Dangerous Email

By the Water Cooler in Cyberspace, the Talk Turns Ugly
New York Times
This is an important article about the risks companies face from discussions around the electronic water coolers - electronic bulletin boards.  More and more disgruntled employees are making their comments public by posting innuendo, personal attacks, sexual comments, and unfounded rumors on Web sites.  You should be paying attention to this problem, if for no other reason than to see what some of your employees are saying when they think they're anonymous (they really aren't).  You may also need to defend individual employees from attack and prepare for sexual harassment suits.  In at least one case, a company has been sued for sexually harrassing comments made on a bulletin board over which it had no control.

Yahoo! Mail translates attachments
ZDNet
This is an interesting little article that exposes an unexpected security approach by Yahoo.  It seems that when you view attachments from within Yahoo's mail function, they'll translate some of the words to other words.  For example, "expression" might become "statement".  The reason for this is that they're trying to protect the user from JavaScript and ActiveX scripts that might use words like "expression" in malicious scripts.  By translating the words, Yahoo prevents the scripts from working.  This is a VERY interesting approach, if a little shocking.  If you receive attachments regularly using Yahoo, you'll still get the REAL words if you download the attachment.  But if you view them in your browser, you just won't know for sure that what you're reading is what the sender intended.  The article also gives a nice overview of the risks of these nefarious scripts.

Mind Your E-Mail Manners
PC World
An enjoyable article that highlights the top ten things you can do to be a more polite and mannerly email user:

1.  Don't send offensive material.
2.  Don't send sensitive or emotional messages.
3.  Don't flame.
4.  Don't spam or forward messages.
5.  Avoid sending attachments.
6.  Proofread - Make your message readable by following the rules.
7.  Respond quickly [I disagree strongly with this one]
8.  Use CC and BCC judiciously.
9.  Keep your messages short and to the point.
10. Don't use special formatting - keep it text-based.

Finishing up this article is a wonderfully succinct refinement of everything you need to know about email manners.  This is a highly recommended article.

The perils of privacy
nwfusion.com
This article reviews the pros and cons of establishing stricter company policies on email and Web usage.  Some companies prefer to give their staff more autonomy, and others believe that they have to establish tight guidelines.  One of the motivators for the tighter guidelines is the risk of lawsuits for harassment.  If a well-enforced policy is in place, the risk of liability is much lower.  This is a well-written and thoughtful piece and I highly recommend it.

An Email Group Netiquette Guide
This is a short guide to participating in email lists, Usenet groups, or any other online forums.  If you're new to this kind of thing, this list will be very helpful.

Instant messaging: A powerful business tool
USA Today
Thinking about instant messaging and how it can apply to your business?  I'm personally not a big fan and still need to be convinced.  But this article does highlight a couple of ways IM can be useful.  One use is for phone meetings involving far-flung participants where the long distance charges for the conference call would kill you.  Other methods are to provide instant support for users of your Web site, and back-channel communications during telephone negotiations.  The best example is the Navy's use of instant messaging for ship-to-ship communications.  Now if you have your own fleet.....

Hoaxbusters
Did you just get an email that tells you Bill Gates will pay you money?  Or that a little boy is ill and is collecting business cards?  Or that if you just forward the message, you'll get $20?  And about that Blue Star Tattoo?  Trust me, it's a hoax.  This is an excellent site that provides information on the various hoaxes that are floating around, and how to identify one.  Before you forward another email, check this site first.

Making Mincemeat out of Unwanted E-mail
businessweek.com
This is an excellent article that reviews the ways you can reduce the load of spam that you receive.  I always marvel at these articles though, because as many of you know, I LIKE spam.  If you treat spam with the lack of respect it deserves, and refuse to get yourself worked up into a lather, spam can increase your sense of self-respect.  Because it gives you someone to look down on: the worthless, stupid, and naive scum that send out spam.

