A few weeks ago, I walked into a Borders store. What I experienced were the final days of a once-magnificent chain. Two stories, filled with beautifully organized books and music, were now condensed to a "garage sale" on a half floor. In hindsight, was the writing on the wall for this organization?

As the Righteous Brothers sang in their iconic hit, "You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips ... and there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips," what do you do when that loving feeling about CRM is gone ... gone, gone? (Whoa ... o-o-o-o)

The question sounds odd, doesn't it, when every month I write a column about CRM -- and you, presumably, read it? But do we all really know what we're talking about when we say customer relationship marketing?

I remember being in business school, and one of our real professors (a full-time executive, part-time academic) started discussing different career paths that his bright-eyed and bushy-tailed disciples might choose to take.