Fresh from the inbox:
Dear Andrew,
Hope you’re doing well. I’m writing to set up time for an initial phone conversation to explore a possible collaboration among our research groups, relative to a breakthrough computational systems biology platform for greatly accelerating biomolecular research relative to identification of biomarkers, targets, mechanisms of action, and therapeutics discovery.
Our recent efforts at the ** Research Division in ** include collaborative projects with MIT, Harvard, University of Southern California, University of Minnesota, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Stanford University, Weill Cornell, University of Puerto Rico, to name a few.
Kindly let me know your availability this week or next week. Alternatively you are free to schedule directly on my calendar: **
Best,
**Dr. **, Ph.D. | Founder, Chairman & CEO | **
On the minus side, I don’t know anything about identification of biomarkers, targets, mechanisms of action, and therapeutics discovery. Doesn’t he know I’m a Freud expert???
On the plus side, he’s a friendly dude who addresses me by my first name and hopes I’m doing well. That’s nice! I like when they send me a generic pitch, rather than plying me with targeted flattery.
Yo Andy wassup dawg,
The Journal of Interplanetary Statistics trails well behind the cutting edge of “Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science”. Tomorrow, we are holding our first ever centurial conference, and have taken the liberty of registering you as our keynote speaker. We look forward to hearing your six hour address on the mating habits of Western Sea Slugs.
Your compensation for these services will be negative one thousand dollars, which we have already withdrawn from your bank account. Please select five of the six following pickup times in the next hour — our team will be by to extract you shortly.
Hugs & Kisses,
JIS Symposium Team
Thanks for the good laugh!
Jis:
I don’t get enuf emails beginning, “Yo Andy wassup dawg.” Whassup with that?
Love it!
Dealing with spam is the price we pay for being able to send blast emails at a marginal cost of $0.00. The people sending these out have no reason to target their emails effectively and every incentive to cast the net broadly. The recipients for whom it is relevant will just delete it. The worst that will happen is that somebody will write a blog post about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re the only person who ever does that.
I’m an general epidemiologist and all of that biomolecular stuff is as outside my research domain as it is yours, although I usually have at least a superficial understanding of what they’re referring to. I get spam like this every single day.
Arrgh! I meant the recipients for whom it is _irrelevant._ Sure do wish we could edit these things.
Was the goal to redact the name of the company? Because it’s still in the body, after “Our recent efforts”
Jason:
Thanks, I fixed it.