When you find an interesting link, you pass it on. When you write or read an informative article, you print it. When you get a piece of information that could benefit your readers, naturally you make it known to them.

But, sometimes inevitable happens and percentages of good/bad information catch up to you.

They did for me.

Recently, I fell prey to a *deadly virus* hoax.

It was sent to me by a credible source and I sent it to my subscriber list via my list server.

These types of hoaxes serve no purpose except to confuse and confound people, causing only worry.

Of course, they can perpetuate themselves in form of emails that are sent in REPLY from unsuspecting readers. They click on their REPLY button and then hit SEND and emails begin to do *Hippy Hippy Shake* and bounce repeatedly from one email box to next.

I'm not sure of extent of bounced emails or if any damage occurred but I know it caused a ruckus. I received minimal comments chastising my action, although, in retrospect, I probably deserved more.

I sent out an apology to list members after discovering my blunder. Surprisingly, reactions were largely supportive and forgiving.

Here are samples of some of comments:

"Nice to know you're "one of us"." --Roger

"Better to err on side of caution than not at all." --Comet

Here's how it happened.

The Trade Show --------------

I attended a major trade show recently, International Online Show in London. I wanted to follow up a very successful email campaign I had put together for a client.

The client is an information consultancy, who wanted to extend their operations by obtaining a small number of representation agreements in Scandinavia.

The Online Show, a Business to Business show held in December, focuses on Online Information and Internet.

It consists of meetings and seminars, together with an exhibition which brings together major information suppliers from around World - online hosts, major publishers, software houses, a few ISPs, and so on.

The Show visitors are information users - 20,000 or so information professionals, librarians, end users, consultants, academics and students - from all over World.

It's an event where exhibitors are keen to show their latest product offerings, to meet customers and to investigate possibilities of forging new deals.

I wanted to use Show as a way of meeting several companies on one trip, and in one place. The alternative would have been a number of expensive trips to several parts of Europe and USA.

The Email Campaign -------------------

First, we sent out a mailing shot, by e-mail, to 54 companies , who we thought would be interested in being represented in Scandinavia.

8 organisations responded to mailing, all of whom wanted to meet at Show. That's a response rate of 14.8% - a great performance.

8 meetings were held, all of which were followed by offers of representation agreements.

The client is now following up with offers of most interest.