Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin hits the web, with HUD in tow

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It's here! Precise Pangolin or, as it's officially known, Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Canonical's latest is now available in its final(ish) form and ready for you to download, burn and install. While LTS (Long Term Support) releases are generally more conservative in their application of new features, Pangolin does include some rather notable tweaks. The most immediately noticeable will be the new log in screen which, while largely the same, does have the slick new trick of changing wall papers to match the selected user. A more subtle change is revealed once you've logged on and press alt -- HUD. The new search-based menu system is quite a departure from traditional interaction models, and one that will come as a relief to those who constantly forget where a particular option is buried. Perhaps the most welcome change, though, is the vastly improved performance and power management. Ubuntu, for all of its finer points, has never been particularly battery friendly. But Canonical is promising that is going to change. We'll have to wait to find out once we get this bad boy installed on some machines of our own. You know the drill, hit up the source link to download it for yourself, for free.

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin hits the web, with HUD in tow originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Apr 2012 08:40:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blood samples show deadly frog fungus at work in the wild

Thursday, April 26, 2012

The fungal infection that has killed a record number of amphibians worldwide leads to deadly dehydration in frogs in the wild, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University researchers.

High levels of an aquatic fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) disrupt fluid and electrolyte balance in wild frogs, the scientists say, severely depleting the frogs' sodium and potassium levels and causing cardiac arrest and death.

Their findings confirm what researchers have seen in carefully controlled lab experiments with the fungus, but SF State biologist Vance Vredenburg said the data from wild frogs provide a much better idea of how the disease progresses.

"The mode of death discovered in the lab seems to be what's actually happening in the field," he said, "and it's that understanding that is key to doing something about it in the future."

The study is published online by peer-reviewed journal PLoS ONE and funded through the joint National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health program, Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases.

At the heart of the new study are blood samples drawn from mountain yellow-legged frogs by Vredenburg, who is an assistant professor of biology at SF State, and colleagues in 2004, as the chytrid epidemic swept through the basins of the Sierra Nevada range.

"It's really rare to be able to study physiology in the wild like this, at the exact moment of a disease outbreak," said UC Berkeley ecologist Jamie Voyles, the lead author of the study.

Unfortunately, it is a study that can't be duplicated, at least not in the Sierra Nevada. Frog populations there have been devastated by chytrid, declining by 95 percent after the fungus was first detected in 2004.

"It's been really sad to walk around the basins and think, 'wow, they're really all gone,'" Vredenburg said.

The chytrid fungus attacks an amphibian's skin, causing it to become up to 40 times thicker in some instances. Since frogs depend on their skin to absorb water and essential electrolytes like sodium from their environment, Voyles and her colleagues knew that chytrid would disrupt fluid balance in the infected amphibians, but were surprised to find that electrolyte levels were much lower than anticipated for the Sierra Nevada sample.

"It's clear that this fungus has a profound effect in the wild," Voyles said.

"Wildlife diseases can be just as devastating to our health and economy as agricultural and human diseases," says Sam Scheiner, NSF program officer for EEID. "Bd has been decimating frog and salamander species worldwide, which may fundamentally disrupt natural systems. This study is an important advance in our understanding of the disease, a first step in finding a way to reduce its effects."

Scientists want to learn as much as they can about how chytrid affects wild amphibians, with the hope that these findings will lead to better treatments for the infection.

For instance, Voyles said, the new study suggests that individual frogs being treated for the infection might benefit from having electrolyte supplementation in the advanced stages of the disease.

Researchers like Vredenburg already are experimenting with different ways of treating individual frogs, such as applying antifungal therapies or inoculating the frogs with "probiotic" bacteria that produce a compound that kills the fungus.

"The disease is not very hard to treat in the lab with antifungals. We know we can treat animals there," Vredenburg said. "But in nature, the disease is still a moving target."

It is still unclear exactly how chytrid spreads across a region, and which frogs might be susceptible to re-infection after treatment. Earlier this year, Vredenburg and colleagues published a paper showing that a common North American frog might be an important carrier of the infection.

Chytrid has killed off more than 200 amphibian species across the globe, but Voyles said the new studies offer "sort of a glimmer of hope that it might be possible to do something to mitigate the loss of frogs in the field."

