The following email was the twelth I received for the week yesterday and I just want to tell the Obama posse (Barack, Michelle, Joe, and the local Barack campaign manager) to stop asking me for money in at least one of these uber-frequent emails.  A recent email example with subject line “Deadline: Tomorrow”:

 Ryan –Over the last week this race has been transformed.Barack named Joe Biden as his running mate, and they accepted the Democratic nomination at our historic open convention in Denver.Our team is complete, and our movement is growing rapidly. But now we are facing our first major challenge together.

The August financial reporting deadline is tomorrow at midnight, and we have an opportunity to show that a campaign funded by ordinary people can go toe-to-toe with the Washington lobbyists and special interests lined up behind John McCain and the Republican Party.

Make a donation of $50 or more before midnight tomorrow, and you’ll receive a first edition Obama-Biden supporter kit.

Or you can make a donation of $30 or more and receive an Obama-Biden T-shirt:

https://donate.barackobama.com/08shirt

Thanks,

Obama for America

P.S. — The deadline is midnight Sunday, August 31st. Make your online donation now:

https://donate.barackobama.com/08collection

Now, I’m 3 clicks into trying to unsubscribe and getting really frustrated (1. click from email; 2. click on email subscription center; 3. click from second email triple-confirming I want to unsubscribe). There were so many verification steps that I gave up from clicking a fourth time. From a major brand like Lenovo (formerly IBM Thinkpad and Desktop PCs), I’m pretty surprised.

ComputerWorld reports:
“November 07, 2006 (IDG News Service) — Marketer Yesmail Inc. has agreed to pay a $50,717 civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission charges accusing it of sending unsolicited commercial e-mail after recipients asked it to stop.

The FTC alleged that Yesmail, doing business as @Once Corp., violated federal law by continuing to send unsolicited e-mail more than 10 business days after recipients asked that the e-mail stop.

In an ironic twist, Yesmail’s spam-filtering software filtered out some unsubscribe requests from recipients as spam, resulting in Yesmail failing to honor unsubscribe requests, the FTC said. Yesmail sent thousands of e-mail messages to recipients after they requested it stop, the FTC said when announcing the settlement yesterday.”

Read full article >>

1. Don’t thank me. If you’re my boss and appreciate something I’ve done, that’s cool. Otherwise, bag it. I hate being thanked, particularly with a “thx.” And don’t copy me when you thank someone else, either, unless they saved a little girl from a well or something. I’m busy dealing with the other 150 e-mails I got today.

2. Don’t involve me in a CC circle jerk. Some people think out loud on issues of moderate import for 300 e-mails. And I’m in on all of them, because some doofus copied me on e-mail number one. E-mail should be used to inform, to resolve an issue, to end a conversation, to pass along a job, or to get out of something minor, without the need for personal interaction. But don’t use a toothpick to dig a hole.

3. In fact, don’t copy me on something that’s just going to annoy me. If something is going wrong and you need to unload, be a man: Call me. Otherwise, you’re using the electronic bypass to avoid my 18-wheeler as we trundle down the information superhighway.

4. But don’t forget to copy me if I should know about it. That’s right. I’m inconsistent. Figure it out. Knowing when to get people involved and when to leave them out is a basic management skill.

5. Don’t make me think about anything for more than 15 seconds. Send me 12 long single-spaced paragraphs and I’ll send you the bill for a bump up on my bifocal prescription.

6. Don’t expect a response to every e-mail. I don’t expect you to answer me all the time, either. I put the letters NRN—no reply necessary—at the end of most of my e-mails. It cuts down on “Thx” and “Will do” and “No problem” replies from people who think I want them.

7. E-mail is perhaps the least congenial forum for anything funny, dire, or personal. Unless you’re an Oscar-winning screenwriter, play it straight. No sarcasm. No emotions. Anything really worth saying should be said on the phone. Or in person.

8. If there’s an article with my name in it or a picture of my dog humping a fire hydrant, send it along. But sucking up with pointless “thought you might like this” e-mails is crying wolf: Next time you send one that really matters, I’ll be that much more likely to ignore it.

9. Go easy on the CC field, especially when you’re venting or playing politics. The jokers you copy won’t always read to the bottom of an e-mail chain, and if a circle jerk gets started (see rule 2), you could be looking for a new job.

