Just give me six minutes with the RIAA…

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Recording industry, thank you for allowing me to speak.

I am nobody special. I am not a rock star, an industry insider or an executive. I am the voice that is never heard. The voice of the customer. What I have to say gives me no pleasure, but I’m going to say it anyway, because somebody has to.

Ladies and gentlemen, your industry stinks. Only the Oil business is more hated and reviled by its customers. Unlike them, however, your commodity is a luxury, and you consider your customers to be thieves.

And what, exactly, is your business? Here’s the surprise - you are not in the Music business.

You are not in the Art business either, even though your suppliers are called Artists.

You are not in the publishing business.

You are in the business of selling little plastic disks, and have been for over half a century. Everything else is secondary to that. The music, the artwork, the packaging, the record deals, the distribution are all concerned with maximizing the price and sales volume of those little plastic disks.

While it is true that music can now be supplied in digital form, sans disque plastique, I am sure that if you could wave a magic wand and make MP3, iTunes et al vanish, you would do so without hesitation. How do I know? Because you have a consistent track record of trying to destroy any technology that threatens your plastic-disk model. The Compact Cassette was nearly destroyed, the MiniDisk was effectively castrated because of your actions; your hatred of the PC, which you consider to be a clear and present danger to your business model, is well documented.

The world has changed. Get over it.

Your paranoia is showing: You have bought and paid for horribly draconian legislation like the DMCA that forces the Government to do your dirty work while making it a felony for your customers to put their music on their iPods because you put some lame “protection” on those plastic disks - protection that does not work, is an inconvenience at best and breaks computers at worst - and that’s ok, because your rights are the only ones that matter enough to need protecting.

Your blatant hostility to digital music is a matter of record. When Apple first came to you in 2000 with iTunes, MP3 was already about five years old; the genie was already out of the bottle; yet they had to wrap it in DRM at your insistence. Now you have a love-hate relationship with iTunes; you would love to raise the prices, but they won’t. You would love to walk away, but cannot say goodbye to the profit

When a Russian site called AllOfMP3 started selling music files online you tried to shut them down. Your claim that they were “illegal” made no sense - you make your plastic disks in China, because it is cheaper, but when your customers wanted to buy their music in Russia for precisely the same reason, that was suddenly “illegal”. They continued to be a thorn in your side until the State Department pressured the World Trade Organization to shut the site down as part of Russia’s price of admission.

In your stampede to put them out of business, however, you missed the point. They thrived, not because people are thieves but because they supplied something you wouldn’t - choice, convenience and freedom from DRM at a price the customer is willing to pay.

You insist that a song download is worth at least a dollar; I disagree - music has become a background task; something we do while jogging, driving or working. It has been years since “listening to music” was considered a pastime. Like long-distance phone service, it has lost its value.

Personally I would pay 25-50c for a high-quality song, $5 for a downloadable album. You may consider that too little, but given that it is almost all profit, with a cost to you of almost zero. At that price people purchase without thinking, and will not care for resale rights. Wrapping it in DRM lowers its versatility, and hence its value to me - so if you want to add DRM, you had better cut the price even further.

You currently insist on charging $10 for a downloaded Album, even though a used CD can be procured for less. You insist on $1 per song, even though it has been proven that halving the price results in a sixfold increase in sales. As Mr. Spock would say, “Fascinating”.

You also insist on pricing new music the same as old music, which makes no sense to me. Personally I believe that copyright on music should expire after ten years - copyright was intended to be temporary - but since your paychecks depend on eternal residuals I have absolutely no chance of persuading you of that.

My purpose here is not to destroy your business, but to point out that your business model no longer works and needs changing. If you are serious about improving your profits, here are some suggestions:

1. Lower your prices - $1 per song is ok for hot new releases, but once the hotness has worn off the price should drop. 25c to 50c per song, depending on quality, is good. Anything over 50c per song means that your customers will think before buying; people pick up dropped dollars or quarters; anything smaller they usually ignore.
2. You’ve sold plastic disks, why not sell data? A per-megabyte cost works. Higher quality and longer tracks can and should cost more.
3. Don’t try to control digital music distribution - iTunes can sell more music and do it better than you can. Let the sellers do what they do best. Stay out of that business.
4. DRM does not work - drop it. This has been proven time and time again. If the price is right, people will repurchase if they cannot find their old purchase.
5. Simplify the royalty structure. 25% for the distributor (e.g. iTunes), 25% for the artist and 50% for you is more than fair. How many industries make 50% profit? Don’t be greedy.
6. Relax… we’re not all thieves, and at 25-50c per song you can compete with free. Just ask the guy who dreamed up AllOfMP3.
7. While on the subject, find him and hire him. If you can hire a white house staffer who accidentally “corrected” a law in your favor, you can certainly hire a guy with a proven business model.