###

San Francisco State University: http://www.sfsu.edu

Thanks to San Francisco State University for this article.

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Israel marks 64th Independence Day

JERUSALEM ? Israel's leaders marked their country's 64th year of independence on Thursday with a ceremony in Jerusalem, singing classical Hebrew songs and honoring outstanding soldiers.

"Israel does not threaten its region, does not seek to rule another people, and does not wish ill for any other nation," President Shimon Peres said. "Israel, despite its strength, prefers bridges of peace over fences of hostility."

Israelis flocked to beaches and thronged parks for barbecues across the nation, filling the air with the scent of grilled meat and charcoal. Military bases were open to visitors for the holiday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was scheduled to award the Israel Prize in the evening, a prestigious honor in the fields of entertainment and academia.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton congratulated Israel.

"For many around the world, Israel remains a beacon of hope and an inspiring example," she said Wednesday in an official statement.

Government statistics showed that Israel's population grew by 137,500 since last year to 7,881,000. The Central Bureau of Statistics said 75 percent of the population is Jewish, 21 percent is Arab, with the remainder belonging to tiny minorities or immigrants who are not Jewish.

Also, more than 500,000 Israeli citizens live as settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas Palestinians claim for their future state.

While Independence Day is a joyful celebration in Israel, Palestinians will mark the creation of the Jewish state in mid-May with a day of mourning.

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NASA tests GPS network to monitor quakes

The satellite technology that allows the GPS in your phone or car to work could now have another purpose: NASA and other government agencies will see if it can be used to monitor and measure large earthquakes.

The Real-Time Earthquake Analysis for Disaster (READI) Mitigation Network will be tested this year in the western United States. Officials say it could help emergency workers quickly respond to earthquakes and provide more-accurate tsunami warnings.

The network will use real-time GPS measurements from nearly 500 stations throughout California, Oregon and Washington. When a large earthquake is detected, GPS data will be used to automatically calculate its location, magnitude and details about the fault rupture.

Studies have shown that high-precision, second-by-second measurements of ground displacements using GPS can reduce the time needed to characterize large earthquakes and to improve the predictions of subsequent tsunamis. This could help not only Americans but people throughout the Pacific "Ring of Fire," the areas of high tectonic activity bordering the Pacific Ocean, said Craig Dobson at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. Dobson is the natural hazards program manager in the agency's Earth Science Division.

Calculating the strength of a tsunami requires detailed knowledge of the size of the earthquake and associated ground movements. Acquiring this type of data for very large earthquakes has been a challenge.

"Conventional seismic networks have consistently struggled to rapidly identify the true size of great earthquakes during the last decade," said Timothy Melbourne, director of Central Washington University's Pacific Northwest Geodetic Array. "This GPS system is more likely to provide accurate and rapid estimates of the location and amount of fault slip."

The GPS earthquake detection capability was first demonstrated by NASA-supported research on a major 2004 quake around the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

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Assuming the network works as planned, it can then be used by the U.S. Geological Survey, which is responsible for detecting and issuing warnings on earthquakes, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has the same responsibility with tsunamis.

"The relatively small investments in GPS-based natural hazards systems have revolutionized the way we view Earth and allowed us to develop this prototype system," said Frank Webb, a program manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

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WikiLeaks suspect loses bid to get key charge dropped

A US military judge ruled Thursday that WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning can be tried for "aiding the enemy" over allegedly leaking documents to the site -- a charge that carries a potential life sentence.

The decision was another setback for Manning, whose attorneys had argued for the espionage charge to be tossed out unless the government was prepared to prove the US Army private had intended to help Al-Qaeda when he allegedly passed files to WikiLeaks.

The 24-year-old could be jailed for life if convicted of "aiding the enemy," one of 22 criminal charges that judge Colonel Denise Lind let stand at pre-trial hearings this week at Fort Meade in Maryland.

Lind said she would issue instructions on the espionage count to make clear what prosecutors will have to prove against Manning when his trial starts on September 21.

The government will have to show that Manning "knowingly" and without permission passed classified information to the enemy "through indirect means," she said.

Defense lawyers insisted the government's case implies any soldier could be prosecuted for espionage if they inadvertently divulged secrets online or discussed sensitive information with news reporters.