10. No dirty pictures. Except, you know, really good ones. Even then, make them safe for work. Hot women spotted on a business trip? Okay. Jpegs from sluttynurses.com? Not okay.

11. Unless you’re indispensable, don’t get too personal. Sure, the EVP of Human Resources is e-mailing his wine broker 20 times a day, but selective enforcement of laws is what totalitarian states are all about.

12. Business language is English. Weird gizmotic lingo is for MySpace or AIM. We’re at the office, man.Write like a smart person, not a vowel-challenged moron.

13. Don’t be too boring, though. With close business associates, you may toss in a random “Dude,” even. People like to be called dude, especially stone square pegs in Accounting and Finance. It makes them feel like hipsters.

14. Don’t become a zombie. It is now possible to conduct virtually your entire career like a boneless homunculus, basking in the glow of a computer screen. But come on. It’s nice outside. Give it a try. Oh yeah, and . . .

15. Leave your BlackBerry at home when you go to the beach. And turn it off at night, too. You have other hardware that needs attention after hours, don’t you, Dude?

Dan Fost, a journalist for the San Fransisco Chronicle, writes, “With his perfectly shaved head, Jim Fowler looks like Mr. Clean. But don’t be fooled. The CEO of San Mateo’s Jigsaw Data Corp. prefers to liken himself to another famous cue ball: Dr. Evil. In taking on the identity of Austin Powers’ archenemy, Fowler is riffing on the reputation he’s gaining online as a man willing to knock down established social mores, while showing what critics say is an utter disregard for people’s privacy.

The furor is over Jigsaw’s system of encouraging people to enter business contacts into an easily accessible Web database. Sign up at the site, www.jigsaw.com, and you can get points for entering the contents of your Rolodex. You can even sell those points for money. Since it started operations on Jan. 1, 2004, Jigsaw has amassed a database of 3 million contacts at 150,000 companies, and the company expects that to grow to 5 million by year’s end. Only 131 of its 105,000 members sell points, Fowler said. “Almost all trade data to get data.” Michael Arrington, who writes the TechCrunch blog, fingered Jigsaw as “evil,” calling it a “really, really bad idea.” Rafe Needleman, who writes for the influential tech publication Release 1.0, said that it was “clever but creepy” and that it breaks the social contract.

Annalee Newitz, vice president of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, an international organization based in San Francisco, called Jigsaw a “stalkers’ paradise,” as well as a breeding ground for identity thieves and spammers. David Batstone, a professor of ethics at the University of San Francisco, said that if someone took his information off of his business card or from the signature attached to an e-mail he sent — two common methods that Fowler encourages — then he would feel “like there had been a real violation of ethical expectations that we have with each other.”

Read the full article >>

On design and call to action, the Bose email succeeds:

The article continues, “DME Global Marketing & Fulfillment, Direct Mail Expertise and Mobile Promotions and four of its principals — William Hernon Lenis; his son William Luis Lenis and daughter Monica Lenis; and Manny Gustavo Lenis, a nephew — were named in an indictment unsealed yesterday accusing BetOnSports and its principals of illegally engaging in internet gambling and tax evasion.

Racketeering conspiracy
The indictment, issued in St. Louis, charges the ad execs and their companies with engaging in a racketeering conspiracy, saying they worked to illegally advertise and support several websites by buying ads, sending equipment and prizes for the site to Costa Rica and eventually serving as the fulfillment house for internet-gambling prizes.

Among examples of the support given in the indictment: a $99,620 check sent Sept. 6, 2000, to American Media Communications for advertising and the shipment of two cars from the U.S. to Costa Rica.

The indictment says the conspiracy was intended “to develop a scheme to defraud gamblers in the United States by inviting, inducing and persuading them to place bets … As part of the scheme the members and associates [involved] created and disseminated advertising through the United States which falsely stated that internet gambling on sporting events and contests was ‘legal and licensed.’ The enterprise used radio and television to deliver fraudulent advertising through broadcasts and cablecasts in and across the United States.”

View the full article at Ad Age >>

> Begin forwarded message:

>> From: “‘Princeton Graduate School Office Assistant’” [email@Princeton.EDU]
>> Date: June 8, 2006 8:02:32 AM PDT
>> To: “‘Princeton Graduate School Office Assistant’” [email@Princeton.EDU]
>> Subject: Princeton University Graduate School E-mail test, PLEASE IGNORE

> Entire message: blank