Make these changes and I will happily buy digital music instead of used or cut-price CDs. You will get $10+ per month out of me that you weren’t getting before. That’s “easy money”; or to put it another way, “money for nothin’”

Thank you for your time.

Don’t Proctor & Gamble with your floor!

About eighteen months ago, we had a hardwood floor put in. It was an engineered Laminated product, and when completed it looked beautiful. I remember putting on a pair of clean white socks and “skating” on it.

Recently, however, it has started looking decidedly faded, and seems to stain easily. Whether you are wearing shoes, socks or are barefoot, it leaves unsightly marks, and your shoes/socks/feet “stick” the the floor.

We had been using a wet Swiffer on it once a week to keep it clean - the product is advertised as being “suitable for Hardwood Floors”, but when I did a little googling I came across several websites that all said “Do not use a wet swiffer”.

Now they tell me.

I also found a lot of recommendations to use this product, from a Swedish company called Bona (which sounds rude if you pronounce it carelessly). A mopping kit cost $35, and I was able to pick one up from a local Hardware Store.

Last night I tried it out for the first time. The verdict: “We have a winner!”. While the results were not perfect, they were a major improvement - it will take a good few applications to remove the accumulated gunk of a year and a half of Swiffer debris, but already the floor is a little less sticky in the area I tested.

I’ll follow up with subsequent comments on this one.

Now reading: How to think like Leonardo Da Vinci

Buh-bye Hillary…

Last night I broke a longstanding rule and watched politics on TV. Senator Obama had received enough votes to clinch the Democratic Nomination.

If you had tuned in without being aware of this fact it would have been easy to assume that Senator Clinton was giving a victory speech instead of conceding defeat. It was certainly long enough…

“For the past seven years, so many people in this country have felt invisible, like your president didn’t even really see you. I have seen the shuttered factories, the jobs shipped overseas, the families struggling to afford gas and groceries, but I’ve also seen unions retraining workers to build energy efficient buildings, innovators designing cars that run on fuel cells and bio-fuels and electricity, cars that get more miles per gallon than ever before, cars that will cut the cost of driving, reduce our reliance on foreign oil and fight global warming.”

What exactly are you trying to say here? The president is far from perfect, but this looks like you are trying to blame him for the bad things while taking credit for the good ones.

“Now the question is, where do we go from here, and given how far we’ve come and where we need to go as a party, it’s a question I don’t take lightly. This has been a long campaign, and I will be making no decisions tonight.”

Decision? What Decision? As best I can tell the “decision” is out of your hands. It has been made for you.

It is my opinion that Senator Clinton should have done this several months ago instead of dragging party and country through this wringer. In my opinion her inability to admit defeat has made the Democratic party into a laughingstock and caused much amusement.

As one wag put it: “Quitters never win, Winners never quit. But those who never win and never quit are called idiots“.

I also watched the Victory speech by Senator Obama. He was far more gracious and statesmanlike than his opponent, and while I don’t agree with his “FedGov-can-fix-everything” politics, I respect his position and achievements.

That a black man an African-American (literally - his Father was African and his mother was American)  could be nominated to run for President is the best proof of the greatness of America that I have seen in a long time.

How to keep my business

It never ceases to amaze me how corporations will spend huge amounts of money to win new customers, but once they have your business they act like they are entitled to it, thus losing the most important marketing tool of all - word of mouth. Here are some of the ways that you can impress me.

• Don’t hide from me! Too many businesses have an attitude that can be summed up as “give-us-your-money-but-don’t-talk-to-us”. They bury phone numbers deep within their websites and hide contact info, perhaps in the hope that you won’t ever trouble them again.
• Pick up the phone! Part I : “Press 1 for the runaround, press two for a total waste of time. If you want to talk to a real person you are out of luck”
• Pick up the phone! Part II : Don’t tell me that “Call Volume is high” unless you are going to tell me when it is not high. Don’t tell me that “All of our operators/associates/peons/slaves are busy” unless you are going to tell me when they are not busy or will offer a callback. Both of those phrases mean the same thing: We do not employ enough people and we’re hoping you don’t notice.
• Indian Call Centers? Just Say NO! A lot of business farm out customer service and support to India. The first sign of this is when they pick up and give their name - and you know that’s not their real name. Think about it: the first thing that they tell you is a lie… and it usually goes downhill from there.
• Answer the question! When e-mailing, I don’t mind getting an auto-generated “we-got-your-message” reply, but I would appreciate it if the subsequent reply was read and replied to with something that was not spat out of a boilerplate-cut-and-paste machine.
• Share the love - and the paperless savings! “Going Paperless” may be and added convenience for me, but is a massive cost savings for you. So why not cut me in on those savings? A one-off $20 bonus - or $5 annually - should cover it.

