Playing with words and trying to find the right combination to introduce the chapter of my upcoming book on email.
Email has become so commonplace to those who use it. We no longer stop to consider how drastically our global communication system has changed for the better.
A few short months before writing this book, I attended the annual convention of Rotary International, the well known worldwide service organization. I met people from many different countries at the convention. As I collected business cards, I has no real worry about keeping in touch with these people.
Through email, I could avoid long distance telephone fees and long delays in sending letters. I could retain a record of my communications with my new friends. And I could easily communicate with the whole groups or people from certain areas of the world.
Don't get me wrong. There are occasions when I would rather pick up the phone or post a letter than send an email. But, I often choose email because of its many benefits.
In 1996, I started using email because of love. I was dating a woman who lived in South Africa. I lived in South Africa for a while as well but, after two years of globetrotting, I moved back to Canada. My lonely heart soon became the mortal enemy of my phone bill - my monthly long distance charges were running into the hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. I decided that if I were to save my phone line from disconnection, I needed a computer, email access, and an email account. It is hard to believe but this, at the time, was the cheaper option.
Email does have its downsides. Namely, those awful junk email spam messages that appear in many people's inboxes.
I will make you a promise. As well as showing you the many great things email programs can do, I will also give you detailed instructions on how to minimize the downsides.
More soon..
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