Marshall Field’s was most famous for its store in downtown Chicago and for Marshall Field himself, who was a driving force behind the Windy City’s recovery from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. By the time that I came into contact with the department store chain it was based in Minneapolis and was owned by the Target Corporation.1
The skyway entrance was on the 2nd floor.
In 2004 the May Co. purchased the Marshall Field’s stores from Target with the intention of administering them from Minneapolis in the Marketing Department’s headquarters in one of the high floors of the store that was previously the flagship store for Dayton’s. Its address was 700 Nicollet Mall. The plan was for all of the advertising to be scheduled, purchased, and paid for using TSI’s AdDept system on an AS/400 at the Midwest Data Center in St. Louis. A meeting was scheduled for September 16 at Hecht’s2 Advertising Department in Arlington, VA. I attended, as did representatives of the May Co. and the Marketing Department of Marshall Field’s. Dave Ostendorf from Famous-Barr3 may also have been there.
Richard Roark and most of Dave Ostendorf.
The meeting was unlike any that I had ever attended. The people from the May Co. announced that Marshall Field’s would use AdDept, and the May Co. would pay for any necessary revisions! They made it quite clear that they were being given a blank check. Throughout the rest of 2004 I worked on documenting in some detail the changes that needed to be done. This resulted in a fifty-page design document delivered in December and a fifty-nine page tome sent to them in April of 2005. I found Acrobat files of these two booklets. They are posted here and here.
It seems likely that I took more than two trips to Minneapolis in 2004 but I only found notes from one in November and one in December. Perhaps Dave Ostendorf or Richard Roark from Foley’s4 in Houston helped me gather the information needed for the design documents.
Working conditions: On my visits to Minneapolis I flew Northwest and took a taxi or the light rail from the airport to downtown. I never rented a car.
The top arrow is Marshall Field’s. The bottom is the Hilton. The skyway is 9.5 miles long.
I stayed at the Hilton that was a few blocks south of the Nicollet Mall store. I almost never stayed at a Hilton; I preferred one of the affiliated hotels that awarded Hilton Honors points4, especially Hampton Inns. I have two strong memories of this Hilton:
I could walk from the hotel to the second floor of Marshall Field’s via the skyway without ever setting foot outside. This was a valuable feature in the winter.
There was no free breakfast. However, because I had achieved Silver status in the Hilton Honors program I could go up to the top floor where they had an executive dining room for road warriors like myself. The food there was terrific and free.
Working with the people at Marshall Field’s was a very enjoyable experience. There were, however, a few peculiarities.
The skyway entrance was on the second floor of the store. When I arrived in the morning the store was not open. So, it was a little spooky.
To get to the Marketing (NOT advertising) Department I had to take a fairly large number of escalators. There were elevators, but they were not as convenient.
How many marketing departments posted a map to help its team members.
The people at Marshall Field’s used a different word for many of the concepts with which I was familiar. Customers were called guests, employees were team members, advertising was marketing, ads were called promos, and so on. I kept a list of these, but I no longer have it.
Every time that I went to the bathroom (or anywhere else) I had to call someone to let me back in to the Marketing area, which was restricted. I was very excited in April of 2005 when I was given a badge so that I could come and go as I pleased.
The toilet paper in the bathrooms was the flimsiest that I had ever seen. They must have imported it from another country. I cannot imagine that anyone would buy it in the U.S. Maybe they did it to save money, but they didn’t save any on me. I just used more of it—lots more. I once asked Chuck Hansen5, one of the people involved in the installation, if others did the same. He said, “Oh, yeah. Definitely.”
While I was there in February of 2005 the temperature dipped below -20 Fahrenheit: not wind chill, degrees. I had to go out in that frigid air to walk to the taxi stand to catch a cab to the airport. It was only a couple of blocks, but I was very relieved to see a few cabs lined up and ready to go.
Amy and Becky are seated. Dave has a mustache. The other guy is Chuck. I don’t remember the other two women.
The “team members”: Our main contact in the first few months was Amy Spears, who was the assistant to the Finance Manager, Becky. I cannot remember her last name. They were both very conscientious and amiable. When Becky left the company on short notice in 2005, Amy was in something of a panic. Mari Pittman6 was brought in from Foley’s to take on Becky’s role.
A woman named Thu Le worked on expense invoices. I vaguely remember her. Nate Jeppson7 also worked in the finance area. I helped him fine-tune the entry in the sub-account table. Two ladies named Kimber and Adrianne worked in accounting. Either or both of them might be in the photo.
Soni.
Beginning in April of 2005 David Harris8 assumed the function of liaison with TSI. His main job was managing the Mac network. My memories of him are not very distinct. I remember his replacement, Soni (pronounced like “sunny”, short for Sonja) Froyen9 a lot better. At the end of the project she sent me a tee shirt that had an ad release form with the box for “Released” checked.
Sheila Wilson came from Hecht’s in 2005. She was deeply involved in the AdDept product.
My notes from February of 2006, when the division was officially dubbed Macy’s North, disclosed the names of two new employees in the finance area: Shannon Feuerhelm and Megan Boie. Jackie Smith was hired to place newspaper ads, a job that formerly had been done by Target’s ad agency, Haworth.
The last set of notes were dated in December. They indicated that Chuck, who had been in another department for a few months, had returned to the Marketing Department. They also mention that Lynn Robinson had been placed in charge of Direct Mail.
The projects: Getting Marshall Field’s system up and running was the last gigantic project that TSI undertook. It was so big and so complicated that the individual details have tended to fade. Here are a few things that struck me as I read through the design documents and the month end checklist that I set up for Becky
The most striking thing was that so many changes were required to the file structure, including several new tables. It is a tribute to our system of change management that we were willing and able to implement these changes without disrupting our other installations.
