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Why your mass e-mail requests get ignored | CNET News.com

Interesting research from Greg Barron, a research fellow at Harvard Business School, and research partner Eldad Yechiam, a postdoctoral research fellow at Indiana University’s Department of Psychology (primarily on email yielded this insight:

In biology, and more recently in economics, the theory of honest signaling provides some possible insights. According to the theory, signals that are costly to produce and send provide a mechanism by which two parties can have reliable communication, despite conflicting interests (Zahavi’s handicap principle). Examples include male peacocks that use costly ornaments to display quality to potential mates and baby birds that use costly begging calls to display hunger.

Interesting for what impact it has on corporate signalling, specifically what IBM is doing with Linux and On Demand, and HP with its Adaptive Enterprise.
Sources: originally read on CNET Why your mass e-mail requests get ignored | CNET News.com, more infomation available on the HBS website at