This came from "Reason" a reader of Air Force Voices who posted a new comment on a previous post
It is a great read and made me laugh/sigh/think. The comment is posted in its entirety below.
AF eMail ( aka eMail-for-Life ) is a single, static e-mail address that will not change during the career of an Airman or Air Force civilian employee. This already exists: http://gimail.af.mil/
The current e-mail system, rapid mobility of the force and frequent assignments and career development opportunities outside the Air Force can make it difficult for Airmen to communicate."At any given time, we can only reliably connect and communicate with 79 percent of our force through e-mail," said Capt. Kirk Phillips, information technology division chief at the Air Force Senior Leader Management Office.
Where did that 79% number come from? How will email for life raise it?
"E-mail is the most critical communication tool that we're using to implement force development and transform our personnel process. Industry-standard e-business solutions require static e-mail addresses, and that is the direction the Air Force is headed," Captain Phillips said.
I've never run across a commercial business practice that doesn't allow you to change your email address.
Airmen will be able to complete personnel actions in minutes through e-mail and the Internet, along with other benefits, he said.
We can we do that now? I'll believe it when I see it.
"Not only is there a huge potential for Air Force cost avoidance, but mission support will be greatly enhanced by empowering every member to reliably connect and communicate with each other without worry about changing e-mail addresses every couple of years," Captain Phillips said.
How is this a problem? If the guy I'm trying to contact has PCSd, then he's not the guy I need. What would help more is have a static address for a specific job, for example, if you want to contact the IT Division Chief at Air Staff, you should be able to send an email to it_division_chief@hq.af.mil not kirk.phillips@hq.af.mil.
"We'll be able to transform personnel processes under the Air Force directorate of personnel's personnel service delivery model and empower members and databases to connect and communicate through e-business applications instead of local personnel flights."
We should be able to do that anyway.
Those personnel processes include: official personnel notifications and announcements; command, promotion and professional military education candidacy and selection; and retirement, assignment, evaluation, feedback and decoration processing.
Most of this can be done through listservs. (Which the AF has been slow to embrace.) The rest can be done be looking up the members email address in a database. Not having static addresses is not an excuse for not being able to do these things.
Officials said they plan for the Air Force to be fully capable under AF eMail by 2007.
WTFO?! TWO YEARS!!!!!!!!! Give me a break! Its email, not rocket science.
Currently, every senior Air Force official has been provided an account. "We've segmented the force based on mission requirements and will slowly scale the availability to the entire force versus an all-at-once implementation," Captain Phillips said. "We started with the highest level leaders, and our plan is to offer it to other segments of the force this summer." During the initial stages, Airmen will continue to use their local or major command e-mail accounts as well as the AF eMail account."Until the migration of e-mail accounts happens, it's each member’s responsibility to check the AF eMail account on a regular basis," Captain Phillips said. “That’s where their career-affecting personnel actions will be.”
You are kidding me! They want us to check two email address, because they are taking two years to implement something that should be done in weeks and because they can't link two email addresses together (e.g. using forwarding addresses) and they can't look up email addresses in a database.
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