The techniques mentioned in this article include:

1.  Set up rules and folders in your email system so that spam automatically gets routed to a folder that you can deal with at your leisure.  Your flexibility depends on the system you're using, with Outlook Express, Eudora and Netscape leading the way.  If you use a Web-based service, you don't have as much flexibility, but these services are using their own spam filters.  I highly recommend filtering.  It is effective and almost becomes a game to see how you can defeat the spammers.

2.   The article lists three software products that will filter spam and work with your email software.

3.  Don't let your email address get on the spammers' lists. Defeat spammers that scour the Web using 'bots looking for email addresses.  Beware of having your email address posted on the Internet, or on bulletin boards, forums or the Usenet.  There are ways to disguise your address if you do have your email address posted. 

If you do want your email address "out there", then set up two addresses...one that is public, and one that is private and that you only give to clients, favored vendors, family and friends.  This, of course, requires you to check two email addresses, which I actually find to be more of a pain than just filtering the spam (number 1 above).

Sometimes the email that you DID opt for becomes overwhelming.  When you register for access to a site, or do something else on a Web page that requires your email address, be very careful about opting in to their email newsletter.  And also beware of giving permission to send you email from the site's business partners. 

4.  Don't reply.  If you complain, they won't remove you from the list...they'll send you more.  They now know that that particular address is live and they'll crush you with spam.  In my unscientific studies, I find that the people who complain the most about spam, get the most.  Because spammers know who they are.

This is a good article - highly recommended.

A Beginners Guide to Effective Email
Kaitlin Duck Sherwood 
This is a very helpful guide to writing email, along with some netiquette advice.  Topics covered include how to write so that your message is better understood, formatting of the message, email signatures, and a very good and up-to-date bibliography and link page.  This last page is worth a look even if you read nothing else on this site.

Malicious Mail
CNET
This is an excellent overview of the problems associated with viruses and email.  The article opens with some statistics and a general discussion of the problem, then focuses on viruses transmitted via .exe and .vbs attachments, HTML email messages, and rogue HTML links.  Much of the discussion centers around the problems with Outlook and its tight integration with other Microsoft and third-party products.  This makes it easy for evildoers to take advantage of that integration for their nefarious purposes.  It doesn't help that Microsoft dominates the browser and email client market, making their products even bigger targets.  In the final section, the author offers 10 tips for avoiding problems and discusses anti-virus solutions and other services.  The biggest challenges with any of the solutions are the intelligent purchase, effective implementation, and continuous upkeep of the technology.  And whatever solution you chose, you need to make sure that user education is at the top of the list.

Email used as a management tool
USA Today
This article describes some of the ways email can help in the job of management, one of which is to provide feedback.  It can be a very effective way of providing pats on the back.  It can also be used to criticize, which is, in my opinion, a dangerous tactic and needs to be approached cautiously.  Email can foster more honesty, but does it just allow the sender to hide behind email and avoid more confrontational, but more effective face-to-face communications?  Email does allow the manager to be more accessible and fosters faster communications to all employees in a group.

Email cleanup
eweek.com
This article reviews the need for a corporate email policy, as well as the capabilities of various email systems and third-party products to monitor and control email usage.  The article is old and the product information is going to be out of date, but the strategies are quite valid.  It starts out with a discussion about the need to establish a policy of NOT saving messages unless there is a clear reason to do so.  It also reviews the need to remind employees about email policies and discusses various methods, including login script reminders, postings on the intranet, and inclusion in the employee manual.  The article describes one situation where having an enforced email policy in place saved a company from a potentially damaging lawsuit for racial harassment.

Email Manners Matter
about.com
Here is a fine collection of seven things to remember when you're using email:

1.  Use the BCC function.

2.  Use upper and lower case - don't use all caps and don't use all lower case either.  e.e. cummings did it years ago...it's no longer a cool and hip thing to do.  Use both cases and good grammar to make it easier for your recipient to read what you've written.

