Electronic communication has transmuted conversations into durable and accessible records. Revisionist history has gone the way of the phone booth.

Emails are viewed as an essential historical record of an organization. A record that cannot be expunged must be created with care or not created at all.

Once a message has been sent electronically, the writer has ceded power not just to the recipient, but to whomever the recipient chooses to forward the information. To access electronic communication is to control it. The recipient, not the writer, has power over future dissemination of the writer’s words.

Neither inherently good nor evil, electronic communication platforms are 100 percent dependent on user input.

Every posting, message, or email creates an impression, a public persona, from which other people make judgments. We make judgments about others, but how often do we turn that critical analysis on ourselves?

A single employee, with one message, can succinctly capture the essence of a corporation the same way an iconic photograph captures a moment. Unfortunately, it is usually the negative massages that are published or used in lawsuits.

History was once rewritten by the victors. Now we write our own immutable histories with every email, text, and post.

People act in ways to maximize their self-interest within a company, so create incentives that align employee's objectives with the organization's mission statement. Reward compliance with core values as much as profitability, especially in the face of competitive pressures.

An email cannot be ignored. You may wish an email was not sent to you, because you learned what you did not want to know, but it must be acted upon because there is now a permanent record linking you to that information.