Don’t Miss the Obvious:  Reason for care, training and awareness

According to Pingdom, internet users sent around 107 trillion e-mails last year.  I dunno about you, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot to me unless I can see some sort of visual representation of that…

For a handy example for what a trillion+ e-mails might represent, check this site:  PageTutor.com.  Here, they’re explaining what one trillion dollars in $100 bills would look like.  Simply substitute 100 e-mails for the $100 dollar bill in the example (while realizing that many e-mails are multiple pages, and frequently contain attachments, to boot!).  The volume is staggering.

Unsurprisingly, Pingdom reports that most of the e-mails were spam!  I think my Inbox/Junk Folder accounts for about 1.5 million of last year’s total. 

However, I do have to troll for timely subjects for the blog, and in the course of casting far and wide, I do tend to accrue a few things I don’t need to receive.

That said, check out these stats (Source for all stats:  Pingdom):

-        As of June, 2010, there were 1.97 billion internet users

o   825.1 million in Asia

o   475.1 million in Europe

o   266.2 million in North America

o   204.7 million in Latin America/Caribbean

o   110.9 million in Africa

o   63.2 million in the Middle East

o   21.3 million in Oceana and Australia

Given that there are about 2.9 billion e-mail accounts around the world, it’s not too surprising that out of 294 billion messages a day, roughly 89 % were spam.

Some other interesting facts:

-        About 152 million blogs worldwide

-        Total websites:  255 million – 21.4 million more than the previous year

-        Domain names?  Comprised of:

o   88.8 million .com

o   13.2 million .net

o   8.6 million .org

o   79.2 million “country code” names, such as .uk, .cn, .au, etc.

Twitter and Facebook:

-        Twitter:

o   100 million new accounts added by Twitter last year.

o   175 million accounts as of September

o   25 billion Tweets sent in 2010

-        Facebook:

o   250 million accounts added in 2010

o   600 million accounts at the end of the year

With all of this activity, quite naturally, organizations and employees must be very careful – particularly when conducting business via these means – to be mindful of security, best business practices, and appropriate styles for communication and tone.

For “business” – a simple reminder from the BTW:  Monitor what is being done in the name of your domain.  The simplest example:  Be certain that JohnQSmith@yourdomain.org is not sending mail or posting to blogs or articles anything that reflects poorly on business, clients, co-workers, supervision, etc.

Ensure employees are trained and refreshed about the perils for blending social networking and business.  Some small and medium businesses utilize social networking for advertising, networking, and communicating – and do it very effectively.  However, it is in these circumstances there is peril for a natural tendency to mix “friending” and “businessing.”  Be careful.

Larger enterprises flat-out ban the use of social networks at work, and thus for any business being conducted through them.  Be certain to know your organization’s Acceptable Use, Content Management and Security policies through and through.  If you are the driving authority for these policies, make certain they are spec’d for 2011 and beyond…

For Business:  Remember that any organization owns not only its technical enablements, such as the e-mail system and all supporting systems, but all content within those.  It is your content to monitor; prudent business does not need to read each and every e-mail (impossible), nor does it need to spot check mail (excepting of course when HR and allied business supervision suspects employee malfeasance).  Rather, your system should have alerts based upon words and phrases that can flag the appropriate organizational authorities so as to instigate  investigation when necessary.

Of course, any measure of manual oversight and spot-checking is fine.  That is up to each individual organization; based on need, size, volume of traffic, policing practices, and so on. 

But above all, be efficient:  Get some flags set, and train personnel and dispense policy – have each employee sign appropriate policies as having been read and understood and file them in their personnel folders.

NP:  Sarah Vaughan –  Sassy Swings the Tivoli.  Original 1963 LP (Live at the Tivoli in Copenhagen – Sarah; Kirk Stuart,piano; Charles Williams, double bass; George Hughes, drums).    Original Mercury LP.  Class – and world-class.