the black hole threatened to collide and smash U.S. financial markets and the entire global financial system. Then the federal government stepped in and turned off the collider with a $700 billion proposal for the largest bailout plan in U.S. history. 

One week later, on Thursday Sept. 25, the plan is still up in the air. Congress is debating the plan. President Bush just met with Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama. The world is rapidly losing trust in the U.S. German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said "The United States will lose its superpower status in the world financial system. The world financial system will become more multipolar," he said.

Thursday night, Washington Mutual disappeared into the black hole, becoming the biggest bank failure in U.S. history. The government seized WaMu, took it over, and sold Wamu's $307 billion of assets to J.P. Morgan Chase for $1.9 billion.

"A crisis of confidence without precedent is shaking the global economy," French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in a speech in Toulon, France.

Toulon is close to the Large Hedron Collider, where this whole thing started. Could someone forward this message to President Sarkozy: Please shut down the collider!

Here are some photos inside the LHC tunnel, and in the control room on LHC First Beam Day:

Images by Maximilien Brice    copyright CERN

Sep. 2008 –The Bosch Group acquired Innovations Software Technology
Jul. 2008 - IBM announced their intent to buy ILOG
Nov. 2007 – RuleBurst acquired Haley Rules
Oct. 2007 – SAP acquired Yasu
Aug. 2007 – Trilogy acquired Gensym
Oct. 2006 – Planet Group acquired ACI Worldwide
Jan. 2006 – Trilogy acquired Versata
Jan. 2006 – MDA acquired Mindbox
Sep. 2005 – Fair Isaac acquired RulesPower

(click to see the new BRE Family Tree) 

Oracle and Microsoft entered the business rule engine (BRE) market by building their own rule engine technology. Competitors, however, took a different approach. Global technology leaders IBM and SAP acquired BRE vendors ILOG and Yasu. Insurance software vendor MDA acquired BRE vendor Mindbox. And rule engine vendors Fair Isaac and Trilogy acquired smaller BRE vendors RulesPower, Versata, and Gensym.

I asked David S. Kim, Managing Director and CEO of Innovations Software Technology, to share his thoughts and tell us what this means to customers, end-users, and to the rules market. Here’s what he had to say in our email discussion.

How does the Bosch acquisition of Innovations compare to the other acquisitions and consolidation in the rules industry?

“The big difference is that we were not acquired to have our product line integrated into a stack of other software. We were acquired to be the core of a new software and systems company within The Bosch Group. We will be creating new technologies and value chains within Bosch and open the door to new lines of business,” Kim said.

October Rules Fest, the conference on rulebased and knowledgebased systems, is moving to a larger hotel, the Sheraton Dallas Hotel on October 22-24.

ORF is a three day gathering of the best and brightest speakers in the rules engine and knowledge base industry.  This conference on business rules technology features the inventors and scientists behind rules and knowledge management technologies, systems, and methodologies.

See the conference flyer for more information about the agenda, sessions, sponsors, and speakers. Cost is $150 and you can register here. So far people have signed up from Germany, Australia, UK, Singapore, Canada and the US.

Speakers include:

Dr. Charles Forgy, Inventor of the Rete algorithm
David Butler, Countrywide
Chris Collard, Dell
Dr. Jacob Feldman, Open Rules
Dr. Gopal Gupta, University of Texas at Dallas
Rolando Hernandez, BIZRULES
Dr. Richard Hicks, EZ-Xpert
Dr. Leon A. Kappelman, University of North Texas
Dr. Dan Levine, University of Texas at Arlington
Carole-Ann Matignon, Fair Isaac
John McQuary, Fluor Corporation
Jason Morris, Morris Technical Solutions
Michael Neale, Drools / Red Hat
James Owen, Knowledge-Based Systems Corporation
Mark Proctor, Co-author of Drools, Drools / Red Hat
Gary Riley, creator of CLIPS
Daniel Selman, ILOG JRules Rule Studio Team Lead
Carlos Seranno-Morales, Fair Isaac
Lawrence Terrill, EBDX.com
Edson Tirelli, Drools / Red Hat
Art Tortolero, Enterprise Rules Architect

What others are saying about ORF:

• Drools Boot Camp and Texas Rules Fest goes bigger and better - the drools blog