I spoke last month at the National Voluntary Health Associations Innovations Conference on social network media, a conference organized by Randal Moss of the American Cancer Society. Randal did a great job, and I really enjoyed participating.
Once I returned home, however, I discovered that I had suddenly been added to the “KM Cluster” mailing list. The reason? John Maloney from Colabria (hmmm…I’m starting to like the nofollow thing already…), another of the speakers at the conference, had added my email address to mailing lists used to advertise books and upcoming workshops. In fact, my name was added twice three times; once with the address on my card, once with the address provided to attendees as part of the participant list, and once with the form of my address that often appears in my return address.
This isn’t the first time someone has done this—taken my contact information from a conference attendee list and put me on a mailing list without my permission. And it drives me totally nuts. To me, that’s a serious breach of conference etiquette, one that will drive people to stop providing their contact information to new acquaintances.
When I complained, politely, to John, he informed me that I could simply follow “common practice” and click the “unsubscribe” button at the bottom of the messages. But as many of you know, that’s often a tool used by spammers to determine whether the email addresses they’re using are legitimate. It’s not, and shouldn’t be, “common practice” to have to opt out of a mailing list that you never chose to be added to.
I’ve also received a spate of messages from Plaxo recently, asking me to update my information so that the person using the system—typically someone I don’t even remember meeting—doesn’t have to go to any personal trouble to ask for my current contact details.
Feh.
I’m sick of acquaintance spam. It’s not that I’m not willing to be contacted by people I don’t already know. It’s just that I think it should be a personal contact. Don’t add me to a mailing list without asking me. Don’t set up an automated system to harass me for contact info. (Plaxo even sends a “I noticed you didn’t respond to my earlier request” message if you try to ignore it!) This strikes me as such a basic rule of etiquette, whether the contact is personal or professional. Relationships begin with and are maintained through personal interactions. Don’t screw them up by trusting them to software.
Update: John Maloney has responded via email to this post. He feels I’ve misrepresented him, and wants me to “correct” the post. Read on for his take on this….
Ell —
I reject this and your bad manners.
You must believe “no good deed should go unpunished.”
Did you forget about this conversation?
http://ficenter.nvhainnovations.silkblogs.com/Liz-Lawley-at-SXSW.3775.entry
You lied in your blog. Very offensive. Please correct asap.
More than a few have reached-out from NVHA have reached out with gratitude and dialogue.
You are in a .001% minority. All appreciate community development and not-for-profit, vendor-free ‘how to’ networks.
Stop taking yourself so seriously and focus on moving forward, the future, it is much more rewarding…
I guess for you, network development, and responding to specific ‘next steps’ is a transgression. (?)
Give me a break, please. Unsubscribe. People like you are not welcome network inhabitants. Sorry.
Regrets,
-jtm
In response, this would have been far more effective if it had actually gotten my name right. I use my initials, ell, for most of my email addresses—but it’s not my name.
The blog entry to which he refers mentions a brief conversation I had with Randal Moss at SXSW, which most certainly did not involve a request to be added to a mailing list.
Somehow, I doubt I’m in the minority on this.
1. Lee LeFever on March 23, 2005 3:39 PM writes...
I got added to John Maloney's KM Cluster lists multiple times too and I'm not sure why or how. I too had to request to be removed- twice. I'm not sure he really gets it.
Permalink to Comment2. Bert Reed on March 23, 2005 4:02 PM writes...
I guess the word snam never took off, but this kind of thing is exactly what they were describing...
Permalink to Comment3. Steph on March 23, 2005 5:22 PM writes...
The thing about nofollow is that it not only removes google juice (good), it also is not indexed by Technorati. Less good, in my opinion, as when you're using nofollow when in fact you mean vote-against, you would rather like your post to show up in the linked url's cosmos...
See: http://www.technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?url=http://kmblogs.com/public/
Permalink to Comment4. Lee Bryant on March 23, 2005 5:39 PM writes...
You're not alone ;-)
I am sure John's work is really good and intentions honourable, etc., but I know that when the same thing happened to me after an event, the follow up emails felt very much like spam. Given that we all suffer email stress these days, it just doesn't feel right to add people to lists without them asking.
Permalink to Comment5. Jim Phelps on March 23, 2005 6:13 PM writes...
