RMS conference 2008

Details of how to book for the RMS 2008 conference in Edinburgh are available.

Click on the title of this post and book early!!

See you there.

Harry Potter talks about ERM

This is quality...hahaha...well done to AIIM.

Please let me know if you see any other gems like this and we'll get the link posted straightaway.

Season's greetings

Season's greetings to everyone. Best wishes for 2008.

This year has been an exciting year for records managers. 2008 promises to be even livelier.

I'm looking forward to grappling with the challenge of Web2.0 technologies. There's lots to do, learn and share. And it's all very exciting. But I think those who predict the rise and rise of Web2.0 and the demise of EDRM systems are a little premature. Having said that, EDRM systems have to evolve to take Web2.0 technologies on board. I'm really looking for seamless integration in my intelligent office.

There is absolutely no way that government departments (whether central, local or NHS) can glibly allow the mass availability of sensitive data. We've got to think about how best we can share information with each other where we can, but keep information confidential where we must.

There's probably a growing need for a shared services initiative. Rather than have a series of independent, isolated EDRM systems we ought to look at how we can share data easily across the web but keep the personal and the sensitive protected. This is more likely to be achieved through the access rights protections of an EDRM system than the free-for-all of Web2.0.

I hate seeing headlines like these...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7158688.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7127951.stm

...so what can we do? Well, as records managers we undoubtedly have a duty of care and that necessarily includes looking at new ways of doing things. We have a lot to consider and 2008 should be the year we all get together to examine how we can best solve the problems we face.

The answer is likely to include new technology; whether it is Web2.0 or interlinked yet independent EDRM systems is debateable. But we also need to get good Information Governance on the agendas of our senior managers.

Yes, 2008 promises to be a lively year.

Best wishes for a healthy, happy and successful year to you all.

Red Kite in Chester.

Stuff is miscellaneous

Click on the title of this post to go to a groovy link from youtube about the ideas in Everything is Miscellaneous.

I spent an hour and a half the other day trying to persuade one of my users not to create a folder called ''Communications". He wanted somewhere to put all of his emails. I tried to explain that they would be filed better in a relevant subject file...for example the emails about widgets should live in a Widgets file.

Well, we discussed it for a while and then I got to thinking..."does it really matter?" I mean he's the one who works with the information, not me. He's the one who has to find it and use it again, not me.

Should I just let users build whatever file structure they want to build, so long as they can find the stuff they're working on?

Ah, if only it was as simple as that...I don't really think my users can always find the stuff they're working on. Some of them don't like using the Search facilities either...so they email links to each other...the dialogue goes...Hey, where's that document you wrote about "Left-handed widgets"?...Here's the link to it.

They call stuff 'Doc1' and put it in a folder called General which is in a folder called Miscellaneous...and then they tell me my system's garbage cos they can never find stuff.

They aren't ready for everything being miscellaneous yet. They can't even cope with everything being where they left it...or where they want it to be...

Records managers in the 21st Century

I'm often asked what skills a records manager in the 21st Century needs. I've come up with the following list...it's not exhaustive...I'll probably add to it so keep checking back...and I'd welcome your feedback.

IT literacy

Records managers are increasingly having to deal with EDRM systems, databases, spreadsheets, webpages, Web 2.0 applications etc and so they must have a basic IT literacy at the very least. I would actually recommend that if you want to embark on a records management career that you make sure you understand IT enough to converse with your IT department on equal terms.

Can you get away with not having a basic IT literacy? Well yes, you probably could but do you want to leave the field clear for your IT team?

Information architect

This is particularly relevant if you have an EDRM system. You will need to be able to design and build your business classification scheme (file plan)with all the necessary privileges and access rights.

Managing and maintaining an ERM file plan can be a full-time job.

Project management

Bringing in an ERM system will involve all manner of project management skills. You must be organised, methodical, flexible, determined and ruthless. A basic PRINCE2 qualification isn't absolutely necessary - yet - but it wouldn't do any harm.

My team tell me that I'm a bit of a control freak too... Me? Surely not. I just need to know that everything's perfect. Not too much to ask, is it?

Team player

You are going to have to get your team onside. You'll build confidence, smooth furrowed brows, be a pal, confidante and defender of the faith.

You will develop relationships with suppliers, colleagues and people in other organisations.

Negotiation skills

As a 21st Century records manager you are undoubtedly going to have to discuss and negotiate with every team in your organisation...you must be a good listener but know when to say 'No'!

