I especially loved this bit: "I was researching Automattic , Inc. and wanted to ask you if there was any gaps/pains within your CMS and website. "
What a bold faced lie! Obviously he didn't spend even 2 seconds researching anything related to Automattic. Acquia harvested Matt's information and spammed him, and they deserve to be called out.
He could've made the point just as well while omitting personal information. The only value the identity adds is the potential for harassment (not insinuating that this is Matt's intention, only that this is the likely outcome of personal information on the internet in this day and age).
I have no problem with calling out the company. I'd have no problem with the first name even. But the phone number and last name are personally identifying and unnecessarily endanger the representative.
Edit: Also, he's right here -- full name and picture, even -- on Acquia's own public site: http://www.acquia.com/about-us/team/dillon-vassallo
No, that's not an excuse. Having to make a living is not a free pass to be a douche[1] to strangers with impunity.
1: And the lies - "I was researching" which then makes "I'm sorry for the cold email" a second lie - makes him a douche.
Too much political correctness can be bad.
If you can't handle it, then don't cold-email people. He did nothing, just published this information (last name blurred, not sure if this was done afterwards) which in itself reveals no private information of any of the parts.
enterprise sales organizations often do research on individual companies or market verticals, add entries into a big list, maybe combined with other marketing/sales people, and then do a mail merge from their CMS or other software.
just because the sender may not have realized this particular corporation was a direct competitor does not mean they didn't do any research on the company or its market.
perhaps sales guy was going through 200 companies that day in a list sorted on website traffic rankings, or annual revenues, or hosting provider, or any number of other bits of info.
anyway, i run a startup, and i partially rely on received cold emails to get an understanding of the marketplace. we've found vendors, competitors, and VARs that we otherwise wouldn't have known existed. sorry, it's just the way it's done.
Sorry, I just can't make that leap. The SERP for 'Automattic' is all that should have been required to move on.
this is the world you are helping to build.
I've always heard this as bald-faced lie.