flagThe Canadian Anti-Spam legislation, effective July 1, 2014, promotes and encourages more creative business communication. It champions differentiation and imagination.

As companies scramble to fortify their e-mail lists with verifiable permission to protect themselves from litigation, legal fees, incomprehensible penalties and being branded spammers, a point is being missed. Superior, more cordial, uncensored ways to introduce products and services, pre-exist e-mail:  regular-mail letters, telephone calls, meetings, networking, speeches  … writing, speaking, in-person collaboration and the art of conversation. Was e-mail ever necessary in order to sell? Perhaps not. However July 1, 2014, ironically the day of Canada ‘the true north, strong and free’ should, for Canadian enterprise, be a day of deep reflection.