April 27, 2008

Welcome to the first "Defusing the Nuclear Threat" email for the NuclearRisk.org web site!

When Slashdot, one of the web's most influential news aggregators, covered our project it produced a two-day avalanche of viewers, confirming that a web-based approach has tremendous untapped potential for creating a more rational approach to nuclear weapons. We've made a great start and are now concentrating on "going viral" and trying to grow exponentially.

If it takes two participants to get one new person involved, that's clearly not good enough. No matter how many Nobel Laureates sign our statement, we are unlikely to reach enough people to make a difference.

On the other hand if each of us brings in two new participants, then we can see a much safer, saner world in a matter of just a few years. That's why the headline on each page of the website says,

YOU ARE THE KEY TO DEFUSING THE NUCLEAR THREAT.

You are!

When I created the website I hoped that one out of every ten people you invited also would become a participant. By improving the site content, the sample email, and other components, I believe that is still possible and am constantly working to increase our conversion rate. But right now it looks like it is closer to 1-in-30 than 1- in-10. Lower than I had hoped for, but still OK if we all work a bit harder. How long would it take for you to email 30 friends and let them know of the site? And, of course, reaching more provides both a safety margin and more rapid growth.

If you haven't yet emailed friends who might be interested, please consider doing so. If you already have, maybe you can find some additional people to invite. You can use either the TELL A FRIEND LINK on each page or the sample email at http://nuclearrisk.org/samples.php .

To keep messages to our promised "no more than one a week" this mailing list is not publicly available, so please send your ideas, comments and suggestions to me at ___ (email address was deleted from web version of this email to avoid spam). Changes in your email address and requests to unsubscribe also can be sent there.

Thanks again for your role in Defusing the Nuclear Threat. Working together we can do it!

Wishing you well,

Martin
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Martin Hellman
Member, National Academy of Engineering
Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering
Stanford University