You will probably also need to persuade your senior management team of the brilliance of your ideas...so shrinking violets need not apply.

Drafting

Be prepared to polish your drafting abilities. Policies, procedures, training manuals, retention schedules, annual reports, recommendations, business plans, risk management assessments etc etc don't write themselves.

Training

Since we went live on our EDRM system over three years ago I have been, almost constantly, a training officer. EDRM systems are being updated regularly so you never have a shortage of material.

We've had to test the updates, figure out what they do differently, draft training manuals and deliver the training on a very regular basis.

It's been a rewarding but surprising part of what I've had to do.

IG expert

You are going to have to manage your organisation's response to the emerging Information Governance agenda.

Auditor

You're going to have to be able to audit your organisation's records, your file plan, your IG framework, your compliance with standards, guidance and legal requirements.

Horizon scanner

To keep up with all the latest developments you're going to have to keep an eye on what everyone else is doing, you will need to be able to spot the trends and decide what will work for you and what won't.

Records manager...

Ooops, what was I thinking??? I nearly forgot...you're going to have to manage your organisations records too!!

The records management industry is one of the fastest paced, volatile industries you could join. There are intellectual challenges every day...if you can't handle it why not try something more sedate...lion-taming for example.

Information governance framework

More and more organisations are looking at systematic ways in which they can manage their information. One way that can make a real difference is by adopting an Information Governance Framework.

Information governance is the way in which an organisation handles, uses and manages its information in an efficient, effective and secure manner to all the approporiate ethical, legal and quality standards.

An Information Governance Framework brings together all the requirements, standards and best practice that apply to the management of information. It can help you assess how well your organisation manages the information it creates.


An Information Governance Framework normally covers the people, processes, policies and systems you need and assesses your attainment levels in each category. The topics covered include:

information governance

information security

information strategy

business continuity

lifecycle management (including retention and disposal scheduling)

staff induction and training

creating and filing paper and electronic records ( in line with ISO 15489)

compliance with legal requirements (e.g. the Data Protection Act and the Freedom of Information Act)

conducting regular audits


Your organisation can establish how well (or how badly!) it is managing its records through the application of this simple framework. A regular 'health-check' and commitment to an 'improvement plan' can help your organisation to track its progress.

Serendipity searching

Someone said to me today, " I can't find anything on the internet about information searching preferences."

Hmmm...

Perhaps we should have a Serendipity Search Engine. A search engine that finds what you're looking for despite the fact you've not tagged it or given it a name you can remember; a search engine that finds important stuff you didn't even know you were looking for.

Everything is miscellaneous

I've been rather charmed, challenged and inspired by "Everything is Miscellaneous", David Weinberger's excellent book about classification.

I thoroughly recommend it to records managers everywhere. Although not specifically about records management, it is a fascinating tale about classification in the past, present and, the rapidly approaching, future. I particularly enjoyed the stuff about tagging which could well turn out to be the new classification.

Is this where we are all going? I will return to this topic in the very near future. It offers us a 21st Century way of managing the vast amount of unstructured data we all have lying around the place.

Click on the title of this piece to link to Weinberger's hour long presentation on the subject. Give it a go when you have the time. It's well worth it.

Accelerating the pace of positive change in Electronic Records Management

Accelerating the pace of positive change in Electronic Records Management is the name of a 3 year research project being conducted by Northumbria University.

They are going to develop practical strategies to support ERM. The project team is using a blog to disseminate information and provide a discussion forum about the project.

You can access the blog here : http://www.acerm.blogspot.com/

The first ever IT Helpdesk

This is pure genius. The first ever IT Helpdesk. Does it seem familiar?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=cKh0cKTbhBg

The Life of Information

An interesting article on the proliferation of information.

How will we manage it?

Do we need to?

Answers on a postcard, please...

Social Computing versus Records management : let the debate begin

Social computing is fast becoming the significant cultural experience of the early 21st Century. It consists of Web 2.0 networking tools like bulletin boards, forums, portals, wikis and weblogs. Millions of people use these technologies every day on the internet to keep in touch with friends, interest groups etc all over the world, in the blink of an eye.

These informal on-line networks are gradually (but with increasing pace) being introduced into the working environment to help organisations share knowledge and information. Whisper it softly but these social computing technologies are doing knowledge management far better than we ever could have dreamt possible. (Who said that technology wasn't the answer :-) ???!!)

