So my old business email still functions, simply because I registered on so many sites during those years. My two school addresses forward into an email account for people to keep in touch. Many of my personal friends only have Facebook to reach me. The three businesses that I am consulting for in various capacities all have me with a corporate email… and these all filter into my poor little Blackberry.
I’m certainly not unique, having used wireless email since the original “pager type” blackberry and the original BES server. Like most technology executives, I may have been bouncing between Blackberries, Palm Phones, and now back to Blackberries, I’m generally always reachable.
This has an advantage in that I’m never tethered, floating between offices and able to conduct business, but it also has the draw back of needing to find time to decompress. I have started shutting off my devices for large stretches of the weekend, letting me focus on my wife and children. You can always turn the device on and get your deluge of contacts, and very little is ever so real time that a 24 hour delay will kill them.
The constant communications is a mixed blessing, but if handled properly, we have a tremendous ability to schedule our lives as we see fit, on the go, from a small hand held device.