New rule: I don’t work with people whose primary email account is @hotmail.com

No snobbery really.  If you can’t tell the difference between hotmail and a service that cares for their customers, that is technically superior, or well designed, you won’t be able to tell the difference when we’re doing a bad job.  And that’s just not on.

Using a hotmail account for business also means you created that lousy account of yours too many years ago and you haven’t had the curiosity to learn, streamline your workflow, or do anything to improve your online communications.  Bad for business.

You may see things differently, but that doesn’t change the fact that people you want to talk to will notice it,  people who are perfectionists and possibly even more snob than I am.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

What’s worse: in all those years you have been subject to spam, trojan viruses, and have had your account compromised, possibly more than once and you didn’t even notice, or didn’t care. (not to mention to have my inbox spammed by you with a netbot residing in your PCs is BAD).  Bad for business too.

It may seem stupid to some, but for people like me, an email address is a token that can tell a few things about a person’s curiosity, creativity,entreprenurial drive and technical ability.

I’ve told myself not to be so snob too many times, but in the end my suspicions have been confirmed time and time again with incredible accuracy.

It’s not snobbery,  it’s merely the commonsensical, rational, business-savvy thing to do.