Now reading: Me, myself and Bob, by Phil Vischer

A letter to my Congressman

Every day, I record the prices at the eight gas stations that I pass en route to work. Once at my destination, I enter those prices into a web site (www.louisvillegasprices.com). I have been doing this for some years. During that time, I have noticed some patterns that I would like to share with you.

The overall trend is 7-14 days of slowly falling, interspersed by lightning price spikes.

In a falling phase, prices generally go down by 1-2 pennies per day. During a falling phase there is diversity in price among the eight stations I pass.

During a spike, the price rises by 15 to 40c. The petrol sitting in the underground tank is suddenly worth more than it was last night. At the end of the spike, everyone is selling at exactly the same price, except for a few stations that lower their prices by exactly penny - presumably this is what they call “competition”.

Here in Louisville, the price also spikes at Derby, The Car show, the Quartet Convention… basically, if the circus is coming to town, prices spike. Apparently they never saw it coming. Again.

I am less bothered by price than I am by volatility, which seems to be getting worse. Some stations have installed LED price signs, presumably so that they can jerk the price around more quickly and more often.

I believe in a free market. I don’t believe that price controls will solve anything, but it is axiomatic to anyone outside of the Petrochemical industry that something is rotten in the States of the Union.

At first I thought that one method to stop them bouncing the price around would be to mandate that they only set their price when they get a delivery (which I am told is every 2-7 days). However, they would simply take a small delivery every day, set their price as before… and nothing would change.

In the short term, one solution is to prevent the stations changing their prices by more than 5c per day. How Congress might choose to enforce that without violating free-market principles is a challenge.

In the medium term, Repealing the Federal Gas Tax and getting the states to agree to repeal their gas taxes would be a start. Auto manufacturers should also be manufacturing smaller more fuel-efficient vehicles instead of marketing SUVs and Trucks. One way to encourage this is to suspend the car-tax breaks on those vehicles (unless they are purchase by a business) and moved those tax breaks to vehicles that make over 40MPG. It’s time we admitted the obvious - SUVs are not trucks, they are passenger vehicles, and not all Trucks are business vehicles.

In the long term, we need to be drilling for oil and building refineries and power stations. Environmentalists will complain; if they want to save the Earth, let them limit or ration their electricity and gasoline. At some point, we will have to make a choice between the environment and progress; we cannot have both. That choice should be made on a State by State basis.

Just a few thoughts.

The Quake of ‘08

Last night there was an Earthquake that was felt throughout the Midwest. According to the newsies, it was measured at 5.2 on the Richter scale.

Naturally. I slept through it.

I vaguely remember thinking that a train was passing, though I was not awake enough to ponder the fact that no trains pass within a mile of our house. Milady remembers being awoken by someone shaking the bed.

This is nothing new; while tornados rampaged through town a couple of months ago, I was sleeping the sleep of the just. When Christ returns in glory, and raptures his church, we will be “Caught up in the air”… and I will probably be asleep.

I have one comment to make about all this:

In spite of the zillions of dollars - both public and private - that are spent on seismic / seismographic / seismological institutes, how is it that nobody saw this one coming?

A Tale of Three Banks

Bank A - Thank you and good night.

I’ve been with bank “A” since August 1999. In December 2007 I got a letter from them informing me that they were switching my account to a new account in January. On examining the documentation more closely, I was incensed to find that the account that they were switching me to carried with it a $15 monthly charge that they generously waived for the first six months.

To say that I was not best pleased would be a massive understatement.

I phoned Customer Service, and spoke with “Tony”. He informed me that it would be impossible to keep my old account, because all accounts were being “harmonized”. An interesting choice of words; you might think it harmony to charge me to the tune (geddit?) of $15/month, but for me it sounds like discord.

The following day, I arrived home to find a message from an employee of this bank. I called back a few days later, but she was off that day. I left a message for her to call me. I never heard from her.