3.  Be aware of your audience - err on the side of formality in your writing, unless you know you can be more casual.  And beware of gimmicks like a liberal use of smileys or fancy fonts.  Smileys are annoying and you don't know whether your correspondent's software can handle different fonts.

4.  Make the subject meaningful and to the point.  If your message is too long to distill to a single subject line, make it two messages.

5.  Avoid the exclamation point!!!!!!!!!!!

6.  Be careful about your replies.  Only reply to the sender and include the other recipients only if they need to know. Let an emotional message cool off before you send it.

7.  Be careful of what you send.  It isn't private, it's not secure, and it may just wind up being read by your boss's boss or posted by the coffee machine.

E-Mail, a Tool of Efficiency, Sometimes Adds to Overload
Wall Street Journal
An article dealing with the fact that, while email makes communications more productive, it also adds to our load.  One interesting statistic - American employees get an average of 50 messages a day and spend about 2 hours per day on email.  Whoa!  There is a discussion of the problems that people are having with the overload and the steps they are taking (sorting into folders, rules, aggressive deleting, etc.).

A Beginner's Guide to Effective Email
This site provides a very good discussion of the basics of using email.  In particular, the author devotes a lot of space to the topic of using punctuation and formatting to emulate the intonation and gestures in normal communications.  Definitely worth a look, even for experienced emailers.

E-mail writers delete rules of grammar
USA Today
As one person in the article says, email has become a "forum for people who cannot spell or string 10 words together."  More than one person is proud of his or her "casual" approach to writing emails.  Unfortunately, people who don't proofread their work, or fail to abide by the basic standards of grammar and usage, fail at one key thing - communicating to their audience.  The point of capital letters, punctuation, properly spelled words and comprehensible sentences is to make it easier for your correspondents to read and understand what you're saying. 

My personal pet peeve is people who not only write run-on sentences, but run-on paragraphs as well.  I'm on a mailing list where one particularly active participant will write for two or three screens before he decides to hit the return key twice and make a new paragraph.  Not only do you improve the likelihood that people will understand your message, you'll make reading the message a more enjoyable experience.  Why must reading email become a chore of deciphering the personal language of the writer or dealing with their personal way of communicating?  In the case of the paragraph-challenged author, I never read more than a couple of sentences of his messages - it's too difficult.  And others have said the same thing.  So he's writing all this gibberish that few in his audience are reading.

sew it wud b a gud thng 4 u 2 rite btr.

Dear Emily Post News
This is an enjoyable FAQ about the usenet, discussion groups, and email etiquette.  If you're familiar with the Internet, you'll appreciate the irony.  If you're a newbie, you'll learn a great deal.

The Netiquette Home Page
This is a helpful guide to online "netiquette."  While this online book has many dated references, it still is useful to learn what is polite and good in the world of cyber-relations.  Some particularly useful features are a list of emoticons, and a list of common abbreviations used in email, chat and forums.  There are sections on email formatting, flame wars, and business email.  There is a lot of material that may not be relevant or new to you, but there are some nifty nuggets.

Top 10 ways to waste time
Chicago Tribune, 10/25/99
I'm sure none of you ever waste time using your computer.  But just in case you know someone who does, here's a quick, enjoyable list of things that can waste your time, if you're not careful.  I will only list a couple that I think are particular productivity killers.  I encourage you to read the whole article...it's not very long.

1.  Updating and upgrading your PC and software
2.  Surfing
3.  Chatting
4.  Email
5.  Games

There are lots more.  See if you agree, and if you can spot yourself.

Author Learns E-Mail Can Sell or Sink a Book
Wall Street Journal
This article profiles a new author who used email to promote his book.  Initially, by using personal email, he was able to generate some interest.  But then he hired a spamming company.  And he really ticked people off.  What resulted was a poorly written, impersonal "press release" that was spammed to over 100,000 people who didn't take kindly to it.  He was skewered in various online forums, including the reviews for his book on Amazon.com.  The message to be learned here?  Beware of using email for mass marketing.  It works well for personal messages and low volume activities.  But once you open it up to thousands of addresses, and remove the personal touch, the potential for damage is high.  Instead of ticking off a couple of people, you manage to anger thousands.  This can't be a good thing.

