CSI: Lost e-mails

摘要

Your CIO calls. He just had a visit from the CEO, who just met with the company lawyer. Maybe an ex-employee is suspected of stealing trade secrets. Maybe a sexual- harassment suit has just been filed against the company. Maybe there's a Securities and Exchange Commission or even an FBI investigation. In any case, what the CIO wants is e-mail. Not just any old e-mail but e-mail going back five years from two-dozen end users, some of whom no longer work at the company. And you just can't dump terabytes of raw data on the CIO's desk. You need to sort the e-mails by cross-referencing them against a list of 25 keywords. And you have to weed out all the cc's and other forms of duplication, Oh, and you need to produce hard copies of the e-mails in 14 days, no ifs, ands or buts. If this scenario occurred at your company, would you be prepared to handle it with ease or would you be headed for a serious meltdown? In todays world of rampant litigation and regulation, even if you're not an Enron or a WorldCom, even if your company is squeaky clean, its wise to assume that sooner or later, you will be compelled to produce e-mail records.