I wrote all of this. I made a few mistakes, but on the whole the presentation was very thorough and professional.
It is hard to understand why PageMaker, which was used to create these documents originally, had so much trouble with non-proportional fonts like Courier. The vertical bars on the reports (e.g., page 9 of document 1) should all align, but they don’t.
So much of what is described is unique to Marshall Field’s. For example, no one had ever used the term “production credits” at any other installation.
I have a dim memory of Item #3. Becky had a gigantic number of general ledger accounts (called “internal” in the document) that did not match up well with the May Co.’s accounts. The cross-reference table was huge.
Any changes to the cost accounting algorithms were risky. These programs were so complicated that they were barely readable. TSI’s programmers were reluctant to touch them because the people who used them were always under severe time pressure. “Yesterday” was the deadline for addressing problems.
I had totally forgotten about the “buckets” and “metro markets”.
The use of “campaign” instead of “event’ must have come from an ad agency. No one talked about campaigns in a retail setting.
I wonder if they actually used all the work that we did on production schedules and the job jacket.
Over $7,000 in changes to the insertion orders are in document 2! I don’t remember if they ever used AxN. It is mentioned on p. 34; I guess that they must have. The NAA# was assigned by the Newspaper Association of America. Prior to becoming part of the May Co. Field’s Haworth bought the newspaper space.
Document 2 mentioned CAPS, which was the May Co. system for expenses and G/L.
I did not remember importing sales by department.
The closing process is lengthy, but it is very specific. I wonder if they actually used the three-page checklist.
Denouement: I am certain that we did exceptionally good work for Marshall Field’s. They always treated me royally when I visited them. It would be nice to be able to say that the department ran like clockwork for decades.
However, that is not what happened. By 2008 Marshall Field’s was no more. The stores that were allowed to remain open were rebranded as Macy’s. Worse news was that Macy’s North (the people with whom we worked in Minneapolis) was consolidated into Macy’s East. The wonderful people and environment that I found there vanished.
I did not think too much about that. We did good work, we got paid, I made some friends, and we made their lives a little better for a short period of time.
The downtown store in Minneapolis was closed for good in 2017. It is in the process of being repurposed for multiple uses.
1. Prior to 2000 the company was called the Dayton-Hudson Corporation. Its name reflected the logos of the Minnesota and Michigan chains that merged in 1969. The company was renamed in 2000 in recognition of the fact that the Target stores produced 80 percent of the revenue. One year later the department store division rebranded all of its stores as Marshall Field’s.
2. The story of the installation at Hecht’s can be read here.
3. Details of the Famous-Barr installation in St. Louis are posted here.
4. My card from those days calls them Hilton H Honors points. I never understood what the middle initial stood for.
5. Chuck Hansen stayed on and is working for Macy’s in 2023. His LinkedIn page is here.
7. Nate Jeppson’s LinkedIn page is available here.
8. David Harris’s LinkedIn page can be viewed here.
9. I discovered on Soni’s LinkedIn page (found here) that she studied Latin and history in college. I was also surprised to learn from my notes that she knew how to code in php, which I did not yet know enough about to know that it never shown in caps. She was also the only one of my business associates who followed me on Twitter. In retrospect I feel as if we might have potentially been soulmates. Of course I was eighteen years older than she was.
In the spring of 2019 the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL) named Providence as the site for the summer North American Bridge Championship (NABC) in 2021. The bridge players in New England were very excited about the prospect. It had been a very long time since a summer edition of the NABC had been held in New England.
Lois and Joe.
At the time of the announcement Bob Bertoni was the District Director, and Lois DeBlois was the President of the New England Bridge Conference (NEBC). Bob immediately appointed as co-chairs Lois and Joe Brouillard, who had shared the same responsibility for the 2014 Fall NABC that had been held in Providence. Their first acts were to notify the state and local officials that the tournament would be held in Providence in July and to reserve space in the Rhode Island Convention Center (RICC), the same site that had been used in 2014.
Joe, who was the Treasurer of the NEBC, also was in charge of finance. Hospitality was to be handled by Helen Pawlowski, who had the same job in 2014, and Sally Kirtley, the district’s Tournament Manager. Sponsorships were assigned to Phyllis Chase, another veteran of the 2014 event, and Megan Mihara DiOrio. Brenda and Neil Montague reprised their roles as chairs of registration and prizes. Sue Miguel was again in charge of the Intermediate/Newcomer program.
I immediately volunteered to help with the massive project of organizing, promoting, and running the tournament and anything else that they wanted me to do. I was not on the first list of committee chairs. At that point I was one of the “ministers without portfolio”. The other member at the outset were Bob, Jim Rasmussen, Meg Gousie, Paula Najarian, Sonja Smith, Linda Ahrens, and Paul Burnham.
At some point Joe asked me to write and send a few sets of promotional emails using the database that I had developed for the district. I was happy to take that on. It meant a lot of work preceding the tournament, but I was still full of vim and vinegar, and I had enjoyed working at the 2014 NABC in Providence immensely.
This was an all-star cast if ever there was one, and it only got better over time. The first meeting was held during the lunch break on Friday, August 30, 2019, at the Ocean State Regional in Warwick, RI. The emphasis was on the need to begin planning and execution as soon as possible because July of 2021 was not that far away. I think that the logo had already been designed by then. Everyone at the meeting liked it.
I attended several of the meetings at regional tournaments, but I did not participate much. I was there to get ideas about marketing the event in Providence. I remember that at one meeting the discussion was about what type of souvenir shirt should be sold. A few samples were passed around. Someone asked for my opinion, but I deferred to the others, explaining that “I have no taste.”
