bobzien.com

Ever seen an email with a “donotreply.com” domain name? Guess what, somebody actually owns it. And he’s been collecting emails that end up going to him as a result of a particular, possibly-common IT professional value: laziness.

There are only about handful [sic] of registered owners of a donotreply.com email address. What normally happens is some spammer slugs it in, or more likely a lazy IT person decides they don’t want to deal with bounced emails one of their programs send out, so what they do is set it to something cute at @donotreply.com as the return address.

The result? Check out the site for a rogues gallery of what happens when corporations, government agencies and other organizations extol the virtues of their data security policies, but in reality have no clue as to how wide open the door’s been left.

Hat tip to Merlin Mann.

[Update, 3/19/08: An Environment America staffer has posted an apology for the oversight in their email marketing systems. See comment after the post.]

“I think the reason so many emails don’t get read is that the suck level is so high.”

- John Hlinko, President and CEO of Grassroots Enterprise

Catching up on the current web marketing/politics literature by watching some videos of recent conference panels, it was ironic that a program on social networking dragged my focus back to the most basic of internet communication forms: e-mail.

Specifically, how so many people/companies/organizations/campaigns “suck” at it.

Now, if you’re a geek for this broader topic like I am, I encourage you to check out this video from the New Politics Institute. Viral marketing, video, social networks, Facebook apps- the panel took a broad view and delivered great take aways.

One of the most important? This one from Hlinko: “‘pitch’ them [your ‘grassroots multipliers’ or message spreaders] like reporters.” In other words, don’t just treat your e-mail list or social network as recipients of your information. Make the case for why what you’re conveying is important and why they should want to pass it along.

There’s a ton of resources out there for writing good e-mail messages, but before one can begin to shift their e-mail marketing thinking from sending content to a passive recipient to making a pitch to someone who might help you spread your message, it’s important to start with this commandment: “Thou shalt not spam.”

The following is a shameless documenting of a particularly bad, and most likely completely unintentional, infraction of this golden rule. I’ll make no attempt to change the names of the guilty, because, we’ll, they’re guilty, and who knows, maybe if someone in their communications department is smart enough to keep track of their online persona, they might just come across this post and atone for their sins.

Sometime last fall, I noticed I had somehow been added to the subscription list for “Environment America” (EA), the rebranded environmental wing of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). I have no idea how I was added. To EA’s credit, I had recently communicated with one of their organizers over e-mail about a press conference they were doing in Las Vegas showcasing Nevada’s recent progress on energy policy, and I know that wasn’t how I was added (different e-mail address.)

Sub rule number 1.1: just because you communicate with someone on e-mail for a given issue, or worse, you’ve been handed their business card, does not give you permission to add them to your subscription list. Invite people to subscribe, make sure you get permission, and provide double opt-in tools when possible.

I was amazed when my newest professional e-mail seemed to make it on to every major subscription list in Northern Nevada just after a few weeks of hand shakes and card exchanges last year (some of these organizations supported with your tax dollars!)

Back to EA. At first, I was reluctant to brand a seemingly worthy organization with the scarlet “Spam” button in my webmail client, an action that would not only relegate the message and all future messages into my junk mail folder, but potentially send the message to this purgatory for EA’s more willing subscribers as well. It’s not that I might not be open to EA’s messages, it’s just that in my line(s) of work, my email space is premium stuff. Thankfully, the message included the following e-mail link (rule 1.2):

This message was sent to david____@_____.com. If you want us to stop sending you e-mail then follow this link - http://www.environmentamerica.org//action/unsubscribe - to a web page where you can remove yourself.

Clicked on the link, filled out the form, and received the following courtesy message direct from EA’s Executive Director Margie Alt herself:

From: "MargieAlt@environmentamerica.org" <MargieAlt@environmentamerica.org>
To: david_______@___.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 27, 2007 2:13:44 PM
Subject: You have been unsubscribed.

You have been unsubscribed from the Environment America mailing list. If you receive any other unwanted e-mails from us, please let me know by replying to the message.

Sincerely,

Margie Alt
Environment America Executive Director

Thank goodness! I’m sure it was just some misunderstanding. There’s no way my e-mail address was harvested or shared inappropriately by another organization (rule 1.3.) Alls well that ends well.

Three days later, another e-mail came from Environment America.

Curious to see how many times I could “unsubscribe” and be immediately re-subcribed, I filled out the form again, and was rewarded with the same confirmation of my parting ways. And a week later… yup, another e-mail.

I had resolved to send a personal request to Margie asking to be taken off the list following the third unsuccessful unsubscribe attempt, but truth be told, it wasn’t until I received the requisite holiday greetings blast that I endeavored to make my appeal (I know, what a Grinch):

----- Original Message ----
From: David Bobzien <david___@_____.com>
To: "Margie Alt, Environment America Executive Director" <MargieAlt@environmentamerica.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 9, 2007 9:59:27 AM
Subject: Re: Happy Holidays from Environment America!