I resolved to change banks before that charge reared its ugly head.

Bank B - Wonderful people, broken system.

My first port of call was the local branch of a major national bank. Their website mentioned that they would pay a $100 bonus if I opened a new account and set up Direct Deposit—hey, a hundred bucks to do something I was going to do anyway can’t be bad, so…

1/23: Went into my local branch to open an account. After about a three-minute wait I was ushered into an office where the Manager greeted me and gave me options and details. I decided that this bank would be as good as any other, so off we go.

When I mentioned the $100 bonus she claimed not to know about it—she thought it was $75, then she checked the website. (Did I mention that she was the manager?) We shall see…

Anyway, she took my details, did her due diligence, and had me input my PIN. When signing the paperwork, I noticed that my middle initial was wrong. I mentioned this to her. She did not say anything, but typed a few keys on her computer; I assumed that she had made the correction. She also took my opening balance ($20) and ordered my first batch of checks. I asked if I could specify the starting number, and she said “no”, they start at 500.

Time spent: 30 minutes.

1/25: Went online to set up web access to my account. The website gave two ways to set up online banking: The first was “I have my Debit Card“, and required Debit Card Number, PIN, SSN and Account number; the second was “I don’t have a Debit Card“, and required SSN, PIN and Account number. Since my debit card had not arrived yet, I took the second option.

It didn’t work.

Naturally I called customer service. After being told that my call was important (but not important, enough, evidently, to warrant hiring sufficient staff), I was told that the second option was for those who had not been issued with a debit card. Since a Debit card had issued I had to wait till the card arrived and use that option.

Suggestion: Change the wording to “I have/have not been issued with a debit card“. That would have saved me a lot of time and trouble.

Time wasted: 45 minutes.

1/26: Good news: my debit card arrived - YAY! Bad news: unfortunately the card still had the wrong middle initial. Whatever the manager had done, the name on the account was still wrong.

Phoned up customer service. Again. Ran the “Your call is important to us” gauntlet. Again.. Sadly, in order to fix the account I had to clear security, and since I did not have online access set up, they did not have enough information to clear me. Fair enough, though a bit of a catch-22 situation if you ask me…

I went online and got web access set up. Fast and simple.

Time wasted: 20 minutes.

1/30: Phoned up Customer Support and had them change the name of the account.

At first she said that it could not be done by her; I would have to go into the local branch and get it sorted out there. I persisted and explained what I had been told. She said that she would take care of it. After she put me on hold for a couple of minutes, she told me that the named on the account had been changed (I had asked her to drop my middle initial entirely), and that a new Card would be issued in 7-10 days. Fair enough. I asked if the checks that had been ordered were also corrected, she said that no checks had been ordered.

Finally, she mentioned that a charge for the replacement card may appear on the account (apparently suppressing that charge was not an option at this time). If that happened, I was to call and have it reversed.

Time wasted: 30 minutes.

1/31: Went online and checked my account. Sure enough, there was a pending “Miscellaneous Payment” for $7.50 on the account. Called Customer service again (I now know the number from memory). She told me that she couldn’t do anything about it until the charge had “cleared”.

Time wasted: 10 minutes.

2/1: The charge has now “cleared”, so I phoned up Customer Service again. After the obligatory wait I spoke to a pleasant chap who took my details and put me on hold again. Finally he told me that the charge would be refunded.

Time wasted: 15 minutes.

2/6: My account has received a mysterious credit of $75! A few days ago I transferred $500 from a savings account with a different bank; looks like they thought that it was my paycheck and the $100 bonus was paid as the $75 that the manager was expecting. I spoke to the manager, but she seems convinced that the bonus was $75, not $100.

2/15: Got a letter from the manager, with a form that I need to sign and date, and return to her. A form that I have already signed…

2/20: Dropped by with the form. The manager admitted that I had signed the form but the back office had lost it—kudos to her for honesty. I mentioned the $75/$100 bonus; she remains convinced that it should be only $75.

2/25 My first batch of checks arrives. A large box contains one book of only 30 checks. Talk about cheap.

Bank C - Smooth Operators

About a week after opening my account with Bank B, I was sufficiently browned off by my less-than-salutary experience at their hands to with open a new account elsewhere. A neighbor of mine works for a small local bank that we shall imaginatively call “Bank C”; she was a customer before she was an employee, which is a high recommendation in itself - would you want to work for an outfit that has mistreated you as a customer?

