Signatures It is good to experiment with your signature style – have a look at what others do so you can decide what you do and don’t like. You can use colour, different font formats, and even add a graphic. You may have to check your menus in Outlook but in 2000, to create a signature, you can click on Tools, Options, then select Mail Format, then Signature Picker and New. Depending on options you chose when installing Outlook, a simple editor, or Word may open. Write your signature block, give it a name and save it. You can also choose (after saving) whether signature block will be used on Replies and Forwards for email. This detail is simplified – if you need detailed assistance, please call me or email me for further instruction.

Another suggestion - trim message before sending it back to group. What I mean by this is do not leave all original discussion and replies at tail end as this is unnecessary and makes it inconvenient for those who have chosen to receive a daily digest of messages (they keep reading same things over and over otherwise) and difficult for those who are on limited bandwidth for email. But don't delete whole previous message - if you are responding to something, or adding to discussion. There are often multiple discussions going on and it could prove difficult for reader to understand what you're saying, and in what context, if whole previous message is deleted from your response. I have at times read something posted to a group and thought 'huh?' There is a happy medium here.

Discussion groups give you an opportunity to learn from others and share ideas, but more than that, it allows you to make friends on a global scale, and then world really does seem to become smaller. And, if you are really knowledgeable in your field, it also helps enforce this to others and before you know it, you become a respected member that others seek to learn from and perhaps be mentored by. What a privilege that can be!

One word of warning - belonging to multiple groups can become time consuming and addictive! You could find yourself spending more time reading and responding to messages than getting your work done. So, if you work virtually like I, and my team do, that can become a real danger to your business. As in all things, moderation is key, and you stand to learn many things and make lots of friends.