I have four email addresses that I use for various things. One is dedicated to site registrations where I'm worried about spam. I check it about once every two weeks. I wonder if we are going to start using "spam-mail" addresses for conference lists and the likes. Will we all need tiers of email addresses - world (spammed), associates (moderately spammed), business and inner circle (share this email and I hunt you down).
Permalink to Comment6. Joseph Reagle on March 23, 2005 6:56 PM writes...
I've never even been to a conference with him and receive these stupid emails all the time. But spamassassin knows they are spam now:
Opt-in Notification from "KM Cluster :: Action/Research Community"
From: "KM Cluster \:\: Action/Research Community"
To: geek@goatee.net
"KM Cluster :: Action/Research Community" has invited you to join their mailing list. If you wish to receive
their mailings, please reply to this message and you will be added to the
subscription list.
If you do not reply to this message in order to confirm your addition to the
Permalink to Comment"KM Cluster :: Action/Research Community" mailing list, you will not be placed on the list and will not receive
any e-mail from them.
7. Stacy Martin on March 23, 2005 7:40 PM writes...
Liz - I'm the Privacy Officer here at Plaxo responsible for addressing Privacy, Security, and Trust issues pertaining to the usage of Plaxo. Sorry to read about your recent troubles with the "KM Cluster" mailing list.
I also wanted to follow up on the messages you mentioned receiving from Plaxo members. I realize you're not claiming these messages are the result of a mailing list as in the case of the "KM Cluster" messages, and simply I want to assure you of this fact. Plaxo does not maintain any mailing lists.
The update request messages you have received are the result of a Plaxo member explicitly choosing to send you a message through our service. These messages are not sent out in an automated fashion. They are only sent out when the Plaxo member instructs and explicitly approves the action to send out the Update Request message. The Plaxo member has complete control over when, to whom, and the message content of messages sent through our service.
But I do agree that a basic rule of etiquette should be followed. In the case of Plaxo, members are encouraged to follow proper Plaxo Etiquette, but I admit that additional user training is required and we are working to address this.
Members are encouraged to personalize their Update Request messages (otherwise, we do include some default text). Also, Plaxo is intended for the staying in touch with known contacts to the member and contacts who in turn are likely to recognize the member. Sending Update Request messages to people who are unlikely to recognize the member would be viewed as a potential violation of our terms of service and possible grounds for immediate removal from the Plaxo service. Incidents of potential abuse may be reported to abuse @t plaxo.com.
But while Plaxo does not initiate and send update requests, I acknowledge that as the service provider for the processing of these messages, we must take some responsibility as well. Your comments are quite timely actually, as they provide me an opportunity to announce a few upcoming changes to the Plaxo service and software. We are making these changes based on feedback from members and non-members such as yourself that we hope will continually improve the Plaxo service and allow people to benefit greater from its usage.
As you may know, Plaxo provides the ability for people to easily manage, update, and access their contact, calendar, tasks and notes information. We currently provide an option for the Plaxo member to send an Update Request message to their "entire address book". Unfortunately, many people are unaware of the number of contacts they truly maintain and end up sending unwanted update requests to people they have little association with. This option will be removed. We also have an "reminder" option that allows the Plaxo member to resend update requests that have not been responded to (ie: "I noticed you didn't respond..." messages). This option will also be removed.
We've always provided the ability for non-members to instruct Plaxo to block messages sent through our service to their e-mail. This feature is accessible by clicking on the appropriate link included within each Update Request message or going to the URL: http://www.plaxo.com/opt_out. We are investigating methods to automatically block messages sent to non-members who have previously not responded and thus demonstrated a desire to not receive messages from Plaxo members.
Our goal is to continue to improve the value and benefit of using Plaxo for everyone, while dramatically reducing incidences of "acquaintance spam". Our business is built on earning and maintaining the trust of both members and non-members, and hopefully through user education, product improvements, and ongoing feedback we will continue our efforts towards building a successful business.
I apologize for my lengthy response, but I want to make sure we are operating in an open and direct manner. If anyone has any questions regarding Plaxo, please feel free to contact me.
Stacy Martin
Permalink to CommentPlaxo Privacy Officer
privacy @t plaxo.com
8. FrancesM on March 23, 2005 10:41 PM writes...
Sounds like John Maloney is going to self-destruct any moment now! Plaxo has hit me too, but I've responded since the person on the other side is an old friend w. zero time to keep in touch. Not sure he knows how badly those Plaxo messages come thru...
Permalink to Comment9. Simone on March 24, 2005 2:12 AM writes...
