Opinion: Hey, you, go ahead and come onto my cloud

Our data does not go to the cloud and waft around in forever morphing nondescript semblances of imagery. The cloud is much more logical and intentional. And, as my colleague wrote so truly, it's simply someone else's computer, an image you can envision. — dpa

Many people like to tag their email signature line with inspirational, philosophical, or humorous quotes. We tend to skim over or wholly ignore email signatures. We already know your name by virtue of you being the sender. Your company name, address, phone number... all that we either know or don't need. You've already gotten our attention. It's a loss, then, too many times when you add that very personal touch of a quotation and we aren't observant enough to take it in.

I do fairly well with staying engaged for the entirety of an email, even the signature line and quote. Some correspondents ping me dozens or more times daily or weekly. Theirs, I assume, are more likely to get the skim-over. Usually, time permitting, whenever I see a new sender's name, or I get an email from someone I rarely do, or someone whose authority or position I truly respect, I'll be more caring about reviewing the entire message. Many of the more highfalutin types demonstrate their level of operation with their brevity: no title, no formal salutation, and certainly no personalised quote.