THE CONTENT FIRM - Key Persons
A journalist for more than 23 years, Evan Schuman's background includes news reporting for radio networks (including CBS Radio News, National Public Radio, AP Radio and CNN Radio), consumer news organizations (including The New York Times, BusinessWeek, USA Today, Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution), wire services (Reuters, AP and UPI) and technology/business publishers. He served as an editorial manager for 11 years at CMP Media, where his posts included News Editor at InformationWeek, News Editor at TechWeb, Editor of The Internet Business Report and Editorial Director for the Custom Publishing division. In the online arena, Schuman has been actively involved in the launch of more than 40 corporate Web sites, holds two Patents Pending on streaming multimedia techniques and has tracked the Internet since 1988. He's also a frequent guest lecturer on business issues at New York University's masters degree program.
Before launching The Content Firm, Schuman served as VP/Editor in Chief of Triangle Publishing Services Co. Inc., a Massachusetts company that also creates business content. He has consulted with dozens of Fortune 1000 companies on marketing and public relations issues. For more information on Schuman, please visit his personal Web site at www.evanschuman.com. In the summer of 2006, launched his own retail technology blog called StorefrontBacktalk. Schuman also serves as the Executive Editor of FierceRetail and FierceMobileRetail.
An award-winning technology and business journalist, Frank Hayes spent
12 years as a weekly columnist for Computerworld. Before that he was a reporter and editor for Computerworld, Informationweek and Byte, among others. Hayes also serves as the Executive Editor of FierceRetail and FierceMobileRetail.
Job Titles:
- VP, Sales and Business Development
Jack Fordi oversees all sales and business developments for StorefrontBacktalk.
Job Titles:
- Director of Strategic Development for T - Mobile
Jaymee Johnson is the director of strategic development for T-Mobile and he was acting as ISIS spokesperson in media interviews. Johnson spoke of "bringing enough compelling value to the merchant side," but did so without actually addressing interchange.
Attorney Mark D. Rasch is the former head of the U.S. Justice Department's computer crime unit and today is a lawyer in Bethesda, Md., specializing in privacy and security law.
Job Titles:
- StorefrontBacktalk 's Resident Technology / Design Expert
- VP / Technology
Marvyn is StorefrontBacktalk's resident technology/design expert. He is responsible for the web site's programming maintenance as well as the beautiful look and feel that you see here at StorefrontBacktalk.
Mike McCormack is wrong- his 3 success criteria will not sway retailers. ‘Incremental sales, loyalty, etc' are too hard to prove out- and ultimately are a wash as everyone begins accepting the their pay type. Every Joe Shmo can make a business case for retailers predicated on ‘driving more trips, or increasing basket'- but most retailers are smart enough to take these with a grain of salt. Even the most compelling sounding experience is no gaurantee of incremental behavior. Ultimately, to get retailers to spend money on hardware and push a new pay type that cannibalizes traditional transactions, you'll have to offer lower interchange fees. Also remember, Visa is smart enough to tier their fees- nobody wants to bump their volume down and lose favorability on Visa rates (unless they can replace it with something much cheaper).
I received confirmation from the PCI Council's director of data security standards that my PA-QSA was not exacly spot on with his guidance. Without getting into too much detail, my application in question is compliant with PA-DSS 4.2 out-of-the-box. I'll be having a conversation with my PA-QSA about this. Read more...
Todd Michaud has spent the last 16 years trying to fight IT issues, with the last six years focused on franchisee IT issues-first running the retail technology department for Dunkin' Brands (Dunkin' Donuts and Baskin Robbins) and now running IT for Focus Brands (Cinnabon, Carvel, Schlotzsky's and Moe's Southwestern Grill)-and both sides need to step back and better understand the reality of the other. In his weekly column here at StorefrontBacktalk, he's going to try and bridge that gap as we look at all of the IT hot buttons of today, from RFID, CRM and E-Commerce to mobile, payment, PCI, self-service, kiosks and supply chain.
A 403 Labs QSA, PCI Columnist Walt Conway has worked in payments and technology for more than 30 years, 10 of them with Visa.