I live in Newport Beach, California. It is 400 miles away from the city of San Jose. Nevertheless, for some strange reason, San Jose councilmember Pete Constant has been emailing me news about his “mobile city hall” application for smartphones. The app does sound smart. Too bad his email system is so dumb.
The emails are addressed to me by name – “Dear Danny.” I got the first one on Dec. 7, telling me:
Councilmember Pete Constant is holding a press conference to announce the launch of his new blight-busting iPhone App, Mobile City Hall, built by CitySourced. Download Day participants will download the iPhone application together after a demo from the Councilmember and CitySourced founder Jason Kiesel. They will then go out in teams to perform the District’s first resident-aided blight assessment and report back about the experience at 11:00.
I particularly liked how the release went on about how download day would be on Saturday, December 12 in one paragraph then on “Saturday,” December 11 in another (today’s the 11th. It’s a Friday). Which is it? Shouldn’t the announcement of a new high-tech blight reporting tool to help city hall get the low-tech date right?
There was no link to unsubscribe from this email at the end. There were no unsubscribe instructions at all. In addition, it wasn’t sent so that I could see the exact email used to reach me. I have several email addresses that all work. Which one did they grab?
And how did they get it? I wasn’t asked to confirm my subscription for announcement from a councilman who serves a district far from the city I live in.
On the 8th, I got three more emails about the news. Pete really wanted me to know about it. And at this point, I found a contact address and emailed saying to please stop sending me this stuff. I got an email back saying I’d been removed from the email database.
Apparently not. This morning, I got another email. I emailed back that I still hadn’t moved, I still didn’t live in San Jose, and I still had no interest in this news. Then a few hours later, I got yet another announcement.
So, Pete, some suggestions if you’re being all high-tech with city hall stuff these days
- Don’t email people who haven’t confirmed they want to be added to your list
- Always show the email address you send to in the To: field or
- Ensure there’s an unsubscribe link at the bottom that allows for someone to remove the specific email you’ve used
Enjoy Download Day tomorrow. Sorry I’ll miss the light lunch. Best in San Jose, from the city of Newport Beach.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
You could always download the app and take pictures of what needs to be fixed in Newport..
Thank you for your comments. You are correct, our email blast should have had an unsubscribe link. They usually do. I will have to find out why that mistake occurred. As for receiving an email after the unsubscibe was received, I’m sure you are aware that oftentimes emails are scheduled ahead of time and if they are already in the system they may go out even though the change has been made. This is common for this to happen. Again my appologies.
I appreciate you comments. Next time feel free to call me email me directly.
Pete Constant
408-535-4901
It gets better, once you’re on Pete’s list you never get off and you get added to the lists of all of his friends.
How do you send an email without the address in the “To” field?
Update: or the “bcc” or “cc” fields
I just wanted to follow-up with you. I checked further to see how you got into our email system. Your email address was provided to my office by CitySourced as a blogger that writes on technology issues. Apparently this came about as a result of the TechCrunch50 event.
You were not entered into our regular email list that we use on an ongoing basis. You we identified as a specific receipient for this press event only.
Again, I appologize for the confusion. We thought we were doing the right thing, but we evidently made a mistake by including you.
Pete Constant, Councilmember
City of San Jose