Bad, Fast Emails

One of the primary wonders of the internet is the speed with which it can disseminate information.  Information, unfiltered and unadulterated, can speed around the world at the speed of a tweet.

This is powerful and wonderful and awe inspiring when it works to share word about a political movement, a scientific discovery or the birth of a prince.

But, when someone makes a mistake on your email address in a distribution list, it can speed around the world almost as fast as word of the latest celebrity arrest.  It can take longer to get things worked out than the endless stories about the celebrity's paroles and rearrests.

Similarly, if a mistake is made in a newsfeed or newspaper, that mistake will be picked up and circle the globe a couple of times before you burn your tongue on your morning coffee.

Now, more than ever, accuracy is important.  It is so easy to fix errors in a document, factual accuracy might not seem that important.  It is not primary document accuracy that is so important but what I like to call the echo document accuracy.   Errors carried by echo documents have the greater impact.  Echo documents are all the reposts and retweets that a primary document creates.  Once echo documents start bouncing around, it is very difficult to contain them.

Now, more than ever, it is important to contain and correct mistakes as quickly as possible.  Nothing is as fast as a bad email!