PWOC International Blog

“Who are you?” — I find myself typing this a lot lately.

Remember a thousand years ago when the Internet was introduced? Shortly thereafter came Email? Back then, we were all ignorant about cyber-safety. We created usernames like Pookey, ArmyMom and CatLady. One of my earlier email addresses was BeagleMomOf2. I had two beagles so it seemed to fit. To use our real name wasn’t a consideration then.

Fast forward those thousand years and we know a lot more about the threats, both real and perceived, that haunt our online presence. We’ve finally learned that using our real name for our email address isn’t really a threat after all…or have we?

So often, I still see generic usernames on email messages but that in itself isn’t the problem. The problem is introduced when the sender of the message fails to sign it and the reader is left with the question, “Who are you?” Furthermore, failing to sign your message is a fast track to the Junk bin! If you want to be taken seriously, identify yourself.

Personally, I strongly prefer using your real name for your email address. The army does it and if you haven’t noticed, they don’t do anything that could be considered unsafe (on the web, that is).  But if that’s still too risky for your comfort level, then please, oh please, begin using a Signature Block telling your reader who you are. If you’ve sent them a message, then you must want them to know who you are, right?

Don’t know what a Signature Block is? In every email system, whether you use an online webmail (Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) or an Email Client (Outlook, Apple Mail, etc.), you have a feature that allows you to include a block of text at the end of every message you write…automatically. Moving forward, every message you write will automatically add this information to the bottom of the message and your reader will never again have to ask, “Who are you?”

Before setting up your Signature block, consider these two points I mentioned in my May 26, 2009 Tech Tuesday entry:

Keep Your Signature to 5 Lines of Text
“Signature” is a synonym for brief and unobtrusive — or at least it should be, because overly long signatures in emails are an annoyance.

No Need for Street Addresses in Email Signatures
Come visit me, everybody! Unless you want everybody and the whole world to know where you live, don’t include your street address in your email signature.

For help creating a Signature block in the various mail systems, try one of the links below:

Gmail
Yahoo
Hotmail
Outlook 2003
Outlook 2007Apple Mail
Entourage 2008

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“Tech Tuesday” is published every Tuesday. To reach Tracy with comments or questions, email her here.