Got a big family? Here at Hover, with our team spread far across the globe, we understand the
struggle of coordinating everything – even with ample technology at our fingertips. When you’re a tight knit family yet you live far apart, it can seem difficult organizing basic events – weddings, reunions, baby showers, and not to mention the challenges in remembering everyone’s complicated (and often embarrassing) old email addresses. When half of your family is using their work email address and the other half is using ACDCisthebestbandever1990000s@hotmail.com, things get discombobulated. Not to mention that people leave their jobs and their previously attended-to email account becomes suddenly defunct. Mixing in family emails amongst all the other messages you receive, ranging from important to junk, can cause those family messages to get lost or dismissed in the mix.
The best idea I came across recently was this: get your family a .FAMILY Top-Level Domain (TLD) and create emails for every family member off of this domain name extension. Use this email to coordinate all family-related business. Whether you’re planning an event that everyone must attend, or simply coordinating dinner with mom and dad, a .FAMILY domain email helps everyone keep organized, and keeps the family plans outside of your work account. Further, when your family is far apart, it provides a sense of togetherness.
Take the Smith-Casey family: they’re widespread, with relatives in Toronto, Vancouver, San Diego, London (UK), and Delft (Netherlands). Trying to organize their annual reunions became very difficult, as some family members had moved jobs or changed primary email addresses. The older family members used Facebook *ahem* a little too much, and the younger generation avoided Facebook like the plague. The Smith-Casey family couldn’t exactly orchestrate an international call between multiple people, since the timezones proved difficult to manage. They decided to make their own .FAMILY email to keep in touch and plan gatherings.
Setting up their own family-centred email accounts made certain that everyone would receive the emails and know to check this account for family-related updates. No one was accidentally left off of email threads since the email names were easy to remember, and most importantly they could simply guess someone’s email address without needing to confirm it with anyone. Finally, they were able to set up forwarding to Outlook and Gmail, so that no one had to re-learn a mailbox and could use what they were familiar with. Paired with a calendar app, this email became a great tool that allowed them to properly plan get togethers and update each other on their lives (and send photos!). Email is an easy-to-master tool for all age groups, ensuring young and old can keep in touch.
If you have family living in awesome locations around the world, but want to stay connected (and maybe swing an invite for a place to stay on vacation!), this is a great way to do it. Hover has mailbox types that suit all needs and price points for every budget.