The challenge for records managers is how we identify and manage the recordness of these new technologies. This is part of the crucial debate about what records management is in the 21st Century. Social computing technologies are challenging our orthodoxies in the work environment and our assumptions about what records are and how we should manage them. In my organisation we are making our first tentative steps towards using social computing technologies. So it's pertinent that we start asking questions about how we should manage the work they create.

First of all, it's probably true to say that we don't know for certain whether staff are ready for it. So we have to create an atmosphere where staff are encouraged to say what they think openly and honestly and where they can find connections and collaborative working spaces with their colleagues. I suppose we have to 'put it out there' and see what happens but we also have to be ready to manage the records that fall out of these new initiatives.

I want to look at these technologies separately and examine what I think are the main issues. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Forums / Bulletin boards / Newsgroups

These are extremely popular and quite simple technologies that give users a place where they can post questions or statements and get responses (and discussions) from anyone else who has access to the system.

There are hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of these forums on the internet and they are usually managed by 'moderators' (a.k.a. 'mods') who police the site to make sure there is no offensive content, swearing or abusive behaviours.

In the workplace, I think that there should always be a records manager helping out with the moderating. Then, we can keep an eye on anything that needs to be kept as a record. That's certainly going to be my approach. We will need to write detailed procedures to make sure that any decisions reached, agreements made or significant documents drafted are moved to our ERM systems for storage.

This, of course, raises questions about whether this can be done; whether we have the technology to transfer it seamlessly from the social environment into the records space; or the staff time and energy to do it.

But, of course, this is what might happen in an ideal records management view of the world. The reality is likely to be different. Would we have the staff resources? Do we even want to develop complex infospaces for people to work in, encourage participation and then micro-manage them?

Wikis

A wiki is a website that allows users to easily add, remove and edit content. The ease of interaction and operation make wikis ideal for mass collaboration and authoring. Perhaps the most famous wiki is Wikipedia a massively influential, online, collaborative encyclopaedia. I'm really looking forward to starting one in my organisation. But what do we need to do to make sure we capture the records?

We will have to decide on clear procedures. For example, when does something become a record?Is it X number of days after an amendment? Or every time there's an amendment? On reflection it might be best to treat wikis exactly like you'd treat a website. See the attached link for details of TNA guidance on managing websites.

Blogs

Blogs (or, more accurately, weblogs) are websites where entries are written in chronological order and displayed in reverse chronological order.

Blogs can provide commentary or news on a particular subject and some function as more personal online diairies. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.

The problem of what to capture (and when) is even more difficult for blogs than it is for wikis. Wikis tend to be collaborative efforts, whereas blogs can be highly personal offerings. So a wiki is, on the whole, more likely to contain records.

We need to establish how much of any blog can be saved as a record. Take this blog, for example, does any of it have the status of a record? Or is just the ramblings of a bonkers mind??? Perhaps it's both, I hear you cry. I've not tried to save this into our ERM system...but I bet I couldn't do it very easily. I could draft out the documents first and upload from the ERM system - but that would take away the immediacy of it.

Let me know if you've been through this already...what did you decide?

I think I need to look again at the National Archives stuff on the management of websites.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documents/website_toolkit.pdf

Number crunching : is our ERM system being used?

We have approximately 350 staff.

We have been live on our ERM system since November 2004.

There are currently over 1,750,000 objects saved on our ERM system.

Over 830,000 of these objects are documents, spreadsheets and other records
Over 830,000 of these objects are emails

There's only about a difference of 10 between the number of documents and the number of emails.

There are over 110,000 folders and files.

Approximately 6,000 objects are added each month.
Approximately 300 objects are added each working day.

Quite frankly, I'm amazed...and delighted, too.

Let me know how much stuff you have on your ERM system. Are the figures comparable?

Red Kite

The Records Management Society Conference 2007: A Personal View

The 2007 Records Management Society (RMS) Conference was held in sunny Brighton at the beginning of May. The hotel was superb and we only had to walk out of the front door to be on the seafront. I hesitate to use the word 'beach'; this is Brighton after all. Anyway, we couldn't have wished for a better setting - or better weather.

And it was gratifying to see so many delegates there! Long may it continue.

Conference kicked off with an inspirational presentation from Euan Semple on the use of bulletin boards / forums, blogs, wikis, RSS and tagging. Quite simply, this was the most exciting talk I've witnessed at an RMS Conference.

