The world is changing to mobile. Are your email signatures and etiquettes keeping pace? I have been emailing my close friends, one friend at a time, on how their email signatures need to evolve and thought a blog post was over due.
But then I came across an excellent post from the GigaOm network by Dave Clarke - The Email Signature: From Efficient to Overkill - but I found that it still missed a key element - the mobile, desktopless world we live in. So, I am going to take creative liberty and improvise his post to share what I consider to be the key to a great email signature, and the etiquettes.
The key is to have a concise, one line email signature that captures how I can contact you and learn about you.
Here is a typical long email signature and yes, I copied it from a real person's email but changed the identity:
Hi Anshu,
I am following up regarding sale of 7,000 user licenses. Did you get the invoice?
-Linda
Linda P. Smith
Senior Vice President, Boiler Plate Inc.
799 Bounty Dr, Suite 204, Foster City, CA 94107
(919) 945 8344 Phone (919) 848 4843 FAX
Follow me on Twitter @LindaPSmith
Find me at http://www.linkedin.com/in/LindaPSmith
Blogging at http://followmeblog.com
Yes, this is a real signature. And I have seen longer signatures that include other modes of connectivity. So let's look at what is and is not needed in an email signature.
5 Steps to a Great Email Signature
1. No Email Address: This is an obvious one if you think about it - if I am getting an email from you, I already have your email address. Its redundant, get rid of it.
2. Only One Line: Your goal should be to fit your email signature on one line. This is the most important point (and missing from Dave Clarke's great post). Here is my email signature and how it looks in an email:
Hi Dave,
Great post on email signatures. Check out my post and let me know what you think about the improvisations I propose.
Anshu
Anshu Sharma | Vice President | 919.888.4343 (m) | www.anshublog.com
Here's why? Most people these days read your email on a mobile device and every additional line you have makes it harder to scroll and read a thread. Remember, this rule applies even if you are not sending the email from a mobile device - its about the recipient and not the sender.
3. No Fax: I agree with Dave, unless you work in a job where you regularly get faxes, leave it out. Your recipient can always call or email you to ask for it as needed.
4. No Address: Again, same as above. No need to include a mailing address unless you expect people to show up at your office. Make sure your website has that information (and that when people search your company's name on Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps, it shows up).
5. Avoid Social Media Overload: We get it that you have a blog, a twitter account, a great resume on LinkedIn and so on and so forth. Pick one URL that is most relevant and publish that in your signature. If you have been watching TV these days, you will notice that Honda and Toyota ask you to visit www.facebook.com/Toyota etc. and not their corporate website. The call to action to visit you must be simplified. You can then let me connect to other media from that website.
As we keep adding channels from LinkedIn to Twitter; and delivery mechanisms from desktops to iPhones to iPads; and message formats from tweets to texts to emails. Its upto us to help each other maintain a semblance of inbox sanity. A clear concise signature and a clear concise subject line are the first two steps in that direction.
One of my favorite books of the year is the Linchpin by Seth Godin - it takes you on a journey from how our economy has evolved to a point where its neither necessary nor optimal for you to be a cog in the wheel of a faceless system that treats you as an anonymous resource that can be substituted - we are living in the age where those rules no longer apply, even if most of us don't know that or are in denial because we don't face the fact - more than ever, you are in control of your destiny. The book revolves around how you can be a Linchpin by being good at more than one thing - the power of AND over OR. If you are a writer and that's all you can do, you can be replaced by a slightly cheaper, slightly better writer - but if you are a writer who also is a great speaker or connects with his audience or writes about a passion that cannot be easily copied - then you are the indispensable linchpin. I see Tom Friedman of New York Times as a Linchpin, for example.
The New Polymath by friend and fellow Enterprise Irregular Vinnie Mirchandani is about companies - which in my mind are nothing but a collection of individuals with a shared purpose - be it the end of software or the beginning of CO2 free automobile industry. The book takes us through a journey of many companies that embody a Polymath - they are not just good at doing one thing (making computers or phones) but are transforming the industries by being good at several - an easy example is Apple.
About Apple, Vinnie writes:
Steve Jobs is explaining one major reason for the iPhone’s success— Apple’s ability to integrate hardware and software engineering: “We realized that almost all—maybe all—of future consumer electronics, the primary technology was going to be software. And we were pretty good at software. . . . None of the handset manufacturers really are strong in software.”
That is a modern polymath at work—integrating multiple modern disciplines. An AND mind-set, not an OR mind-set. Tear down an iPhone 3GS and it shows Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and GPS transceivers and lenses and chips and circuits and batteries—a marvel of miniaturization. It functions as a Web access device, a camera, a music player, a navigation device, a compass, a voice recorder, a modem, and more—and, of course, it is also a phone. That is a polymath as devices go.
He then goes on to write about many companies and organizations that we commonly think of as cutting edge like Google, Apple but also those that you may not read about every day including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the technologies that come together in the National Hurricane Center to Kleiner Perkins Cleantech. There is also an entire chapter devoted to Salesforce.com (the company I proudly work for) and cloud computing.
