My  domain has received at least 9 identical emails from Geeks and Geekettes today, ostensibly from Jenni Peak and addressed to “Dear Publicity Specialist.” Not only did Jenni email me and my business partner but they also emailed the same identical email to our info@, jobs, and sales@ email addresses, too:

September 18, 2009

Geeks and Geekettes
2526 Mount Vernon Road, Suite 257
Dunwoody, GA 30338-3006

RE: Request to review technical books

Dear Publicity Specialist:

We are seeking programming, database and computer books to review for our Geeks and Geekettes web site. If you have any movies or audio books that you think our readers would be interested in, please send them to the address above.

The need by date is Thursday, Sept 24, 2009.

Thanks for your help in this request.

Jenni Peak

ps – When we publish a review of your item, we will send you an email message with the page link to the review.

If there is any compassion here it it comes from both “we have all been there” and the fact that this is not an outreach that was stewarded by a public affairs consultant or social media expert but by Jenni Peak herself, supposedly, who is the editor of a “geek” site.  There is one caveat: geeks should know better.  Geeks have a code of honor and geeks sort of know that this isn’t the best way to garner positive attention.

And, she is not a Geek.  The site is bullshit.  I don’t know what the site intends to be but Geeks & Geekettes is some sort of shady with Jenni Peak who looks to me to be more of a saucy stock photo from a girls-gone-wild ad than someone who is authentic and the reviews that she supposedly is doing on my behalf are actually not even on the sale site, they’re on nexusreviews.org.

What would you have done? How would you have engaged with me?  How would you have engaged with us here at Abraham Harrison LLC?  Have you been spammed as well?  What do you think “her” agenda is?  Link-farming? Affiliate marketing?

I love the conversation over here at Marketing Conversation about SPAM, A Line in the Spam. I love the conversation and I want to have this conversation and I want all of us at Abraham Harrison to freely blog about marketing, advertising, and spamming. I want to deal with it directly.

I also want to boldly and shamelessly address the issue as to whether AHLLC SPAMs, is a SPAMMER, and if Online Outreach is SPAMMING. What makes what we do at Abraham Harrison not spam is as follows:

• We only collect emails from people who are already out there blogging
• We only harvest emails that are freely available and accessible: public
• We only outreach topically and only once-per-pitch, per campaign
• We always send an email merged personalized email directly from me
• Any personal reply arrives directly into my main personal INBOX
• Any personal email reply is responded to directly from me and by me
• I include my personal cell phone, URL, and email in my signature file
• In many cases, I am really charming and give a gift: info, truth, corrections, assets, etc.
• We, Abraham Harrison and I, are always open and clear as to our intention and agenda
• We aspire to being transparent and never double-blind or disguise
• To the best of our ability, we intend not to misrepresent our intentions
• We honestly try to give more than we take in the marketing free market: net-gain, win-win

Did I cover everything? I think these are super important questions. I come from a background with companies that were way more careful and way more guarded — in many cases heavily anonymized and aliased – and I don’t want AHLLC to play it like that. As a direct result, I have told our team to keep me honest and to make our interpretation and rigorously transparent as possible. Totally Open Kimono, to quote my buzzword-addled business partner.

Any questions or reservations? Please, don’t hesitate to ask. The comments are unmoderated so please, we welcome your comments and participations.

There is a legitimate difference between online marketing and Spam. Some people say the difference is Relevancy. Okay, this is close; but there needs to be another element involved: Value. Mmm – organically grown and very delicious Value.

I liken the difference between a legitimate online marketing campaign and Spam to graffiti art and plain graffiti. One is art, thus providing worth to all who choose to accept and appreciate it; and the other is simply there and of no value whatsoever – unless you, in fact, rejoice in knowing that KLM is forever a Ruff Ryder and having that displayed prominently in silver Krylon across your Brooklyn apartment door.

Anyway – Back on track:

An online marketer must bring something to the table – add some real value to that very real community that they are stepping into. They have to care about what the community is trying to say and also be sincere when sharing information with this community.

Thoughts?