"Permanent" Records Storage?

Last night, an esteemed colleague in data security used the phrase "persistent storage". This struck me as a useful description for retention that has otherwise been described as "permanent". The word "persistent" connotes an ongoing nature without definite termination. It seems more appropriate since nothing is truly permanent.

The earliest writings we have are 5,000 year old cuneiforms. That's about half the lifecycle necessary for inventory records of spent fuel rods at our nuclear power plants (and 10,000 years is just the half-life, after which the rods still emit dangerous radiation.)

Call a 10,000 year lifecycle "permanent" storage if you like. For anything shorter, I prefer the word "persistent".

Your thoughts?

An MM that is not candy-coated chocolate, Mickey Mouse, a Detroit Rapper, Maris and Mantle, nor Mauer and Morneau (if you’re a Minnesota Twins Fan)

As noted in these pages, last fall in Orlando, ARMA International announced GARP, its Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles. In my October 21 post, “The Disney World According to GARP”, I called it, “a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of information governance.” Further, I noted, “GARP is not a novelty as much as a codification of long-evolving recordkeeping ideals.”

Last week, ARMA released GARP’s companion, a Maturity Model that was still in beta last fall. The MM – although the content is anything but Mickey Mouse -- evaluates RIM programs on a five-point scale:

• Sub-standard
• In development
• Essential
• Proactive
• Transformational
  

Within the Maturity Model’s 40 cells (eight principles x five levels), an organization can objectively evaluate its RIM program, identifying areas that need strengthening and/or risk reduction. No longer need a records manager’s boss describe their program as “pretty good” or worse, “good enough”. With the new MM, a program can be designated, for example, as “60 percent of ideal” or “deficient in two key areas”. And those statements lead to telling questions: “Is that good enough”, “Are we OK with that?” and “Can we live with that level of risk?”

The Maturity Model is a tool, no more/no less. It doesn’t do the evaluation by itself, but it does make a serious evaluation simpler and more accurate.

There are ambiguities to be resolved. Cells contain between two and five statements, and in my first use, I found that a RIM program could stretch over three levels for a single principle. Using the Compliance principle, for example, an organization, simultaneously, could have a Level Two destruction-hold process, a Level Three recognition of “relevant laws and regulations”, and a Level Four training regimen for employees.

Further, RIM programs seldom are monolithic and internally consistent. An organization could have a sophisticated program for managing paper and microforms while its digital records are wildly unmanaged.

These are observations, not criticisms. A creative RIMmer will assign a point value to a particular situation to answer the questions, “Are we good enough? Is our records risk acceptable?”

The GARP MM is a long stride ahead of other evaluators currently available, such as AIIM’s 13-question Records Management Competency Self Assessment Tool and OpenText’s Records Management Scorecard. The MM helps perform a current-state assessment, a prerequisite to a plan for improvement.

To plan an itinerary, one needs to know the starting coordinates. The GARP MM meets that need and points to where a RIM program wants to go.

GARP repackaged best RIM practices in a format that speaks volumes to top management. Similarly, the Maturity Model articulates what every good RIMmer already knows intuitively. Its value lies in quantifying quality and setting benchmarks for top management to accept, reject or authorize improvement.

It would be a mistake to minimize any tool that speaks truth to power. Gaining support from top management is always a critical strategy. When moving a RIM program forward, GARP’s MM offers significant help.

On the Sunny Side of the Street

In the January 19, 2010 issue of Infonomics Weekly, Editory Bryant Duhon asks: "Are We Too Negative?Avoid litigation. Stay out of jail. Avoid costs. OK, these are good goals, but do we focus too much on the negative benefits that the tools in the ECM industry provide at the expense of pointing out how valuable and effective those tools can be at providing real ROI and positive value?"

To which I responded:

"Sure there is plenty of negativity out there…there always is. But the glass is half-full, too. That's why my blog is called 'Positively RIM'. On the plus side, we can say that Records/Content Management allows the defendants to prove their innocence in a court of law. It allows law-abiders to prove their compliance with regulations. It contributes to a greener planet.

