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Spam is OK if it's us

Ross Dawson, August 30, 2005 4:25 PM US PT

In a startling development, the Australian Army is considering sending broadcast SMS for recruitment purposes. Presumably they would meet Australia's strict Privacy Act, however this is not fully clear from the news release. Particularly as SMS marketing is a relatively new medium, people tend to respond negatively unless they have actively opted-in to receiving messages, rather than having forgotten to tick a box somewhere to avoid getting on a generic list that will be sold to all-comers, the Australian Army included. The Australian government has implemented strong ant-spam legislation, so it is rather disappointing that one of its arms is undermining those messages. Legitimate SMS marketing definitely has a role, but if the medium is abused, there will be a backlash.

Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author. He is Founding Chairman of four companies: professional services and venture firm Advanced Human Technologies, future and strategy consulting group Future Exploration Network, leading events firm The Insight Exchange, and influence ratings start-up Repyoot.

Ross is author most recently of Implementing Enterprise 2.0, the prescient Living Networks, which anticipated the social network revolution, and the Amazon.com bestseller Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships (click on the links for free chapter downloads). He is based in Sydney and San Francisco with his wife jewellery designer Victoria Buckley and two beautiful young daughters.