Bring Back the Company Memo (For Privacy)

In ancient times (before the 1980s), there was a clear distinction between official company communication and personal or private communication. Official communication took the form of "memos," which were intended to be part of the company record. Everything else -- phone calls, personal chats, hand-written scribbles -- were clearly understood to be unofficial, off-the-record and private. When e-mail and chat came along, we lumped them into the same category as "memos" -- fair game for snooping and admissible in court. That was an error. It's time to BRING BACK THE MEMO, and keep e-mail and chat private.