Several friends of mine recently left their job all at once (the company had a mass layoff). I checked in LinkedIN, and it looks like I’m now missing a way to directly contact at least 70 of them, because they used their business email address as their primary point of contact. My goal in writing this is to get you to consider one of two options: either buy a domain to use as your email address, or at least get a gmail account.
Why NOT to use your ISP’s email address
Say you make your home email address your primary point of contact. If your home address is [email protected], what happens when you shift from Comcast to Verizon? You’ve just lost a bunch of folks who only knew how to reach you the other way.
Why NOT to use your business’s email address
Times change. People move. That’s one reason, but the other is this: sometimes, your company doesn’t want your company being represented by the places you visit and use that email. For example, we had a CTO who pointed out that anyone in our company contributing to security forums online using their work email address would be terminated. Why? Because every time someone from my company’s security team asked a question on such a forum, it signaled to hackers (who read the same forums) our company’s vulnerabilities.
Buying a Domain for email is easy
There are plenty of providers. I use 1&1, though I don’t give them the highest marks. Lots of people use GoDaddy, and if you use them, check around with your favorite podcasters, because some have deals with GoDaddy that save you money and give the podcaster a few bucks, too. The cost for a domain, especially if all you’re going to use it for is email, is around $6US a year right now (yes, you can find cheaper, or more costly).
Or Gmail
I recommend gmail because it’s easy. It’s web-based. It’s flexible. You can use it with a mail application on your desktop, with a BlackBerry, and in lots of other ways. It has powerful search, and is widely accepted as a good import gateway for most social networking sites, meaning you can make your friends portable.
Equipping YOU
The basic idea, in case I wasn’t clear, is that by making an email presence that points directly to YOU, people will know how to reach you, no matter what the circumstances of your employment or your choice of ISP on a given day. It’s about maintaining connectivity.
What do you think?
Photo credit, Joe Shiabotnik