Entries from February 1, 2006 - March 1, 2006
Busy Day at MTAC – Financials, Postal Reform, and One Code Updates
February 23, 2006
We covered a lot of very important ground here at MTAC this first day. We learned early in the meeting that MTAC will have a special pavilion at the National Postal Forum (NPF). If you are going to NPF, make sure you stop by this MTAC booth and see first hand how this organization works and why they are such a crucial part of improving the commercial mail industry.
United States Postal Service® chief financial officer Dick Strasser presented his last financial update at MTAC. He is retiring on April 3 and I wish him a happy retirement. I have always enjoyed his financial updates as he would always go out of his way to explain the numbers and what drives them. In this update, he explained that while Standard Mail™ volumes are lower than they expected (1.5% versus 4.7% same period last year), First-Class Mail® was not declining as rapidly as they had projected.
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It's MTAC Week Again
February 21, 2006
If you’ve read my Postal Perspectives articles (Understanding MTAC), you may remember me mentioning the Mailers Technical Advisory Committee meetings, what they are, and why they are so important for our mailing industry. This week is another quarterly “MTAC week”, and I thought I’d cover a few of the exciting highlights that will likely be discussed during the next few days.
The Final Stretch for Postal Reform
February 15, 2006
Unless you are brand new to the commercial mailing industry, you have likely been following what is the most significant moment in commercial mail since the United States Postal Service® came into existence on July 1, 1971. On February 9, 2006, the United States Senate unanimously passed their version of postal reform. This, along with the House passing HR22 last July, are significant milestones and represent the first major reform to the USPS in over 30 years.
What’s In A Name?
February 14, 2006
I find that we are often all saying the same thing, though we use different terms depending on a specific vertical market or application. Terms like middleware, business intelligence, and data quality are used ubiquitously and it reminds me of one of my favorite Shakespeare phrases: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Ah, so true indeed does it apply to these terms. Commercial mail is all about data quality and yet we often do not use that term.