Unsubscribe Me — How To Do It Better

Posted in blogging on 02.05.06@676 by pjh

Today I unsubscribed from two newsletters. It’s an interesting experience because even getting off of a list is part of your relationship with a company. Here’s how the two lists differed in getting me off.

Chatty and Unbranded

The first one was a very chatty unsubscribe. The unsubscribe me link opened an email, to be sent to a particular machine-processed address. That’s ok, but the subject and body were blank. So, liking the company but wanting off the list, I told them why I was leaving. How valuable is that? Extremely. You want your customers to complain, or you don’t learn anything about your business. I don’t think that anyone will ever see my comments, though.

This automated unsubscribe led me through a weird dance — first it sent me a mail to confirm that I really wanted to unsubscribe. Ok, so I click on the link to confirm, and it takes me to an unbranded web page telling me that I’ve been taken off the list. Then I receive another email confirming my confirmation. Brother, that ain’t marketing. Three emails and a web page, none of them working on our relationship, however tenuous.

Succinct and Welcoming

The second unsubscribe couldn’t have been more different. The unsubscribe me link went directly to a branded web page that thanked me, confirmed that I was off the list, and solicited my opinion on how they could improve. It even had a if you keep getting mail from us emergency removal link that may well have a human on the other end.

Even if I never do business with this company, I’ll remember them fondly should they ever come up in conversation. Indeed, it’s this second process that prompted this post — I don’t want to forget to be just as good, if not better, than company #2.

There’s always a flaw

There’s a flaw, though. Company #2 encourages me to forward their newsletter to all of my friends. What if one of them clicks on the unsubscribe me link? Where the first scenario I got too many emails, the second one could have done with a single email to confirm that it was really me who requested deletion. Otherwise I might inadvertently lose what I think of as a valuable resource.

Toastmasters #2 — It’s all made up

Posted in evolution on 04.04.06@941 by pjh

I gave my second Toastmasters’ speech tonight, the one where you’re supposed to organize it. My brain had decided to forget about the commitment, so I hadn’t really prepared. Nonetheless, the show must go on. So on I went.

I’m generally a relaxed sort of person, so it came as something of a shock to find myself up on stage, heart racing, legs literally trembling. And yet I got through it. Some audience members came up to me and said how much they enjoyed the speech. All despite the fact that I was faking it.

I hadn’t really prepared, not in the way that an actor might, for example. I could give that same speech a hundred times and they’d all be different. All recognizably the same speech, but as though they were given in parallel universes, each speech a twisted copy of every other.

Remember this. It’s all made up. The speech you hear isn’t the speech I’m giving. The confidence that you see isn’t real, it’s fakery. If only you could see the mad vibrations of my legs, you’d know that there’s more courage in it than appears on the surface. And yet, fakery is enough. The world works on perception, not on reality.

If you believe, then it’s true, or true enough for most purposes. For your belief to work, I don’t need to believe too. But if I perceive that you believe, then I might believe too, and so make it real. In this mad game of Ouroborus, you and I can create something real through the imperfect reflection of one another’s fakery.

Enforced holiday — a dangling afternoon

Posted in evolution on 31.03.06@901 by pjh

I’m sitting here on enforced holiday, which is weird in itself. My company, along with hundreds of others in the UK and probably elsewhere, has a twisted holiday policy. There’s always an important project ongoing or upcoming that means that they’d rather you didn’t take your holiday at just that time, or not for so long, please. Which is fair enough, since we’re a disorganized sort of organization that hasn’t yet come to grips with the occasional absence of key people.

We’re better than we used to be, which is a good sign. No longer do you find directors and other higher-ups on leave for the whole of March. Why March? Because here it’s the end of the tax/financial/HR year. Why forced? Because company policy is use-it-or-lose it. Can’t get paid, can’t defer it, can’t carry it forward indefinitely and take a sabbatical after a gajillion years service. Gotta take it.

Which is why I’m at home today, or at least the afternoon. I had a half-day left over that somehow I hadn’t taken. And this is the last day of the year. So I’m on vacation. Unless I’d like to donate it to the company of course… nope.

Why can’t we get it together to let holidays be a normal part of working and project life, with no individual so necessary to the functioning of the whole that they can’t disappear for a week or a month? Why don’t we flex the benefit so that each employee can take or not take, get paid in lieu or store them up, as suits their temperament and stress level and distance from home?

Trust, maturity, and complexity, I suspect these are at the heart of this. Of course, enforced paid leave isn’t the worst of problems to have. But what have I done with the time?

Distressingly little. There’s this post, the work of minutes. There’s a more automated scraping of financial data to support my ISA investments. Not completely useless but not completely useful use of time. Good night all.

Jim Slater’s Company REFS Reviewed

Posted in money on 22.03.06@815 by pjh

I received my free sample copy of Jim Slater’s Company REFS this week. Eagerly awaited, I’ve tried a few times before to get a copy. This is the first time that their online form seems to have successfully connected with the back end. It took a week or so to arrive, but arrive it did, in a lovely padded envelope surrounded by a sheaf of order forms and brief instructions.

My first hint of hesitation came when I opened the CD case and saw, on the back side of the booklet facing the CD, the ominous words “Installation instructions for Windows“. At home I use a Mac, so it was hopeful at least that the operating system is mentioned. Into the CD slot it goes, but no joy. It’s a Windows-only beast, with a README file dating from last century.

The next day at work, I installed it. It’s a clunky looking spreadsheet of a program, with a quirky interface that doesn’t always behave as you’d expect. Spreadsheet is too grandiose a word, it’s a table of data that you can filter in simple ways. It seems that you, the user, have three key abilities:

  • create custom column views of whatever data items are available
  • create custom filters, or table views by applying simple conditions like these:
    • if this field’s value is greater than this constant
    • and this other field’s value is less that this constant
  • create portfolios of selected stocks, although I fail to see how this aids in anything. It may be more useful after a few updates of the REFS data.

It’s strictly a filter program, with no ability to calculate or filter on fields compared to other fields. For example, if I wanted to restrict a view to contain companies with a market cap of >= £100 Million at the 52-week low price, REFS just can’t do it.

I’ve also heard that the fundamental data used is from the last annual report, so may be well out of date. The only evidence of the five year data that they advertise is a handful of data columns of five year averages. Showing a company’s full data only reveals current year figures.

Is it worth £304 a year, which was the price for quarterly updates offered to me in return for my direct debit details? I doubt it, unless you’re looking for simple filters against constant values and are investing sums large enough to justify the cost. Even then, I know that Stephen Bland gets his fundies from elsewhere. You’ll be the first to know if my opinion changes.

My Brother’s Getting Married — and she’s lovely

Posted in evolution on 16.03.06@712 by pjh

Congratulations. This could well be the best thing ever. Don’t screw it up.

Let me clarify. Marriage changes nothing. Sure you may swap surnames, co-habitate, have more kids, etc. But at the heart of it you’re still dating - divorces happen all the time, and to more people than you’d like to think about. Things can still fall apart, and so very easily. So that’s my piece of advice to you - don’t relax - don’t think that marriage is forever, because if you think that way it won’t be. Paradoxical, ain’t it? Keep up the involvement and the passion and all the rest, just as though each date could be the last and you never know, you could actually get to happily ever after. I hope so.

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