Russ is an industry pioneer in the commercial use of Internet technologies. He offers clients a strong background in strategy development, market development, and product management.
Russ tracks emerging payment technologies and lectures throughout the world on ecommerce technologies, Internet business models, online marketing strategies and emerging payment solutions.
Before joining Glenbrook, Russ was a general partner with The NuVantage Group, an innovation-to-market consulting group, where his clients included CommerceNet and the Financial Services Technology Consortium (FSTC).
Earlier, he served as director of emerging technologies for Compaq's corporate research group, where he oversaw the development of the MilliCent micropayment system.
I'm in London this week for meetings with clients. Here's an "up close and personal" field report on my first real London shopping experience - payment card in hand - at Harrods. » More
I completely agree with this thumbnail mobile banking strategy. But let's refine it a little into the 10-step cookbook version. » More
I recently took a look at the eBay Q2 2007 10-Q SEC filing to get some more details on the PayPal growth story. Read on for the details. » More
Glenbrook has been following Peppercoin since 2002 and has closely monitored the company’s strategy and progress. We were pleased by Peppercoin’s shift in direction two years ago—and we continue to be impressed by its ability to listen to the market, adjust its strategy, and move forward with a payment service that we believe to be unique in the industry.
» MorePeppercoin 2.0 extends the notion of transaction aggregation into both the physical world of small point-of-sale payments as well as across multiple merchants. Through this new “universal aggregation” capability, Peppercoin plans to aggregate individual consumer purchases at multiple merchants into a single card transaction. By doing this aggregation, the per-transaction fees that would otherwise be paid on each purchase are reduced—with the resulting savings shared between Peppercoin and merchants participating in the Peppercoin network. This research note analyzes how Peppercoin 2.0 actually works, explores its new value proposition, and offers an initial assessment of its potential strengths and weaknesses.
» MorePundits believe that RFID tags—positioned as a next-generation replacement for the familiar bar code—are going to drive vast improvements in the efficiency of supply chains as products wind their way from the manufacturers out to the retail shelves. Critics believe that RFID tags pose a significant threat to personal privacy, in that tags worn or carried by individuals permit unwanted surveillance by anyone with an RFID reader. They contend that RFID technology and its use in business should be heavily regulated, if not outright banned for specific applications. The court of public opinion is still listening to both sides of the debate.
» MoreMomentum towards stronger financial privacy for consumers in the United States has picked up a lot of steam over the last 30 days. While most welcome the change, some financial institutions are still tentative about the new direction, others are actively resisting it, and a few are not sure how to respond. But to strategic thinking institutions wanting to secure competitive advantage, we believe that now is the time to act—getting out in front of the financial privacy issue, leveraging their reputations for trust, and better serving their customers in the process.
» MoreI recently attended the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies Conference hoping to learn about up and coming technologies that might hold promise for Glenbrook's clients. While I didn't find exactly what I was looking for (the opportunities in financial services for smart dust, robofly, and nanotechnologies continue to elude me) I did have one of those "Eureka!" moments when I understood how effectively the big three Internet applications—Amazon, Google, and eBay—have morphed into open service platforms. What is happening here on a broad scale should be instructive for many financial services providers and eCommerce providers.
» MoreIdentity theft—the fraudulent use of private personal data and financial credentials—is getting a lot of attention these days. Consumers are concerned and legislators are on the march proposing various regulatory solutions. Since most of the damage is done prior to detection, we argue that it is critical to get consumers involved as early as possible. Consumers are more eager to help than the financial services industry might think.
» MoreMicropayments—those pay-per-click, penny-level transactions—are back in the news. Red Herring magazine recently published an article (1) entitled "Micropayment's Big Potential" that paints a pretty rosy picture about several up and coming micropayment systems.
» MoreIn a recent critique of the Liberty Alliance entitled "On Liberty and the Case for Anonymous Federation of Identity," (1) Doug Kaye raises several critical points about the Liberty 1.0 specifications:
» More
