ARCHIVES
2/15/2005 12:53
I received an e-mail today from Curt Rosengren, who's newsletter I've been getting for about a year now. He would accumulate job postings in the Northwest, and send them out to his subscribers every so often. He thought of it as a 'good karma way' to help tech companies and job seekers. Over time, he got 'finders fees' when his honor system worked, and matched employers with employees.
In today's e-mail, he stated:
"As you may have noticed, my job postings have been conspicuously absent since December. I realized recently that a big part of the reason for that has been that I've been feeling burned out on it. Jobs have been coming through, but I haven't been able to bring myself to spend the time to post them.
In truth, I'm pondering whether or not to keep it going. I think part of the reason for this e-mail is to gauge reaction out there. Not to be overly dramatic, but should I keep going, or just let it die a graceful death? I'm really not sure how much impact it has any more."
He goes on to say that he once had 1700 people subscribing to his free job postings e-mail, and that has recently dropped to about 1200.
The problem? No one seems to respond any more to his e-mail.
As a marketer, I'm intrigued by this. Here's a good samaritan, reaching out a helping hand to hundreds of people every few weeks, with little response. (I can honestly say I have responded to several of his notes - not because of a job listing, but because of compelling disclosures he'd often make.) His mail was often interesting.
What's going on here?
Is e-mail a poor information delivery vehicle (after what, only fifteen years)?
Are we looking for two-way conversations in a medium that is not equipped to deliver the kind of human interaction we expect anymore?
Has our aversion to SPAM reduced our ability to respond when someone really offers help?
Is the job market so great that people don't need help finding their next gig? (I wish I could imagine that again!)
I find it interesting that my first inclination is to blog about this, not to respond in e-mail. Have my habits changed so quickly? If so, what about others'?
Curt, I'll send you the link to this post in an e-mail response. Maybe you can comment on it in your blog.
Wow. Welcome to 2005.
Posted by at February 15, 2005 12:53 PM
Comments
alan herrell - the head lemur email - theheadlemur.typepad.com
Email is a personal one to one communication medium in my opinion. from me to you. I am on email lists for various things, and have worked with multiple receipents at various times, with mixed to bad results.
Spammers have gutted email as a communication tool in the same way that they did to Usenet and newsgroups.
As a marketer, in the royal sense, you should be aware of the power of a website for company communication, for all the shopworn reasons, and especially for the new memes like the execrable Lovemarks nonsense.
Pushing crap into my mailbox is the surest way of getting a response that will not make your day.
The assumption that the message needs to be pushed , while in the short term is still providing employment is undergoing a rapid change toward a presentation model, rather than a push model.
Being able to demonstrate your wares on your website is a far more powerful and cost effective method of communication than plugging in store bought names into a mass mailer program.
Marketers are still having a problem with the notion that folks who prequalify themselves are better leads, than tossing shit into folks mailboxes and hoping that some sort of connection is made.
The internet is a vast electronic bazaar where the best you can do is to display your wares and answer questions. The sooner that companies get with this program the sooner email will become useful again.
Curt Rosengren email - blog.occupationaladventure.com
Yeehaw! I changed the to a blog. The energy behind the e-mail list just seemed like a dull thunk. This seems like it has the potential to be alive again. Looking forward to seeing what happens with it.
TrackBack Link
| Marketing Automation | Web Content Management | Campaign Management Privacy Policy | © 2008 Marqui Inc. |
 |