Prime Picks: You will read. Oh yes, you will… ;-)
Every week, CBC employees get this bit of CBC advertising in our inboxes. Prime Picks contains information about upcoming shows. It’s written in a breathless! marketing! tone!
Here’s a sample of one of the items from this week’s issue:
Human Voltage: Struck By Lightning…Faster than a speeding bullet, five times hotter than the surface of the sun, lightning can strike humans dead and unexpectedly. Explore the science behind the deadly and mysterious occurrence in Human Voltage: Struck By Lightning. Airs Wednesday, Jan. 30, at 10 p.m. ET/PT, on CBC Newsworld’s Wild Docs!
I get a lot of emails. We all do. I’ve been trying to cut down on the unnecessary ones, so I emailed Net Pub Eng to try to get off the list.
No dice.
If you’re a CBC employee, you can not unsubscribe from Prime Picks. It’s mandatory.
“With Prime Picks, we’re just trying to keep our own staff up-to-date and (hopefully) interested in what we’re airing,” one of the people behind Net Pub Eng replied. “So no, one cannot opt out of receiving this.”
Weird.
I mean, I get that it’s important to receive memos about important Corporate news like new initiatives and, er, the latest management promotions (ahem), but CBC spam?!
What do you think? Do you read this when you get it?
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ok, i admit it: i skim prime picks to see if my own show ever makes the list. it never does.
but on the other hand, we can get so wrapped up in our own programming or other jobs, that it’s not terrible to get a summary of what’s hitting the airwaves every week. i only wish that the list of what shows they promote would expand a little.
This is why we have groupwise filters.
Filter away! (Thats what I did)
Never read it. Delete on sight of header.
I totally agree. prime picks is yet another wasted item in my inbox force-fed to me by mgmt.
maybe if they let us sign up for these instead of patting us on the head like little children and telling us they know what’s best for us to know, we’d be a little more receptive.
Nah…I just click the delete button. I hate getting "junk" mail.
I have created a RULE in my Groupwise to automatically delete PrimePicks. You can too!
1. Click on Tools on the top bar of your Groupwise program
2. Click on New on the right side of the rules menu
3. Enter “Prime Picks” as your rule name
4. Click mail as item type
5. Click on Define Conditions then select “Subject”
6. Write “Prime Picks” in the subject field
7. Click on action and select “Delete/Decline”
This will automatically throw Prime Picks messages where they belong. In the trash.
Interesting feedback (who doesn’t suffer from e-mail overload in this day and age?), but I have to admit that I’m still a little puzzled. You suggest that the information in Prime Picks, with its “breathless marketing tone” is little more than spam (defined on Wikipedia as “the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages”).
When it comes to employee messages on internal developments, I concur that the simpler, the better. In almost every case, we shouldn’t use marketing lingo to “sell” to our employees: the people who, because they are privileged insiders and better able to see when the “emperor is not wearing any clothes,” deserve the plain, unvarnished truth. However, I make an exception when it comes to blowing our own proverbial horn.
As the nation’s public broadcaster, surely we have a responsibility to make it easy for our employees –- arguably the Corporation’s most vested stakeholders –- to connect with what it is we do. Do we borrow language from our news releases and promotional materials? Absolutely. Our employees are no different than our audiences — they want us to tell the stories that matter to Canadians and our country, in all its fascinating diversity, and they want us to do it in ways that are more likely to get them to tune in and turn on.
While you may think corporate developments are more worthy of space in our employees’ inboxes, I would venture to guess that your perspective is not shared by the silent majority of our people—both those who produce the excellent shows we celebrate in Prime Picks and our Super Sneak Previews, and the not insignificant group of people who work in support functions, but who can point with pride to our programming as tangible evidence of the importance of their own role at CBC.
That said, there is good news on the horizon; with the launch of our employee portal, our people will have the opportunity to personalize their home page and set preferences for the type of information they receive. At the same time, promoting our content — and the talented people behind it — will become an even bigger priority in our new online environment. So, don’t be shy. Consider this an open invitation to share your story, nominate an interesting colleague to be the subject of a profile or tell me about content you’d like to share with CBCers.
Marianne Andres
Senior Manager, CBC Employee Communications
marianne.andres@cbc.ca, 416-205-7176
Sorry, I don’t read it either – then again, I actually don’t watch CBC Television. I find the daily Hotsheet (which Victoria Wilcox still posts to Usenet groups like alt.networks.radio.cbc on a daily basis) far more useful.
Totally agree with Todd on this one. Waste of time. Let me sign up for it if I want it. Don’t just assume I want it. God even Wal-Mart lets you opt-out of their email list!
I delete it as soon as it appears. Anything relevant in my region or to my interests as a viewer – I already know. (Someone is PAID to do the PICKS??)
Great response to the cynicism, Ms. Andres.
I’ll venture that Tod would be more supportive and less inclined to call it spam if you would simply mention him as often as possible, as cait indicated at the start of these comments.
I actually really like it – there’s some very neat hidden programming on CBC, and I can’t be bothered to keep up with what’s on TV unless someone tells me. These days, though, I don’t have cable, so I don’t bother reading it anymore.
Just lighten up folks. It’s news about CBC, about our employer, about what we’re here contributing to and what our colleagues are putting on air. It’s not just any junk mail. But you have the choice of not reading it and deleting. So just shut up about it. But at least have respect for others who want to read it, and want to find out what’s on air ’cause we don’t always have time to keep up with it all. And it’s actually quite entertaining to read. As a matter of fact, these comments are quite disturbing….if you don’t care about what we’re about and don’t care what’s going, or if you’re so jaded, why are you working here?
If this is all that’s left to complain about, then we’re in good shape.
Todd, I gotta say you missed the mark on this one.
On the Wednesdays that I’m way too busy to read it or I’m way too busy to watch/listen to much CBC, it takes about 1 second to delete it.
Goodness, you people are grumpypants!
@anon: I guess I can’t always be right!
Note to self: Switch to decaf.
Check out this week’s edition, now with a special nod to this very post:
* * *
Feb. 6 – 12
Prime Picks contains information about upcoming shows…written in a breathless! marketing! tone! –http://www.insidethecbc.com
I’m going to stick up for Prime Picks here. I don’t read it every week, but I skim it often. And the writing is actually kind of funny. Whoever pens it is obviously busting to let loose.
Also, I’ve watched TV shows based on their heads-up, usually smaller things that don’t always get promoted so well.
Never read it. Delete it on sight.
Only one? I work for a large multinational corporation, and I get dozens of these kinds of “mandatory” garbage emails every week. Besides shuffling department heads around, high paid executives and vice presidents need something to keep themselves occupied, so putting together newsletters is a natural.