Craig suggests that automated nagging alerts can help stimulate people to action on things they should have done but haven’t got to yet. He calls these “Notification through Automated Governance” (NAG) 😉

“Nowadays there are systems I work with that send out automated nags about not getting information entered and I appreciate them. They are fair and sent to everyone that forgot without singling me out. I can’t take them personally, since they are not sent by a person. Accordingly, they don’t impact my opinion of anyone (‘geez, I’m only one day late and you’re bugging me? How about when you were late with xxx …’), and they act as a handy reminder of something I may have forgotten.

But done properly, I think they are well worthwhile and easy to implement. And in these times when it’s difficult to get funding for new software, it acts as a good example of using technology you already own to improve productivity by greasing the gears of communication between enterprise information workers.”

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