Better email signature with norbt, an example

Posted on October 2009

Creating safer, simpler and more secure email signatures is a breeze.

The following example demonstrates how norbt gave back control of his email signatures to John Smith.

Let’s see what John Smith did

Here is his original email signature:
--
John Smith
email: jsmith57@fakeemail.com
cell: 444-444-444
tel: 555-444-444
fax: 333-444-444
twitter : jsmith57
skype : jsmith57
blog: http://fakeblog.jsmith.com
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/jsmith57
linkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/jsmith57
Address:
872 Fake Street
Fake Town, FS 12345

His old email signature had a few problems:

  1. It’s too long. It distracted people away from the content of his email.
  2. He has no control over who receives his personal information.
  3. He has no means to update his signature after sending an email

To solve his problem he creates a norbt for his personal email signature. This is a norbt that only friends and family will be able to access. To limit access only to this audience he creates a question that only this close group of people would know. John’s norbt question for his personal contact details is “What are the names of my children? Format : daugther name (space) son name.” answer: “Julia Zack”

His new norbt email signature is:
- -
John Smith
Contact info: https://norbt.com/7VMTPR

Click on the link after contact info. You will see just how easy it is to protect your details while still giving access to those who need the data.
Since John has created his norbt a couple people have asked him to remind them the name of his kids. John thinks twice about these requests since these folks can’t be too good of a friend if they don’t know how many kids he has!

Several people have commented on the fact that his emails don’t use 10 sheets of paper when they print them out.

He has been congratulated by somebody in the IT department for the nettiquete of his email signature.

In the weeks following the creation of his norbt, John changed a couple of contact details. Since he changed the data in his norbt, his data is up-to-date in all of his emails, even those that he sent before he changed his details.

Another thing that amazes him is that he is not receiving as much spam as he did in his email accounts, he wonders if making his contact data only accessible to humans (via a norbt email signature) has anything to do with it.

Using norbt for email signature improved John Smith’s life, it may improve yours as well.

If you need help creating a norbt email signature, check out our howto post.

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How to: norbt email signature

Posted on October 2009

step by step

  1. Go to norbt.com and click create a norbt.
  2. Think up a title – this should be something descriptive like – John Smith Business Contact Details.  This goes in the title box.
  3. Think up a question.  This is the way that you protect your data and only give people in the know access to your deets.  If this question protects your professional data then maybe you want a question that is easy to figure out like “What is my company name?”.  If this question is protecting your personal details then perhaps you want something a little more complex and tricky like “What is my cat’s name?”  This question goes in the question box.
  4. Carefully type the answer to your question.  This is the exact text (with spaces, punctuation etc.) that your audience will have to type to ensure that they are able to reach your hidden text.  If your question is “What is my company name?” then your answer might be Acme Corporation.  The answer isn’t case sensitive (“Acme” is equivalent to “acme”).
  5. In the locked text box you are going to put the text or information that you want to protect.  If you are protecting your professional details you might put the following in the locked text box:
    • Business phone
    • Business mobile
    • Business fax
    • email
    • web page
    • mailing address
    • anything else
  6. Think of a password that you will remember.  You will need the password to manage your norbt that you just created.  Did your work phone change?  This is the way that you can edit your professional details without having to change the link that you put in your email signature.
  7. Once you have created your norbt, copy the link that appears in the pop-up box which will be something like this https://norbt.com/MLZLTZ and put it in your email signature.

example:

--
John Smith
Contact info: https://norbt.com/MLZLTZ

Notes:
You can click on the link in the previous example to view John Smith’s norbt

Benefits

  • Email signature security. Confound the web crawlers. Your norbt is encrypted and only accessible to those that provide the right answer.
  • Email signature simplicity. Short signatures are a thing of beauty (nettiquet).
  • Email signature continuity. You control the data in your norbt. Your details are always up-to-date.

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