On June 30, 2020, a one-year-out Zoom meeting was held with Mark Hudson of the ACBL. The only additions to the committee at that point were David Rock, who had been the Partnership Chair in 2014, and Debbie Ouelette. I did not attend the meeting.
COVID-19’s effect: At least since I had been involved with tournament bridge, the American Contract Bridge League had every year sponsored three NABC tournaments—one in March, one in July, and one in November. They were dubbed “spring”, “summer”, and “fall”. Each lasted ten or eleven days. Games were available for players of all ages and experience levels. At the beginning of 2020 everyone planned on three NABC events.
COVID-19 forced the cancellation of all three NABC events in 2020—March in Columbus, OH, July in Montreal, and November in Tampa. Even so, plans continued to be made for the July event in Providence. By the end of the year incredibly effective vaccines were being produced, and seniors—by far the dominant age group for bridge players—were among the first in line to receive them. My most pressing question was when I should start promoting the “Big Deal” in Providence.
Then in fairly rapid succession two important events took place. In an abundance of caution the ACBL canceled the NABC scheduled for March 2021 in St. Louis. The Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C., that had hosted the 2016 Summer NABC and was scheduled to do so again was no longer available. So, despite the fact that the number of new cases decreased rapidly in the late spring and early summer of 2021, the NABC scheduled for Providence was moved to July 13-24 of 2022. We received notice of this in February of 2021. No NABC was held in the summer of 2021. In fact, the ACBL also canceled all sectional and regional tournaments through the end of August, thus wiping out the Ocean State Regional, District 25’s largest tournament.
So, the organizers of the Providence tournament were provided an additional year to prepare for the big event, but the committee members would have little or no opportunity for face-to-face communication for much of that period. Because of the ACBL’s action, there would only be at most one regional tournament in District 25 in all of 2021. In fact, however, the one tournament, the Harvest Regional in Mansfield, MA, that might have been allowed by the ACBL was also canceled by a vote of the district’s Executive Committee.
The other event that dramatically affected the preparations for NABC Providence was the death of Bob Bertoni on June 29, 2021. He had been our direct link to the ACBL, a role that Lois and especially Joe had to assume.
The ACBL resumed holding NABC tournaments in Austin, TX, in November of 2021 and in Reno, NV, in March of 2022. Vaccination cards were checked at both tournaments. Masks were required in Austin, and the number of new COVID cases reported was relatively small. In Reno masks were not required, and the number of cases was much larger. By that time the protocol was determined by the CDC rating for the incidence of new cases for the county in which the event was held. Since Washoe County was rated low throughout the tournament, no masks were required1 in Reno.
Attendance at both of these tournaments was very low by historical standards. People at both ends of the spectrum were upset by the ACBL’s approach. Roughly one-third of the United States refused to get vaccinated. The percentage of the anti-vaxers was probably lower among bridge players, but it was significant. A significant percentage of the rest of the players had great difficulty with wearing masks. Some found them unbearably uncomfortable, and some just did not like the idea of never seeing a smile. On the other hand, a large number of bridge players, including me, thought that the ACBL’s policy was too lax. I thought that the event in Austin was lucky to escape with few infections and that the idea of hold a tournament in a casino in Reno was crazy. I did not attend either event, but both Joe and Lois attended both events, and Sally attended at least one.
In MailChimp you can paste your code in the window on the right, and it displays the email on the left.
The first email campaign: I exchanged a few emails with Joe about which vendor to use to process our emails. I was most familiar with MailChimp; he had used a different vendor in 2014. There were a few things about MailChimp that annoyed me, but the district already had a contract that provided an incredibly cheap rate of 800 for $1. If we used another service, it would be at least a little more expensive, and I would need to learn it. MailChimp allowed me to design my emails in HTML. I could therefore make sure that their appearance was exactly what I wanted. If we used another service that did not allow this, I would undoubtedly have felt frustrated. Joe agreed with my choice of MailChimp.
I questioned whether it was permissible to use the district’s account—which at the time contained enough credits for over one million emails—for this project. Joe assured me that it was kosher. I trusted his opinion. After all, he was also the district’s treasurer.
The database2 that I set up for District 25 contained one record for each ACBL member. It also contained records for tournament attendance at events in New England and for NABCs, including the 2014 event in Providence. My plan was to craft several emails based on whether players had attended any recent NABCs and whether they were within driving distance of Providence. New England players would receive separate emails depending on whether they had attended the previous event in Providence.
I began working on the first batch in January of 2022 and communicated my basic strategy for the first mailing on January 21:
I plan four distinct emails: 1. Attended 2014 Prov: 1,067 players. 2. D25 not in 1 above: 4,826 3. D3, D24 (at least 50 points) not in 1 above: 2,838 + 2,327 4. Attended recent NABC not in 1, 2, or 3 above: 10,107
I will send tests for approval as I finish them–probably today.
Joe, Lois, and Sue provided feedback on the four emails. They asked me to swap out a few of the photos that I had chosen. I don’t recall that they asked me to change any of the text. We had to hold off sending for a while because the ACBL had not published a schedule yet. Then when they did, the schedule for the first Saturday was obviously wrong. The emails finally were sent on February 5, 2022.
A sample of #1 can be viewed here. It was opened by 60.9 percent of recipients. 11 percent clicked on one or more of the links. A sample of #2 can be viewed here. It was opened by 46.9 percent of recipients. 2.9 percent clicked on one or more of the links. A sample of #3 can be viewed here. It was opened by 46.4 percent of recipients. 2.7 percent clicked on one or more of the links. A sample of #4 can be viewed here. It was opened by 43.1 percent of recipients. 4.2 percent clicked on one or more of the links.
