I was inspired to write this after receiving a well intended email entitled,

"FW: Swine Flu Vaccination - Poison ? - From an AngryAustralian Pharmacist."

Hi, to everyone who has ever forwarded emails like this to me,

Thanks sincerely, i appreciate that your concern is genuine though the email you forward me is a hoax.
See http://yamyam25.blogspot.com/2009/10/email-on-swine-flu-vaccine.html

Once again, it demonstrate the power of well chosen words and how they interact with the concerns of the readers (totally my department wrt copywriting hehehehe). Plus the fact that there are lots of mischief makers online originating these things and not using their persuasive writing skills for the good of humankind *sigh*.

Yet i guess one good thing for me is getting the chance to pay attention to swine flu and read that it is actually getting less serious, and therefore evaluating that the vaccine is not necessary in the first place.

I am writing this with faith in your receptivity precisely cos most people won't bother to share what they know this way and perhaps risk social unpopularity -

Netiquette Tips

1. I know it is easy to just click "forward" and send your good intentions to people you care about. I still welcome your other emails, especially the inspiring, funny, foodie, or just unbelievable stuff :) Am just sharing my view that spreading urban legends can be a serial waste of all our precious time. As you know time is our most precious currency cos once spent it can never be earned again.

Instead of reacting to chain mail (and remember, your truest friends won't put a warning clause on what you must do to earn the reward in the email or make you feel you can expect impending doom if you don't forward the piece to x number of people in y days . . . that's conditional lurve!) that has slipped passed my "ignore" bouncer, i often do the nerdy thing and check its authenticity by simply emailing the source or doing a search.

More often than not i find out immediately that things are not what they seem and thus stop the viral spreading right there. Makes me feel relieved too :)

If, as adults, we refuse to allow these things to mess with our minds, we can better teach our children to be more web savvy, to be more mentally resilient, and goodness knows they need to be, with the Internet so prevalent and largely uncensorable.

2. For those who don't already do so, you may also like to consider placing your friends' email addresses in "bcc" rather than "To" cos some of them don't know each other, as well as cutting out the bits of the email that reveal the addresses of people who have sent the email on to each other. That's just being polite and i acknowledge you did not mean to be inconsiderate; you probably just never thought about it. Some of you won't be getting this email if that had been done in the first place :P.

I hope reading this was time well spent. Have a great weekend! :)

Your friendly (though admittedly pedantic) copywriter alexis

p/s As you can see I am killing three birds with one stone with this post: sharing info, applying the recent teaching of a Web savvy friend who taught me what "interstitial" means, and promoting what i do (which i dearly love) HAHAHAHAH :P

Kind Regards

Alexis Aw, Word Alchemist
Copywriter | Marketing Communicator
Turning words into gold to make your business shine
Ring/SMS: +6140 448 3738
116 Edward St Perth WA 6000
writing@alexisaw.com