Email Name Problems

[Bryan Phillips]

There are two people at my company whose name is Bryan
Phillips. However, our first names are spelled
differently. My name is spelled with a "Y" -> "BRYAN",
while the other employee's name is spelled with an "I" -

"BRIAN" (hereinafter the "Wrong Guy").

As an attorney for the company, I frequently receive very
sensitive (and attorney-client privileged) material. This
leads me to my problem. Its not uncommon for people within
the company who need to send me an email message, to
assume that my name is spelled with an "I" -> "BRIAN". If
that person happens to manually type my name in the "TO"
line ("BRIAN"), the system will automatically find the
Wrong Guy.

My IS department first attempted to fix this issue by
adding our middle initials to our names (e.g., "BRYAN K.
Phillips (for me) and "BRIAN A. Philips"(for the Wrong
Guy)). That didn't work because, again, if a person
attempting to send me an email assumed that my name is
spelled with an "I" -> "BRIAN", manually entered it
as "BRIAN", and didn't know (or care to know) our middle
initials, the system will automatically find the wrong
person and send the email to the Wrong Guy.

My IS department next attempted to fix this issue by
adding a functional description after each of our names
((e.g., "BRYAN K. Phillips (Legal) (for me) and "BRIAN A.
Philips" (Marketing) (for the Wrong Guy)). This fix was
also ineffective at solving the problem. If a person
attempting to send me an email assumed that my name is
spelled with an "I" -> "BRIAN", manually entered it
as "BRIAN", and (a) didn't know (or care to know) our
middle initials, (b) didn't know (or care to know) about
our functional descriptions (this is especially an issue
for people outside of our organization who won't see that
anyway), or (c) just didn't look back at the "TO" line
after the system resolved the email name, the system will
automatically find the wrong person and send the email to
the Wrong Guy.

I'm a patient and persistent person. I have repeatedly
asked that this issue be resolved by designating the
spelling our two names as equivalents or aliases of one
another. At that point, the system would force users to
select between the two Bryans (or Brians if your name is
spelled like the Wrong Guy) and learn more about each
(i.e., with middle initial or functional job description)
if they really wanted to send an email. Just like Sue is
an equivalent of Susan, or Greg an equivalent of Gregory.

After repeated experiences of ineffective solutions, I
jokingly requested in my most recent email that if this
issue couldn't be resolved by designating our two names as
equivalents, I would be ok with changing the spelling of
my given name to "BRIAN". Of course, my IS department
feeling all out of potential solutions, took me up on my
suggestion and changed my Outlook display name to "BRIAN".

Did this solve the problem? No!!!!!!!!! By only changing
my Outlook display name to "BRIAN", the system still
automatically finds the Wrong Guy when a person attempting
to send me an email manually types "BRIAN" (assuming that
is the spelling of my name) instead of forcing the user to
select between two identities.

 

[Guest]

Your administrators can't perform miracles. I'd tell your
clients to start spelling your name correctly or just fire
the "Wrong Guy" from the company...

 

[romanb]

Hey BrYan,

Just an FYI,
the names you mention are stored in cache on each of the
clients machines, in each of the clients LOCAL outlook
profile. There's a technote from microsoft outlining how
to clear the cache so that you can fix such problems as
incorrect spelling or duplicate or similar names. The
file name is PROFILE.NK2 (Where PROFILE is the name of
the outlook profile name).

Hope this helps
Roman