In the weeks leading up to mesh we mesh guys we living pretty much 7 x 24 on email and IM as we organized the conference. I couldn’t tell you how many messages we exchanged, but there we days when it was well over a hundred, possibly even two hundred. And I couldn’t help noticing during that time that I was hearing and reading more from other folks struggling with information overload as well.
Well, now I feel like a complete schmuck. Because this whole time, what has felt like a deluge has been nothing more than a trickle. By comparison, anyway: from the Congressional Committee on Oversight that is investigating use by Administration officials of Republican National Committee email accounts for their government business, instead of their government email accounts (which would be subject to records retention rules):
White House officials made extensive use of their RNC e-mail accounts. The RNC has preserved 140,216 e-mails sent or received by Karl Rove. Over half of these e-mails (75,374) were sent to or received from individuals using official “.gov” e-mail accounts. Other heavy users of RNC e-mail accounts include former White House Director of Political Affairs Sara Taylor (66,018 e-mails) and Deputy Director of Political Affairs Scott Jennings (35,198 e-mails). These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies.
Ex-squeeze me? 140,216 emails???