The law of unintended consequences will probably apply as much here as in other initiatives, Mary. But I think that the potential upsides will outweigh the downsides.
One aspect is that you'll need a search engine that will be able to separate all that chaff from the wheat, but those engines exist now.
And just one story to indicate the rationale for keeping all e-mails. One of our lawyers was told by his client, "I never got that document. If you sent it to me, I never got it." After a long search (pre-enterprise search), our lawyer was able to find the response back from the client that just said, "Thanks," but that evidenced that the client had indeed received it. So those e-mails that appear to be just chaff may turn out to something more!
VMaryAbraham
· 2 months ago
John -
Thanks for the reminder that even the most pedestrian e-mails might have future value under the right circumstances. Since it's hard to predict what is going to be important later, it appears that we'll have to save everything and invest heavily in finding and sorting tools. The search engine vendors must be delighted.
All Comments
One aspect is that you'll need a search engine that will be able to separate all that chaff from the wheat, but those engines exist now.
And just one story to indicate the rationale for keeping all e-mails. One of our lawyers was told by his client, "I never got that document. If you sent it to me, I never got it." After a long search (pre-enterprise search), our lawyer was able to find the response back from the client that just said, "Thanks," but that evidenced that the client had indeed received it. So those e-mails that appear to be just chaff may turn out to something more!
Thanks for the reminder that even the most pedestrian e-mails might have future value under the right circumstances. Since it's hard to predict what is going to be important later, it appears that we'll have to save everything and invest heavily in finding and sorting tools. The search engine vendors must be delighted.
- Mary