I've had a similar annoying experience. After attending a Unicode conference, I discovered that all sorts of nonsense adverts and conference-related spam was coming my way. Bloody annoying, and a good reason not to go to that conference again.
Because I have my own domain, I can automatically bounce unwanted mail back to the sender, based on the sender's email address, or the email address to which the mail was sent. This is satisfying. It means that the git who subscribes me to nonsense will get endless bounce messages from my server, and I'll never have to bother with that unsubscribe crap.
Oh, and John Maloney sounds like a first-rate jerk, particularly in his reply. It's hard to describe him using polite words, as only very rude ones come to mind.
Permalink to Comment10. John T. Maloney on March 24, 2005 7:33 AM writes...
It breaks my heart to dignify this bogus blog with a comment and some (gasp!) facts and context. Of course the author left out entire factual elements of the posting, to serve her own ridiculous crusade, personal invective and malicious purposes.
(This mendacious blog is a sterling example why firms fear this new medium.)
The sponsors of the very intimate NVHA gathering in Atlanta (group of about 80 people) specifically asked all speakers, participants and stakeholders to ‘foster communication’, build community and establish ‘how to’ networks for NVHA social network media adoption and diffusion efforts. Moving forward, they invited us to keep the modest gathering alive with continuous interaction and collaboration.
Of course, Ms. Elizabeth Lane Lawley, left out these facts in her flamboyant and malevolent blog. She is more interested in abuse and personal denunciation than commentary. Shameful.
The NVHA leadership deserves credit for their alacrity and vision for establishing the social networks, building the knowledge pathways and increasing the conductivity of the small, devoted social media colony. Their priority for continuity and network development is inspiring and pioneering.
Factually, 'Liz' was added to NO email list.
Personally, it is great to be part of this community and emergent network. It is rewarding to build the network connections these volunteer health organizations depend on for survival.
Rather than adopt the event’s selfless spirit of volunteerism, charity, love and community, Ms. Elizabeth Lane Lawley seems to wish to feed her own narcissistic behaviors by lashing out at people taking the first steps to support the fledgling VOLUNTEER SNM network.
The Cluster Annual Summit is a long-standing tradition. Many of the speakers’ cadre from the NVHA Atlanta gathering are active sponsors, participants and speakers (Andy Halliday, Andrew Hargadon, Rob Cross, Stowe Boyd, etc., etc.) at our non-profit, close-knit, federated action/research network.
http://www.kmcluster.com/sfo/SFO_Summer_2004.htm
It made sense to invite our co-speaker, Ms. Lawley, into this tiny community of experts that she shared the stage with in Atlanta this month and other KM Cluster sponsors and top thought leaders.
She left this out too. No surprise.
Inviting other speakers, stakeholders and participants to engage and activate in this distributed network not only made sense, it was requested by the organizers and participants.
http://www.kmcluster.com/sfo/
Finally, Ms. Lawley was asked (back-channel) before her bogus blog, as a personal favor, and thoughtful response to her ridiculous concern, for kind patience and understanding in the TRANSITION period as the blogosphere moves to pull idioms and discoverability.
http://kmblogs.com/public/item/87436
She may not understand this transformation or simply has a huge appetite for personal attack and vituperation that she needs to satisfy. Of course, as usual, she left this thoughtful request OUT of her foolish epistle.
The fury and bile of Ms. Lawley’s reaction to a generous and warm-hearted invitation to join her co-speakers and top thought leaders in the community of social network media experts is as inexplicable as it is offensive.
She has been asked to post a retraction and apology, and will be interesting to see if she has the courage and fortitude to do so.
Most cordially,
/jtm/
P.S. The displaced, third-party personal invective by commenters is interesting. It may make sense for you to examine your purpose for this abuse. It is out of context and preposterous. Odd.
John Maloney
T: 415.902.9676
IM/Skype: jheuristic
ID: http://public.2idi.com/=john.maloney
Create the Future! Join the KM Cluster!
Blog: http://kmblogs.com/
Permalink to CommentWorkspaces: http://www.kmcluster.com/Conversation.htm
11. Stowe Boyd on March 24, 2005 9:34 AM writes...
John just doesn't seem to get it. Liz has a perfect right to opt out of this sort of stuff, and shouldn't have to do so, in the first place, since she didn't opt in at any point. John's apoplexy in this case is completely unwarranted, but seems to be part of his character. John can be quite likeable, but when confronted with any suggestion that he, or KM Cluster, his baby, has done something less than wonderful he explodes.