But above all, this is a book that uses the examples of these polymath companies to illustrate the key point - you (the company) need to bring together multiple, sometimes unrelated ideas & technologies to bear to create something beautiful, to create something of lasting value, to innovate and to transform - not just industries but people's lives.
As Marc Benioff says in the foreword to the New Polymath-
You have the power to create or join organizations that address society’s issues. You do not have to decide between making a social contribution or building a successful company or career. You can do many things. You can be a Polymath. As Mirchandani says, “it’s time for AND not OR.”
I see the two books - Linchpin and The New Polymath as two sides of the same coin - its only when you create or hire linchpins in your company that you can be a company worthy of being the new polymath.
There are a few questions every CIO, developer and business user will ask about VMForce:
What is VMforce?
Why does it matter to me?
How will it work?
Will it help me build new kinds of apps that are social and mobile?
In simple terms, VMforce service will allow every Java developer to write applications that can run in the cloud. VMforce provides out-of-the-box Java deployment in the cloud that is pre-integrated with a relational database, full-text search engine, reporting and analytics, user and identity management., as well as all the services that are needed to build, run, and manage an enterprise-grade business application.
VMforce allows developers to use Spring, the most popular framework for Java applications today to rapidly build an application and instantly deploy it on an enterprise-grade cloud infrastructure. The Spring Framework is backed by the SpringSource division of VMware.
Why does VMforce matter?
CIO
CIOs no longer want to spend 85 percent of their budget just keeping the lights on. They want to unleash innovation and deliver business value. This year's Gartner survey reveals the top ten items on CIOs' budgets. Virtualization and cloud computing are at the very top of the list, which also includes web2.0, mobile, and data & document management.
With the Force.com cloud platform, CIOs today have access to more than 1,000 business applications on the AppExchange that work with our multi-tenant architecture and require no additional development. Indeed, customers are taking advantage of the platform to create custom apps. So far they have built more than 150,000 apps.. But CIO's want to do even more.
If you are a CIO, here are few questions to help to assess the need for VMforce:
How much time and money does it take to build applications today in your current environment?
How can you match the innovation of the Facebook Era and bring it to your enterprise? The Facebook generation is no longer just people just graduated from college but also baby boomers (see this New York Times report).
Are you able to deliver apps that are social and mobile?
How much time and money is wasted in kluging together disparate technologies just to get basic features like search and reporting to work?
What if you could use all your existing in-house Java skill sets but not have to worry about mundane tasks that provide neither business value nor agility?
Business User
If you are a business user, here is a simple set of questions to determine if you need VMforce. Log in to your one or two most heavily used apps and see if the following rings a bell:
Does your application run inside the web browser?
Does your application allow you to search by any keyword across all data that you are allowed to see?
Does your application allow you to write a report that aggregates relevant data? Can you create a dashboard yourself?
Does your application allow you to see your data when you are on an iPhone or a BlackBerry? Can you even connect to your application?
Does your application have a feed for relevant changes to data that you care about just like Facebook?
This is just some of the functionality we take for granted in our personal lives when we use applications like Facebook, Google Gmail, and Amazon.com.Why can't all business applications offer similar ease-of-use and access?
Developer
If you are a developer, here is a list of questions you need to ask about applications you want to build:
Can you start building your application right away or do you need to first install and fuse together ten different pieces?
Are you spending more time writing interesting, new applications or more time simply keeping the old ones running?
Are your OS upgrades, database upgrades, and hardware upgrades managed for you? Or do you have to spend time doing that?
Are you able to write the business logic of the application and then offer features like search and reporting? Or do you have to cobble it all together?
Are you using an infrastructure cloud today? If so, does it offer all the services you need to build your apps and does it automatically manage those for you?
Can you build apps that are mobile and social? How do you do that?
Are you having fun?
Programming used to be fun. We think it can be fun again if you can focus on what you do best and let all the painful stuff like OS and database patch upgrades be managed by the cloud provider.
How?
Java developers today have no clear path to building next-generation cloud applications. They can build on-premise applications and deploy them on legacy stacks, but installing and integrating the different pieces you need to build a truly useful application can be a nightmare. Or, they can take the same jumbled stack and run it in a hosted environment – renting servers by the houror by the month. While Infrastructure as a Service offerings have some benefits if you want to test an application or need spike capacity, they still require the developer and the systems administrators to do a lot of heavy lifting – it's like renting an empty apartment where water, electricity and garbage are provided but you must bring all the appliances, hook them up yourself, and make all the repairs. What you really want is a fully furnished apartment that you can customize to meet your needs and not be responsible for every minor upgrade or fix.