"Beyond that, however, records management is an underpinning of our whole society. It delivers laws and case laws. It verifies honest elections. It enables customer service. And it preserves our history. Each year, more than a million Americans file their first claims for Social Security benefits and, behold, their work records from 40 year before are there to verify their labors and just desserts. That's just one of many positive examples.

"So there are plenty of positives to see. Sometimes it means looking at the bottom half of the proverbial glass. And sometimes it means taking a step back to appreciate what we (especially in America) often take for granted."

Mr. Records Neighborhood -- a play for two actors

MR. RECORDS: (sings while donning cardigan):
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,
A beautiful day for a neighbor.
Would you be mine? Could you be mine?
Won’t you please …won’t you please….Please won’t you be my neighbor?

MR. RECORDS: Good morning, boys and girls. I’m so glad you’re in the neighborhood today! I’m Mr. Records. What’s your name? Names are important. Our neighborhood has a name, too. It’s called the Records Center. Can you say that? Can you say, “Records Center”? [Pause] That’s right…Records Center.

I use records every day, and so do you! There are a lot of records here in the neighborhood. There are even more records in the Land of Make Believe, mostly on digital tape. In fact, if you tried to count all of the records in the Records Center and the Land of Make Believe, it would be more than you or I could count. That’s a lot of records!

Today I want to talk with you about records where you live and play because, y’know what? Records are like people. Every record is special! That’s right. No two records are exactly the same, just like no two people are exactly the same. If they were, then one would be a copy, and copies are not records. No! But just like people, every record is special.

And do you know what else, boys and girls? Every record has an owner. There are no orphan records. Every record belongs to someone. From the moment it arrives or is created until the time to get rid of it, every record belongs to someone. Isn’t that a comfort? So if you’re a record, you’re never alone.

Do you remember last week, when Mr. McFeely was supposed to deliver five messages, but he could only find four of them. He got very upset and a little bit grumpy, didn’t he? Ummm-hmmm. He had to learn an important lesson about where he put important letters so that the Postmaster General wouldn’t indict him. I’m glad he learned that lesson. He set up a records program to be sure he would never lose a letter again. That was a good idea!

Today I thought we would pay a visit to our neighborhood’s Records Center Manager, Lotta Lectrons. She knows all about taking care of records.

[MR. RECORDS WALKS STAGE LEFT]

Hello, Lotta, it’s good to see you again.

LOTTA: Hello, Mr. Records, it’s nice to see you, too.

MR. RECORDS: Would you tell the girls and boys about all the kinds of records that you have here?

LOTTA: Sure, Mr. Records. We all know that a record is information that is important…if it is not important, then it isn’t a record. And we all know about the records like Mr. McFeely was looking for, the kind where the information is printed on paper.

But did you know that what’s important about the record is the information in the record, not the way it is stored? So, information stored on a computer is just as much a record as information stored on paper, even though it is stored in a very different way.

MR. RECORDS: So whatever way important information is stored, it’s still a record?

LOTTA: That’s right. It could be stored in flash memory or on a USB drive or on a DVD. The medium doesn’t matter…it’s the information that is important.

MR RECORDS: Do you mean that someday, these boys and girls might have podcasts of Mr. Records on their MP3 players?

LOTTA: Yes, they might. And it doesn’t matter what kind of format the information is in: It could be in MP3, but it could be a text or a TIFF file. It could be a PDF or a Wave file. Remember, what’s important is the information, not the way it is stored.

MR RECORDS: What else do the boys and girls need to know about records?

LOTTA: Well, it’s important to know that getting rid of records is as important as keeping them. We call it disposition. Can you say, “disposition”?

MR RECORDS: Dis-po-ZI-shun.

LOTTA: Good! Disposition is important because the records you keep when you shouldn’t have them are as harmful as the records that you should have that you can’t find.

MR RECORDS: Well, we know about missing records from Mr. McFeely.

