Alan Rimm-Kaufman

Today, we learned of the passing of Alan Rimm-Kaufman, founder of the Rimm-Kaufman Group.

I only met Alan once, at the 2007 Spring NEMOA conference. We sat together on a two hour panel discussion, sharing our thoughts on the future of catalog marketing. Alan was kind enough to leave positive comments about the things I said during the panel discussion. This pattern of kindness continued, as Alan recommended my books to his audience, and interviewed me about a fledgling methodology called Multichannel Forensics.

If I had questions about search marketing, Alan freely answered them. He genuinely wanted others to succeed.

The last e-mail I received from Alan was on May 17. Here is the text of his e-mail message to me.

• Hi Kevin -- Saw you quoted int he cart abandonment article in this morn's Sunday NYT -- nice ink! Congrats -- Alan.

I looked through my e-mails from that week. Alan was one of a very, very small number of industry members to send me a positive e-mail comment, amid numerous negative messages and internet criticisms. Maybe he disagreed with my point of view, maybe he agreed, it didn't matter. He chose to focus on something positive.

Clients hired me because Alan represented my work in a positive light. When you are starting a business from scratch, this type of help is dearly appreciated.

If you have memories of Alan, or wish to leave the employees of his company positive thoughts, please visit this blog post on the Rimm-Kaufman blog. Our industry lost a genuine leader, one who was willing to help anybody who asked. I'm appreciative for the kind words, printed or spoken, over the past few years.