Seth Godin Nails it On Technology & Communication

I really enjoy reading Seth Godin’s blog. If you don’t read it, you really should go there, read a few posts and consider subscribing via the email box on the left side of his blog. His post Toward resilience in communication (the end of cc) is so good that I want to point you to it and ask you to read it. In this post he explains technology and communication in today’s organizations as well as in social media. I am tempted to put some quotes from the article here but I would basically want to quote the whole thing. Here is one just to tease you into reading the whole thing,

We wait, hesitating, unsure who has received what and what needs to be resent. With this error rate comes an uncertainty where we used to have none (we’re certain of the transmission if you’re actively talking on the phone with us and we know if you got that certified mail.) It’s now hard to imagine the long cc email list as an idea choice for getting much done.

The last ten years have seen an explosion in asynchronous, broadcast messaging. Asynchronous, because unlike a phone call, the sender and the recipient aren’t necessarily interacting in real time. And broadcast, because most of the messaging that’s growing in volume is about one person reaching many, not about the intimacy of one to one. That makes sense, since the internet is at its best with low-resolution mass connection.

It’s like throwing a thousand bottles into the ocean and waiting to see who gets your message.

Amazon, eBay, Twitter, blogs, Pinterest, Facebook–they are all tools designed to make it easier to reach more and more people with a variation of faux intimacy. And this broadcast approach means that communication breaks down all the time… we have mass, but we’ve lost resiliency.

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6% of Teens Check Email Daily

I was just talking with our youth minister and he told me that a ridiculously small percent of teens check email on a regular basis. I went to find out what the stat is and according to an article at cnet only 6% of teens check email on a daily basis. The communication tool of choice is texting (63% do that daily). This is a really important “aha” for me because in ministry communication is so important. You have to learn how to adapt. I have been so used to using email and facebook that it is easy to think that is where everyone else is as well. You can’t reach a generation if they aren’t getting your attempts to communicate with them!

Have a look at the breakdown of how young people are communicating. It is eye opening for sure and is going to impact the way I communicate in the future.

I Must Be a VIP

So I check my email this morning and something tells me my status in the world is moving on up! That’s right. I got an email from overstock.com telling me they are having a “Secret sale”. I probably shouldn’t be telling you about it since it is secret and all but I was amazed they thought I was important enough to share that with. I got another email from vistaprint offering me free things! Wow. In addition to that people have offered me several million dollars from various countries and a bunch of women must think I am a VIP because I frequently find emails in my junk mail folder asking just to talk or be friends.

On that note, the youth minister, preaching minister and I usually visit on Tuesdays. We used to go to Pizza Hut a lot for the lunch buffet and they had these VIP cards where after so many lunches you got one free. We would joke with each other about who was the biggest VIP. We even joked with the waitresses about it. Then one day I noticed VIP stood for Very Into Pizza. We got a laugh out of the fact that for months we had been making fools of ourselves.

I am glad I am not a VIP in a worldly sense.

What’s In Your Wallet?

I got a new one today. I got an email from my “credit card company” saying there were suspicious charges to my account. They even displayed the last 4 digits of my card number and had a number to call. I called the number on the back of my card to ask them their policy. They never do this by email = it is a fraud. I thought I would reply to this email with the word FRAUD. I clicked Reply and when I did I got a warning message in hotmail saying I better know the sender because when you reply it includes all the blocked links and graphics that were in the original email. That is why when you get junk email the images are blocked out and you have to click Show Content because they can do malicious things even just by having you view the email. The warning message said that by replying and including the images it could open me up to getting more junk mail in the future and do some other things that didn’t sound too good. That is when I realized the trick. They don’t care if you call their number. They at least want you to reply to their email and by doing so open yourself up to more problems.

Just thought I would pass that on. Bottom line – If you don’t know who an email is from don’t view the content/pictures by clicking the View Content button and don’t reply.

Spam Emails – Do They Really Want to Sell You Viagra or is There Something More?

I have always thought spam emails were sent because they worked. The thinking is they wouldn’t keep sending them if people didn’t follow the links and buy the product. Then I noticed that this blog was getting a tremendous amount of spam comments for the most off the wall and strange things. Why do spammers do what they do? Spammers are trying to get you to follow their links to websites that probe your computer for security weaknesses in your operating system and in your browser. If they find loopholes in your security they can load up your system with malware, trojan horses, spyware, or adware that damage your computer or far worse can even log each key you press on your keyboard. Why is that dangerous? Because you could type in your bank’s website and the probability is the next two things you type will be your username and password, effectively giving them all of your information and access to your accounts.

So the next time you get a link in an email from a source you are unsure of don’t click on it! You may do damage to your computer but even worse, to your bank account and finances.