Euan pointed out that the internet enables "globally distributed, near instant, person to person conversations". He noted that using these technologies we can help people find and learn from each other and to use these connections to improve efficiency and increase our ability to innovate. Social tools for networking, for Euan, transform our ability to get things done in the 21st Century.

I believe that Euan has shown us the way ahead and I shall return in more depth to the topics he raised in future posts. I am, of course, particularly keen to examine how all of this affects records management, today and in the future. Watch this space.

Next up was Jeremy Stimsonwho gave us a fascinating insight into the Microsoft contribution to records management in Microsoft Office 2007. We looked at why MS is moving into records management and the capabilities of Office 2007.

To my mind, it's great that MS is finally moving into the world of ERM.

The product, unfortunately, isn't up to the mark. MS are about three years behind everyone else and the system they've developed doesn't really do records management. It's clunky and old fashioned. It is, in my humble opinion, a long way off being the finished article. Anyone thinking of adopting it should be aware that there is a lot of configuration that needs to be done beforehand. What's more, there is currently no way of getting emails into the records center!!! This is a serious omission on Microsft's behalf.

Email is the way most business is carried out these days. Any records management system worth its salt has to interact seamlessly with email. This is a bit of a gaffe, to be honest. Shift happens. Why doesn't Microsoft consider emails to be corporate records???

Microsoft ought to get a records manager on the case straightaway!!!

I've asked this question before and I'll probably ask it again,

"How does Microsoft manage its own records?"

The afternoon session on Classification was also superb. Split into four mini-seminar sessions we heard the whole range of opinions on Classification; from classification isn't important if your documents are tagged all the way to the traditional line of classification by function is vital. It was an exciting way to run a seminar session. Hats off to RMS for organising for instigating it (do I also detect Julie McLeod's influence?) and a big thank you to Bob Bater, James Lappin, Clare Cowling and Euan Semple (again).

Richard Blake from The National Archives (TNA) gave, as usual, an intelligent and articulate presentation. He spoke about the achievements made over the last three years in records management in the public sector. Richard noted that records management is a discipline whose time has arrived; it is incresingly recognised as a core component underpinning corporate governance. We all say 'Hallelujah!' to that, Richard.

Many of you will know Richard from his work on developing TNA guidelines for ERM systems. This led us nicely into Mark Fresco's session on the forthcoming requirements in MoReq2. MoReq2 (The Model Requirements for the management of electronic records) is the only international standard for ERM.

It was a thoroughly stimulating and enjoyable conference. And, as usual, the networking was fantastic! Greetings to all of you out there who I was networking with on an epic session on Monday evening / Tuesday morning!!! Hahaha. Red Kite rocks.

Next year I'd like to see...

More interactive sessions, please.

Fewer 'Death-by Powerpoint' presentations and much more use of video presentations.

RMS developing blogs and wikis of our own. And yes, I'd be willing to help! You only have to ask, guys!

Red Kite

My intelligent office : The future direction of Electronic Records Management systems

My intelligent office : The future direction of Electronic Records Management systems.

When they were first developed, Electronic Records Management systems were a bit clunky and very definitely stuck in the 20th Century. Developments are moving on apace and ERM systems are slowly developing into 21st Century technologies. They are still a bit invasive though. They still rely on users consciously and actively participating in the process. I would like to see more emphasis on the intuitive; things happening without direct user intervention. I like to call this my 'intelligent office'. My 'intelligent office' automates processes and makes them more or less invisible to the user. The user still saves work to the ERM system but the interfaces look and feel more intuitive. My intelligent office works on my behalf by learning about my preferences, understanding what I'm working on and pointing me at similar stuff whether it's in my organisation's systems or on the internet.

ERM systems also need to catch up with the developments that are being made in the 'social computing' revolution. Technology is advancing rapidly; more quickly than we, as records managers, can keep up with. So, to give us what we want, new generation EDRM systems have to provide us with the following features:

A single point of access across all systems in an organisation. So that each system is connected to all the others.

Automated classification prompting users to save / name something in a specific way. Helping users to locate the correct file / folder to store their work.

Automatic indexing of all documents based on file-plan or on previous precedent. Intuitive ‘Save As’ features – once the system knows who you are and where you work it can save your documents and name them for you. The system will index everything making it easier to identify which documents are not being used.

Automatic tagging of all documents so their metadata and meaning is preserved and made accessible. This metadata tagging will also help make our work searchable across the organisation and, eventually, across the internet.

