I want to begin this series on email management with a look at the strategy behind managing email more effectively. In today's economic climate, nobody implements a new system or process because they have money burning a hole in their pocket - and email management is no different. In order to get an improved process, which might also include technology, we need to determine why it is that we're doing it in the first place.

So let's start with a definition of email management. This comes from AIIM.

As the de facto standard for business communication, removing emails from the server and saving them to a repository is not enough. Email must be classified, stored, and destroyed consistent with business standards-just as with any other document or record.

Pretty straightforward, right? And if you ask a records manager, they'll generally agree that records management is about the value of the content, not about how it's formatted, transmitted, or stored.

However, most organizations DO treat email differently from other types of content. We save all email messages for an indeterminate, but pretty long, period of time. Or we delete all email messages automatically after a pretty short period of time, regardless of the content. The challenge is that the volume of email is so much higher than other types of content that it can be difficult to manage in the same fashion as those other types. In other words, the principle is the same but managing email effectively may require different tactics which we'll look at in more detail in a subsequent post.

The bottom line is that email is "just" another type of content and has to be managed effectively according to its contents and value to the organization. An email that documents a transaction is no different from a TIFF, paper document, or PDF that does the same - and should be treated accordingly. Similarly, an email about this week's potluck or congratulating someone for a promotion is no different from a flyer or announcement on the intranet to that effect, and just as an organization wouldn't keep those as formal records, neither should it keep the equivalent emails.