In April of last year I created a new twitter account. I can’t remember exactly why, but it was a throwaway created to look at some aspect of how twitter interacts with new accounts. As part of the account creation process I gave Twitter an email address. They sent me a confirmation message right away: I didn’t click the button. Four months later they sent me another confirmation...
By default I don’t load images in email. For one thing it lets me see who is using open / click data to measure engagement. This morning I got a reengagement email from my Senator. There are things I really like about this email and there are somethings I think they get a little wrong. The good This is a great subject line. I like the use of “ghosting” to describe what the...
Codified into law in CASL, implied permission describes the situation where a company can legally mail someone. The law includes caveats and restrictions about when this is a legitimate assumption on the part of the company. It is, in fact, a kludge. There isn’t such a thing as implied permission. Someone either gives you permission to send them email or they don’t. We use the term...
We recently moved co-working spaces, after 8 or 9 years in the same place. I’ll be up front here, we left Space A because I was annoyed with them. I’ve been increasingly unhappy with them for a while, but moving is a pain so just put up with them. But their most recent rent increase along with the lost packages, increasing deposit requirements and revolving door of incompetent staff...
All of the technical security in the world won’t fix the biggest security problem: people. Let’s face it, we are the weakest link. Adding more security doesn’t work, it only causes people to figure out ways to get around the security. The more secure you make something, the less secure it becomes. Why? Because when security gets in the way, sensible, well-meaning, dedicated...
This morning I waded into a twitter discussion with a bunch of folks about some issues they were having with delivery to gmail. The discussion started with a blog post at detailed.com describing how some senders are seeing significant drops in open rates. I thought I’d take a look and see if I can help, because, hey, this is an interesting problem. I signed up for a bunch of the mail that...
While trying to figure out what to write today, I checked Facebook. Where I saw a post on the Women of Email group asking for help with a Spamhaus listing. I answered the question. Then realized that was probably useable on the blog. So it’s an impromptu Ask Laura question. We’re listed on Spamhaus’ list, any advice on how to get off? Our email provider has a plan, just looking...
This week I attended a Data Visualization workshop presented by the Advanced Media Center at UC Berkeley. Every year I set at least one professional development goal; this year it’s learning how to better communicate visually. Part of the class included other resources, which led me to Nathan Yau’s website. One of the articles on the front page of his site is titled “Email...
Monday I published a blog post about the ongoing B2B spam and how annoying it is. I get so many of these they’re becoming an actual problem. 3, 4, 5 a day. And then there’s the ongoing “drip” messages at 4, 6, 8, 12 days. It is getting out of control. It’s spam. It’s annoying. And most of it’s breaking the law. But, I can also use it as blog (and twitter...
A few months ago a colleague sent me, and every other person on his overly large LinkedIn list, an email looking for some help hiring. It starts off with “Greetings LinkedI Connections” and ends with… an unsubscribe link. P.S. If you don’t want to hear from me, here’s an unsubscribe link – that’s the easiest way. My LinkedIn network has gotten so...
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