All of the above features will lead us to Automatic taxonomy (and metadata) generation

Concept matching dynamically links documents etc with similar content / context allowing automatic hyperlinking between objects

Agent alerting lets you know of all other similar / linked documents ranked by conceptual similarity. Agent alerting can help you find stuff but will eventually help to identify experts; particularly if you are constantly alerted to stuff created by a few different users.

Federated (or Enterprise) searching gives seamless connectivity across all programs / applications / email systems / websites / drives etc. It enables you to search across the whole of the organisation’s systems (whilst maintaining the relevant privileges). Future iterations will also search across the internet. For example, if I searched for widgets I'd find everything my organisation had created on widgets wherever it was stored - not just in the ERM system. This technology will ultimately give you a browser-based search and navigation gateway.

Interest profiling tracks the content with which the user interacts and maintains a profile of the user’s interests. So, if I search for widgets, my system will alert me to any future documents about widgets. Not only that but if, for example, I only ever look at stuff about, say, left handed widgets, my systems will learn from this and present me with stuff about left handed widgets.

Collaboration the end result of matching and profiling is the formation of virtual expert knowledge groups. Finding and sharing information with others is an essential component of my 'intelligent office'

Social computing gives us the ability to link and interact with wikis, blogs, content management systems and to recognise ‘collaborative space’ from ‘records space’. How records managers make use of, and sense of, social computing technologies.

Meaning based computing enables computers to understand the relationships that exist between disparate pieces of information and perform sophisticated analysis operations with real business value, automatically and in real-time.

My intelligent office will also engage with collaborative technologies. I'm looking for

• The ability to integrate with or capture information from new technology direct into EDRM systems (if people want to) e.g. from Blackberrys, PDAs, Instant messaging services and all collaborative tools on the internet.
• The ability to capture new formats (including internet formats), as they are developed, as well as existing formats which are not Microsoft e.g. PDF, JPEG, HTML, mindmap software etc.
• The ability to capture documents from other software systems (HR and finance systems, for example).
• The ability to capture direct from the Internet e.g. portals, wikis, blogs etc
• The ability to replicate the file-plan (the Business Classification Scheme) or parts of it in other systems if required for example Outlook (and other email systems).
• The ability to surmount the problems of software coming from different companies or being hosted by others which do not allow systems to "talk to each other"
• The ability to restrict saving documents to other systems (which becomes even more important if there is no enterprise search engine.

Email management in my intelligent office

Email management is becoming increasingly important in today's corporate environment. It is absolutely vital that my ERM system helps me manage my email account. Likely features of the way my 'intelligent office' interracts with email are

• Full integration with the file-plan (email folders are ERM folders or links to them).
• The ability to transfer email in bulk and rename it
• The ability to capture as records all designated email.

Seamless transfer

My intelligent office will enable me to transfer documents seamlessly from my organisation to others whilst maintaining both their metadata and their integrity.

We need

• Bulk/single transfer between government departments / organisations during the life of a document as well as at the end of it
• Bulk/single transfer between different systems as systems are updated to ensure that documents can still be read, even if they have not been used for several years.
• Import / Export tools are robust
  

Shared services

I'm looking for future systems to help government departments share information more easily. I'd like to see

• One system for all government departments which can be adapted to an individual government departments needs
• A Government departments' thesaurus (not just the IPSV) or at least one that people can customise themselves e.g. shared library catalogues and Dewey classification.
• One centrally hosted ERM/ Information management system for all government departments

Offline working

My intelligent office needs to have the ability to have or to access the file-plan on hard drives, PDAs or laptops and then synchronise and capture updated information from them (and vice versa) when the user synchronises with the corporate system.

Records Management

My intelligent office system will perform many 'normal' RM functions. I'd like to see the following added as standard.

• The ability to change ownership of documents easily en masse
• Spellchecking naming of folders / files / documents, able to restrict words which are not English or are in the dictionary which you can build up.
• Creating folders and files - give suggestions for naming them.
• Creating folders and files - templates for naming styles which records managers can develop
• Global checking of privileges on folders
• Mass updating of privileges
• Automation of audit and appraisal functions

Monitoring

My intelligent office has to

• provide an alert either via email or some other means when a new document on a particular subject or particular keywords in it is added to the system.
• provide an alert when a specific document or folder is updated.

The vast majority of this technology already exists. EDRM software must catch up with it as soon as possible.

RK