Prosecutors, however, maintained Manning's intent was not at issue and that the government only needed to prove that the intelligence analyst knew Al-Qaeda would see the leaked information on the anti-secrecy WikiLeaks site.

The hearing underlined the legal dilemmas of a digital era as rights groups voiced alarm at the prosecution's tough line over online leaks.

"The implications of the government's argument are breathtaking," said Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"In its zeal to throw the book at Manning, the government has so overreached that its 'success' would turn thousands of loyal soldiers into criminals," Wizner wrote on ACLU's website.

Manning is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of military logs from Iraq and Afghanistan and US diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks between November 2009 and May 2010, when he served as a low-ranking intelligence analyst in Iraq.

The judge earlier on Thursday rejected defense motions asking for some of the other counts to be tossed out or combined, after Manning's lawyers alleged the prosecution had "over-charged" their client.

Given the "volume of records" leaked, the counts were reasonable and prosecutors had not "piled on the charges" as the defense argued, the judge said.

The baby-faced Manning, who appeared in court clad in a blue Army dress uniform, has yet to enter a plea in the case.

Lawyers also sparred Thursday over whether the effect of the massive leak was pertinent to the case.

The charges do "not require the United States to prove actual harm" was done but only that secrets were revealed, said prosecutor Major Ashden Fein, who argued for a motion to exclude any discussion of the leak's impact.

Manning was transferred a year ago from a military prison at Quantico, Virginia -- where he had been imprisoned since July 2010 -- to another in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

During Manning's eight months of solitary confinement at Quantico, he was subjected to "cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment," according to a UN special rapporteur.

Manning, who has spent more than 700 days in detention, is painted as a traitor by some for his alleged role in the worst ever breach of US intelligence, which embarrassed Washington and dismayed US allies.

But his supporters, some of whom sat in the courtroom watching the proceedings wearing T-shirts inscribed with the word "Truth," view Manning as a political prisoner and praise WikiLeaks for uncovering government secrets.

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Over 1000 Business Travel Buyers Registered for GBTA Convention ...

GBTA announced that more than 1,000 business travel buyers have registered for the GBTA Convention 2012. Never before has GBTA Convention reached the 1,000 registrants this quickly ? nearly three months before the start of the event. The Convention, being held in Boston, Massachusetts, July 22nd ? 25th, will feature two former U.S. Presidents and compelling sessions with several top industry business leaders.

Source:- travelandtourworld.com

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Fed stands pat but says will act if needed

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday said U.S. monetary policy was "more or less in the right place" even though the central bank would not hesitate to launch another round of bond purchases if the economy were to weaken.

In a statement after a two-day meeting, the Fed's policy-setting panel reiterated its expectation that interest rates would not rise until late 2014 at the earliest, and it took no action on monetary policy.

The Fed also adjusted its economic forecasts to acknowledge an improving labor market and slightly higher inflation over the next few years. The revised forecast, along with a change of heart by the most dovish Fed officials on the timing of the first rate rise, suggested the central bank has grown somewhat less inclined to take more action to help the economic recovery.

"We remain entirely prepared to take additional balance sheet actions as necessary to achieve our objectives," Bernanke told reporters. "Those tools remained very much on the table and we would not hesitate to use them should the economy require that additional support."

But he added: "For the time being, it appears that we are more or less in the right place.

In response to the deepest recession in generations, the Fed cut overnight rates to near zero in December 2008 and more than tripled its balance sheet by purchasing $2.3 trillion in government and mortgage bonds in two rounds of so-called quantitative easing.

Bernanke said the central bank could be spurred into doing more if the U.S. unemployment rate, which stood at 8.2 percent last month, failed to keep moving lower.

Fresh projections released by the central bank showed the most dovish officials no longer want to put off a rate increase until 2016. The Fed said seven officials believe it would be appropriate to raise borrowing costs in 2014, up from five officials in January, while only four wanted to wait longer, down from six.

Interest-rate futures showed traders now betting the first rate hike would come in March 2014, a month sooner than earlier thought.

"It looks like the more positive data over the past few months has affected the people at the more dovish end of the spectrum," said Sean Incremona, an economist at 4Cast in New York.

Colin Lundgren, head of fixed income at Columbia Management in Minneapolis, said: "I wouldn't call it hawkish. It's more that they are less dovish."