The reaction was mostly positive. Quite a few people asked about the COVID-19 policy, which the ACBL did not publish until March. Joe and Lois received the following email from Joann Glasson, Grand Life Master and President of the ACBL:
Hi Joe and Lois,
I just received the terrific email about your upcoming NABC. I hope this got a wide circulation – did it go to all ACBL members?
The website looks great as well – really professional. I can’t wait to get to Providence this summer… Thanks for all your great work.
The locally maintained website3, which you can visit here, certainly was professional. Joe did all the work on it.
The one complaint was in regards to the captions on a few of the photos. There was nothing wrong with the code, but some email clients (including Microsoft Outlook, which is what I used on my desktop PC) did not interpret the code correctly. I spent several hours trying different methods of displaying the caption, but I never was able to get them to display correctly. You can see how email #3 looked when it was opened and then printed in memo form in Outlook here. So, I very reluctantly decided not to use captions on subsequent tournaments.
Hotel Reservations: On February 28 I felt confident enough that the ACBL would not cancel the tournament that I made hotel reservations. I decided that I would like to play in (or at least be around for) ten of the eleven days of the tournament. The schedule for the first Thursday did not appeal to me.
I redeemed 170,000 IHG Rewards points to pay for seven nights at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick, which is about fifteen minutes south of the site of the tournament. I also redeemed some Hilton Honors points at the Warwick Hampton Inn for the two preceding nights. I had to pay an additional $155. Since the lowest bridge rate in downtown Providence was $179 per night, I felt that nine nights for $155 was a pretty good deal.
Months later Joe offered to provide a free hotel room for me in Providence. I told him that I had already cashed in my hotel points. In addition I preferred to stay in Providence while I was playing.
The Partnership System: Joe wrote a program to handle requests for partnerships and teammates. It was tested out during the district’s first regional in Marlboro, MA. Denise Bahosh managed partnerships there and deemed the programs to be working successfully. Since I was on my European River Cruise (documented here), I was not part of the testing process.
Meanwhile, the Chairs of the Partnership Committee for the NABC had been named. Jan Smola handled pairs, and Carol Seager was in charge of teams.
Partners: In the previous few NABC tournaments that I had attended I designed my schedule around playing in a couple of national (as opposed to regional) events. However, the schedule for Providence did not provide any national events—other than the GNT, which required qualification at the district level—that appealed to me. I had too many points for the Red Point Pairs and the lowest flight of the Life Masters Pairs. So, I would just try to play in as many bracketed team events as possible.
Shortly after making the hotel reservations I sent notices of my schedule to all of my usual partners and a few others with whom I had played at tournaments. Responses were very slow in arriving. The first confirmation came from Sohail Hasan. I had played with him in Mansfield in 2019, and we did pretty well together. On June 20 we agreed to play together the last three days of the NABC in Providence in team games if we could find teammates.
At about the same time Paul Burnham, with whom I had played a handful of times, agreed to play with me on Monday, Wednesday, and (the second) Thursday. That still left open Friday, Saturday, Sunday, on the first week and Tuesday.
Donna Lyons, whom I have known for years, finally claimed the first two spots. Mike Heider and Jim Osofsky had asked me to play teams with them on the first Saturday and Sunday. So, Donna and I planned to play with them on Saturday. I decided to take Tuesday off.
This was my schedule going into the tournament.
I tried to use the tournament’s partnership system to secure a partner for the bracketed team game on the first Sunday. I had to decide whether to fill out the partnership form or the team form. Since David Rock had told me quite clearly many times that the first step is to get a partner, I tried to fill in the partnership form. I was stifled when I had to specify the event, a required field that did not allow specification of a team event.
So, I filled in the team form and specified that our team was looking for one person. The only person that Carol paired me with was Abe Fisher. Here is the email that I got from him:
Hi Mike—
While in principle I’d love to play with you, if I’m reading the thread correctly, you’ve got 3 and need a 4th. I’ve also got 3, and need a 4th. So that doesn’t seem like it works.
Good luck,
Abe
I asked Carol if it was OK for me to fill out a pairs form and lie about the event. Then I might be able to persuade the prospective partner to play in the team event instead of the pairs. She said that was not allowed. I told her that, in my opinion, this was a very large flaw in the system.
So, the new partnership form failed both Abe and me. At the start of the tournament I still had no partner for Sunday. Nevertheless, I was not too worried. I expected a large number of people would have filled out cards for themselves by Friday or Saturday.
The second emailing: Here is the email that I sent to Joe and Lois about the plans for the email to be sent in April of 2022, three months before the tournament.
Joe and Lois,
I have set up segments for the next set of emails. There will be five basic emails based on masterpoints:
2-300: Emphasize 299er, Gold Mine, and Bracketed Round Robin. Sent to districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 24, and 25. The D25 one will be a little different from the one for the other districts. 18,140
300-750: Emphasize Gold Mine, and Bracketed Round Robin. Sent to districts 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 24, and 25. The D25 one will be a little different from the one for the other districts. 5,255
750-2500: Emphasize bracketed Round Robin, three-flighted events, and some national events. Sent to all districts. The D25 one will be a little different from the one for the other districts. I don’t know this number yet. 19,480
2500+: Emphasize national events. All districts, but D25 one will be a little different. 6,077
Players who have attended a recent NABC or the 2014 Providence NABC will be excluded from the four just listed.
NABC attendees (all masterpoints): Emphasize national events and why Providence is different, but D25 one will be a little different. 12,071
It bothers me that this misses a lot of snowbirds, but I don’t know how to find them.