I have never gotten to the heart of the KM Cluster 'organization'. John's description of it as a federation of "local action networks" is interesting, but there is no non-profit involved, despite the flowery prose. It's really just John running a conference business, I think, and some of the events have been really great. But he, or KM Cluster (if there really is such a thing), really should just nicely say, "Sorry, we will take you from the mailing list, and redline you in the future so that you won't inadvertantly get back on it," and then shut up, instead of asserting that anyone who doesn't want spam from him is an enemy of the future.
Permalink to Comment12. Matthew Gertner on March 24, 2005 9:44 AM writes...
And I suppose it is considered "generous and warm-hearted" to lash out at someone calling them "mendacious", "malevolent" and "narcissistic"? This guy is clearly a nutter and a hypocrite to boot, but he does have a pretty impressive vocabulary...
Permalink to Comment13. Rich Kulawiec on March 24, 2005 11:39 AM writes...
1. Adding anyone to any mailing list without their
prior, express permission is spamming.
2. Doing so and demanding that people "opt-out"
is confirmation that the party responsible is,
in fact, a spammer.
Anybody who isn't FULLY aware of both of these is
most certainly not qualified to be operating any
kind of mailing list, and should be considered
an active menace to the rest of the Internet until
they have properly educated themselves. (Sadly, in some cases, some people actually *refuse* to
educate themselves, and it becomes necessary to block all mail from them in order to stop the abuse which they refuse to stop emitting.)
And the ironic part is that it's trivially easy
to handle this the right way.
See:
http://www.rockandwater.net/newsletters/2004-04.html
for a detailed explanation, pointers to FAQs,
Permalink to Commenthow-to's, etc.
14. John T. Maloney on March 24, 2005 12:07 PM writes...
Stowe Boyd? Wow!
What about FACT? Does that concern you or anyone here?
a.) Stowe is not the 'Cluster accountant. He does not know our tax status (non-profit.) Saying otherwise is simply a lie.
b.) Ms. Liz was added to the NVHA list and distributed by them NOT the KM Cluster list for 1 millionth time! The bitchy posts and messages should be set to them.
c.) Rigid, power-tripping, command/control, hat wearing, 'martial' thinkers like Stowe Boyd never 'get' distributed networks anyway. It is futile to try...
d.) We have no use for people think the highly distributed global Cluster networks are some sort of lame conference. Stowe has been to more than one. He knows the difference. Can’t explain the attacks... othere than he is trying to launch some phony event business.
e.) Clusters are a nights and weekends activity for all the distributed volunteers. We all have full-time day jobs for heavens sake! There is NO time for shenanigans.
f.) They are spatial proximate conversations. What could be simpler or more effective?
g.) Again, for the millionth time, Cluster is 100% opt-in. If it wasn’t, it would not exist. The action/research community is close-knit and productive.
Stowe, take a break, breath deep. Walk around the block, man.
The Cluster is real, growing geometrically, operating on 3 continents.
http://www.kmcluster.com/about_the_km_cluster.htm
Allow me to apologize here for Stowe Boyd, Ms. Liz and the ilk that are challenged with facts, that have some ridiculous view of networks and community, and continuously misrepresent themselves while attacking others.
I regret their personal, awful attacks, since we ALL work so damn hard at trying to lead our particular area of interest. It really is shameful.
http://www.entovation.com/kleadmap/index.htm
http://www.kmcluster.com/Current%20Endorsements.pdf
It would be nice to think this whole exercise is some grand experience in new social media, but personal attacks by university faculty, lies by editors and others seem to move into some uncharted realm.
Look, Stowe, Liz, and others, we all exists in a knowledge ecosystem. Don't be threatened by your geographic sponsors that wish to lead conversation. They won't bother you.
Doctor, heal theyself.
Coexist.
Most respectfully,
John
John Maloney
T: 415.902.9676
IM/Skype: jheuristic
ID: http://public.2idi.com/=john.maloney
Create the Future! Join the KM Cluster!
Blog: http://kmblogs.com/
Permalink to CommentWorkspaces: http://www.kmcluster.com/Conversation.htm
15. raving nutter on March 24, 2005 1:48 PM writes...
Just curious -- if the KM Cluster has existed since 1998, and is non-profit (501(c)(3)), why does guidestar.org show no tax filings (IRS Form 990)?