Dow Chemical fires 50 over e-mail abuse
USA Today
This is another article about a company taking some serious action with regard to employees abusing their email and Internet access.  This story is useful because it details the problem, what action Dow took and the response of the employees. 

The problem was uncovered after an employee complained.  The company had not previously monitored employee email.  The people who were discovered to have actively downloaded, saved and distributed the material were given the option of being on probation for a year or being fired.  Evidently some of these dopes decided that firing was better.  Go figure. 

Symantec Anti-virus Center - Hoaxes
Symantec
If you get a lot of emails, you probably get a lot of warnings about viruses.  This is a terrific page to check to see if the warnings are legitimate or not.  And of course, it's fun to point out to the offending party that they've just sent a hoax email to about 5,000 fellow list members.  You can't buy that kind of fun.

CNET Reviews 4 Top Free Emailers 
CNET
If you're considering a free Web-based email client, this article is worth a read.  They review mail.com, Hotmail, Yahoo and Juno.  Yahoo wins.  But read the article to help make your own evaluation.  Here are a couple of hints: fast loading screens, support for POP3, and lots of storage.

Firms crack down on e-mail
USA Today
While loss of employee productivity can be darned annoying and expensive, another motivation for some companies is the potential for liability.  A "hostile work environment" might be created if employees use email to distribute off-color humor.  Creating and enforcing an email usage policy that prohibits that kind of thing can help defend a company in the event of a harassment suit.  Implementing an email monitoring system can also be helpful.  However, in order for these policies to work, a company must clearly communicate their existence to the employees and have the full backing of executive management.  An interesting statistic was quoted regarding the productivity issue: 90% of workers said they'd visited Web sites on company time that were unrelated to their jobs.  Only 10% said they don't receive personal email at work.

Dicey Ethical Dilemmas
NetworkWorldFusion
This article highlights the need to make sure that your company has an email usage and network policy in place.  While you own your network, your email system and all of the data that moves across your network, you should make sure that your employees know this and that they can expect little or no privacy.  On the other hand, companies should not be frivolous or political with their inspection of employee data and communications.

Establishing Business Controls for Electronic Mail Communications
Computer Security Institute 
This is a longish article on developing email usage policies.  While there is a lot of introductory material, there are some useful nuggets.  Of particular interest is that, when you're setting policies determining the privacy of your employees' use of email and the Internet, you should also be reviewing your company's existing culture.  If the office manager has keys to everyone's desks and files, or can monitor phone conversations, then you already have a pretty restrictive culture.  But if employees can lock their desks and know that only they have keys, then you might have a tough time ramming a restrictive network policy down their throats.

In addition, about three quarters of the way into the article, there is a set of reasons why email isn't a secure and private medium.  This can be a very useful resource in educating your employees.  They need to know that not only can the company read their email, but other unauthorized individuals may also be able to see the information.

Finally, there is a sample usage policy that can be used as a template for your own company statement.  Note that this article was written in 1998 and new ideas have been developed since then.  But this article can be very useful.

The Ten Commandments of Email
PC World
A list of things that will help you use email more effectively and make it a pleasant experience for you and your correspondents.  I'll summarize the ten commandments...the article obviously goes into more detail:

1.  Delete messages ruthlessly (not sure I agree with this one)
2.  No attachments
3.  Don't send email when you're furious or tired
4.  Do it face-to-face 
5.  Keep an up-to-date email address book 
6.  Don't forward chain letters, hoaxes, etc.
7.  Beware of what you say, it may come back to haunt you
8.  No flaming
9.  Remember that email messages are low priority communications
10. Don't expect perfect grammar and spelling

Software can monitor, block instant messaging
Computerworld
Sigh.  It just doesn't stop.  Now we have to worry about instant messaging.  It has some of the same security- and productivity- damaging problems as email (if not worse), but there are few controls for it that provide the flexibility that some companies need.  This article describes one product that gives very granular control. 

