For whatever it is  worth
 
http://www.radicati.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Email-Statistics-Report-2010-2014-Executive-Summary2.pdf
 
Chris Flynn

 

> Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2011 14:47:28 +0000
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: E-Mail Statistics--Are There Any?
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> Colleagues,
> 
> Two weeks ago I posted this query:
> 
> "I seek your wisdom and advice-and, hopefully a few useful statistics-to demonstrate (1) that most e-mail is valueless and (2) there are costs to retaining e-mail."
> 
> I thank those of you who responded on and off the List and offer a summary report based upon (1) what you reported and (2) from what I was able to learn elsewhere.
> 
> 1. There are more "hunches" about e-mail than facts. Chris Flynn pretty much summed up the situation when he wrote: "The numbers we used to throw around were that 85% of all emails were not records. My hunch (you folks got that right, just a hunch) is that a much smaller volume of emails are records across the board."
> 
> 2. The one exception was from Larry Medina who actually counted his e-mail over a period and found that the percentage of e-mail that was business related varied within the business cycle from 7.3% to 18% with overall some 7% requiring retention of 6-months or longer. That is, of course, a vanishingly small sample from a highly regulated industry.
> 
> 3. Dwight Wallis provided a very interesting survey that showed that 59% of Multnomah County Oregon employees deleted their e-mail within 90 days, including the 38% who deleted them immediately. Yet he also reported that those who save their e-mail value it as 90% of users converted their PST files when the County went through a Google apps transition. 
> 
> 4. Another eye-opening statistic from Multnomah County is that 65% of respondents were "constantly sending and receiving email for work throughout the day" and another 27% sent or received at least some. 
> 
> 5. Mr. Wallis also posted to the List a link to a chart that demonstrates that the overall cost of e-mail storage has been constant for a decade because the dramatic decrease in storage cost was matched by an equally dramatic increase in volume.
> 
> 6. Harris County's e-mail administrator reported that the industry average for storing e-mail is $38 per GB per year. That includes processing, storing, and backing-ups but excludes personnel, power costs, and data center space.
> 
> 7. Harris County, with approximately 16,000 employees, processes approximately 117,000,000 e-mails annually, (or 7,300 per employee).
> 
> 8. Harris County estimates that its e-mail operations direct costs are $180,000 annually, again excluding personnel, power, and space.
> 
> 9. Some respondents questioned my assertion that "that most e-mail is valueless." I shall expand upon that statement. 
> 
> Presumably every e-mail (even spam) had value to someone when it was sent, but most of it is the sort of chit-chat that once characterized water-cooler conversations. Yes, it served an transitory purpose but an organization's resources should not be frittered away storing ephemera. And, true, this phenomenon is not confined to e-mail. Indeed, 20 years ago Judge (now Justice) Clarence Thomas testified before the U. S. Senate Judiciary Committee that he had had telephone logs from his tenure at E.E.O.C. because he was informed that the logs were not official records so they became his personal property-and no one on the Judiciary Committee questioned the assertion. 
> 
> It is true that some e-mails are used for transmitting traditional records (employment applications, Public Information Act Requests, court filings, etc.), but those e-mails are the equivalent of envelopes or letters of transmission.
> 
> 10. Others noted that some state laws explicitly define e-mails as records for the purposes of their open records acts.
> 
> Years ago the Texas Legislature renamed our open records act as The Texas Public Information Act to clarify that it applied to all information held by public agencies. This was in response to mostly self inflicted confusion of public officials who noted that the "records" they did not want to release did not meet the definition of "records" in other statutes. 
> 
> Texas also has the Texas Local Government Act that defines local government records to be documents "created or received...pursuant to law...or in transaction of public business." 
> 
> Heretofore the interpretation of these two laws has been that e-mails were subject to disclosure under the Public Information Act but most could be summarily deleted unless they were subject to pending or anticipated litigation, investigation, or a Public Information Act request.
> 
> CONCLUSION: Despite and because of its ubiquity, we do not have reliable e-mail statistics. The best we can do is to find random examples that demonstrate that employees and organizations deal with a lot of e-mails, that most are of fleeting value, and that are storage costs. The true numbers will vary from organization to organization. In this respect this exercise reminds me of the blind men trying describing the elephant. But yet, if the blind men shared their information, they probably all got a pretty good idea of what an elephant is.
> 
> Paul R. Scott, CA, CRM
> Records Management Officer
> Harris County, TX
> 713 368-0039
> 
> Under the Texas Public Information Act most written communications to or from public employees are considered to be public records and will be made available to the public and the media upon request. This e-mail and any direct reply may be subject to public disclosure.
> 
> .
> 
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