Maarja ... You have some good points, but and using the government example
exclusively, the chance of finding the email is just as good as finding the
paper   IF the IT system is doing their job properly.  If not you have
electronic document problems (think the Department of Interior records on
American Indian accounting system).

In theory, there should be a backup tape/system in place that would also
have the document on file.  Many of the failures that I see are ones where
the appropriate safeguards, backups, disaster recovery systems, were not in
place or didn't work (think New Orleans).  In cases involving the U.S.
Executive Office, while there may be rules, they don't seem to make a
difference (think back to the Clinton years and the missing emails) and
after sitting though a meeting on public disclosure a couple of weeks ago,
the state and local governments have a long way to go.

It frankly boils down to ethics and the honesty of the people working in
public and private sector to do the right thing.  Unfortunately, you are
always going to have some who will not play by the rules.

Until we can find a system that will replace the human element, we will have
to rely on people to make their best judgement about email, paper and other
electronic documents (word, excel, etc.,).

Bob Dalton, CRM
Dalton Consulting

......................

Amanda writes, "People aren't necessarily the best placed to make R&D
decisions about their email, but like anything else, there's ignorance which
can be overcome."

.....................

Maarja wrote:

Lets say a neutral, third party has noted to your boss that a different
approach-similar to the one your subordinate suggested-would have achieved
better results.  Since the project was done in a quick turnaround, say in
less than 90 days, your email system has not yet autodeleted email from the
time period when your subordinate suggested the other approach.

The failure of the project is an aberration.  You, as a subject matter
expert, have a very solid track record within the agency.  You get along
very well with your senior executive boss.  Discussing what went wrong might
be somewhat personally embarrassing but is something you know you could
recover from.  Depending on the type of person you are, you could handle
this several ways.  I'll describe two approaches.

(1)  You are confident but not arrogant, and courageous enough to face up to
the facts when you do something wrong.  You give your boss access to all
materials, including electronic or hard copy email messages.  You and your
boss discuss what went wrong and why and agree that the younger colleague
had insights you had not considered sufficiently.  Your boss does not lose
trust in you-your past track record is so solid you can absorb this-but it
is a difficult experience for you to go through.  But, you keep in mind the
goal of organizational integrity, what's best for the group as a whole, not
just you as an individual.

(2)  You're arrogant and strongly vested in protecting an image of yourself
as the Alpha, someone who not only always prevails, but has impeccable
professional judgment and never is wrong.  This matters more to you than the
organization's ability to learn lessons.  You review the electronic file
that your junior colleague had created.  Despite the fact that they are
Federal records, you delete the electronic copies of the email exchanges
that your junior colleage had saved in the folder in the document management
system.  You also make sure you have purged your own email account of the
emails that show you rejecting the alternative approach.  You present your
boss for his review a folder (hard copy or electronic) that simply shows
some bland documents showing project progress reviews.  There's no way to
tell how the chosen approach evolved and what was considered and rejected.
Since this is not a legal inquiry, you know no one will ask for backup tapes
or even suspect that !
 records have been deleted or altered.

Which approach captures the true history of the project as opposed to a
sanitized, self serving version?  Which is more likely to enable the people
in your office to learn some lessons?  Yeah, yeah, I know some of you might
say, "hey, why did you create records by putting your rebuffs of your
colleague in email in the first place?  I save that kind of stuff for oral
communications, best not to leave a paper trail that might come back to
haunt me!"  That approach could be called pre-emptive sanitization.

In considering everything that can go wrong with email, let's take it up a
notch.   Keep in mind that before coming to GAO to work as its historian, I
worked at the National Archives for 14 years, screening the Nixon tapes for
public access.  My specialty was the "abuse of governmental power"
materials.  Naturally, I follow stories about Presidential records closely.

Consider this extract from an article from Government  Computer News, June
4, 2001:

"Poor contractor oversight by the office staffs of President Clinton and
Vice President Gore led to problems with archiving e-mail and left officials
scrambling to recover years' worth of electronic documents.

The problems surfaced after congressional committees investigating potential
campaign finance irregularities subpoenaed White House e-mail records."
http://www.gcn.com/vol20_no13/news/4378-1.html

That article refers to a GAO report, "Electronic Records: Clinton
Administration's Management of Executive Office of the President E-Mail
System,
 GAO-01-446  April 30, 2001, available at
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01446.pdf.

GAO has noted the human factor in its earlier work on removal of records by
high level officials in the executive branch.  GAO noted in 1991 in a report
on "Federal Records: Document Removal by Agency Heads Needs Independent
Oversight" that subordinates might not be able to challenge the removal of
records by departing high level officialos.
(http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat7/144859.pdf)

Or go back further to the PROFS case that triggered lawsuits affecting White
House email during the Reagan administration.  Here's an extract from the
Independent Counsel's report (http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/).

"In October and November 1986, North altered, destroyed, and removed
documents and official records relating to the resupply operation. On
November 23, 1986, he lied to the attorney general to conceal Secord's
operation and his own responsibility in directing the secret resupply
activities and the control of the funds used to finance them. Between
November 22 and 29, 1986, Poindexter unsuccessfully tried to delete from the
White House computer system all of his communications with North."
http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/part_iii.htm

As records managers, you're lucky if you work in organizations where such
scenarios are unlikely to occur and you can focus primarily on the RIM and
IT aspects of managing email.   The biggest challenges lie in areas where
what emails contain can have national import.

Maarja

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance