This has been a very interesting and informative thread and one in which 
all listserv members should be grateful has happened.  I just want to give 
you some stats that show that doing something(while not being perfect ) 
can help an organization.   I can give all sorts of analysis on why it's 
good/bad,what could have been done better and why  But I'll leave it at 
that it gives a starting point for improvement of both the process and 
it's ability to manage email messages as well as reduce the liability/cost 
of discovery to the organization. 

Overview:
- 4 major categories (short term- 90 day retention, Business Value- 365 
day retention, Company record- retention per schedule, Litigation hold)
- In-box, sent file and regular folder structure  only included
- No local archiving allowed.  Old archives still accessible and will be 
addressed later 
47.2 mill messages pre-purge
18.0 mill deleted (42%)
8.8 mill active (less than 90 days old)
1.0 mill archived as business record (2%)
9.5 mill messages related to calendars,to do list, meeting confirmations 
(22%) which we didn't touch in this phase

I imagine that the 2% is actually a little higher and that some cheating 
of the process was done to circumvent it but we'll get those when we put 
an more inclusive system in place.  It was a huge success from the IT and 
legal standpoint but less successful ,in my opinion, from a RIM 
standpoint.  BUT STILL A STARTING POINT  FROM WHICH TO BUILD.

Now a twist

I agree with Peter that you need heavy user input into how employee groups 
use email as a tool and will also say that a certain percentage will never 
be happy as you "just don't get how I work"  and never will.  That being 
said I'd like to get the lists view on the following discussion.

In the engineering world employee's say that they have a problem 
categorizing alot of the messages they receive as they don't really know 
when they might become valuable or important in a project or their job. 
There is also a segment of messages that while they don't relate to a 
specific project,etc just help them do their job.  I'll call this segment 
"GOO " and say that they feel this segment is a portion of KM .  That 
being said how long does the list think this type of "GOO "should be kept 
or at least have a review phase implemented. 

The problem I see is that if given to much leeway in this area EVERYTHING 
ends up there and defeats the categorization purpose of the process.  Also 
if allowed to grow large will the discussion then turn to I don't have 
time to review it .  My boss called it the communist vs free-world 
scenario's and has resulted in much lively discussion amongst the core RIM 
project team members.

I'd like to hear others opinions 

Thanks

Steve Petersen CRM
Records Manager
Rockwell Collins Inc
319.295.5244

"Bringing Order Out of Chaos" 

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