A poll of 12 big Wall Street bond dealers put chances of a further easing of monetary policy at just 28 percent. Separately, economists at Nomura, which had previously expected the Fed to buy more bonds, said they now anticipated no action.

Prices for long-term U.S. government debt ended slightly lower as investors pulled back bets on further bond buying. Stocks closed higher as a near doubling of profits at Apple fueled optimism.

Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, who is known for his hawkish stance on inflation, dissented against the central bank's policy decision, saying he believed rates would need to rise sooner than late 2014. He has now dissented at all three of the policy meetings the Fed has held this year.

INFLATION SPIKE SEEN TEMPORARY

U.S. economic growth has been just firm enough to weaken the case for additional stimulus through Fed bond purchases. Gross domestic product expanded at a 3 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter but economists expect that it slowed to around a 2.5 percent pace in the first three months of this year.

The Commerce Department will provide its initial reading on first-quarter GDP on Friday.

The Fed described the economy as expanding moderately, just as it did last month, and noted that the unemployment rate had declined but remains elevated. In March it had said the jobless rate had declined "notably."

The central bank bumped up its growth forecast for 2012 but lowered it for the next two years. The forecast showed the central bank expects the jobless rate to fall faster than it did previously.

It also sees inflation higher over the next few years than it saw in January, with a notable rise in its forecasts for this year that takes into account a run-up in gasoline prices.

Still, the Fed does not expect inflation to breach its 2 percent target.

Policymakers nodded to "some signs of improvement" in the housing sector and, while repeating that they expect moderate economic growth in coming quarters, said the recovery should then "pick up gradually."

"To support a stronger economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at the rate most consistent with its dual mandate, the committee expects to maintain a highly accommodative stance for monetary policy," the Fed said.

As officials gathered, the government reported that orders for long-lasting manufactured goods plunged 4.2 percent in March, the biggest drop since the economy was nose-diving in early 2009. The data was the latest to suggest the economy lost momentum as the first quarter drew to a close.

(Writing by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Tim Ahmann, Leslie Adler)

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Myra Chanin: Raconteur and Barry Manilow Lyricist Marty Panzer Offers Weird Proof That a Wonderful Life Can Begin at 18

Google Marty Panzer and you'll be convinced that he was born in the CBS Mailroom at the age of 18, and he may well may have been, in the sense that the CBS Mailroom was where he began to first feel alive.

Up 'til then Marty had no identity, felt that he had no talents, no direction, no ambition, and had no idea what he was going to do with his life. A family friend told Marty to get a job in the CBS Mailroom and that he would find his path in life there. And he did. There isn't much info about his life before that on the Internet so I asked about it and he told me. Marty has a much older brother who was married by the time Marty was six, which is when his mother became a widow. "It was just Mom and I in Williamsburg." He truly loved his mother, who "gave me nothing but love and affection," and credits her with making him a loving, positive, optimistic person. He wrote his first hit about her -- I am Your Child -- a song which was adopted by Rob Reiner to help build his I Am A Child Foundation.

During his first day in the mailroom Marty noticed a familiar face. It belonged to Barry Manilow, who had graduated from Brooklyn's Eastern District High School -- Marty's Alma Mater -- the previous year and had been toiling in the CBS mailroom for six months. Manilow had enough talent, direction and ambition to sustain a battalion and he and Marty, who had known each other casually before, gradually became close friends. Marty established his career at CBS-TV as Manager of Air Control on-Air Operations where he was involved in setting up the format for the first Superbowl, the first lunar landing and countless news and sports events. "I expected to stay at CBS for the rest of my life," and then Barry, who'd established himself musically, asked Marty to help him write a commercial jingle on spec for Cup-a-Soup. It was a success and started Marty on a commercial career with Barry.

Thanks to Barry, Marty discovered he did have talent for writing lyrics and in the ensuing 48 years he has written about 100 lyrics for Manilow tunes, many of them major hits, plus over 100 lyrics for Disney Songs, and a variety of songs with other people like Don Grady, of "My Three Sons."

Barry and Marty are still best friends and according to Marty "nothing is better than working with your best friend." Here's how they work. Marty write lyrics for a year and shows them all to Barry when they get together. Barry prefers to see the lyrics first. He writes the music after he decides which lyrics work for him.

