Email is a paradox. Do you wish you received less email? Sure you do. Do you want to live without the convenience of electronic mail? Of course you don’t. The paradox is email simultaneously empowers and overwhelms its users. For many organizations, the largest costs after rent and compensation are the organizational cost of email access, management and retention. The Baker Robbins & Company email wellness 2009 survey seeks to understand the paradox in context of law firms.
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Email Wellness 2009 Survey - Executive Summary July 2009 by Baker Robbins
1. Policy software user behavior mailbox quotas FILERS pilers email management enforcement litigation hold “ this is my email, not yours” Inbox Zero Outlook stability organization Sheer overload
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4. Software The survey requested information on software used for email, email archiving and records management.
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8. Measure Effectiveness 80% of the survey respondents provided quantitative data from their iManage libraries regarding the mixture of email and documents associated with a matter. We call this Filing Effectiveness and cast it as a ratio of email-to-documents. Higher is better.
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13. Policy The survey explored what official firm policy existed concerning client communications and work product in paper and electronic form. We also explored who is responsible for policy communication and enforcement
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16. Email filing rates improve with an e-policy that is CONTINUOUSLY communicated Email: Doc Ratio Months MCC No Policy & no archiving solution 60 days Enforced, Delete from inbox and Sent items, not subfolders; no email archiving 3 years Once per year, delete if > 3 yrs old No Policy & no archiving solution 90 days Email reminder only, not enforced uses email archiving tool 0 6 12 18 24 30 36 42 48 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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18. Products + Policy The findings in the survey support the notion that a fabric of policy, product, leadership and coaching are the elements of email wellness in a law firm. Policy – what to keep, where to keep it Product – technology to aid users, enforce policy Leadership – advocacy and commitment; employees observe leaders in how they follow the policy Coaching – changing behavior is not accomplished via “memo”
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20. Email Policy Governance who leads and enforces? What is the role of these groups in email policy (IT, Records, General Counsel, Risk Mgmt, Records or Tech Committee)? Possible roles are: Not involved, Educate, Enforce, Perform archive-disposal.
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Editor's Notes
Email is a paradox. Do you wish you received less email? Sure you do. Do you want to live without the convenience of electronic mail? Of course you don’t. The paradox is email simultaneously empowers and overwhelms its users. For many organizations, the largest costs after rent and compensation are the organizational cost of email access, management and retention. The Baker Robbins & Company email wellness 2009 survey seeks to understand the paradox in context of law firms. Today there will be nearly 150 billion emails. Fortunately much of that is spam. However email shifts the burden to the recipient to sort, respond, delete or retain. We know that work cultures significantly influence email behavior. We know that some professionals let email run their work day. We know the free and instantaneous email transmission is great for the sender, but not for the recipient. More information is available at http://insight.brco.com/e2.0 Information current as of July 2009 Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation
This is the first survey targeting law firms. When your organization faces 12% annual spend on email and related infrastructure, 20% secretary time printing and filing paper. We think it is worthy of deeper study. Despite high year-over-year spending on software to store and archive email, are organizations shifting user behavior to align with their business objectives? This survey set out to determine: If software and policy can positively influence user behavior regarding email management? What does it mean to have email wellness? Has an organization found the best path forward? So let’s have a look. Since you can consume content at 150mb at 16-bit color in a glance, we will go quickly. We recommend you also consult the AIM Email Survey at http://www.aiim.org/Research/Email-Management.aspx Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
Our conclusion from the survey is that email wellness is about intentions. Successful firms appear to weave a fabric of four things Policy – what do I do? when do I do it? Product to tag, file or process the email consistent with the policy Leadership – commitment and behavior. Employees observe leaders in how they follow policy. An excellent example is the chairman of Morgan Lewis communicating the policy via firm wide video Coaching – changing behavior is not done by “memo.” Without hands-on trial and employees will not likely give up obsolete habits. Really this survey is about three turtles. Three turtles sat on a log in the edge of the swamp. One decided to jump in. How many are now on the log? Nope, there are still three. Deciding and doing are not the same thing. Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
CA Records Manager, Legal Key and Elite are the primary records software products to mange paper. Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
We looked at how a user spends their time around information content creation and management. This data underscores the three year trend of the blurring of email and documents. Traditional document management will continue to have a role; it’s role will continue to erode. Your organization must clearly define the role of each technology in the lawyer’s life. Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
The centerpiece of the survey was to measure filing productivity. We looked at user behavior in the context of a known baseline – the document contribution rate to existing document management systems. If a user creates 3 documents a day, how many emails do they create and tag with a client matter number? The higher the ratio, the better the compliance with email management policies. We looked at 54 firms and charted their filing behavior. This chart maps the baseline behavior over time. What we found is that 3:1 – three emails or every document is typical. We also found that organizations that are new to e-filing – they started in the last 6 months or less – or firms that have been filing for 12 or more months have substantially higher filing rates than those in the middle period. The middle period is filing between 6 and 12 months. This is a critical point that support our hypothesis. Organizations need at least two things to be successful: a e-records policy to form the basis for your corporate culture; a method to remind the user community that filing is good. We see spikes in behavior that are related to quota reminders or e-filing reminders. Information current as of July 2009 Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation
Firms with regional architecture have been filing the longest, 2.5 years. Distributed the shortest at 1.6 years with an average of 11 libraries. Centralized firms have an average of 3 libraries. Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
However, when you extrapolate current filing trends for each model from July 2009 to May 2010 and then to January 2011, email filing productivity begins to slow for the distributed model. Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
Here we followed the filing behaviors of four law firms. Each has more than 350 lawyers, is distributed over more than four office locations; all use Microsoft Office 2003 or 2007, Microsoft Exchange 2003 or higher. Autonomy iManage WorkSite is used by all firms. The vertical axis is the BRCo content creation productivity baseline: the ratio of emails contributed to documents created. This productivity measure is effective because it compares a known productivity rate – how many documents a user creates per month – against an unknown rate – how effectively email is classified by users. This assumes that iManage WorkSite is the official repository as defined by organization policy. The horizontal axis is months since the organize implemented email lifecycle management. The chart shows the influence of user mailbox retention policies and email filing policies on user email filing behavior. This sample shows that constant user reminders regarding proper email lifecycle management is the single significant determinate for improved, sustained email filing. Information current as of July 2009 Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation
Tell your users where to file. Email filing productivity was 200% more effective is a single location is defined. Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
Our conclusion from the survey is that email wellness is about intentions. Successful firms appear to weave a fabric of four things Policy – what do I do? when do I do it? Product to tag, file or process the email consistent with the policy Leadership – commitment and behavior. Employees observe leaders in how they follow policy. An excellent example is the chairman of Morgan Lewis communicating the policy via firm wide video Coaching – changing behavior is not done by “memo.” Without hands-on trial and employees will not likely give up obsolete habits. Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
Do email filers have an attention span? This studies the difference between organizations duration since email filing initiatives. We found constant gardening shows improved filing productivity. Hunton & Williams initiated Electronic Matter File (EMF) with new tools and coaching. Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009
While this survey is not about staffing levels, the staffing levels for records departments appears to lag the transition to electronic records. This survey question captured employee staffing levels for different size firms and for staff supporting document management, email and records. Using this data, we suggest there is opportunity to shift records resources to assist with email wellness coaching. The greatest value, as measured by filing productivity, is to engage records teams to transform how users manage the client record. Contact Peter Buck | pbuck@brco.com regarding this presentation Information current as of July 2009