I tried three new approaches to captioning images. All of them work fine in the displays inside MailChimp, but my Outlook client did not display any of them correctly. So I will not use captions for now.
I have almost finished the 299er version. I will send it to you some time today.
Mike
Joe, Lois, and Sue all liked the approach, but they had small but important suggestions for the photos and the copy. I incorporated them before I sent them out.
Samples of the mailings: 299er, 300-750, 750-2500, Over 2500, Attended NABC. I made an embarrassing mistake in the dates for one of the more obscure national events, and no one caught it before it went out. I communicated with a few people who noticed it, but I decided that it was not critical enough to send a correction.
Site visit and walk-through: On May 25 I received this email from Joe:
The ACBL site visit in Providence will be on June 2 at 10 am. If you will be working during the NABC please plan to attend if you are available. If your committee work will be completed prior to the NABC you are welcome to attend but not required. We will meet on the third floor which is the level the exhibition halls are on.
Please let me know if you will be attending by Friday, May 27, if you will be attending.
The Rhode Island Convention Center.
I quickly responded that I would attend. I had a few questions to ask the ACBL people about educational events at the NABC. At that point they had posted very little information about that area. I also wanted to take some photos of the site. Most of all, I wanted to see other members of the committee. I had great respect for all of them, and a few of them were good friends. I had not talked with any of them (except Sally Kirtley, the director of the Simsbury game) for more than two years. I decided to bring both my camera and my audio recorder.
My one misgiving concerned Sally. I knew that she had recently tested positive for COVID-19. I wondered if she would make the trip. Although she now lived fairly close to me, I certainly did not volunteer to car pool with her. Whether she was there or not, I definitely intended to wear my N95 mask.
I slightly underestimated how long it would take me to reach Providence. I arrived at the parking lot a few minutes before ten and parked on the fourth floor, which matched up with the third floor in the RICC. I saw the Montagues in the parking structure and said hello to them. Before I joined the group, which did include Sally, I visited the men’s room to dispose of the large coffee from McDonald’s that I had consumed on the drive from Enfield.
Sara Beth Raab left the ACBL a few months after the NABC in Providence.
In attendance were, by my recollection, all of the Chairs. That group now included Paula Najarian, who created the restaurant guide, and the two Chairs of volunteers, Linda Ahrens and Meg Gousie. The ACBL sent Sara Beth Raab and at least one other person. Lisa Watson represented the RICC. Erin Degulis of the Convention and Visitors Bureau was also there.
The traveling “Beyond Van Gogh” exhibit4 was occurring in the RICC while we were visiting. Therefore, we would not be able to see some of the playing areas. Everyone on the committee remembered them from 2014. The setup for playing was simple. The 299er and Gold Rush games would be held in one of the big rooms on the third floor. The other two big rooms would be used for team games and pairs games. The meeting rooms were on the fourth floor. The national events were on the fifth floor.
A good bit of the visit was devoted to determining the best places for the ancillary activities and exhibits—the partnership desk, the vendor area, the “In Memoriam” exhibit, etc. Others had strong opinions about these matters. Since I was only tangentially involved, I kept my mouth shut.
Afterwards we met in one of the fourth-floor conference rooms. I took advantage of this opportunity to ask about the educational programs. Sara Beth consulted her phone and then replied that the list of speakers and events had just been added to the ACBL’s version of the website for the tournament. When I returned to my house that evening I checked the website. There was no such list. I kept checking for three weeks, but nothing appeared. I sent an email to Joe to see if he could check up on this.
Eventually it did appear. They put it under the Intermediate and Newcomer (I/N) section. I guess that someone at the ACBL decided that once you have earned a few hundred points, you no longer have a desire to get better at bridge
The best part of the day, from my perspective, was the lunch at Murphy’s, a pub that was within a block or two of the RICC. I sat on the end of a long table. I made sure that Sally was far away from me. On my right was Paula, one of my favorite people. No one was on my left or across from me. Across from Paula was Lisa Watson, our contact at the RICC.
Lois and Paula won the Mid-Flight Pairs at the Presidential Regional in 2018.
Paula had not heard about my vacation in Europe. So, I actually had something to add to the conversation. I also told her about my two clients in East Greenwich, her home town.
The food was good, too. I had a huge Reuben sandwich and broccoli on the side. People were amazed that I cleaned my plate. I told everyone that if I had left food on my plate, my sainted mother would haunt my dreams.
This might have been my most enjoyable day since the pandemic hit.
Email campaigns in June: On June 5 Sue Miguel sent me the materials for an email that she wanted sent to 299ers. I had figured out how to do this for her. I opened the email in Outlook. I then took print screens of each image in the email, made jpg files of them, and stored them in the MailChimp folder. Then I saved the HTML code for the email as a text file. I removed the parts of the email that were not meant to be sent. I loaded the jpg files up to Mailchimp using the “Content Studio”. Then I replaced the URL’s on the “src=” parameters of the img statements in the email with the ones on the MailChimp server. I then enclosed the entire email in a table with one column that was six hundred pixels wide. That last step seemed to be the only way to set the width of any email in a way that all email clients recognized.
I selected all members of D25 with between 20 and 299 masterpoints. A sample of the email that was sent on June 7 can be seen here. 813 the 3,000 emails were opened, and 13 recipients clicked on a link. Those are not good results, but one must remember that most of those people had probably never played face-to-face bridge. It would not be an easy task to convince them that they should try it out at a national tournament.
On June 12 I received an email from Linda Ahrens, who was the co-chair with Meg Gousie of the Volunteers:
I was hoping you could use your creative genius to send out an email to everyone in District 25 requesting volunteers.
For every two-hour shift we will provide a $5 chit towards an entry fee. Volunteers will be able to play in any event as they will be scheduled prior to events or directly afterwards.