LOTTA: Yes, but do you remember when Daniel took a cat nap instead of getting rid of King Friday’s records according to the retention schedule? When the lawyers found the records that should have been disposed, they made King Friday pay a big ransom. Daniel was very sorry and felt bad for a long time!

MR RECORDS: Yes, he did. He was a very sad, scaredy-cat. And all of those leftover records made it hard to find the other records that were still important.

LOTTA: That’s right. There’s one more thing here at the Records Center that I would like the boys and girls to know.

MR RECORDS: What’s that, Lotta?

LOTTA: Well, sometimes certain records are put on “Hold”. That means that we keep them until the “hold” is over, even if the regular retention schedule tells us it is time to dispose of the records.

MR RECORDS: Does that mean that our retention schedule is strong, but a “hold” is even stronger?

LOTTA: Exactly. Now you know how the Records Center works.

MR RECORDS: Well, thank you Lotta. That’s a really important lesson to know. I think Mr. McFeely, King Friday, and all of us will do better knowing more about records.

LOTTA: Thanks for visiting, Mr. Records

[MR RECORDS WALKS STAGE RIGHT]

MR RECORDS: Lotta Lectrons is really smart. She pays attention to the information, not the medium. She keeps records as long as it says to on the retention schedule, and then, she gets rid of the information. And she always keeps records that are on “hold”.

[TAKES OFF HIS CARDIGAN, AND SINGS]

It’s such a good feeling, from your head to your toes
It’s such a happy feeling, when its time to dispose
No holds to keep what you have retained
And with a snap, lose more than you’ve gained.
It’s such a good feeling, a very good feeling…
That I’ll settle back with a Coke and some rum
With a smile on my face when the auditors come
And you’ll have files you want to store a while,
I will too.

Good bye, boys and girls. Good bye.

[END]

A Haiku

Controls, governance,
That's why I smile when I see
The auditors come

Esoteric No More

My whirlwind visit to the Greater Anchorage Chapter of ARMA last week opened my eyes to the widespread thirst and need for understanding our discipline, Records and Information Management. As the Chapter convened under the able leadership of President Toby Allen, I saw that the attending practitioners sense that thirst in their organizations, and they came for tools to quench it.

Generally, I think of RIM as an esoteric pursuit. Merriam-Webster.com defines “esoteric” as, “understood by the specially initiated alone,” and, “limited to a small group”. When people ask me, “What do you do?” I generally answer as quickly and succinctly as possible, aware that my kids call me the master of TMI (too much information -- they give me the referees’ time-out tee with their hands rather than wait for a chance to get the words in edgewise.)

I didn’t expect people in general to be interested in what we do…until now. Today, the craving to effectively deal with a glut of information is widespread. Maybe hermits and isolating survivalists aren’t besieged with TMI, but almost anyone with an email account is. The incessant drumming of headlines about lost records, lost information, and breached security raises our anxiety to the pay-rapt-attention level.

Much of the populace is bewildered by their own records, and torrents of attorneys and other leaders realize their organizations live and die by their records’ potential effect. On the plane to the 49th state, I answered my neighbor’s query, “What do you do?” and he pummeled me with questions about his personal records retention. At the University of Alaska -- Anchorage, students in Brian Saylor’s “Public Administration and Technology” class saw a great, amorphous cloud of info begin to take shape as they internalized the rudiments of RIM.

I know you know that the practice of RIM is rising from the basement to the boardroom. Now it is clear that RIM is also broadening from an esoteric niche to an underpinning of society. The need and demand for help with records runs broad and deep.

This may be unsettling for introvert records managers who entered the field expecting to serve away from the hubbub. Today’s RIMers need to forcefully and authoritatively interpret their discipline to the highest levels of management. What some may not realize is that those leaders are eager to hear the truth as RIM knows it. There is no need to be shy and self-effacing.

RIM is esoteric no more. Our organizations desperately need us, whether they know it or not. In the world I see, more and more organizations recognize that need, and they plead for our help. Let’s give it to them!

