Need someone to lead product management at your software company? I create software for people that create software and I'm looking for my next opportunity. Check out my resume and get in touch.

EcoPhones on MSNBC

Freshness Warning
This blog post is over 16 years old. It's possible that the information you read below isn't current and the links no longer work.

Over on MSNBC there’s an article about cell phone recycling that mentions my spam complaints about EcoPhones.

Some others aren’t so happy with the company. Last year Adam Kalsey, a Cubmaster and blogger in Gold River, Calif., accused EcoPhones of “spamming” Boy Scout leaders whose e-mail addresses are listed on local packs’ Web sites. Parra acknowledged that EcoPhones sends marketing messages to teachers, pastors and others affiliated with schools, churches and community groups, but she said the company gives all recipients a chance to opt out of its mailing list as required by the federal CAN-SPAM Act.

You’d think the author of the story would have contacted me about it before publication, especially since they talked to an EcoPhones rep. It’s not like my contact info is hard to find (it’s at the bottom of every page on this site).

Jennifer Parra from EcoPhones says that they let people opt out. Never mind that an opt-out policy for people who haven’t volunteered their contact information is a bad idea. But EcoPhones doesn’t honor opt out requests. Prior to blogging about their spam a couple of years ago, I’d emailed the company and asked them to no longer contact our Cub Scout pack. Since blogging about the spam, I’ve received several more email messages. The email address that they were spamming no longer comes to me, so who knows how much more spam they’ve sent.

Recently Written

Mastery doesn’t come from perfect planning (Dec 21)
In a ceramics class, one group focused on a single perfect dish, while another made many with no quality focus. The result? A lesson in the value of practice over perfection.
The Dark Side of Input Metrics (Nov 27)
Using input metrics in the wrong way can cause unexpected behaviors, stifled creativity, and micromanagement.
Reframe How You Think About Users of your Internal Platform (Nov 13)
Changing from "Customers" to "Partners" will give you a better perspective on internal product development.
Measuring Feature success (Oct 17)
You're building features to solve problems. If you don't know what success looks like, how did you decide on that feature at all?
How I use OKRs (Oct 13)
A description of how I use OKRs to guide a team, written so I can send to future teams.
Build the whole product (Oct 6)
Your code is only part of the product
Input metrics lead to outcomes (Sep 1)
An easy to understand example of using input metrics to track progress toward an outcome.
Lagging Outcomes (Aug 22)
Long-term things often end up off a team's goals because they can't see how to define measurable outcomes for them. Here's how to solve that.

Older...

What I'm Reading

Contact

Adam Kalsey

+1 916 600 2497

Resume

Public Key

© 1999-2024 Adam Kalsey.