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This issue of Discussions has one simple theme - Watch what you write in those emails! (And make sure you don't delete them when you are supposed to be keeping them.)
We start with a piece that appears in the current issue of Fortune magazine. It details some of the rather
significant consequences suffered by senior business figures as a result of email indiscretions. And it offers some tips for avoiding a similar fate, however senior or humble your role. (Oh, did we mention that it quotes Cataphora CEO Elizabeth Charnock?)
For thoughts and ideas on email use, management, policy, and best practices, we suggest adding the Email Policy Development, Management & Archiving blog to your list of sites to watch.
Our third and final offering is the latest installment of a story that has been running for months now. Two major US companies are in dispute and one of them, a high-tech industry leader, seems to have messed up the seemingly simple task of preserving certain emails that it agreed to make available to the court. Yes, it's the latest round of AMD versus Intel.
By David Shipley and Will Schwalbe
Sometimes bad e-mail happens to high-achieving people. Consider Steven Heyer, the recently departed CEO of Starwood Hotels, who stepped down last month after the company's board reportedly pressed him to explain allegations of suggestive e-mails between him and a younger female employee. An amorous e-mail is also at the center of Wal-Mart senior vice president Julie Roehm's wrongful termination suit. Fake "tracer" e-mails meant to smoke out disloyal board members played a role in Patricia Dunn's fall at Hewlett-Packard.
The rest of the article is in the May 14 issue of Fortune magazine and online at http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/05/14/100008719
Email, created as a proxy for conversation, has become the standard business collaboration tool as well as a document repository. But how many companies truly leverage their email and make it accessible at the firm level in regard to business intelligence, email productivity, and firm compliance? In our experience…few.
Read more of this posting, and many others on the topic at http://emailpolicy.blogspot.com
An Intel lawyer "lost track" of the fact that she was supposed to tell 378 staffers to save relevant e-mails. Company employees remained unaware for months that they were supposed to back up their e-mail. And miscommunication between Intel workers in Germany and England led to the loss of data for hundreds of employees.
More at the San Jose Mercury News - http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_5745479
Discussions is sent periodically to our friends and colleagues in the legal profession. We hope you find it useful - please feel free to contact us and let us know at emailnewsletter@cataphora.com.
This newsletter is also available online at http://cataphora.com/newsletter/20070511/index.html