Email management - the medium is not the message

Email management remains a challenging topic. Some see it as essentially and IT problem: all about space, speed and pack-rat users clogging servers. Others see it as a "rights" issue: "it's my invitation to lunch and nobody is going to tell me it doesn't have permanent value!' Legal-beagles warn of impending doom as email content finds its way into court (e.g. Worldcomm) as the smoking gun.

In my own experience, emails have been a factor in HR management including performance evaluation and verification, discipline, harassment investigations and terminations.

Typically, organizations try to manage email as a class rather than as content, meaning, independent of medium. This seems to be one of the most difficult leaps for organizational management and leadership to make.

For all those Marshall McCluhan fans, it's time to look beyond the sound bite and realize that in today's workd, the medium is not the message. But, if you are wondering how vendors are approaching email management, Jesse Wilkins has recently posted a List of email management vendors on his blog, Informata. Check out his list, click on the various links and explore.

Ultimately, the challenge is to know enough about what is possible through technological management of multi-media record types so as to engage and make informed decisions to help technical resources understand how they can help you achieve your objectives.

Those objectives are less about managing email and more about recognizing the interrelationships among recorded information in multi-media content and managing the whole in accord with a business position on balancing risk, compliance, quality and learning management.