We all receive emails from automated services such as payment reminders, news alerts or other opt-in communications. The emails are computer-generated and the sender typically includes a notice asking the recipient not to reply to the message, since the sending account is not being monitored. Apparently, some companies go one step further and put an invalid return address in the message envelope.
It was just a matter of time before spammers would try to exploit the fast growth of text- and email-enabled cell phones. The Washington Post picked up on the issue of text-message spam in this article earlier this week. While many of us are enjoying the benefits and convenience of BlackBerrys, iPhones and other SMS capable devices, scammers are already working hard on ways to get their unsolicited offers for questionable wares to our phones.
Yet another reminder for me of how dependent I (we) have become on IM for daily business tasks. Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger, Hotmail and possibly other services were largely unavailable yesterday due to a widespread problem with their Live ID logon service.
“According to the Redmond company, the problem involves Windows Live IDs, which are used to log users into its services.“
I use a number of public IM services, including the one provided by Microsoft, to communicate with business associates and friends. Yesterday’s outage, while not more than a nuisance to me, proved once again that it is wise not to rely on a single service or provider for business communications.
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As the readers of this blog already know, email has become business critical for most companies. That means even the slightest disruption or delay in email delivery or problems with employees’ access to their mailboxes have significant impact on worker productivity and a company’s bottom line.
Ken Gartner filling in.
Rumors, urban myths, scams and other undesirable communiques have a remarkably long shelf life on the Internet. Periodically they get ‘rediscovered’ and disseminated as if they were hot news, worthy of everyone’s immediate interest. When this happens with an inflammatory email broadcast widely in a business environment, the results are, sadly, quite predictable. The message and its ensuing forwards and replies take on a viral spike initially, and periodically latecomers to the party add their 2 cents to reignite outrage, flame wars and general ill-will among the populace. Email takes rumor mongering and kvetching at the corporate water cooler to a new extreme.
Things have been rather busy for me over the last couple of weeks, hence the lack of posts. Kenneth Gartner is helping out with this post about one of the latest corporate email faux pas. Thanks Ken!
Here is another headline story about email mislabeling that resulted in significant embarrassment and business impact, colorfully reported by the NYT as “A Nightmare on Email Street”. A lawyer for Eli Lilly mistakenly emailed an extremely sensitive, unflatteringly frank missive about the company’s negotiations with the federal government over a case of “marketing improprieties” for one of their popular pharmaceuticals. Instead of mailing it to another lawyer involved in the case, the TO field auto-completion helpfully found a similarly named person who happened to be a NYT reporter!
Stefan Mehlhorn is the CEO of Permessa Corp. a Waltham, MA based company providing enterprise messaging management solutions and consulting services to many of the worlds largest corporations.
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