Over the Internet, your name is your personal trademark

I have been dealing with freelancers for various tasks (translations, graphists, development), and it’s still unbelievable that most freelancers do not pay any attention to maintain a consistant name in their communications. Let me clarify this point: I do not care to know of the exact legal name of any freelancer I am dealing with. But how can I even recognize the person if messages never get signed twice with same name?

Over the Internet, your name is your personal trademark. If you’re not careful, people will simply not remember who you are and this rule isn’t restricted to freelancers. The most usual consequence over poor name branding is that people will filter out your communication attempts (email, intant messenger and the like) as spam. A clear naming policy means that your name must be explicited and obvious in all your communications ranging from Skype to regular postal mails.

In my experience, the most common inconsistant naming case are the following:

• The e-mail must completely match the person name. If your name is John Smith then your email must be [email protected] not [email protected] or [email protected]. If you have a lengthy name so will be your e-mail address.

• The Skype/MSN/Whatever username must completely match the person name too. I have found the instant messaging practices to be even worse. Fantasy names like batman4ever are not uncommon. A good practice is to use your e-mail as a instant messenger id.

• Lack of personal home page: Google is the de facto yellow pages. When somebody type your name then he must get your home page. If your name is really John Smith then it’s going to be tough. Well, in such case, just add some random nickname between the first and the last name to become distinguishable.

It may appear obvious to some of us, but it seems that many people do not realize that the lack of consistency in their communications does have a strong (negative) impact on the people they are communicating with, especially if the name is the only concrete reference to the person