Q: HOW DO YOU SCREW UP A PERFECTLY GREAT ECONOMY? A: ASK ALAN GREENSPAN.(Government Activity)

Since 1982, this publication has devoted its efforts to providing a strong foundation for the customer interaction industry. Our pioneering efforts since that time have helped the nascent call center industry evolve into a multibillion-dollar industry known today as customer interaction, which encompasses contact center/CRM solutions. For the last 19 years, I have always addressed in this editorial column the needs of our industry and the latest industry trends. But due to the fact that I feel that a great injustice has been done to the American economy, which was otherwise experiencing by far the greatest sustained economic expansion and prosperity ever known to mankind, I feel I must change my focus in this editorial and get off my chest what I have believed for the last several years. I feel that the best interests of the United States are more important than focusing only on industry matters every single issue!

The assistance and research conducted by the editors of Customer Inter@ction Solutions[TM] magazine was instrumental in preparation for this Publisher's Outlook. My intention is to be brutally honest in expressing my views, as I believe that the U.S. economy deserves better leadership.

Dr. Alan Greenspan was appointed as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System by Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton (his current four-year term as Chairman ends June 20, 2004). His re-appointment to the Board for a full 14-year term began February 1, 1992.

Indeed, in his career, Dr. Greenspan has been appointed chairman or board member to various Presidential economic policy advisory boards and boards of directors of various corporations. To say the least, Dr. Greenspan's resume is impressive. Reading through his resume, I discovered that he spent from 1954 to 1974 and from 1977 to 1987 as Chairman & President of Townsend-Greenspan & Co., Inc., an economic consulting firm in New York City. Dr. Greenspan's academic achievements in economics are indeed prominent. He graduated with a B.S. in economics (summa cum laude) in 1948, an M.A. in economics in 1950 and a Ph.D. in 1977, all from New York University. As you can see, from an academic standpoint, as well as serving on various advisory boards, Dr. Greenspan's record is perhaps second to none.

What I don't see in Dr. Greenspan's record is being on the firing line of a small or large entrepreneurial business, where the founder and/or the CEO learns the business inside and out by doing literally everything in the company and gaining practical, "real world" and "firsthand" experience about what business is really all about. Having come to this great country of ours with $50 in my pocket and a vocabulary of a grand total of four words in English (and those were yes, no, okay and Wednesday), I have a much different view of what the "REAL" world is all about. I have undergone many hardships, such as my first job, where I was responsible for high-quality plastic products at a young age. I worked 16-hour shifts for $1.50 an hour in a plastic manufacturing factory located in Patterson, New Jersey, where we toiled in horrible working conditions and the temperature in the factory reached 115 degrees in the summertime. I then worked my way up the corporate ladder and eventually started Technology Marketing Cor poration (TMC) in 1972. TMC has since become the leading independent publishing/trade show company covering cutting-edge technologies in the high-tech communications fields. (Visit www.tmcnet.com.) So you see, I have a completely different background than that of Dr. Greenspan.

Academically, I cannot begin to compare to Dr. Greenspan's admirable and prestigious background in serving on so many prestigious boards. However, I have learned through many years of firsthand experience and hard work that theoretical knowledge does not run a company, a country or an economy successfully. Through my 30 years of business experience, which started as a research chemist at DuPont to the current Chairman & CEO of TMC, I have learned that members of the board of directors of companies often have no clue about the nature of the business for which they serve on the board.

I am reminded of a great advertisement, which I saw back in 1982, about a Japanesemade photo copier. The headline read, "Finally, we have invented a copier which is so easy to run, even members of the board of directors should be able to run it!" Those of us who have worked with members of several boards of directors know for a fact that except for a few rare cases, these people are simply on cloud nine and have no clue about how to run a business successfully!