[Footnote: The slides from my presentation, “The Synergy of Records and Content Management” are available at www.slideshare.com.]

The Disney World According to GARP

Last week, I high-tailed it down to Orlando for ARMA International’s 54th annual conference and expo. About 3500 other record-heads joined me for the official introduction of GARP, the "Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles" that have been brewing for over a year. I see GARP, and an accompanying maturity model for evaluating compliance to this new standard as a significant contribution to the burgeoning field of information governance. Both GARP and the model appear on www.arma.org.

This initiative coincides with the business community's spike in interest in information governance, as evidenced by a spate of news reports and recent acquisitions by leading ECM vendors. Conference speakers touted GARP as a way for records/information managers to say to top management, "You want info governance, and we've had it all along."

Indeed, GARP is not a novelty as much as a codification of long-evolving recordkeeping ideals. GARP distills Records & Information Management (RIM) best practices into eight categories:

• Accountability
• Integrity
• Protection
• Compliance
• Availability
• Retention
• Disposition
• Transparency

Comprehensive in nature, GARP is likely to extend the value of RIM in the eyes of executives with responsibility for compliance, finance, operations and information technology.

Fewer than 10 years ago, the stereotypic records manager was a basement-dwelling librarian safeguarding boxes of paper. RIM stock rose rapidly after 2002, thanks to a rushing embrace of digital records, a cry for help from corporate defense attorneys, and a multiplication of electronic records volume and media that has challenged existing information systems and schema.

The key issue switched from storage to controlling and exploiting large amounts of content/data. Over the last few years, the unit cost of digital storage plummeted while the number of available media skyrocketed. The key question switched from, “What are the practical limits of storage?” to, “How can we control and use the information we are acquiring?” Recent case law adds the question, “Who is responsible for and in control of the rapidly expanding information within many organizations.”

Records management practitioners have dealt with these issues for decades, if not centuries. In classical RIM governance, every record has a custodian at all times, and records without a reason for being are disposed. GARP neatly packages this discipline and offers it in a readily usable format.

As information governance ascends in importance, that is, as organizations seek better control and value from their data, records managers should find themselves in the calm eye of the hurricane around them.

Among the vendors on the expo floor in Orlando, nearly 100 offered products and/or services related to document and content management. Many of those -- also stalwarts at AIIM -- reflected a growing sophistication and appreciation for how ECM serves records management programs in large and midsized organizations. They clearly understood how their software solutions support organizations that ascribe to GARP. Lamentably, the booth staff of several other leading ECM vendors appeared clueless about how their products related to RIM.

I noted two technical areas that promise significant advantages over the next several months. The first (previewed by IBM and referred to by other vendors) was software for content analysis using textual and syntactical analytics for 1) auto classification of potential records and 2) building taxonomies. Potentially, this removes the human factor in deciding which documents are records and need to be preserved. This tactic will be useful when the accuracy of the software matches the acceptable level of risk in an organization.

The second involved improved techniques for taming MS SharePoint 2007. Compared to last year, the vendors showed greater understanding of the RIM issues SharePoint raises, and they offered better tools to contain, control, and cure its viral growth. SharePoint, however, may be a moving target, as the 2010 version should include significant changes. Also, a potential SharePoint competitor with its own set of problems and challenges lurks on the edge of vendors’ radar screens: The Google Wave, now in beta.

The relationship between ECM vendors, as associated in AIIM, and RIM practitioners, as associated in ARMA, has matured significantly over the last few years. “Records management” appeared as buzz words at AIIM’s conference in 2002. Many content managers saw RIM as a technology to add to their tool belts along side imaging, workflow, report management, forms processing, and others.

Seven years later, AIIM gives ever more energy to RIM, and many of its leading vendors recognize that acquiring vast quantities of information and easing its manipulation is only part of the challenge. Information needs organization and governance. With its release of GARP, ARMA declares that it is a prime source for organization and governance. Businesses that seek to glean the maximum value out of their acquired information need look no further.