Whose e-mail it it, anyway
ZDNet
Commentary on the ability of companies to monitor email usage.  The author, while acknowledging a company's right to do so, believes that these companies are unreasonable.  They risk low employee morale, turnover, etc.  The author seems to be advocating a more touch-feely style of management.  While he's right that strict enforcement is probably more trouble than it's worth, it is desirable to avoid lawsuits for harassment, the risk of proprietary information being transferred, etc.  Obviously organizing an email gestapo squad would not be a good thing...but some monitoring is reasonable, and may even be necessary.

There is no question that access to the Internet and email can backfire.  Your employees can waste incredible amounts of time.  Don't feel bad about encouraging them to be sensible when using the technology that you've bought and provided to make your company more productive.  Your network isn't there so that your staff can subscribe to beard-dandruff and coke-bottle-collector list servers.

E-mail outsourcing 101
PC Computing
Email management driving you nuts?  Outsourcing your email might be the solution.  There's no need to maintain an email server, security, etc.  All your users need is a connection to the Internet and they're in business.  This article is worth a look if email is starting to get you down.

Bezos Shares His Ideas For Time Management
The Wall Street Journal
Originally, I read this article out of curiosity, not thinking it would be worthy of reporting in this section.  However, when I managed to cull two great quotes from it (see the tips section), I realized the article was a valuable resource to share with you.  Notwithstanding the title of the article, it's really a little peek into the way Bezos operates Amazon.com.  This is an enjoyable piece.

Stupid management 101 for e-mail policies
PC Week
The gist of the article is that Draconian policies that ban any sort of personal use of the Internet, whether it's email or the Web, are counterproductive and will cause you to lose employees, or, at the very least, get less commitment from them.  If you want people to work 12 hour days and be available via pager and cell phone, its hard to justify denying them the ability to use the company's Internet connection every once in a while to deal with some personal issues.  The article recommends that usage policies be a little flexible. 

E-mail vs. Smoke Signals
CIO Magazine
Speaking as the Cynical CIO, I have to say that I've met my lord and master.  This is a wonderful article that answers the question of how we communicated and managed businesses prior to the dubious invention of e-mail.  If you read nothing else that I've ever recommended, read this article.

Managing Your E-Mail: An Entrepreneur's Checklist
inc.com
While there are some marginally useful ideas, this article has some decent tips, which we'll enhance and share with you here:

-Handle an email message only once.  Read it and respond, if you can.  Don't let it fester.

-Avoid having multiple email accounts.  Pick a business account and a personal account and stick to them.  If you have to check four or five accounts every day, you're taking too much time.  Also, for business accounts, try to avoid long ID's with lots of periods and punctuation marks.  Make it simple, like jfrazier@gadwall.com.  The first time you try to tell someone your email address over the phone, you'll know what I mean.  "What's a tilde?"

-Keep you messages short - go for one screenful per message.  If you have to include more information, make sure that the important stuff is in that first screen.  This helps your correspondents deal with the message quickly, but it also helps make sure that your message was understood correctly.  Don't overload the message with too much material.

-Don't feel obligated to respond to every message that you receive.  If you're just getting a cc, or if the conversation is petering out, just stop. 

-If you're having trouble getting the point across, pick up the phone.  You don't HAVE to send it via email.

Every day's for fools on the Internet
USA Today
This is a good summary of the email hoax phenomenon.  It talks about why these things keep coming around.  The theory is that it's mostly from new people getting their first computer and going online for the first time.  Hmmm.  Maybe we should require mandatory training and licensing to use the Internet.  Hey, it's worth a thought!  Anyway, the article also has a good collection of links to hoax and urban legends sites.

