Media in the New Millennium

posted by Doyle

I had two great examples of what I’ll call “asking computers to do the thinkin’ for ya” hit my radar in the last 24 hours, and both reflect poorly on the organizations from which they originated.

Readers of this blog know I enjoy using and rely heavily on technology, but we don’t live in the Terminator movies, and computers are not yet Skynet. We control computers, not the other way around. The excuse of “our computers just do that” is feeble, at best. Computers do what you tell them to d0.

Here’s what can happen if you don’t pay attention.

Example 1: A poorly targeted mass email.

CNET’s Caroline McCarthy sent this tweet today:

“In my inbox: Baby formula newsletter. “Congratulations, Caroline! We’ve heard your exciting news!” Um, what do they know that I don’t know?”

While I don’t know Caroline personally, I can gather from the tweet that she’s not pregnant. Honestly, that’s a pretty big mistake to make. It’s not like this was random email marketing for a bank or department store — something that just about anyone has the potential to be interested in. This email made the assumption that Caroline was pregnant. That’s pretty specific. Why did this happen? Because someone just bought a list and pushed “send” without really checking it. That’s lazy and they’ve wasted time and damaged their reputation.

Example 2: Sending gibberish to your customers.

My daughter is a senior in high school here in Boulder. If she misses a class, I’m alerted via email. That’s a good idea, actually. However, the email content makes it a good idea poorly executed. Here’s what they sent:

Boulder Valley School District

“Hello this is New Vista High School calling about attendance of morgan.  Your student was Absent on  Dec 9 2009 missing these periods  04 05.  Call us today and say why your student was absent. Periods 1 through 6 are morning periods. Periods 8 through 11 are afternoon periods.   Please call  7 2 0 5 6 1 8 7 0 2.

Your student was absent from school today. call us now to say why.”

Seriously?

If that had come from someone other than the people responsible for developing education programs for my child, I may not be so offended. But for a school system (and a good one at that) to send something that reads like this is simply unforgivable. Further, the information isn’t even accurate: my daughter’s school has AM block and PM block. When I asked her about missing periods “04 05,” she told me that she had no idea, since they don’t have 11 periods, as the email says. If the program they’ve selected really can’t do a better job than this, I’d recommend getting a new program — or suspending the emails until this can fixed.

I almost called the number and just said “why your student was absent” and hung up. After all, that’s what the email says to do!

(As an aside, I’ve brought this to the attention of the school district a couple of times over the past several years. Guess they think these are fine as written. Scary.)

These are both examples of someone making the decision to use a technology tool but not manage it. Computers can make much of our work so much easier — but in most cases, they can’t do our job for us. Every communication sent from your organization says something about your organization, and the old “that’s just how our computers do it” excuse is now inexcusable.

Be aware of the message you’re sending about your organization. Do you want to buy baby formula from a company that can’t manage an email program? Does that communication from my daughter’s high school instill confidence in me, as a parent, about her education? No in both cases.

Are you managing what technology does for you, or have you become a lazy bystander?

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