Why do you need an e-mail policy?

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: MICHAEL OSTERMAN ON MESSAGING
10/06/05
Today's focus: Why do you need an e-mail policy?

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* E-mail policies are crucial
* Links related to Messaging
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: Why do you need an e-mail policy?

By Michael Osterman

In a study that we conducted in June, we asked organizations
about the existence of various types of policies in their
organizations. We found, for example, that only about one-half
of organizations have policies that specify how long to keep
e-mail and only about one-third have policies on when to delete
e-mail. Only one-third of organizations have put in place
policies that are dictated by government regulations, although
most organizations have limits on the amount of e-mail storage
per user. Also, although we did not ask specifically in this
survey, most organizations have acceptable e-mail-use policies
in place.

So just how important are policies in managing e-mail and other
messaging systems? I believe that they're critical - they're
clearly a best practice and they're a missing first step toward
proper e-mail management in many organizations.

For example, it's a given that most organizations of any size
will be involved in litigation at some point, whether it's a
wrongful termination case, product liability litigation or some
other legal action. Because courts are increasingly including
e-mail as part of the legal discovery process, it's critical
that organizations retain the e-mails that they will need for
this process. Even if your company's policy is to destroy all
e-mail after 30 or 60 or 90 days, there are two things to
consider: 1) someone, somewhere will have a copy of the e-mail
you destroyed, either on a USB keychain, on a laptop, in the
message stores of the e-mail recipients, or on an employee's
home PC; and 2) even if you destroy all e-mail regularly, once a
court issues a discovery order, you must begin keeping all
relevant e-mail immediately - therefore you need to have a
system in place that will allow you to do this at a moment's
notice.

More generally, e-mail policies need to cover a wide variety of
areas, including personal use of corporate e-mail, use of
personal Webmail accounts using corporate resources, use of
consumer instant messaging services, who has access to which
features of IM if its use is controlled, and what types of
e-mail must be retained and which should be discarded regularly.
The policies should also cover what types of information can be
sent internally and what types can be sent externally, plus a
variety of other issues.

Organizations that don't cover all the bases in their e-mail
policies, or that don't require employees to understand and
agree with these policies, or don't have a mechanism in place to
ensure compliance will likely pay dearly at some point.

I'd like to hear about the issues you face in designing and
enforcing policies - please drop me a line
<mailto:michael@ostermanresearch.com>.

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. How to solve Windows system crashes in minutes
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg7719>
2. Nortel faces uphill battle
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg8078>
3. Cisco pushes new security software
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg8079>
4. WLAN QoS specification approved
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg8276>
5. Somebody's got to pick up the 'Net's tab
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlmsg8150>

_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Michael Osterman

Michael D. Osterman is the principal of Osterman Research
<http://www.ostermanresearch.com/>, a market research firm that
helps organizations understand the markets for messaging,
directory and related products and services. He can be reached
by clicking here <mailto:michael@ostermanresearch.com>
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Sybase

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ARCHIVE LINKS

Archive of the Messaging newsletter:
http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/gwm/index.html
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FEATURED READER RESOURCE

IT PROS SHARE THEIR TALES OF MAKING ITIL WORK

Running an enterprise network is challenging. IT organizational
change can be even more so if managers don't balance efforts
proportionally across people, process and technology.
Implementing best practices frameworks such as Information
Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) can help, but they
introduce their own set of challenges. Click here for more:

<http://www.networkworld.com/news/2005/092205-itil.html>
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