Cheryl over at the GTEC blog has an interesting post about the recent controversy surrounding Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s hacked Yahoo! email account. She feels it should serve as a wake up call about how important information management and email compliance is:

The Alaskan email controversy serves as a wake up call to information management practitioners regardless of the jurisdiction or department we serve – public business communication must be preserved, protected and disclosed regardless of the individual format, program or communication channel that is used.

Back to basics – manage the content, not the container it came in. Use of unsanctioned email, text, chat or other electronic communication tools does not preclude the record from inclusion in an ATIP/FOI or discovery order in most jurisdictions. Unmanaged, uncontrolled business correspondence is a time bomb in government and commercial enterprise.

Indeed, the mess Palin now finds herself in, including being found guilty of abusing her authority as Governor and her obvious disregard for separating business and personal matters shows that proper email management is crucial for businesses and governments.