Email - The Good, the Bad and the Bloated
PC World
This article recaps a survey done by a consulting company on email usage.  Unfortunately, some of their conclusions aren't relevant to the average small company, but there are a couple of interesting pieces of information.  For example, they estimate that email takes about 2 hours a day for the average user.  Is that the case in your company?  Much of that time is wasted, with personal email, spam, chain letters, FYI messages, and distribution list copies.  They also point out some benefits of email, including less paper usage (I'm not sure about this one) and the ease of electronically filing messages for future reference (assuming you've properly trained your staff, which is another topic). 

For Mr. Dahlberg, Policing Computer Use By Employees Is All in a Day's Work
Wall Street Journal
This is a good illustration of the capabilities of system administrators to access information on employee desktops, in their email, and where they've been surfing.  If you're not familiar with the ways the boss can poke around, you should read this.  If you're the boss, and feel the need to be a little more knowledgeable about what's going on, you too should read this.

The article also provides some ideas about restricting Web access and reducing non-business usage.  The author doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable about technology (e.g. he focuses on the somewhat geeky personality of the profiled manager), so the style may bother experts, but it is nevertheless an interesting and illuminating article.

The Hidden Spam Problem (and how to stop it)
By Jesse Berst, ZDNet, 6/30/99
A short article that discusses the problem with the "other" spam - workers sending jokes to each other.  It describes some of the ramifications of such activities, such as firings for sending dirty jokes, employer monitoring of email, etc.  Not a very long article, but a good introduction to the issue.

How to Score in the War Against Junk Email
By Jesse Berst
ZDNet, 3/4/1999
A short article listing some of the ways of avoiding spam.  It links to additional articles on ZDNet, but some of the links are out of date.

Sayonara, Spam
By Daniel P. Dern, Sm@rt Reseller, 10/12/1998
If you really want to eliminate spam in your company's email system, this page discusses some spam filters that are available.  Depending on the size of your problem, and the abilities of your engineers, this may be overkill.

Elsop's Anti-Spam Page
Electronic Software Publishing Corporation

Links to a variety of resources to help fight spam. 

E-mail 'helps' bog down workers
By Stephanie Armour, USA Today, 3/2/1999
Email and voice mail are causing information overload.  This article discusses the problems and some tips for solving them.  They include: 

1.  Sending messages back to the sender with "vague" or some other comment and asking them to resend after they've fixed the problem.  An excellent idea, particularly given people's disinclination to spell check or proof read

2.  Having messages labeled as "action required" or "fyi" to help the receiver do some triage on the messages.

3.  Having an assistant sort through your email and voice mail.  Of course, what does the assistant do with HIS voice mail and email?

AT&T reveals 1,800 customer email addresses
By Troy Wolverton, CNET News.com, 4/15/1999
AT&T and Nissan both sent mass email messages to their customers.  Unfortunately, they forgot to use "blind copy" and used "to" for each address.  This resulted in all of their recipients receiving the addresses of everyone else that the mailing went to.  Aside from the inconvenience of receiving a mailing with a couple of thousand addressees, it distributes private email addresses.  Oops.

Scarier than spam
By John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine, 1/4/1999

Discusses some of the basic problems with email, interfering with getting business done.  They include:

1.  It's too easy to send and respond to - people aren't forced to think about it before they send - they just type and send.

2.  Distribution lists - It's too easy to send the message to many people, who probably don't need to know.  How many times have you sent a message to everyone in the department when it would have been better to send it to just one person.

3.  Fear of non-receipt - Not sure if the message got through - easy - just send it again!

4.  Mail storms - Long email discussions (or worse - arguments) where each reply adds little additional content, and where everyone is getting all of the messages. 