To sign up they should go to ProvNABC.org and then click on the blue volunteer tab on the left hand side of the page.
There is youth bridge on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the second weekend and we need volunteers for either half days or full days to work with beginners to provide support at the tables as they play. These volunteers will probably not be able to play on those days.
Meg and I will send out a schedule ten days prior. Volunteers will be asked to go to the volunteer/information desk prior to their shift where they will check in, get their assignments and upon completion of their shift they will get their chit.
If you need any more info please let me know. This might be too much info for one email so I will defer to what you think is best.
I wasted no time composing the email that you can view here. It was sent to about 6,000 people. 3,189 people opened it, and 51 clicked on the link.
Lois and Sue decided to sponsor a Zoom call that they labeled as an “Open House”. Sue designed the following image to serve as an invitation.
This went out to 6,000 New Englanders. Although only 38.2 percent opened the email, 110 clicked on the image, which allowed them to download the link.
On June 27 I finally received the email from Sue that she wanted to send to players with less than twenty points. You can view it here. I sent it out on the same day. Of the thousand or so recipients, 476 opened it, but only two clicked on a link.
In May Lois had sent me an email asking if I possessed or knew someone who possessed high-resolution photos of two recently deceased players from the Boston area, Bill Hunter or Shome Mukherjee. They were needed for the “In Memoriam” area of the tournament site in Providence. I looked through the photos that I had posted on the website, but I did not find anything that was usable.
A few weeks later she was frantic about obtaining the photos. She asked me to send an email immediately. I sent the email that is posted here on June 13. It went to about 1500 players in the Eastern Massachusetts Bridge Association (EMBA). 824 of them opened it, and six clicked on the link. She was only looking for two photos, and eventually one of the respondents helped her obtain them.
Victor King.
In 2022 I was on the Board of Trustees of the Hartford Bridge Club. We voted to sponsor a day at the NABC to honor Victor King, a Grand Life Master who was a member of the club. He had been murdered in his own house by a tenant. I was asked by Felix Singer to send an email to people in the rest of New England who might be interested in donating to the project. I wrote and sent an email to players in central and eastern Massachusetts with over 1,000 points. Quite a few people donated. Al Muggia offered to curate the photos.
Steve Diamond, a player from Shrewsbury, MA, who knew me pretty well, sent a large check to my home address. I put it in the bottle with the rest of the donations. I overheard Felix telling someone that he could not believe that one of the participants in the novice group had been so generous. I told him that this was a different Steve Diamond.
Emails in July: Lois provided me with a list of items that she wanted to make sure that the people who were planning on attending the tournament knew about. I composed an email that contained these “nuggets” as well as the link to the ACBL’s well-hidden schedule of celebrity appearances. On July 1 I sent short emails to players in D25 and its two neighboring districts in the United States, a total of approximately 14,000 players. About 45 percent of recipients opened the email, and over six hundred clicked on one of the links. A sample has been posted here.
A week later I was asked by Sue Miguel to send an email to people in the district to promote the “Learn Bridge in a Day” program. I am not sure why the ACBL could not do this, but not enough time remained to argue about it. I sent out roughly six thousand emails. You can view the email here.
A scene from Bridge to Nowhere.
The last email that I composed and sent was designed to promote a play written by bridge teacher, columnist, and professional playwright, Adam Parrish. Bridge to Nowhere was scheduled to run for three nights in a small theater near the RICC.
This innocuous email, which I have posted here, generated as many replies as any that I had sent. Several tournament veterans challenged my claim that an NABC had never included a play about bridge. I deferred to their superior knowledge.
One person, who did not sign the email, said the following:”Remove my name from your mailing list. This email is an abuse of the bridge federation list if that is where it came from.”
Here was my reply:
I have done as you asked.
I have no interest in this play. I do not know the author or anyone associated with the theater. I sent the email at the request of the co-chair of the tournament committee in order to apprise potential attendees of a last-minute addition to the entertainments available in Providence during the NABC.
The Providence NABC Tournament Chairs: Here is a complete list of the chairs and co-chairs of the local committee. Tournament: Lois DeBlois and Joe Brouillard Hospitality: Sally Kirtley and Helen Pawlowski Sponsorships: Megan Mihara and Phyllis Chase Welcome and Prizes: Brenda and Neil Montague Volunteers: Linda Ahrens and Meg Gousie I/N and Gold Rush: Sue Miguel Partnerships: Jan Smola and Carol Seager Email Marketing: Mike Wavada.
Volunteering: I knew that I would be in the area for ten days. I volunteered to help whenever I might be useful. I also said that I had had a lot of experience working at partnership desks. When I filled out the form on the website, I indicated that I would be available from the first Friday through the second Sunday, but I would like to take Tuesday off. On July 1 I received the following email from Meg Gousie.
Thank you very much for volunteering at the Providence NABC. Your assistance will go a long way to helping make this event a big success! We notice that you have generously offered to volunteer, and have taken the liberty of assigning the following shifts to you:
Saturday, July 16. 1:30pm. Registration Desk Sunday, July 17. 8:30a, Partnership Desk Tuesday, July 19. 1:30pm. Partnership Desk Thursday, July 21. 8:30am. Partnership Desk
Please review and confirm your availability ASAP so we can plan accordingly.
Please plan on going to the volunteer desk 15 minutes before your scheduled assignment. The desk is located on the third floor by the escalators. After your scheduled shift, please come back to the desk to pick up your $5 chit which is good for $5 off an entry fee in Providence. You will also receive discounted parking.
