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I was reminded today how important Skype is as a work tool for me. It has allowed me to be “joined at the hip” with my colleagues in the Kabissa office in Washington DC, as well as keep in close contact with many friends and colleagues in Africa, in Europe, and of course in North America. All this despite being on Bainbridge Island near Seattle, far too many time zones away from all those lovely people.

Still, I had a call scheduled for this morning, and thanks to the convenience of Skype didn’t even have the phone number handy for the person I needed to talk with. Skype was acting mysterious and I was offline. I then did a quick search of my email and found his various contacts in the signature info at the bottom of his email. Web 2.0 may be all that, but after all these years, email remains the central organizing tool for my work life, and email sigs are still a massively important part of leading a professional online existence.

Jiminy Crickets. Here is the rather humdrum announcement of this huge event on the Skype blog:

UPDATED 14:02 GMT: Some of you may be having problems logging into Skype. Our engineering team has determined that it’s a software issue. We expect this to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours. Meanwhile, you can simply leave your Skype client running and as soon as the issue is resolved, you will be logged in. We apologize for the inconvenience.

And what’s an email sig, you ask? We covered this in a Kabissa Dear Mimi internet advice column last year: I miss my letterhead! How do I give e-mails from my organization a professional look?

Don’t forget to add a meaningful footer! Often referred to as a “signature”, a footer is a snippet of text that you can have automatically added to the bottom of every e-mail you send. Don’t underestimate the power of this snippet: it can contain your organization’s vital coordinates, a link to your Web site, and even an emotive parable, quote or tagline that you change from time to time. It is reassuring for people to know how and where they can reach you.

Note that last sentence in particular - email is still the principle “home on the Internet” for me and perhaps most people. It’s where we turn to for finding answers, getting help - and connecting with our social network. My sig hasn’t been replaced by my LinkedIn and Facebook profile pages - not just yet.