Living in LaLa Land among the musicrati has given Marty a slew of stories well worth retelling, which Marty will be raconteur-ing: wonderfully hilarious, honest and touching stories about his musical and non-musical adventures with Kenny Rogers, Julio Iglesias, Michael Crawford, Dianne Schuur et al. at the Triad Theater at 158 West 72nd in Manhattan on April 27 (Completely Sold Out Already) and April 28th at 7:30.

He loves writing sons for the Disney Princesses. "Disney is always optimistic. It's one of last places where you can write about love and faith in the future."

Marty's favorite lyric? All the Time, which is about feeling like an outsider, a feeling which everyone shares at least once in a lifetime.

All the time I thought there's only me
Crazy in a way that no one else could be
I can't believe that you were somewhere, too
Thinking all the time there's only you
All the time, all the wasted time
All the years waiting for a sign
To think I had it all
All the time

You say you're not satisfied? You say you want more for your money? Tell you what I'm gonna do. Attending Marty's show is also a mitzvah; this show is a Benefit for the Manilow Music Project. And because it's being produced by Pat Addiss, who brought you Promises, Promises, Spring Awakening, The 39 Steps, War Horse, etc., Broadway notables like Tony winner Katie Finneran, Santino Fontana, Brent Barrett, Andrea Burns plus surprise guests will be singing the songs that Marty will be talking about. FYI, the reason Pat is producing Marty's show is because after she was introduced to Marty by a friend who thought they would enjoy each other, Pat found his stories so enchanting, she decided to share them and him with you, me and the world.

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7 Reasons Marketing & Customer Service Need to Work Together ...

The need for a symbiotic marketing/customer service relationship is only more important now, with consumers increasingly turning to social media as a way to communicate with businesses. In fact, according to a?recent study from Booz & Company,?75% of marketers using social media identify customer service as a primary use of their social media platform.

But while the majority of marketers admit that customer service is a major function of their social presence, according to the same Booz & Company survey,?only 26% of respondents?describe customer service as a department responsible for contributing leadership to social media strategies. Something is off there; don?t you agree?

If you need more convincing, we?ve pulled together?7 compelling reasons why it?s important for Marketing and Customer Service to be closely aligned?? and how to create a relationship that?s much better at it.

1) For Better Social Media Support

As we already mentioned, most marketers are?using social media to provide customer service. But is your marketing team?s social media account manager?really?capable of handling these customer service issues as effectively as someone on your customer service team? Probably not. Your business? customer service team has likely been given the proper training and resources needed to assist customers and resolve issues, meaning they are the best people for the job.

While it absolutely?does?make sense for your business? social media account management to be a function of Marketing, that doesn?t mean people from other departments can?t be involved. Why provide your customers with a subpar customer service experience just for the sake of keeping social media management solely in Marketing? Luckily, there are a number of tools available to marketers to make this possible ? and easy! Using a third-party social media management tool, such as HootSuite or?HubSpot, marketers can easily collaborate with other departments such as Customer Service (or even Sales), routing customer support questions to the support team and making it easy for communications to be handed off to the most appropriate person. Coming up with a system that enables members of your customer service team to participate in customer service-related inquiries via social media will only make for a better customer experience.

2) For Content Creation Ideas

Savvy inbound marketers understand how important regular and consistent content creation is to their?marketing strategy. Unfortunately, regular and consistent content creation means marketers also need a steady flow of ideas about which to create content, and even the most experienced content creators sometimes suffer from?the struggle to come up with remarkable content ideas?that their audience will find valuable.

This is where your customer team can save the day! As people who are constantly communicating with customers and learning about their problems, interests, and needs, your customer team is probably an untapped goldmine of viable content ideas. After all, marketers are trying to create content that helps solve their audience?s problems, and your customer team knows firsthand what those problems are. They will also probably be able to provide Marketing with real-life customer examples and successes to use in their marketing content, which is always an added bonus.

As a marketer, open the lines of communication between the content creators on your team and your customer teams. Consider meeting regularly to learn about the problems your customers are facing, and think about the types of content you can create to address those problems. For example, our blogging team uses a page on HubSpot?s internal wiki as a way for members of the sales and customer teams to submit blog article ideas based on their communications with customers and prospects.

