What happens when things go wrong?

The Peter Dutton text saga is the latest public reminder to us all to check, and triple check, the sender line in all our communications when sending information electronically.

Sending emails, texts or tweets to the wrong person is not new. We’ve all heard amusing stories or career-breaking tales of such actions. It’s rather horrifying that in this advanced age, there’s no easy way to pull back the errant piece.

At one stage, CBS news wrote about how to survive sending something to the wrong person. “Who knew that, in the information age, ‘send’ would become a four-letter word?“ This piece includes many pertinent points including “forget about retrieving it”, and an interesting approach the writer calls mixing business with the apology: “Look, you can’t hear the tone in an email. I clearly hit the send button too soon and it was a lousy way to say what I said. But I think it’s a legitimate problem and I’d like the opportunity to clarify and expand on what I was talking about.”

The wrong recipient problem is particularly relevant for those working in procurement and probity. Strict confidentiality procedures surround so many aspects of procurement, requiring us to be particularly vigilant about sending information electronically.

In the first CourtHeath podcast, I ask CourtHeath director, Pauline Bernard, to tell us about probity issues when things go wrong with emailing, texting or tweeting.

Click here to listen to the podcast.