Email hell

One of my housekeeping tasks each day is to clear out both my inbox and my sent items each day, although there is an element of cheating, inasmuch as I often simply move the emails to two other folders: ‘client emails to be filed’ (which my secretary then deals with, although I am told SOS Direct will enable me to direct emails to the right client folder, once we get it) and ‘office emails to be filed’ (which I then archive every week or so). There is, however, a semblance of order although two days out of the office means a lot of “email cleansing” when I get back.

John Naughton’s post Controlling the email monster in his Memex 1.1 blog this morning (which in turn links to Luis Suarez’s I freed myself from E-mail’s grip) was spot on,

The bottom line, though, is that organisational email has to be brought back under control. Someone once told me that one of the big supermarket chains — it may be ASDA — has a policy in its open-plan HQ that when anyone’s on email they have to wear a red baseball cap. It’s wacky, but might just work.

The mess that is organisational email is actually a symptom of the failure of ICT systems to provide software services that workers really need. Why, for example, do you find that office workers have email inboxes with thousands of messages in them? Answer: because it gives them an electronic filing system that they can use. So instead of being an indicator of how hopeless people are at managing ICT, overflowing inboxes are actually a measure of how ingenious humans are when faced with useless technology.

I am not sure that red baseball caps will work for us (and some of my colleagues would never be able to take them off) but it’s an idea.

What is perhaps more interesting is how long emails will survive. My children now only use email to keep in touch with us; with each other it is instant messaging (and even with us: whether through Facebook or Skype). They don’t yet Twitter, but I am sure that they will soon.

“Appropriate safeguards”

If it is not the government, it is the EU prepared to play fast and loose with our civil liberties. See Mark Townsend in The Observer this morning,

“The EU is close to finalising an agreement with the US that would allow the FBI to see the internet browsing habits and credit card histories of UK citizens. However, the prospect of an agreement between Brussels and Washington that will lower barriers to swapping previously private data, including travel history and spending patterns, will alarm civil rights advocates.

Talks about the transfer of highly personal information held by the UK government and leading companies to American security agencies began following the September 2001 terrorist attacks. US counter-terrorism officials argued that increased information on the movements and habits of European residents would help prevent a repeat attack.

Details of a joint report by US and EU negotiators indicate that progress on the agreement is advanced, following years of opposition from European states with stricter privacy laws. One final hurdle still to be cleared is whether British and European citizens can sue the US government over its handling of their personal data.

Another area of concern relates to what ‘appropiate safeguards’ have been agreed to prevent the US authorities from requesting further information such as the religion, political opinion and ‘sexual life’ of a British resident.”

Appropriate safeguards? Don’t hold your breath.

The arrogance of power

Catching up with a week of feeds after a hectic few days, my eye was caught by John Naughton’s post in Memex 1.1 Inside the bunker, linking to the FT’s piece about life in Number 10 (and perfectly juxtaposed with Naughton’s subsequent post, Hitler: the remix. When will someone do the same for Gordon: I would, if I had the IT skill: the Lisbon Treaty, Henley, Wendy Alexander etc.).

Now, this morning, Willem Buiter’s post in his FT Maverecon blog, Manners matter – especially for powerful individuals and institutions. This is Buiter’s conclusion on the Treasury, so long the home and fiefdom of Gordon Brown,

Politicians and others in positions of power should be judged not only on the quality of the decisions they take and the choices they make, but also on the manners they display in their public and administrative roles. The arrogance of power manifests itself in unnecessary brutality and cruelty – sometimes born of ignorance or indifference, sometimes deliberate – toward those whom it considers ‘disposable’. As the most powerful government department, the Treasury displays contempt for and nastiness towards those whom it considers to be obstacles to the effective pursuit of its goals, more frequently and with greater intensity than other institutions.

Even when the goals of the Treasury are aligned with the public interest, there is no presumption that these ends will justify the means used to achieve them. This is true even when these means are necessary; it is true a fortiori if the means are unnecessary ‘bad manners’ add-ons.

In practice, even the goals of the Treasury can be in conflict with the committed pursuit of the public interest. They may represent no more than the opportunistic pursuit of party-political or other sectional interests. To use gratuitous nastiness in the pursuit of the wrong objectives would be the nadir of public policy. Regrettably we see this too often.

Hosta Heaven

Last weekend we were garden visiting at Cleave House, Sticklepath, first Ann and Roger Bowden’s garden, where they hold a National Collection of Hostas, and then Bowdens Hostas, now run by their daughter and son-in-law. A very satisfactory morning, and three new plants for our garden.

Once home, and in the garden, the germ of an idea: there is a narrow gravelled area between the garden shed, home to Caroline’s collection of streptocarpus, and the bank that I have singularly failed to make into a rockery. I now grow alpines in the greenhouse. Why not a frame and netting to allow the dappled shade that hostas love, as well as saving the acer that hates the sun, but has to endure it at least some of the day?

One more task for the week off in August.

How much do we mind? Not a lot, it seems,

Not long after posting More on 42 days last week, I read The Economist’s take on the erosion of civil liberties in Britain, Mary Poppins and Magna Carta

Liberals have long lamented that, despite much stirring rhetoric about the mother of parliaments and Magna Carta, modern Britons have little real interest in their hard-won liberties. On June 17th, as Gordon Brown gave a speech on the subject, that pessimism seemed confirmed when one rapt listener fell asleep in the middle of the prime minister’s oration.

Much worse, however, was Gordon Brown’s argument “that new state powers were guarantors of liberty, not threats to it.” This was the position taken by Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Saddam and most recently Mugabe. Gordon must be pleased he is such good company.