Forget a Name, What's in an E-mail Address...

It is Marketing Wednesday and I present this nugget of wisdom unto you: Email addresses matter.

Which would you respect more on a business card:

crzygurl1028542@hotmail.com*

or

jane.doe@gmail.com*

If you picked the first, you are wrong. I know that some will argue that this is a matter of opinion and there is no wrong answer, but those people are just as wrong as the people they are defending.

Look, you aren't going blow people away with an email address and you don't want to. It should be something that is easy to remember, but not something that is so strange that people take special note of it.

Want an example of what I am talking about?

I first saw this window sticker at a local Mcdonald's years ago. And I took note. In a bad way. I have 2 issues with the email address in the above photo:

1. mcdcmk? At first glance it looks like some blindfolded themselves and randomly typed 6 letters. I get that it is a Mcdonald's (mcd) owned by CMK Corporation, but it is not intuitive.

2. There is not necessarily anything wrong with a hotmail address (I tend to favor gmail or yahoo in the realm of free addresses), but if you are a corporation, I don't like you using a free account. When I first saw this, I specifically remember thinking to myself, "if you are going to go to the trouble of making these stickers, why not have your own domain?" This is especially in this day and age. It is so easy to buy a domain and use gmail to handle it. So easy.

Imagine if you were given a business card from a guy who worked at some big company - say, Bank of America - and on the business card it says "bigbubba107@yahoo.com*". Tell me you aren't going to be a little suspicious. Or even if a friend recommends a local handyman and gives you his email address - "thug4lyfe_1973@gmail.com*" - are you going to be impressed with that?

In the end, having an email address is like the Utah Jazz playing the LA Clippers: you have to do it, and if you do it well, nobody cares; but if you do it poorly, people are going to ask questions.

* - If these email address are yours, sorry. It was purely a coincidence. I was hoping they would be unused.

Art of the Asterisk

So, before I get to the heart for this blog post, I apparently cannot post to my blog more than 9 times in a month. I thought this was going to be the month, but I was wrong. Maybe December...

Anyhow, I tend to talk a lot on this blog about things I don't like - because those are the easiest to notice in life and make fun of on a blog - but I am not really that negative of a person, so today I bring you something I don't like and something I do like.

I don't like when people misuse asterisks. I was listening to pandora the other day and beheld this ad:

Here we have VW advertising their new Jetta for $15,995. But it is not really $15,995, it is $15,995* - which means there should be fine print saying that if you want the car to come with seats, a steering wheel, and the engine; it is really more like $25,000. We have all gotten used to the system: you see an * and you immediately look to the bottom of the page for the explanation. But, in the above image, there is no explanation. There is nothing. Nowhere on that page can I find out what the asterisk means.

Then today I was reading a great blog post on desertnews.com and was asterisk-ed again. I read:

The seven teams' records before losing to the Jazz: 41-24*

and immediately went to the bottom of the page to find out what that meant, but there was nothing there. Nothing. What does the asterisk mean?!?

Here is what I am thinking:

The first asterisk in the above image is a reference to the second asterisk, but that makes no sense. The asterisk should either reference a note at the end of the article or the end of the section it is in. If he wanted it to be end of the section, it would have been like this:

With all of that said, here are: Kenny's Rules for Asterisks*
1. There always has to be an explanation. Always.
2. The explanation must be at the end of the same section or the bottom of the page.
3. The explanation must be in smaller type and italics.

I do like when people encourage others to visit my blog:

Props to Steve-o.
*I feel like with all of the talk of asterisks, there needs to be something down here. Enjoy the Christmas season which is now in full swing!

Names

Earlier today, for my own purposes, I needed to look up some 4 letter names (no, I am not having a child... much to my mother's dismay). So I googled "4 letter names that start with d" and of course a number of websites featuring baby names came up. One of the websites actually had a list comprised only of 4 letter names - turns out you really can find anything on the internet! - so that was the one I chose.

The webpage had two columns - boy names on the left and girl names on the right. I quickly found what I was looking for and was about to close the window when something caught my eye. What is this? Emma under the boy names?!? And Elie and Ella?

Listen people, I know that we have uni-sex names - Blair, Clair, Lindsay/Lindsey, Casey, Erin/Aaron, Jesse/Jessie, etc - but Emma, Elie, and Ella are simply not boy names. And I cannot be persuaded otherwise. That is like having a woman named Richard.

While we are talking about it, why are lists like this always called something like "Possible Baby Names"? I remember when my mother was pregnant with my youngest brother, The Swordsman (how is that for a name?), she went to the library and got a bunch of "baby name" books and I thought to myself, "what is the difference between a baby name and a grown-up name?" Seems like they should just be "name books".

And don't even get me started on the suggestion of the name "Flem". I feel like no one should ever be named after a substance produced by the body... Just my opinion. Sorry Pooh Williams, I have to draw the line somewhere.

The Kenny Vernacular (Part 2)

Torques My Grinder - When something "torques my grinder", it makes me angry. Windows Vista torques my grinder... When the Jazz lose my grinder is torqued... Speeding tickets torque my grinder... People who text while they drive, drive in the left lane when they are not passing anyone, and/or drive in my blind spot all torque my grinder...

The Kenny Vernacular (Part 1)

Part of what makes me me is that I have a distinct way of saying things... Here is (the beginning of) a list of terms, phrases, and acronyms you should know...

M.A.S.S. - Mid-Afternoon Sleepy Syndrome - This is that period of time after lunch when it is all you can do to not fall asleep. In a perfect world, we would have a nap time and call it something exciting like, ummm, I don't know... a Siesta? I know, I am being ridiculous... However, M.A.S.S. must never, ever, ever be confused with A.D.S.S...

A.D.S.S. - All-Day Sleepy Syndrome - This describes those days when from the moment you wake up, before you put on your make-up... wait, wait... no that is another thing... This describes those days when you never quite wake up. Well into the evening you feel like a groggy, zombie.

Hotter than a devil's drawers - Not sure exactly where I picked this little number up but I am fairly sure it is circa 2005. Let's just say that I am very warm when I bust this line.

Sweatin' like schvitz - I have been using this one for years. When it is "hotter than a devil's drawers", chances are I am sweatin' schvitz. (I guess a "schvitz" is either a turkish bath-house, or the yiddish word for "sweat")

The Christmas Effect - This is that feeling that you get when something exciting is going to happen. Maybe you ordered a cool new computer online and you have to wait for it to be shipped to you... Or it is the beginning of October and you can feel the Utah Jazz season just around the corner... that is the Christmas effect.

More to come...