It's interesting to note that membership in the KM Cluster costs $49 / year, in the form of a paypal transfer to jtmalone@pacbell.net.
Permalink to Comment16. Lloyd Dalton on March 25, 2005 1:58 AM writes...
Comment spam for a conference (scroll to bottom):
http://www.knowledgeboard.com/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=135101&d=pnd
It's rare for comment spammers to include a photo of themselves :)
Permalink to Comment17. Steve Dembo on March 25, 2005 9:25 AM writes...
I wish you could just subscribe to a comments thread on this blog. This is amusing.
IMHO, this entire situation would have been averted if they had simply had a checkbox on the conference registration form offering people the opportunity to opt out of the mailing list. I would think John should simply apologize and add that to the 'todo list' for next year.
Permalink to Comment*drops two cents in the bucket*
18. John T. Maloney on March 25, 2005 3:04 PM writes...
Hi -
Steve Dembo makes the best observation and reminds us of the process. Most of us have known and participated in this process for years and years. It is so routine, so customary, so lights-out, that it is the default practice if ANY contact information is to be made available or shared with conference delegates.
Of course, this was the permission protocol for –ongoing- NVHA event collaboration and communications. It was drilled into stakeholders that this small, seminal gathering was a launch for ongoing teamwork, collaboration, communications and close-in community among ALL delegates, speakers and stakeholders.
That is why they immediately distributed the qualified Excel list they prepared to all delegates for on-going collaboration, communications, and 'how to' network development immediately after the gathering.
Again, immediately after the conference, the Excel list was provided with this note attached, verbatim from the conference organizer himself, "...to foster communication I attached an attendee e-mail list..."
It is hard to be more specific, more DIRECT, in inviting and compelling valuable ongoing communications among speakers and delegates.
This is a smart procedure, works well and is the current standard bearer. Other more innovative techniques may soon include identity brokers:
http://public.2idi.com/=john.maloney
The delicious irony of this inane dust-up is the theme of the modest NVHA gathering was centered on individuated and conversational social media, aka, email, blogs, wikis.
You'd think people would know better?
If the conference theme was porcine husbandry or something, then maybe we would expect some unusual, over-the-top reaction...
I can't explain why people get their freak on in blogs and comments. They would never do it face-to-face.
Also, why this blog author would publish into the blogosphere a private, personal, back-channel email is also very bizarre. Obviously, it was meant to humiliate and embarrass. That is demented. Reprehensible.
Hopefully, we can ALL learn, refract and anneal the blog phenomena in some way from this ludicrous episode.
Happy Easter!
-jtm
John Maloney
T: 415.902.9676
IM/Skype: jheuristic
ID: http://public.2idi.com/=john.maloney
Blog: http://kmblogs.com/
Permalink to Comment19. Martin on March 26, 2005 1:38 AM writes...
John T Baloney,
You talk like someone I really don't want to know.
Permalink to Comment20. Alane on March 26, 2005 9:03 PM writes...
Dear Mr John T. Phoney Baloney Maloney: I have no idea who you are--other than you are a dude with access to a thesaurus and/or have come lately to 20th century english. I do know who Liz is and have been voluntarily reading her "bogus" blog for some time.
Permalink to CommentThe Cluster??? Sounds definitely "drink the kool aid" to me.
Just trying to lead my event business down the spatial proximate event garden path.
21. Peter Kaminski on March 27, 2005 12:06 PM writes...
Hey, John, a couple things:
- A conference email directory like the one Randal sent out does not constitute an "email permission list," as you call it in a recent email to your NVHA alias. In my professional experience, conference directories are used for remembering who you met and following up with people one-on-one -- not for mass-mailing the whole directory.
- Email is interruptive, and best suited for person-to-person communication or urgent broadcast messages. In the social network media world, broadcast messages belong on blogs and wikis, not in a mass email. Wouldn't it be better and more appropriate to post your KM Cluster notices to the NVHAInnovations Blog instead of emailing them to each of the participants?
Permalink to Comment22. Greg R. on March 27, 2005 7:25 PM writes...
Holy frijoles, this John Maloney guy is unbelievable. I don't know what's more amusing: watching him whip out the ad hominem shovel and just dig his hole deeper and deeper or the hilarity of his pseudo-intellectual thesaurus addiction.
John, your approach is doing absolutely nothing to build credibility.
Permalink to Comment