My report from November's ARMA International Conference just appeared in the January issue of KM World. Click on the title, above, to follow the link.
And watch for an upcoming article on retention in InformationManagementCompare.com
04 January 2011
22 November 2010
Links
Gentle readers:
Despite the fact that months have passed since my last post, my quill and inkwell have been busy.
Watch for upcoming publications:
1) My review of the ARMA International conference to appear in KM World
2) "GARP in the Real World" to appear in the Jan/Feb issue of Information Management
3) An exploration of "Retention" at InformationManagementCompare.com
Most of my other work cannot be reprinted here for copyright reasons, but here are some links.
Thanks for your interest, and as always, stay in touch,
Gordy
ghoke@mindspring.com
Despite the fact that months have passed since my last post, my quill and inkwell have been busy.
Watch for upcoming publications:
1) My review of the ARMA International conference to appear in KM World
2) "GARP in the Real World" to appear in the Jan/Feb issue of Information Management
3) An exploration of "Retention" at InformationManagementCompare.com
Most of my other work cannot be reprinted here for copyright reasons, but here are some links.
- Long-term storage of digital records is discussed at http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/Editorial/Feature/What-should-you-do-to-preserve-records-with-a-long-life-cycle3f-70065.aspx
- Lessons learned from a hospital's lost records is at http://www.informationmanagementcompare.com/453-Articles/449-Lessons-Learned-the-Hard-Way-What-you-can-glean-from-the-misadventures-of-an-East-Coast-hospital/
- Problems arising from the new federal requirements for digital health records are at: http://www.informationmanagementcompare.com/453-Articles/232-Explosive-Healthcare-Informatics-Challenged/
Thanks for your interest, and as always, stay in touch,
Gordy
ghoke@mindspring.com
15 July 2010
Last Limerick of GARP -- Disposition
Chimerical search for stability
By keeping all docs is futility.
The records we keep
Can bury us deep.
Not assets? Then they're liability.
By keeping all docs is futility.
The records we keep
Can bury us deep.
Not assets? Then they're liability.
01 July 2010
Managing Records with Technology
In 1989, companies called their computer departments MIS – Management Information Systems. According to Wikipedia, the term arose when computers first analyzed vast amounts of business information and reported it to corporate leadership in a meaningful, revealing way. It was common parlance, at least through the mid-1990s.
Today, one rarely hears of MIS. The accepted jargon is “IT”, or Information Technology. When Keane Inc. advertises “We get IT done”, no further explanation is required.
This evolution from MIS to IT may be merely a matter of nomenclature, but I suspect there is significant substance. When computers first proliferated throughout American businesses, starting in the 1960s, they were enabling tools. The first word processors were extensions of the electric typewriter. Spreadsheet software automated accountants’ paper work sheets. Computers and their programs formed workbenches to get traditional jobs done better and faster.
In the same way, Management Information Systems were tools. They helped business leaders make intelligent decisions by manipulating data in ways previously unattainable. Under MIS, data warehouses and data mining extracted useful, perceptive reports. Managers still guided their businesses at a very granular, tactical level. The new tools helped them do that better, quicker and more reliably.
Somewhere on our way to the Millennium, this situation evolved. Computers got better, faster, and cheaper, and software designers addressed a growing number of business processes. They wrote programs that automated more and more tactical decisions.
Businesses’ nature changed. Whenever there was severe economic pressure, such as the recession of 1992, the middle managers responsible for tactical decisions got pink slips. They weren’t needed any more, their responsibilities taken over by computers. Organizational hierarchies flattened. Computers made tactical calls, leaving the big cheeses (sans secretaries) to make the strategic decisions.
Concurrently, MIS became IT with the emphasis on technology more than management.
How does this apply to Records & Information Management?
We are a bit late to the party. From the 1960s to the 1990s, when general business went digital and document workers pursued the “paperless office”, records managers persistently plied their paper-based profession. RIM prophets sounded the clarion, but for a variety of reasons, few practitioners responded until the middle of the last decade.
In 2010, RIM automation may be analogous to the state of general business computing in the 1980s. Software automates the tasks, but not the management of records. RIM administration remains labor intensive.
In the future, software may analyze content, compare it to laws/regulations, evaluate usage patterns, and create reliable retention schedules, all automatically. Recent releases of contextual analytics point in that direction.
But for now, management is still a major part of RIM, and our tools are MIS. We’re not ready to abandon that to IT, just yet.
Today, one rarely hears of MIS. The accepted jargon is “IT”, or Information Technology. When Keane Inc. advertises “We get IT done”, no further explanation is required.
This evolution from MIS to IT may be merely a matter of nomenclature, but I suspect there is significant substance. When computers first proliferated throughout American businesses, starting in the 1960s, they were enabling tools. The first word processors were extensions of the electric typewriter. Spreadsheet software automated accountants’ paper work sheets. Computers and their programs formed workbenches to get traditional jobs done better and faster.
In the same way, Management Information Systems were tools. They helped business leaders make intelligent decisions by manipulating data in ways previously unattainable. Under MIS, data warehouses and data mining extracted useful, perceptive reports. Managers still guided their businesses at a very granular, tactical level. The new tools helped them do that better, quicker and more reliably.
Somewhere on our way to the Millennium, this situation evolved. Computers got better, faster, and cheaper, and software designers addressed a growing number of business processes. They wrote programs that automated more and more tactical decisions.
Businesses’ nature changed. Whenever there was severe economic pressure, such as the recession of 1992, the middle managers responsible for tactical decisions got pink slips. They weren’t needed any more, their responsibilities taken over by computers. Organizational hierarchies flattened. Computers made tactical calls, leaving the big cheeses (sans secretaries) to make the strategic decisions.
Concurrently, MIS became IT with the emphasis on technology more than management.
How does this apply to Records & Information Management?
We are a bit late to the party. From the 1960s to the 1990s, when general business went digital and document workers pursued the “paperless office”, records managers persistently plied their paper-based profession. RIM prophets sounded the clarion, but for a variety of reasons, few practitioners responded until the middle of the last decade.
In 2010, RIM automation may be analogous to the state of general business computing in the 1980s. Software automates the tasks, but not the management of records. RIM administration remains labor intensive.
In the future, software may analyze content, compare it to laws/regulations, evaluate usage patterns, and create reliable retention schedules, all automatically. Recent releases of contextual analytics point in that direction.
But for now, management is still a major part of RIM, and our tools are MIS. We’re not ready to abandon that to IT, just yet.
The Limericks of GARP -- Retention
Did you know that GARP's point of Retention
Deserves a lot more than mere mention
Retention brings plaudits
Right after the audits
Avoiding both guilt and detention
Deserves a lot more than mere mention
Retention brings plaudits
Right after the audits
Avoiding both guilt and detention
11 June 2010
The Limericks of GARP -- Availability
The lack of files' availability
Can lead to a loss of civility:
"I wait such a while
For every damn file,
I want to shout, 'It's all futility!'"
Can lead to a loss of civility:
"I wait such a while
For every damn file,
I want to shout, 'It's all futility!'"
20 May 2010
The Limericks of GARP -- Protection
Because of GARP's call for Protection
We gave CD-ROMs a rejection
Their quick degradation
Before regulations
Expire, brought film's resurrection
We gave CD-ROMs a rejection
Their quick degradation
Before regulations
Expire, brought film's resurrection
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