Earlier this week, I commented on Ken Smith’s inquiry into the use of semaphore for communication, noting that I felt his interest in the use of semaphore was to inform people in case of a crisis. This morning, I received an email alert from the Americans of Conscience Checklist. This group sends email on a regular basis with selected actions to promote progressive issues (I am a subscriber). In this email alert, (called a “time-sensitive” action), subscribers were asked to call US senators to ask them to vote “No” on the FISA reauthorization bill. I think this fits the “use case” of semaphore that Ken Smith was discussing. The people subscribed to this list have been “trained” to take action on suggested items on a periodic basis, so they would have the necessary reflexes to take action for a time-sensitive request.

But, you may say, “I get emails asking me to do things (“buy stuff”) all the time – what is the difference?”. I think the difference is those emails mostly go unanswered, and the user has been trained to ignore most, if not all of them. If a group has been trained to take action in a certain way, and there is trust in the communication path, then emails like this can have an effect.