Signature Psychology

There's a great piece on Information Week entitled, "What Does Your E-mail Signature Say About You?" It is so accurate its creepy:

Important people don't bother with e-mail sigs.

Your e-mail signature reflects how powerful you are. If you were profiled on 60 Minutes, you don't need no steenkin' e-mail signature.

The primary purpose of an e-mail sig is to let people know who you are and how to contact you. If you're really, really important, your e-mail recipients had better already know that.

If you're a billionaire, you write your e-mail entirely in lower-case and sign it with the one-syllable nickname you had in prep school:

get on this right away. biff

The longer your e-mail signature, the lower down the food chain you are.

Some people put a whole novel in their sig:

Their full name, including "Jr." or "Sr."

Job title, which generally includes both the words "deputy" and assistant.

Street-mail address with mail stop.

Business phone number, with different versions for people dialing from the internal corporate PBX vs. people dialing from outside.

E-mail address. 'Cuz it's not like it's in the "From:" line of every e-mail or anything.

And finish it off with an inspirational quote from Battlestar Galactica.

If that's a description of your signature, then you're a flunky. Time for a Starbucks run, Commander Starbuck.

The billionaire/powerful CEO name only or initials only signature is so true. Perhaps I'll start signing initials only...