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Email: Still a Record After All These Years …and what about Twitter, wikis & blogs – oh my!!!. Donna Read, CRM Florida Gulf Coast ARMA Chapter Sarasota, Florida January 19, 2010. Steps for Managing Email & Other Social Media Tools (Web 2.0).
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Email: Still a Record After All These Years …and what about Twitter, wikis & blogs – oh my!!! Donna Read, CRM Florida Gulf Coast ARMA Chapter Sarasota, Florida January 19, 2010
Steps for Managing Email & Other Social Media Tools (Web 2.0) #1 Research & Homework – what’s the current situation #2 Educate – Train – Raise Awareness #3 Develop Email & Social Media Policy #4 Determine best solutions for your organization #5 Implement, Enforce & Audit
Love - Hate Affair with Email • “Email is like coming home at night after a long day and finding 70 people in your kitchen.” John O’Donohue, Irish poet
Statistics • Average employee spends 2.5 hours a day dealing with emails • Search on Google for “embarrassing emails” brought up 849,000 hits • 247 billion emails were sent each day in 2009 http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email-statistics.htm
Defining “Other Social Media” By Robin Riat
More Time Spent Social Networking Than on Email PC Magazine March 2009 Blogs and social networking are consuming more online time than checking and writing personal email, market research firm Nielsen Online reported. One in every 11 minutes online globally is accounted for by social network and blogging sites, the group found, or 45 billion minutes in total. That works out to a bit more than a combined 85,500 years spent on blogs and social networking sites in Dec. 2008 alone.
Save money Saves time No need for human intervention Digital format for sharing & manipulation Informal careless Persists Proliferates No privacy Potential for misuse Virus carrier Litigation target E-mail & Other Social Media: Benefits & Drawbacks Drawbacks Benefits
Step #1 – Research & Homework • What is the current situation? • Is there already email and other social media policy in place? • Is there a deletion process in place – what is it? • Where does the email live – a separate server or mixed in with all other data – inside the firewall or on the cloud? • What is the volume of legacy emails?
Step #2 - Educate – Train – Raise Awareness Email & other social media communications must be recognized as a potential record Start with management – teach them how to recognize a record Use statistics – headlines – litigation risks
Where’s the Risk • Up to 80% of e-mail creators stated that they did not “have a clue’ as to when their e-mail qualified as an official record • “great inconsistency” as to what was actually classified as a record • Staff were “largely unaware” of the existence of organizational e-mail policies Rick Barry “Email Legal Status” Message posted to the Australian Archivists(aus-archivists) listserv on March 31, 1998
Typical Email “In Box” - Most of the messages shown are NOT Records!
This personal message was erroneously broadcast to 3,000 Email boxes on a listserv
Recognizing Email & Web 2.0 Records • Am I the originator of the message? • Is it a substantive message or just routine ‘chit-chat’? • If so, does the message have to do with the work of my office? • Is the content of the message something that I will need in future years to do my job?
More questions to ask…. • Does the message support decisions that were made in my program area? • If I am the recipient, is the message “information only”? • Does it require me to take action? • Will someone need the message for operational, fiscal, or legal purposes? • Use the same thought processes as you do when taking action on other documents that cross your desk! BE SELECTIVE ABOUT WHAT YOU KEEP!
Step #3 - Develop Email & Web 2.0 Policy SEDONA GUIDELINES ON EMAIL POLICY DEVELOPMENT Guideline 1: Email retention policies should reflect the input of functional and business units through a team approach and should include the entire organization including any operations outside the United States. Guideline 2: The team should develop a current understanding of email retention policies and practices actually in use within the entity. Guideline 3: An entity should select features for updates and revisions of email retention policy with the understanding that a variety of possible approaches reflecting size, complexity and policy priorities are possible. Guideline 4: Any technical solutions should meet the functional requirements identified as part of policy development and should be carefully integrated into existing systems.
More From Sedona Guidelines Framework for policy development General Retention Considerations Typical Retention Features1. User Mailbox Size Limitations (“Quotas”)2. Automatic Deletion of User Mailbox Contents3. Extended Storage Options4. Restrictions on Local Storage The Importance of Litigation Holds www.thesedonaconference.org
Email Policy TOC Funtional Overview Roles & Responsiblities General Information and Guidelines Generating and Preparing Emails Storing Emails in a document mgt system Disposal of Emails Definition of records along with other vocabulary Laws and Regulations
Definition of Email from DOC Email Policy “An email message consists of any document created, transmitted, or received on an email system, including message text and any attachments, such as word-processed documents, spreadsheets, and graphics that may be transmitted with a message, or with an envelope containing no message.”
Twitter Indiscretion Govtech.com 2009
E-mail MUST be managed from 3 different perspectives • Legal Risk Management • Records Management • Information Technology Management
Step #4 – Determine the best solution for your organization Team of stakeholders – Management, RM, IT, Legal, & Budget Map out optionsa) Manually manage e-mail & Web 2.0b) Use software to managec) Combination of both *all options involve resources $$
Moving to a new system Non-Business information that is no longer useful to you and can be destroyed In-progress information you have created or received that is directly related to your current work activities. Includes short-term reference materials or personal information useful only to you in conducting company business Final information directly related to your assigned work activities or information required for the company to have adequate records. These records are defined in the Corporate Records Retention Schedule
Marking Electronic Records E-Mail Example – Marking Subject / File Code
Email Involved in Litigation • “No matter what happens, we have to slow down Netscape’s ability to drive new protocols/stds down.” “Do we have a clear plan on what we want Apple to do to undermine Sun?” • Microsoft emails used by Department of Justice in antitrust litigation.
Choosing Software One size does not fit all Nothing is plug and play Costs continue - not a one time thing Needs to work with other systems in your organization Takes a lot of resources and continued IT support
E-mail Law Suits • Wrongful Termination: Potential cost $20 million • Martha Stewart • Enron Corporation • Procter & Gamble Corporation • Department of the Interior BEWARE OF LITIGATION
“The meeting with the FDA yesterday was a tremendous success! No black box [warning]!” Email discovered during Fen-Phen litigation of pharmaceutical executive bragging about convincing the FDA that a warning label on a bottle was unnecessary. Settled for $3.75 billion Are Email & other Web 2.0 transmissions a record?
Step #5 – Implement, Enforce & Audit • Once policy is developed & approved it must be distributed and taught • Policy needs to include what steps will be in place to enforce the new rules • Everyone in the organization needs to understand the importance of following the policy • Audit of the email and Web 2.0 tools will ensure that implementation is done
Summary - 5 Steps • #1 Research & Homework – what’s the current situation • #2 Educate – Train – Raise Awareness • #3 Develop Email & Social Media Policy • #4 Determine best solutions for your organization • #5 Implement, Enforce & Audit
Thank you Donna Read, CRM Senior Records Analyst National Archives & Records Administration dlread@verizon.net Donna.read@nara.gov WWII Poster