I persuaded them to remove me from the Tuesday afternoon assignment. Shortly before I left for the tournament I checked my emails again and sent the following to Meg and Linda:
The email that you sent on 6/30 had me listed two shifts on 7/16: registration in the morning and partnership in the afternoon. The email sent on 7/1 had me working on registration in the afternoon on 7/16.
Two questions: 1) What is my schedule for 7/16? 2) Do I have any additional responsibilities other than the ones for 7/17 and 7/21 that are on this email?
By the time that I shut down Outlook my desktop computer5 before leaving for Providence I had not received a reply. I figured that I could check on it when I arrived.
My adventures at the Providence NABC itself are chronicled here.
1. Of course, only a very small percentage of the players at the tournament in Reno were from Washoe County. More than a few were from Europe or Asia. Using the rating for the county was like the old joke about the drunk looking for a lost coin under a lamppost that was a block away from where the coin was dropped—because the light was better. Furthermore, the event was held in a casino.
2. Starting in 2014 I designed and implemented every aspect of the database using MySQL and php.
3. The ACBL also had a webpage for the tournament, but it could not hold a candle to the one that Joe designed and implemented.
4. No one in our group went in on June 2. A description of the exhibit is posted here.
5. Incoming email was configured to download automatically downloaded to the Outlook application on my desktop computer in Enfield. If I did not close down Outlook, I would not be able to get email on my laptop for either of my email accounts.
For retailers that sell a wide array of products and also have stores in a fairly large number of markets, advertising has long been both extremely valuable and very complicated. In the two and a half decades that TSI concentrated its work on the advertising departments of these retailers advertising was expensive. Newspapers in major markets charged over $100 per column-inch for ads, and the department stores and big-box retailers bought their ads1 by the page (126-132 column inches), not the column inch. Therefore, the advertising departments were charged by the management of these retailers with 1) negotiating the best rates possible, 2) using the mix of media that provided the most bang for the buck, and 3) designing and producing the ads that produced the most sales.
Most large retail advertising departments were divided into roughly the same areas with which we had become familiar at advertising agencies: media, production, and finance. The years that we had spent working with advertising agencies helped us understand some of their issues. However, the differences were many and complicated:
A primary difference was that retail advertising was event-based rather than campaign-based. Most retail events were the same from one one year to the next: Presidents Day, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, etc. The dates might change a little, but the approaches were usually similar.
Another fundamental difference was the calendar. Most retailers organized their finances and advertising using a 4-5-4 retail calendar2. The first month of the year was usually February. Most retailers divided the year into two “seasons”, spring and fall. Fall began in August.
The large organizations had a separate manager for each major media: newspapers, direct mail, and broadcast. A few also had a magazine manager. Inserts (the pull-out flyers in newspapers) were usually treated like direct mail in the production area, but were ordered by the newspaper area.
Newspapers were much more important for retailers than for other types of businesses, especially in the nineties when potential customers still started their day by reading the local newspaper.
Each retailer negotiated an annual contract with each paper. The contracts often provided significant discounts for the quantity (column-inches) or nature of the advertising. For example, one retailer got some of its full-page ads in one of its major papers free if it met established criteria for other ads! On the other hand, if a retailer ran too little advertising for the contract period, the penalties could be staggering.
Not all newspapers were the same dimensions. There were two basic sizes, tabloid and broadsheet, but the actual dimensions varied somewhat. Sometimes ads were just photo-reduced to fit, sometimes different versions were necessary.
Inserts were included in the contract, but the rules as to how they were counted varied.
Some ads (called “spreads”) covered two full pages and the marginal area in the middle (“the gutter”).
Merchandise suppliers often paid for part of the cost of ads that featured their products. This was called “co-op”.
Most large retailers needed to know the net (of co-op) cost of ads for each merchandise area. The bonuses for the merchandise managers depended upon their sales markups less net advertising expenses.
Many retailers with a large number of stores needed to know the net (of co-op) cost of ads for each store. This was tricky for markets that included multiple stores.
Many chains had more than one logo (name on the front of the store). They required different versions for production purposes.
A few chains had more than one financial entity. This was challenging.
The financial books absolutely had to be closed within a few days of the end of the month. In some cases, especially in the May Company divisions, a set of corporate reports in specified formats were required every month.
No agency that TSI had dealt with had a photo studio, but many of the retailers did.
The production area of most of these retailers borrowed merchandise from the selling departments. The merchandise was sent to a photo studio, either in the department or outside. After the shoot the merchandise needed to be returned or at least accounted for. A special area called the “loan room” or “merch room” managed this activity.
Most retailers did a high percentage of their business in the second half of November and December. Many of them froze their computer systems (no purchases, no upgrades, no testing) during this period, which might extend in either direction.
No law specified that every retailer must follow every tenet listed above. Every AdDept installation required some custom code.
The sales pitch: After only two or three installations I had felt comfortable talking with ad agency executives. They generally knew nothing about computers. For the most part they cared little about efficiency; we could almost never point to a position that could be eliminated. It was therefore difficult to persuade them that the computer would save them money. I generally focused on three things: 1) how careful record-keeping could help them locate which clients were unprofitable; 2) how the GrandAd media system would allow improved cash flow; and 3) how a computer system could help if they got a chance to win a big client. I called the last one of these the “reaching for the brass ring” argument.
These arguments did not translate well when we tried to persuade retail advertisers. Usually the retailer had already decided whether or not to get a system for reasons that we could not control. Something had happened that made the current method of handling the work no longer feasible. Macy’s acquisition of the Gimbles stores overwhelmed the system that the advertising department had been using. Hecht’s was in a similar situation after it acquired John Wanamaker. Belk desperately needed help when they consolidated five divisions into one in Charlotte.