Margie,

Thank you very much for the holiday greetings. I wish you and your organization the same.

I've now attempted to unsubscribe from this email list three different times. I'm not sure why I'm still receiving emails from Environment America. In addition, I'm not sure how I got on your list to begin with.

Please understand that while I appreciate the work you do, I already receive way too much email and am trying to keep a handle on how much mail I receive.

Can you please remove me from your list?

Thank you,

David Bobzien
david___@_____.com

By this point, I was certainly not expecting a reply, and accordingly, my expectations were met. Rather than push the “Spam” button right then and there, I decided to hang onto the e-mails for the possibility of a future blog post, appearance in a presentation slide deck, etc. Now that I go back to the messages, there’s enough material for a 45-min breakout session on what not to do in e-mail marketing campaigns (too many fonts! the colors! verbose prose! weak verbs!)

Again, thinking of EA’s well-intentioned advocacy, I don’t wish to impugn with this post, only to provide a “avoid this mistake” lesson to non-profits, campaigns and businesses out there working so hard to be heard.

Tonight, reflecting on the rising suck level of e-mail marketing, I pushed the “Spam” button.

“If you’re bored enough to go on twitter, then why would I care about your boring life?”

- SuckyStartups

Twitter backlash was the new black in 2007, and for most of the year, I aligned with much of the sentiment. “What is this? Blogging for people who can’t write? I don’t care whether you brushed your teeth or not this morning!” Between blogging in support of legislating, and my professional internet life, writing 140 character “tweets” didn’t much seem like the next tech tool that would be in my quiver.

But last fall, I took the plunge. In the midst of adopting a flurry of SMS-based technologies to streamline my life space and enhance my communications, I signed up for an account and started twittering.

Don’t get me wrong, I still view Twitter as a fairly experimental communications platform with limited application in the “real” world, but having just lived through the last week of winter storminess here in Reno, Nevada (the STORM OF THE CENTURY!) I can see more clearly the possibilities of networked micro-content.

As the storm bore down on the Sierra, tweets came in, a lot of them, from friends/colleagues around Reno-Sparks, down in Carson and from a few lucky ones up in the mountains. While I’m the first to head right for the National Weather Service site to get the skinny on weather forecasts and snowfall accumulations, the Twitter activity provided a narrative layer conveying the excitement and urgency of the last few days. Add in some new arrivals from a ski resort and the local paper, and we’ve suddenly got a nice little online community for northern Nevada and the Sierra.

To cap it all off, Fuze as part of its online marketing efforts for Bobo’s Mogul Mouse (new site coming soon!) helped the good folks over in the shop get up and running with their own Twitter account today. Is Twitter for everyone? Of course not, but for many, it’ll be a great tool to build connections and get the word out, 140 characters at a time.

Readers of this blog (all two of you) are familiar with my mixed perspectives on the so-called “Web 2.0″ craze. For a tempered view of the limitations on data sharing innovation, check out this article from this month’s Wired: “Should Web Giants Let Startups Use the Information They Have About You?”

But beneath all the kumbayas, there’s an awkward dance going on, an unregulated give-and-take of information for which the rules are still being worked out. And in many cases, some of the big guys that have been the source of that data are finding they can’t — or simply don’t want to — allow everyone to access their information, Web2.0 dogma be damned. The result: a generation of businesses that depend upon the continued good graces of a relatively small group of Internet powerhouses that philosophically agree information should be free — until suddenly it isn’t.

In other words, for every data mashup that gets acquired, there’s at least five cease and desist letters telling an innovator, “thanks, but no thanks… and you better stop now.” So much for your Web 2.0 value add.

The arbitrary and ever-shifting bounds of what constitutes appropriate data sharing will remain in flux as long as companies still scratch their heads trying to figure how to monetize Web 2.0. Witness one explanation from a big company featured in the article, “We do not advocate the practice of contacts scraping, as we believe it poses unnecessary risks to consumers.” Bonus points if you can guess the ironic corporate source for that quote, and yes, as the article points out, it’s a position less than universally applied.

I’m not one to preach a way out of this ambiguous business landscape- we all know concepts of intellectual property have been in a serious mix cycle for sometime now. But knowing where the envelope is, how it’s shaped, and what forces are expanding and shrinking it on an almost hourly basis, is important to innovators and consumers alike in our “Web 2.0″ world.

Hot off the heals of my last post on Web 2.0 comes this next video on how the web is changing how we organize information.