5.  Attachments - It's too easy to send that Word 97 file, without thinking about whether or not your recipient can read it...do they have Word 97 or a previous version.  Do they have Zip or Acrobat capability?  Do they have a Mac?  Here's a hint that I've found - send the document as an HTML file.  Most word processors can create them now.  It may be uglier...but you're guaranteed they can read it.  And if the fancy stuff you've put in the file doesn't convert properly, maybe it was just a little too fancy to begin with!

6.  Saving messages - Do you really need to save all the messages that you've received in the last 2 years? 

Postmasters
PC World
This is a very helpful article that gives you some useful tips and tricks for managing your email.  It provides advice for the most common packages (Eudora, Navigator, AOL, Outlook) on a variety of subjects including attachments, setting up groups, rules and filters, etc.  For old-timers who've been using their programs for a while, there's probably not much new.  But for new users, or those who've just switched to a new platform, this article will be very useful. 

Forbes campaign site sends errant e-mail
USA Today, 11/11/99
As some of you may have noticed, I delight in offering up stories about technology gone wrong, along with a cautionary moral.  Most of my sources of material have been computer publications or the Wall Street Journal, but today, I noticed TWO stories in the USA Today.  You really have to wonder at the pervasiveness of the problems people are having with information technology when this paper picks up this type of story.

In this case, Steve Forbes' Web site, sent its contributors an email saying they had maxed out on their political contributions.  The story isn't very clear about what happened, but it appears that the system automatically sent the message out based on the federal campaign law limiting donations.  Apparently, the email went to lots of people who HADN'T maxed out their donations.

So the Webmaster has to send out an email saying, oops.  "Sorry, we didn't mean you had really maxed out."  This is another example of software glitches keeping your "customers" from spending money with you. 

Internet Forces Ethics Test On Corporate America
Wall Street Journal, 10/21/99
There seems to be more and more coverage lately of the problems that companies are having with the use of computers, email and the Internet for personal purposes.  This article reviews the problem (BIG) and the approach of a couple of different companies.  Generally, as mentioned in another article recently reviewed, the effects of abuse are lower productivity, potential litigation, and embarrassment to the company (visiting porno sites from your desktop leaves a trail right to your company). 

Many companies are using monitoring software, and others are using filters to block inappropriate destinations such as porn, gambling and hate sites.  Others are establishing a "zero tolerance" for any personal use.   More permissive companies are allowing some "reasonable" personal use, but are warning employees about the potential for monitoring.  They put a reminder message on the screen whenever users log in.

At the very least, companies should be writing Internet and email usage policies for their employees, and enforcing them.  Otherwise, those lingering embarrassing messages and surfing trails could come back to haunt you.

End email insanity forever
PC Computing, 10/18/99
This article gives you some ideas for getting a little more out of your email system.  They include specific hints for a variety of different products, from Netscape to GroupWise. Oh yeah, they include those Microsoft products too.

The general tips page includes a lot of stuff on stopping spam, which, if it annoys you, should be required reading.  There are a couple of other troubleshooting tips, but it's very spam centric.

More managers monitor e-mail
Computerworld, 10/18/99
This is a useful overview of companies and their approaches to email monitoring.  According to the article, 31% of 75 corporate email managers regularly use software to monitor email or for spot checks.  These content monitoring software packages scan for specific words or message length, and then either blocks the message, or refers it to a human for more inspection.

Companies are using this type of software to protect their intellectual property, avoid litigation, prevent harassing email, or simply to make sure employees are not using the system for personal business.  One company estimates that 30% of their messages were not work related.  After monitoring software was installed, the number dropped dramatically.

Other companies don't use software, but just do random checks or investigate reported problems, both of which are ineffective.  The other concern is that, in the future, companies may be held liable if some sort of monitoring program is NOT in effect.

Kind of makes you want to trash the whole system and go back to paper memos, doesn't it?

Email conventions and quirks
Bartleby.com
This is part of The American Heritage Book of English Usage but deserves a special mention because of our focus on email.  The article reviews the benefits and problems with email, and common abbreviations and emoticons.

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