The Future is In Storage

I wasn’t going to write today. I wanted to make some coding changes to the blog and nothing more. But I noticed my prior post about eliminating email and I felt compelled to write a post today. It’s ironic that I just attended a talk about email marketing at SES by Sundeep Kapur.

In my prior post I wrote, “I have 107 MB on the local machine and 104 MB on the server. At present the inbox has 436 items and an additional 100 in the junk folder.” I predicted trusted networks would eliminate a lot of unsolicited email. But today, two years later, I have 1133 unread items in my inbox and 233 in junk mail. I also keep getting notices that my mailbox has reached almost 400MB, despite archiving anything over 30 days and burning anything over a year to DVD for “permanent archiving”. I write permanent in quotes because digital media is not permanently retrievable. I think it’s actually permanent in other ways, like permanently burned to disk or permanently lost or permanently removed from the server. So anyway, unsolicited email increased over the course of two years. I only digressed because I met an SES speaker who mentioned that he stored important files on SyQuest disks and now cannot get those files because the SyQuest drive is obsolete.  I am also in that same boat - permanent storage on magneto-optic discs - but no working drive to read them.

Another speaker reminded me about how you can send email through Facebook to people you don’t know personally. It costs one dollar per email to reach some people, more to reach other prominent people and $150 per email to Mark Zuckerberg himself. So here’s an oxymoron, Facebook Bulk Mail, a trusted network that should eliminate spam, profiting from allowing people outside your trusted network to reach your inbox!

 I got a lot of great ideas from Sundeep. He talked about great email headlines generating high email open rates; great layout and content generating better click through; timing and relationship building and so on. But here’s the big payday, if the content is relevant, people will want to read your email, engage with you and your brand and buy more stuff or join your cause, or help you out. 

Imagine the day – another prediction – when everything about you is so well understood, all your interests and friends and dining habits and location are granularly targeted by Facebook and other marketers right to the second on your truly personal, wearable computer. How will you manage storage for all that email that you’ll want to read but cannot get to in a lifetime? The future is in storage.

Ken's Email About Email

My friend Ken sent an email today with a story from Computerworld http://bit.ly/f4wWZP about a company that wants to eliminate email from it's offices. I agree. We'd be better off without 90% of email. This article reminds me of the one Ken sent a while back about the company that made all meetings optional. Only some of us read that one!

In the early days of course, email was cheaper than Telex or cables. Email put an end to the fax, telegram, telex and cable. Then came spam and anti virus and the etiquette of thanks and see you and hi. In a telex or cable those were just a waste of money and time. But if you don't use those words now in email some people think you're rude.

When I first started consulting, I sent one or two sentence emails to my closest contacts, to keep them advised what I was working on. That helped us stay in touch and led to business for me and them. That was ten years before the "status update" on LinkedIn and Facebook. Now I use those instead of email notices. Better still, Facebook and LinkedIn email is actually from people in your network. I haven't gotten any Lottery Winnings notices from either website yet.

My business email is set so your email goes to your folder, i.e. mail from Ken goes to the Ken folder, EB has a folder and all my regular contacts have a rule that brings their mail directly to their own folders. I read everything sent to me by colleagues and real business contacts. I have set every possible rule to eliminate bulk mail. The first instance of email from any unsolicited source is blacklisted at work and at home where I have yet another zillion mailboxes, not to mention all the filters provided by the ISP and the corporate rings of steel. I archive email every 2 days, archiving anything older than 30 days. I have 107 MB on the local machine and 104 MB on the server. At present the inbox has 436 items and an additional 100 in the junk folder. Chances are I won't read more than 1% of these, because all the important ones are routed into folders automatically and are not in the inbox. I have only three unread emails from colleagues.

So if you think about it, with just 20-25 emails per day on business days from people we don't have any interest in dealing with and who somehow bypass all the filters, you or I will have 500 emails per month. Trusted networks are changing the way email works just the same way as email made the fax obsolete. This day's been a long time coming.

AdWords Advice

There's an article in the NY Times about Google AdWords http://nyti.ms/frofsb. I often tell clients the same things. "First start small and second don't give up, but AdWords is not for everyone."

Many times I tell clients that they should begin with just $25 a month. That's about a dollar a day. And of course everyone says, well that won't have any effect on revenue. Of course it probably won't increase revenues at that level of spending. But it will give us good direction on what ads and keywords drive traffic and revenue. What you learn in the beginning, you can apply to a much bigger program later.

Russotti's Paradox

Generally in marketing, whether its a specific consumer segment, a particular geographic target, a particular price point or a demographic, seasonal promotions or event driven demand - assumptions can become self fulfilling prophesies.

For example, people join gyms to get ready for the beach and to lose weight after the holidays. When do gyms advertise? Then all people join gyms when the advertising runs. Then advertising that runs during these periods is more effective than ads at other times. So no ads run outside these periods.

Women take more photos than men. So who are photo advertisements targeted to? Then more women buy cameras. Then over time ads are directed at women and less and less men buy cameras.

The Paradox:

Assumptions whether true or false - are self fulfilling - call it Russotti's Paradox.

The Memex

I am researching collaboration software as background for an upcoming talk I'll be giving at SES Standards Engineering Society, in Boston. During the course of researching synchronous and asynchronous document editing software, I found an interesting reference to a 1945 article in Atlantic Monthly describing a microfilm library, the memex, and you will have to read this yourself to understand that collaborative tools, the concept of hypertext itself, social bookmarking and much more date back to this very interesting article by Vannear Bush, As We May Think.

In part Bush was reacting to the destructive application of science in creating weapons and he conceived of a machine that would compress a whole library into a piece of furniture, allow people to create a new kind of encyclopedia and unlock knowledge. He advocates that scientists should devote their post world war efforts to the peaceful application of technology.

I particularly like this quote from Bush and I plan to use it in my upcoming talk and in my daily work advocating the use of new technology. "The summation of human experience is being expanded at a prodigious rate, and the means we use for threading through the consequent maze to the momentarily important item is the same as was used in the days of square-rigged ships."

I'll end here with a recommendation - please stop what you are doing and take a few minutes to read Vannear Bush, As We May Think.

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Find Out More About SEMPO Emerging Technologies Committee

SEMPO Emerging Technologies Committee is a forum for SEMPO members to share information about search as it relates to new platforms like mobile, voice and interactive television.

Open to participation from all SEMPO members, the Emerging Technologies committee is looking for participants with experience in new and emerging technologies.

SEMPO Emerging Technologies Committee is a worthwhile group and participation is a good way to share your experience with others. You can help:

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