It used to be that when people spoke of a document that was a smoking gun they spoke about an incriminating document that was hidden somewhere in boxes and boxes of irrelevant documents, waiting to be found.
Today a smoking gun is more likely to be an electronic document that is much harder to find than a piece of paper. And the search for these electronic files has given rise to discussions about electronic discovery, document retention and knowledge management .
Yesterday at The Oil for Food Inquiry the Commissioner and counsel expressed their frustration about the discovery of material in an AWB database that should have been produced weeks ago. That material may or may not be a smoking gun but it does appear to be important in proving knowledge of facts at particular dates.
What was interesting was the subsequent analysis of how this data was discovered: someone remembered it! It does not appear to have been catalogued anywhere or to have been reproduced in hard copy. It was someone's job to maintain this database and they asked for the hard copy to be produced. It wasn't found by a database search or any special electronic discovery software used by investigators. Once the person remembered it, retrieving it appears to have been relatively easy although there was some debate about dates and versions.
The point of this note (apart from updating the AWB saga) is that organisations need to understand their risks and have in place systems to manage knowledge related to those risks. They need to know who does what in their organisation and how and where knowledge is stored. It should not take weeks or months to locate important information.
.Everyone should have a love.Because love is pure.
Posted by: toryburch | January 21, 2011 at 03:53 PM