“Information Architecture” is the fancy term for the part of my “User Experience” job in which I organize websites so that people can find what it is they’re looking for. This video speaks directly to the rapidly-changing information landscape in which this task is becoming more and more complex. I could especially relate to the opening in which the traditional library/category landscape is introduced- the exact surroundings I worked in while at my previous employer.

Hat tip to Peter Merholz who turned us Information Architecture Institute members onto this video.

Head Fuzeian Bryan Landaburu is on an A2N2 panel discussion of the ins and outs of Web 2.0 tomorrow (see you there!) and came across this little gem as the ultimate explanation of just what all the hype is about, what it means on a variety of economic and social levels, and why you should care.

As an old HTML dog (never did a site in vi but certainly did my share in Notepad) I take a cynical perspective on all the hype… as well as a “duhh!!!!” perspective (”you mean people are finally understanding the possibilities of hypertext?!”) Just for balance, I love this take by Jeffrey Zeldman from last year…

This time of year, my mind turns to three outdoor pursuits: chukar hunting, snowboarding and fly fishing at Pyramid Lake. With my ever-shrinking free time, the trick is to balance the three, and every year, that balance is different. With chukar numbers way down this year, and my decision to not purchase a Mt. Rose pass for the second year in a row- I didn’t get one last year because of the legislative session, and this year I figure I’ll do more sampling of other resorts and the backcountry (if there’s even snow)- my bet is on more early mornings casting for Lahontan cutthroat trout at Pyramid Lake.

I placed my bet on a good season this past Sunday by buying a 2007-2008 tribal permit, and was rewarded with my first fish of the season: a 22″ cutt. For those not familiar with the bizarre world of heavier-weight fly rods, step ladders and what some have described as “fishing on the moon,” this video provides a nice sample of what it’s all about.

Fuze booth - Originally uploaded by dbobzien

The full Fuze team was on-hand for yesterday’s Reno Tahoe Young Professionals Network Summit at the Grand Sierra Resort. Bryan told the Fuze story and tales of life as a successful young professional in Northern Nevada in the “Grow” session, I assisted with facilitating the “Give” break out session, and Dan and Calder took the lead greeting visitors, taking photos and preaching the good Fuze word.

At the end of the day we had a full vase of business cards from entrants hoping to win our iPod Touch / months worth of beer / or two hours of our undivided attention contest. Thanks for stopping by!

Great show YPN, we had a blast.

Listening to President Clinton this morning on the NPR talk about global development, I took his lead and checked out Kiva- a site that connects visitors “with and loan money to unique small businesses in the developing world. By choosing a business on Kiva.org, you can ’sponsor a business’ and help the world’s working poor make great strides towards economic independence.”

I’m certainly a sucker for any big net-enabled idea, and this one points to all kinds of future possibilities. “Micro-loans” have long been an economic empowerment idea en vogue, and the internet is an obvious platform for bringing this idea “to market.” How wonderful that I could become my own angel investor for a budding enterprise somewhere across the globe (or even right down the street… anyone building that site yet?) Sure, I’ve bought the Heifer cow in the past, but the idea of starting an online portfolio of small businesses investments across the globe, for me, represents the positive aspects of globalization.

I had heard of the site before, but it took a former President of the United States to move me to plunk the URL into my browser and check it out. “Man, talk about earned media,” I remarked to Lisa who was also listening with interest, “I bet these guys are loving it!”

Not so fast… the message on their site this morning:

Due to a recent surge in support ignited by viewers of the Oprah Winfrey Show [guess they hadn’t heard the NPR story yet], there is currently a shortage of businesses in need of loans. The Kiva.org staff and our Field Partners are working overtime to get more businesses on the website.

In the meantime, thank you for your patience!

Appropriately, they provide visitors an option to donate to their site efforts (still considering it…)

Check out Kiva and watch as they take it to “the next level.”

Amy at the Reno-Tahoe Young Professionals Network (RTYPN) has a wrap-up of the inaugural “WiFi Wednesday”, a networking event for northern Nevada professionals sponsored by the RTYPN, the Nevada Center for Entrepreneurship and Technology and the Nevada Commission on Economic Development.

(Full disclosure: my company, FUZE is a sponsor of RTYPN and supports their website. I myself am a charter member. Oh, and I just finished the markup/CSS of their soon to be launched website… anything else? Can’t think of anything right now, but I’ll let you know…)

The WiFi thread was interesting (I was the one nerd that actually showed up with a laptop…) and the structured networking piece was fast/easy and didn’t get in the way of the more important free-form schmoozing. Good folks, good conversation- an all around great event… keep an eye out for the next one!

I’m in complete agreement with LaPlante (who road his bike over to the event after getting off a plane) on this one: building the economy we want in this town requires plenty of opportunity for intellectual cross-pollination… and that begins by pulling us off the cubicle farm now and then.