3) For a Deeper Understanding of Buyer Personas

How well do you really understand your buyer personas? Buyer personas are fictional representations of your target customers, so if you implement the suggestions we provided in tip #2 above, you might learn that you don?t really understand your customers as well as you thought you did. Or perhaps you haven?t even developed well thought-out buyer personas in the first place. Truly understanding the inner-workings of your ideal customers can provide you with?a number of business and marketing benefits?such as a better understanding of customer needs, problems, and interests; knowledge of where customers spend time; better quality leads; consistency across your business; richer closed-loop analytics; and better product development.

The great thing is, your customer team is talking to your customers all the time, meaning they probably know more about them than any other department within your company. So because understanding buyer personas is so critical for creating effective marketing campaigns, it behooves marketers to work more closely with customer service to help them truly understand customers? needs and thoughts. As a marketer, sit in on customer team meetings, and join in on customer calls for better insight into the personas you?re marketing to.

4) For Setting Customer Expectations

One very telling indicator of an effective marketing team is when leads have clear expectations for how your business? products and services will help them. And when leads have clear expectations, the transition from lead to customer, as well as that customer?s subsequent experienceas?a customer, can go much more smoothly. This is how Marketing can help prevent customer loss, since often customer churn is the result of misleading expectations that can be attributed back to misleading marketing campaigns.

So how does customer service factor into this? When the two teams are better aligned, Customer Service can notify Marketing of instances when inadequate or misleading expectations have been set, since members of your customer service team will likely be the ones to stumble across these inconsistencies. Then, as a marketer, you?ll be able to modify your campaigns to better set expectations for potential customers. For example, if your marketing team was relying heavily on the messaging that the indoor paint you sell dries in minutes, but in reality customers report that it takes hours, your marketing team could rectify the false expectations they were setting in their marketing campaigns.

5) For Unified Messaging & Communications

When prospects and customers have a question about a promotion your marketing team is running ? who they gonna call? Support! The reason is simple: it?s the easiest phone number to find on most business? websites. So what happens if your customer support team knows nothing about that live webinar Marketing is currently holding and a prospect calls looking for the webinar link they forgot to bookmark when they signed up? ?Umm ? what webinar?? says the support team rep. Not good.

That?s why it?s so important for Customer Service to be in the know about what promotions Marketing is deploying ? so they can be well-equipped to answer any questions that pop up from prospects and customers alike. They should know where on the website to find that ebook, how to log in to that webinar, and where to enter that contest. As a marketer, arm your customer team with the resources they need to be successful. At HubSpot, for example, we keep a shared Google Doc where our support team can access the links and log-in information for every upcoming webinar we host. This eliminates the wasted time and effort of Support trying to contact Marketing while a caller waits on hold, making for a happier caller and a more efficient support process.

6) For PR/Marketing Promotion of Customer Success & Happiness

Customer problems aren?t the only discussion topic your customer team shares with Marketing. They are also often the best equipped and first to identify customer happiness and success.

Better customer service and marketing alignment enables Marketing to more easily pinpoint the customers that make great case study candidates, especially if they?re looking for specific examples of customer success and the customer team knows about these preferences in advance. Your customer service team can also be on the lookout for awesome customer testimonials and examples of customer happiness, as well as encourage those happy customers to?provide those online reviews we marketers covet.

As a marketer, be sure to let your customer team in on these types of initiatives so you can more easily source customer successes and happiness to support your public relations outreach and other customer-centric marketing initiatives. At HubSpot, for example, we?ve tasked our customer team with helping us identify customers who are interested in participating in our ?I HubSpot Because ?? initiative.

7) For Informing Product Marketing Initiatives

Your business? customer team is likely the most in tune with understanding how customers actually use your products/services. And to many marketers? surprise, sometimes the way customers use a product doesn?t exactly line up with how marketers have been marketing it.

Marketing/Customer Service alignment to the rescue! Hold regular meetings with members of Marketing and Customer Service to avoid situations where marketing is heavily promoting a product feature that is underutilized by or unsatisfying to customers. Or perhaps your customers are using your product/service in a way that wasn?t originally intended and that your marketing team never thought to promote. This will help inform future, more successful product marketing initiatives and collateral.

Why else is it critical for Marketing and Customer Service to forge a closer relationship?

Image Credit:?dennis

Read more:?http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/32478/7-Reasons-Marketing-Custome...

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