Categories: Articles

Fax You

I’m done. I’m out.
Yesterday, I removed the Twist Image fax number from almost everything I could. It’s no longer in my email sig file. It’s out of my Vcard. It’s gone. Who needs it? Mark the time of death.
Isn’t it amazing how fast that technology became history? Maybe I’m showing my (younger) age, but the only thing we need a fax machine for is to get a signature on a contract. For those times, we can just tell our clients where to fax it. I think I speak for everyone at Twist Image when I say that we’re tired of fax spam from people offering ink cartridge refills, window washing services, courses on leadership and menus from local restaurants.
The concept of the fax was so cool when it came out. Everything about it now seems like a burden. It’s about as relevant as a cassette deck.
Imagine: we live in a world where people are still making money marketing to the public through the fax machine. I would hardly consider the fax a direct response marketing tool, but there are those that do.
I guess they are the same people who still send desk calendars to clients at the New Year, because who doesn’t have a Blackberry, Treo, Outlook or another form of PDA?

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.