Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletters
For more info on a specific newsletter, click the title. Details will be displayed in a new window.
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
More E-Mail Newsletters 
 

Accidental e-mail congratulates 7,000 on admission to UC Berkeley law school

Lesson learned: Always be careful when hitting the ‘send’ button

February 24, 2006 12:00 PM ET

Computerworld - Edward Tom, director of admissions at the University of California, Berkeley, law school, was training a new office worker last week when it happened.

Tom was demonstrating the e-mail software used by the school and was highlighting several features, including how the user can filter mail and set it to send messages to one recipient or many at the same time.

That’s when he chose what happened to be a standard congratulatory message on being admitted to the university’s prestigious law school and accidentally sent it to all 7,000 students who have applied for admission to the law school. The problem, which the school quickly admitted, is that all of the applicants won’t be admitted. In fact, there’s only room for 800 to 850 of them. The e-mail congratulated the applicants on their recent “admission” to the school and invited them to an annual reception co-hosted by alumni and several student organizations.

“I hit the Send button,” Tom said, describing the mistake. “Normally when we do [training] for real, I have another person on staff who’s an expert.” But that worker was not available when the new employee started last Friday.

“I’ve never had a glitch with that expert in six years of training new staff members,” Tom said. “It takes a bumbling fool like me.”

After realizing what had happened, Tom sent out an apology e-mail to the applicant pool within 20 minutes. He sent another letter of apology the next day.

“I deeply regret any confusion or disappointment this error may have caused,” Tom said. “I know that many law school applicants are particularly anxious while awaiting the arrival of decision letters, and I regret that this incident may have added to that tension.”

Tom said he has since talked with workers in the school’s IT department to see if the software vendor can add a pop-up dialog box to the application to give users a last chance to confirm that they are about to send out e-mail.

So far, about 500 applicants to the school have actually been offered admission. The remainder will be notified in the next three weeks, with the process expected to be completed by the first week of April.

Tom said that about 10 applicants who received the errant e-mail informed him that were very distraught after learning that it was a mistake. About 90 others sent notes to him offering their understanding and accepting his apology.



Additional Resources

POLL RESULTS
Accelerate your knowledge of the IT world you inhabit by viewing the results of a series of polls taken by your IT peers. These polls of 100+ IT professionals each are available for full viewing. They cover key topics such as virtualization, processor performance, green IT, cloud computing and many others. Be a part of the buzz.
WHITE PAPER
Technology is complex. Keeping it running productively shouldn't be. To that end, you want to minimize the number of solutions needed in-house to simplify operations, maintenance, and support. Kodak offers a best-practices model. One company provides support for both scanner and software, for fast problem resolution without vendor finger-pointing. Download now!
WHITE PAPER
Utilizing demand intelligence improves the precision of pricing, product assortments, channel/store placement, and promotion, which are all essential for sustainable revenue management performance. Learn more, download this free whitepaper today.

White Papers & Webcasts

Natural User Interface for Enterprise Applications
Learn how a revolutionary user interface can make a complex enterprise application so intuitive even casual users can jump right in....  

Why Now is the Right Time for the Linux Desktop
(Source: Novell) Faced with tighter budgets, enterprises are rethinking their desktop strategies to deliver the same - if not better - services and...

Moving Beyond Monolithic - What's Next for Enterprise Application Architectures?
This white paper reviews the current state of enterprise application architecture and presents a prediction on what might come next....  

Novell Opens PR Video
Is the Linux desktop for me? Customers are looking for ways to be more flexible and save money. Using Linux offers a great...

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Deployment Approach Guide
This document is intended for IT professionals and managers who are considering deploying SUSE Linux Enterprise Server. Novell has had a number of...  

Usability Is Everything
Learn what sets Workday's HR and Payroll solutions apart from the competition....

SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop Data Sheet
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop is the market's only enterprise-quality Linux desktop ready. It delivers seamless interoperability with existing enterprise systems and dozens of...  

The Value of Real SaaS at Workday
Cost savings, speed to value, and innovation brought to the enterprise by Workday's software-as-a-service solutions for HR and Payroll....

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Data Sheet
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is a highly reliable, interoperable and manageable server operating system built to power mission-critical workloads in physical and virtual...  

SaaS at Flextronics, Inc.
Dave Smoley, CIO of Flextronics, discusses the real value of software-as-a-service and why he chose Workday for his HR solution....