Although this phrase is now popular, I had never heard it before I started using it in the ’90s.
Often I would not be acquainted with the circumstances that motivated the important players. I always emphasized the value of having one central set of data to which everyone could contribute and from which everyone could draw. I called this approach “one version of the truth” by which “everyone could benefit from the work done by others.” Everyone could appreciate these notions, but placing a dollar value on the idea of shared data was difficult. Fairly often I would find something in my talks with employees that was horrendously inefficient or even dangerous or illegal, but I could not count on it.
An equally difficult problem was trying to figure out which individual(s) needed to be convinced. In some cases the IT department might not even participate in the software search, but they may have veto power over the final decision. Finding out where the sale stood often required someone from TSI who was willing and able to spend a great deal of time communicating by mail and phone. This was something that I was definitely loathe to do. Fortunately, I found someone, Doug Pease, who was quite good at it. Much more about him is posted here.
One thing that we did not need to worry about was competition. No other software company was crazy enough to attempt to address this market. A few retailers tried to develop something in-house. They all ended up spending millions of dollars or giving up or both.
Difficulties after the installation: I disliked two things about dealing with advertising agencies as clients: 1) It was sometimes difficult to get them to pay their bills; 2) they tended to go out of business or merge with competitors without warning.
We had no problems with retailers paying their bills except when they declared bankruptcy. The first time that this happened I was totally unprepared. A few smaller clients later closed down entirely, but none of these events was catastrophic to TSI.
An equally vexing problem was when one chain of stores acquired another. If the other chain had no system, this usually worked in our favor. If they both used AdDept (TSI’s administrative system for large retail advertising departments described here), we lost one client, but the remaining one usually became more dependent on our support and services. They often also asked us to help with the transition as well.
In the end, however, most of our biggest clients were acquired by Macy’s. The advertising was all managed by one department in New York. That process spelled doom for AdDept because by the time that it happened, Macy’s no longer used AdDept.
One other trend usually produced a little work on the AdDept side, the outsourcing of newspaper buying. We were usually asked to design and implement interfaces with the company that bought the ads. Unfortunately, this same process had a dire effect on AxN, TSI’s method of delivering and managing insertion orders online. When Dick’s Sporting Goods announced in 2014 that it was outsourcing its buying of newspaper space, we decided to shut down TSI.
Decision-making: The ways that decisions were made in retail advertising departments differed fundamentally differed from the way that entrepreneurs like advertising agency executives did. If I could talk to one of the principals at the agency, I could explain why the GrandAd system could produce positive results that could affect 1) the agency’s bottom line, and 2) the agency’s reputation. The situation was totally different in the advertising departments of large retailers.
The department either had a budget for a system or it did not. These were two entirely different cases. If the department had a budget, it was probably because of some huge external factor involving a merger or a takeover. In that case, the eventual purchase was almost a foregone conclusion. The challenge was to fashion a proposal that was within the budget, but not by much.
If the department was not in that position, the process was completely different. The first step was to find a person who had enough authority to requisition funds. This was usually the advertising director. However, advertising directors seldom requested information from us. Our contacts were generally much lower on the totem pole, usually the manager of the business office in the advertising department. So, we would first need to convince our contact and then convince the advertising director either directly, if possible, or indirectly.
We then depended upon the advertising director to requisition the funds. We might not have any idea who would evaluate the request. Sometimes it was someone in corporate finance, sometimes it was someone in the IT department, and in the large organizations approval might be necessary by a holding company such as the May Company, Federated, or Tandy.
At this point it was important for us to recognize which was the case. I was poor at this part of the job, but Doug Pease was much better. If he could connect me with the right person, I could usually frame the arguments for him or her. If no money was available, of course, we probably would not get the sale anyway. During some periods retailers were all tightening their belts. In tough times nobody in retail considered any capital purchase that did not generate sales.
If the final decision needed approval from the holding company, it was extremely difficult for us to influence them directly. In some cases like the May Company and Tandy, it worked out amazingly well for us. TSI’s problems with Federated are documented in detail here.
I began to appreciate the complexity of the situation when one customer told me that “Christmas only comes once.” He meant that the department had a budget at that point, but it had to spend the entire amount in that fiscal year. After that they would be strapped for cash. In general, that was how things worked.
However, some advertising departments had figured out a way around this. They charged the merchandise managers more than the ads cost. I do not know how they accounted for the difference, but they were sometimes had accumulated enough money in this fashion to circumvent the decision-makers in finance and IT. I know for a fact that the AdDept system was financed this way in a couple of cases.
The finance people generally were not upset when they found out about the unauthorized purchase. It was usually easy to determine that AdDept reducee administrative costs fairly rapidly. The IT department, however, might be more upset, especially if the AS/400 was not on their list of approved hardware systems.
Ancillary expenses: For entrepreneurs like ad agencies all expenses came out of the same checking account. The retail advertising departments had a different perspective. Sales tax and travel expenses probably did not hit the advertising department’s line on the income statement. No one ever complained about either type of billing, and they were always paid promptly.
However, the company may have had some rules about travel expenses. I was once grilled about flying first class for a training session. I had to provide proof that I purchased an economy fare and was upgraded by the airline. Some retailers insisted that I stay at a hotel at which they had a special rate. This was usually folly on their part. I liked to stay at Hampton Inns because of the free breakfast and the Hilton Honors points. Hampton’s rates were almost always lower than the “special rate” of the designated hotel.
1. Display ads in newspapers are always called ROP. It is not an acronym; the three letters, which stand for “run of press”, are always pronounced individually.
2. Every week starts with a Sunday. Every month has four or five weeks (twenty-eight or thirty-five days). The purpose of this arrangement and many examples are provided here.
