CNN has posted excerpts from former FEMA director’s Mike Brown’s email during the Katrina crisis. Though I am certain that you could pull selected messages from my email history and make me look like a bungling idiot, some of this stuff would be laugh out loud funny it if wasn’t so sad. For example, the day of the storm, Brown writes:
"If you’ll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you’ll really vomit. I am a fashion god."
Why am I linking to this? Whether you’re an effective leader or not, make sure that you never put anything in email that you wouldn’t want to be made public. It could come back to bite you in a big way. See Top Five Ways to Improve Email Etiquette:
5. Don’t send confidential information.
It is very easy to forward email and consequently very easy to break confidentiality expectations. Don’t send anything that couldn’t be published in a newspaper or posted by the water cooler.
Maybe if Mike had been a ClearContext user he could have avoided some of the problems he’s had! 😉