2/2: Milady and I arrived at the bank at 10:45 on a Saturday morning. We were greeted at the door and seconds later we were whisked into the presence of our bank-account-opening person. She was very friendly and professional. After explaining our options, she took copies of our Driving licenses and opened our joint checking account (we decided not to open the savings account yet; there was a $200 minimum balance requirement, and being between paychecks, money was a little tight; we’ll do that later).

There was a $10 setup charge—though you do get a free batch of checks and a $25 bonus every year. I asked if we could specify the starting number, she said “sure”. I asked for the checks to begin at 1626 (our current batch of Bank A checks ends at 1625).

She was very thorough; she went through our automated payments and filled out and gave us paperwork for them “just in case the payee requires something in writing”. It would have been nice to have a folder for all this paperwork, but that is a minor gripe.

Another gripe was that when filling out paperwork the e-statement section was presented as if it was mandatory. I am not averse to electronic statements, but I prefer to have paperwork, all other things being equal. I have found that businesses love it when their customers “go paperless”, because it saves them printing and postage costs to the tune of millions. But so far only one company—Verizon Wireless—has offered to pass some of those cost savings on to their customers. Any road up, I asked if it were possible to receive paper statements; she said yes and crossed out the e-statement section. I am happy.

She also informed me that I would receive an e-mail when my online banking was set up. The entire process took twenty minutes from start to finish.

2/4: My wife received a call from the bank asking if everything was all right and if there was anything they could do for us. This small personal touch goes a long way.

2/6: Received an e-mail letting me know that online banking had been set up. Sign-up took less then ten minutes, most of which was spent choosing a password that was acceptable to both of us.

2/8: Received a card from the bank, hand-signed by the staff, welcoming us.

2/10: A thick envelope arrived in the mail, containing a flattened box and two books of 25 checks, starting with 1626, as promised. Yay

Final thoughts:

Bank A: Buh-bye. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday soon and for the rest of your life.

Bank B: Nice website—the best of the three—but too many screw-ups to be trustworthy. I plan on keeping that account open and using it as my tech stash/eBay account (Paypal’s terms and conditions give them the ability to lock the bank account that is linked to a Paypal account, so it pays to not give them the keys to the kingdom), so the effort was not completely wasted.

Bank C: We expect our cars to just work; you turn the key and the engine roars to life. The car takes you where you are going, and you get on with your business. This was the only bank that charged to open an account, which just goes to prove that you get what you pay for. I’m impressed. Good products, good service, nice people to do business with. We all make mistakes, it’s how they are handled that counts. And I get the impression that these folks do things right.

Stimulating thoughts

Much has been made in the media lately about the so-called “Stimulus Package” that has been passed by both sides of the house. Checks will soon be winging their way to a bank account near you.

Otto von Bismarck once said, “There are two things that you should not see being made; laws and sausages“. Just like sausages that can only honestly be described as a “processed meat food product”, the name “Stimulus Package” is one that defies description.

It is technically defined as a “One-time Tax Credit” on our 2008 taxes. Eligibility is based on taxable income; the “rich” won’t get a check. At the other end of the spectrum are those who will get checks but will pay no taxes in 2008.

So… the rich pay in taxes but get no check, while the poor pay no taxes… and get a check anyway! To quote Timon, “Did I miss something?“

Now we’ve dealt with the what, let’s move on to the why. Why are we being sent checks? Apparently the theory is that we will all run out and spend the money on luxury items and thus “stimulate” the economy.

Will the economy be “stimulated” by this extra money? I doubt it. Many will have spent the money before the check has arrived. Others will use it to pay off debts. Still others will save or invest the money. Some will “blow” the money, to be sure, but the impact on the economy will be minimal and short-lived. The phrase “Bandage on a gunshot wound” comes to mind.

What is most amusing about all this is the underlying assumption; that giving people back some of their taxes will stimulate the economy. If this is true, then it follows that abolishing income tax (and replacing it with a purchase tax like the Fair Tax) would result in an economic boom, “the likes of which the world has never seen”. I happen to agree.

The saddest aspect of this whole affair is what our economy has become. It has stopped being about making, building and selling things, and has become based on how much money we spend on crap we don’t need. That is what the economists mean when they say things like “Consumer Spending is down X% on this time last year“.

The last time something like this happened was a few years ago (wasn’t that an election year? Naah… must be a coincidence). Back then it was called a “tax refund”, and some people did not get one.