Before VMforce, a Java developer that wanted to run his applications in a cloud had to assemble, configure, integrate, and manage a cumbersome set of disparate pieces ranging from storage to application servers and a database.Even then the developer was only half-way done. Real business applications need more than just an app server and a database. CIOs need to meet demands of end users for features that most of us now take for granted and make it all work with their enterprise architecture. This includes:
Search: Ability to search any and all data in your enterprise apps
Reporting: Ability to create dashboards and run reports, including the ability to modify these reports
Mobile: Ability to access business data from mobile devices ranging from BlackBerry phones to iPhones
Integration: Ability to integrate new applications via standard web services with existing applications
Business Process Management: Ability to visually define business processes and modify them as business needs evolve
User and Identity Management: Real-world applications have users! You need the capability to add, remove, and manage not just the users but what data and applications they can have access to
Application Administration: Usually an afterthought, administration is a critical piece once the application is deployed
Java developers used to either spent days and months to build and integrate these features after they finished writing their business logic and user interface (what most people think of as an "application") or they simply avoided providing this functionality, even though it is critical to business users and to the CIO. Creating it was just too onerous. Developers needed to weave a net of technologies or perform a fusion of unrelated technologies offered as a set of products.And these are just the features of applications users have wanted during the last decade.
During next decade users accustomed to social apps like Facebook will demand features allow real-time collaboration and work in the new desktop-less world of iPhone's and iPad's. As a developer, how will you build these applications? What new technologies will youneed to master? How many servers will you need to connect just to get a feed fromyour latest order tracking up so that it can be served up via iPhone to end users? Why is all this so hard? How can it be easier?
Social Profiles: Who are the users in this application so I can work with them?
Status Updates: What are these users doing? How can I help them and how can they help me?
Feeds: Beyond user status updates, how can I find the data that I need? How can this data come to me via Push? How can I be alerted if an expense report is approved or a physician is needed in a different room?
Content Sharing: How can I upload a presentation or a document and instantly share it in a secure and managed manner with the right set of co-workers?
Image: Force.com Application with Chatter feed
The Force.com platform makes building these data- and process-driven business apps really easy. With Chatter as part of the platform, you get many services out-of-the-box from feeds and updates to secure data access from your iPhone or Blackberry without having to write cumbersome code or connect to various gateways.
Meanwhile, in a land far, far away, VMware is transforming how businesses run their applications. With SpringSource as part of the VMware family, they have an incredible set of technologies to empower developers and CIOs. Java developers have known, used, and love the Spring Framework as a much more productive alternative to traditional technologies.
We have married the two sets of technologies to provide a rich development and runtime platform for Java developers. So let's see what it is comprised of and how it works.
Build
Now, with VMforce, Java developers can use the familiar Eclipse-based SpringSource Tool Suite (STS) development environment (IDE) – leveraging Force.com as a powerful relational database. Force.com provides much more functionality than any on-premise RDBMS from full-text search to analytics to mobile access. Simply, write the code in Java and store your data in Force.com; you then simply drag and drop the app into VMforce in your IDE and your app is now deployed on VMforce.
Run
The application runs on VMforce inside Salesforce.com data centers. VMforce is jointly managed and operated with VMware. The data is stored in Force.com where it is securely managed and backed up. In addition, application data can be searched, accessed on mobile devices, and reported on. The application runs on top of VMware vSphere, vCloud, and the tc Server, an enterprise version of Apache Tomcat.
Manage
Actually, there is not a whole lot to manage. The database, the search engine, the mobile capabilities, the business processes – all are managed for you. This is not your rent-a-server and perform-fusion-on-it cloud. This is true cloud computing – no software and no hardware to manage beyond your application logic.
So, there you have it – an enterprise cloud computing platform for running your Java applications using the popular Spring Framework – all running on technologies from VMware and Salesforce.com – the leaders in cloud computing. All integrated and managed for you. Hello Cloud!
Cloud 2: The Second Revolution
We believe that Cloud Computing is ready for a second revolution. The first one moved applications such as CRM, human resources, and payroll into the cloud and provided functionality similar to on-premise technologies. The next-generation of cloud applications will not only run in the cloud but also offer features and functionality that meet the Facebook imperative of a social, desktopless world. We call it Cloud 2.
VMforce, a service jointly offered by our partner VMware and Salesforce.com, can help you build Cloud 2 apps on a trusted cloud infrastructure (Force.com) using a programming language (Java) and framework (Spring) familiar to millions of developers.
Java Developers can now go from "Hello World" to "Hello Cloud"!
Now What?
If you are a CIO, IT leader, or a business user:
Register at www.vmforce.com or contact your Salesforce.com or VMware account executive
Watch these videos to learn more about Salesforce.com and VMware
Encourage your development team to start building applications using the Free Force.com Developer Edition
If you are a developer:
Register at www.vmforce.com to get the latest updates including availability and beta signup information
If you are a Java programmer and already familiar with Spring, you can learn about Force.com atdeveloper.force.com
You can sign up for the Free Developer Edition, which includes all the great features mentioned earlier and start building Force.com apps and/or learn how to write these apps
If you are a Force.com developer and want to take advantage of Java, click over towww.springsource.com and learn to build Spring-based Java apps by using the SpringSource Tool Suite and all the innovation in the Spring community
I live and work in the Silicon Valley. My current focus is on Enterprise Cloud Computing.
(All opinions expressed here are my personal views and do not reflect opinions of my employer.)
