Email marketing. It’s what’s in right now, because we can’t rely on algorithms alone.
But how many emails can one person read/care about? That’s the question I have for you.
It reminds me of a thing I wrote in a journal, many years ago, on a different but related topic.
Here’s an excerpt from what I wrote in my journal on Monday, May 16, 1994.
This weekend I did a few different things. On Saturday, I attended part of the annual MCC [can’t recall what it stands for] meeting, where the topic was “carrying capacity.” That’s the notion that an ecosystem can sustain a certain number of people, over which the carrying capacity is exceeded. Actually, it’s more than just ability for life to be sustained. It involves subjective parameters. One definition I’m looking at says, “carrying capacity” refers to the “no. of individuals who can be supported without degrading the natural, social, and cultural environment, i.e., without reducing the ability of the environment to sustain the desired quality of life.” A highly subjective definition. Just what is “the desired quality of life?” What “reduces” quality of life? Once again, it all comes back to what people want. How much do we sacrifice the “natural” environment to sustain the “social” or the “cultural” one? Good luck trying to figure that one out or getting everyone to agree on what they are and how to balance them.
One of the speakers made an unintentionally amusing remark at one point. He was talking about how it was his birthday, but he had turned 30 so it was no longer as great a cause for celebration as before. Then, he said that being older gave him (in essence) all sorts of perspective he’d never had before. I wanted to stand up and tell him, “You got a long way to go, pal!” Not that he probably didn’t have more perspective — I’m sure he did. But sometimes I feel like I’ve learned more in the past eight years than I did up until the time I turned 30. It seems to me that your knowledge (at least mine) seems to “deepen” somehow. Maybe I’m not picking up more information, but I think I’m appreciating more where other people are coming from, and I’m gaining a certain amount of confidence in my ability to deal with people and situations. It all somehow ties in with my understanding of the concept of community—it’s as if, for the first time, I understand why people live together. Before it was just a given to me. Now, I feel like I understand it and want to be a part of it. Yet, as one who has (I think) been a champion of the individual all my life, I understand the fear of the individual to submit to the constraints of society. That’s been my fear all along. Guess that’s why I like The Prisoner. That’s really what the show is all about.
How did I get from “carrying capacity” to that topic? I’ve run out of time. (With age, I’ve started to ramble …)
PS: I wrote that when I was 37. About a decade before I developed dystonia after suffering a stroke.
Yes, I was a bit of a blowhard know-it-all …
As for The Prisoner. Well, who knows? 🙂