Email Sig Protocol

[wolven7]

At what point has your email signature become just Too Damn Long?

I ask because, currently, my email Signature looks like this:

Damien Williams
Programming Chair
INSTITUTE FOR COMICS STUDIES ANNUAL ACADEMIC CONFERENCE
http://utdallas.edu/~mattbrown/DragonCon.html
Instructor of Philosophy
KENNESAW STATE UNIVERSITY
http://hp.hss.kennesaw.edu/about/faculty-staff/damien-williams/
Staff Writer
NEEDCOFFEE.COM
http://www.needcoffee.com/author/wolven
"Breathing" appearing in The Immanence of Myth
http://www.iom.weaponized.net/
damien (dot) williams7 (at) gmail(dot) com

All of that information is Pertinent and Relevant, and they are all different ways to get in contact with me for... Well. Whatever you might Need Me For.

But it still seems a little... Unweildy.

What do you think? What does your email sig look like?

Comments

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

My personal .sig:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Jonathan Korman :: San Francisco :: miniver.blogspot.com

nous voulons les structures au service de l’homme
et non pas l’homme au service des structures

My work .sig:

.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..

Jonathan Korman :: user experience :: Riverbed Technology

jonathan.korman@riverbed.com :: 415.555.5555
Y! & Skype: jonathankorman :: Lync: Jonathan Korman

nous voulons les structures au service de l'homme
et non pas l'homme au service des structures

I cannot seem to whittle them down any further than that.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Not bad.

[mrvi.livejournal.com]

Usenet standard used to be no longer than 4 lines. Try putting a | between your occupations, to have multiple ones on a line, and one URL which lists all details in full? Alternately, use URL shortners.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Problem being, I wear a lot of titles, all at once. That's a long line.

The "one urlcontaining the others" thing is interesting. I'll probably be implementing that.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

As for “unweildy”, it could be worse.

[cailement.livejournal.com]

I'm about to be critical, but its meant to be constructive.

yes, you should list everything you are and where, but I don't think the links are necessary in a Sig. Unless you are a business at that place. Listing your position and the name of the place, and I agree with the above with the line between the 2 on the same line, would be sufficient. Unless you can figure out how to hotlink the name, I think the URLs are just unclean looking and make the whole Sig look thrown together.

mine is my name
my workplace
my subject
my phone
my clean blog address (for the parents who don't know what I'm taking about)

then again, I do see then "this email contains privileged information" paragraph, so maybe it doesn't matter how long it is, just how neat and easy to read it is...

[nausved.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, I've never had an email signature. Sometimes I write my name (manually) at the end if I'm writing to someone who doesn't already know my name. But that's it.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

no contact info or anything? Huh. Interesting.

[raidingparty.livejournal.com]

Firstname Lastname {unit number if interacting with condo neighbors}
{Committee if posting as member of condo committee} / {Department if posting to people at work} / {Workplace if posting work stuff to people outside work} / {Dean of Mad Scientist University if posting to game designers}
{Phone number} / {Shortened phone number if posting to people at work}

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Throw me a john doe example

[raidingparty.livejournal.com]

Writing to condo:
John Doe (#123)

---

Writing to condo as an official committee member:
John Doe (#123)
Amnesia Committee

---

Writing to people at work:
John Doe
Examples Department
5-5555

---

Writing from work to people outside work:
John Doe
Imaginarium Corporation
555-555-5555

---

Screw it, I'm using myself for the game designer example because it's a different workspace:
Zachary Anderson
Dean of Mad Scientist University
http://www.atlas-games.com/product_tables/AG1310.php
555-555-5555

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Useful! Thanks.

[kitsuchan.livejournal.com]

Have you thought about having separate email addresses? I mean, all forwarding to the same gmail box or whatever? I try to keep academic/serious email pointed at my princeton address, while more frivolous stuff goes straight to my gmail. Given that you have at least two overlapping but different identities in your sig right now, why not separate them out? Your students at KSU probably don't need to be constantly reminded that you write for NEEDCOFFEE, and people considering hiring you for a writer may not need the constant reminder that you teach at a local college. (Likewise, my profs don't need the constant reminder that I'm also consulting for game design companies, which would mostly just remind them that I'm doing things other than READING FOR MY QUALS.

Your email signature isn't a resume, it's more like a name tag, to remind people who you are when they get a short response to something they asked about two days ago when they sent out 20 other emails. So if I were you, I would have one sig (attached to different email addresses or not) for your academic face, with the comics studies and the instructor, and another for your writer face, with the need coffee and maybe also the comics studies.

I would also probably drop the "breathing" notice, since as a writer you're going to eventually rack up a huge list of published writings. Unless you like having a space for your most recent or famous publication, which I guess makes sense.

And I agree with the advice to drop the links.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

I have separate addresses, but my main email is is my" independent operator" or "consultant" email. It's the one which says "This is who I am and what I do. Here's a quick reference to those things and, most importantly, how they all fit together."

See above response to mrvi, for potential solutions, but this isn't a reume: it's a reference list.

[kitsuchan.livejournal.com]

I know, but the list by itself doesn't give any idea of how these fit together, and moreover, nowhere in that sig do you actually say "consultant." What I get from the list is that you teach community college, you're a staff writer for a website, you do something involving comics and academia. So you probably have an MA or PhD, and you're active in things outside traditional academia, and you participate in SF/fantasy/geek culture. I myself know that you are creating a unified approach out of these different areas, but I wouldn't come to that conclusion looking at this.

The one URL idea is a good one.

[wolven.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think it solves the concerns you mention.

I'll need my own webspace to do it.