There is a winery in Baraboo that I go to periodically. The guy who runs it is a small time operation. He put together a mailing list of people and started sending out emails. However, the way that he did so was by creating a group email list, which means that any time anyone contacts him for any reason everyone who is on the list gets an email.

So every minute or so I get bombarded with emails from strangers asking to be taken off of the list. The longer this continues, the more often people are sending unsubscribe emails and the angrier they are getting. I got three different emails from the same woman who is typing in all caps “UNSUBSCRIBE ME FROM THIS LIST!!!!!” One guy said in his subject line that if he isn’t taken off this list immediately he will never visit the guy’s winery ever again (I am thinking it is likely that this is a person who only went when he had a Groupon).

I feel for the guy. He has a small operation and he isn’t a techie. He just wants to make his wine and he’s drinking the social media Kool-Aid. He probably has some young relative who is telling him he has to do this in order to reach out to the tech savvy generation. Unfortunately he is alienating the people he is trying to attract.

I hope that he is checking his email or the group listing to see that he has a small mess on his hands. I hope he can do something to rectify the situation with the people whose emails he has inadvertently leaked.