I remember having to explain to a relative that the reason that she did not receive a tax refund because she had not paid any Federal Taxes. She was not pleased, which I can well understand; however, the principle is easy enough to figure out: A tax refund given to one who did not pay tax is also known as a bribe.

Enjoy!

Seven lessons that the Music business can learn from AllofMP3 (RIP)

For those who do not know, AllOfMP3 was a website based in Russia, from which music could be downloaded at approximately one-quarter of the cost from domestic providers such as iTunes. I use the past tense because the Internal Music Cartel known as the RIAA (AKA the “Music Mafia”) had them shut down as part of the price of Russia’s entry into the World Trade Organization.

However, there are lessons to be learned from the experience; lessons that the music business refuses to learn. The world has changed, but they cling to the old ways. AoMP3 was a signpost to the future - a signpost that the music business is, apparently, desperate to avoid.

1. Piracy is not the issue - price is. People who love to paint AoMP3 as a “piracy organization” conveniently forget that people actually paid real money to download songs from AoMP3. These people could have used peer-to-peer to get free music, but didn’t. It follows that there are a whole lot of folks who will happily pay 25c for a song, but not the $1 that you insist is not enough to keep the music industry in the style to which it has become accustomed addicted. eMusic proved this  point some years ago, when they halved the cost of their (legal) music downloads, and sales rocketed sixfold. Unfortunately the music business insisted on their full rate, forcing eMusic  to operate at a loss, so the experiment had to be abandoned.
2. Give the customer what they want. Don’t like MP3 format - Want your music as OGG files of even WAV format? AoMP3 did that. You still haven’t gotten the clue.
3. Quality matters. AoMP3 offered downloads at all bit rates - higher quality at higher prices. For some of us, 160kbps is simply not enough - we want higher quality options than is on offer.
4. You’re not in the art business… Music stops being art when the artist hands over the masters. After that it’s mass-produced synth-pap, and should be treated as such.
5. …you’ re in the data business. AoMP3 charged by the megabyte - bigger files cost more. The longer the song, the higher the quality the more you paid. Seems fair to me, though I am sure that  the “musies” disagree.
6. DRM doesn’t work: The music business things that our “rights” need to be “managed”. Why? Because they don’t trust their customers. AoMP3 distributed unprotected MP3s which play on any device at a price which was low enough that it “wasn’t worth burglary”. All this tedious mucking about with licenses and “trusted devices” just serves to annoy your customers. As those who purchased music with Microsoft’s “PlaysForSure” DRM found  out when it would not play on their brand-new Microsoft Zune player. “For Sure”, indeed!
7. Your customers are not thieves: People did not go to AoMP3 because they were looking for something free - they can do that already. They were willing to pay for the product. This fact seems to be blissfully ignored by big music, perhaps because they feel that they, rather than the market, get to set the value of the product. Sorry to bust your bubble, but that is not an option. You can insist on your “rights” if you wish, but you cannot stop your customers from walking out the door.

Before you hit the “Forward” Button…

A few words of wisdom for those who are thinking of forwarding me e-mail messages…

1. Is it true? Mark Twain said “A lie can travel around the world before the truth has finished putting on its shoes”. A huge majority of the warnings and calls to action turn out to be untrue with just a few minutes of research. It takes only a few minutes to check out the veracity of that “Scam Warning!!!”.
2. Is it relevant? Forwarding “Breast Cancer Awareness Week” to a bunch of burly guys ain’t the smartest move… (exception: if someone you love is fighting or has fought this battle, then or then you have earned the right). For your information, Testicular Cancer Awareness Week is April 1-7, and Prostate cancer” Awareness Week is Sept 15-21. Maybe I should e-mail that to all the ladies I know; perhaps that would be mean of me…
3. Is it reasonable? No, Bill Gates is not going to give you anything for forwarding an e-mail message to a bunch of people - if he can’t track down spammers, what makes you think that he can track your e-mail? And no, don’t send it out “just in case”. All you will do is waste my time and try my patience.
4. Do you care enough to write? Some people love to forward, but never seem to write anything. A one-line personal message says “I care”. Reams of forwarded stuff says “I’ve got too much time on my hands”. Perhaps you have, but I haven’t - don’t waste it.
5. Is it brief? I don’t need to see the names and addresses of the last thousand recipients, with a “thought you’d like this” comment from someone I don’t know. Don’t be afraid to cut out the crap that I don’t need to see.
6. Is it timely? A lot of the forwards out there are perfectly true, but have been doing the rounds for years.