AIIM Knowledge Center Blog

ERM: Getting Hot, Hot, Hot in the Caribbean!

It is Friday night in Antigua, and the Island prepares for Carnival to celebrate 50 years of Independence. Several members of this Island community are now also celebrating the completion of their four day AIIM ERM Master Class and preparation to become AIIM ERM Masters. One might think that ERM is not an issue in such a place, but in fact it is of great concern due to the influences of a global economy, having to maintain compliance on the world stage and concern over recoverability and business continuity in light of natural disasters.

The fact is that no Island stands alone and no organization is an Island. As such there are regulatory and legislative issues here as well. As an example, Freedom of Information requirements dictating turnover of information within 20 days, presents a difficult situation for a physical filing system and even more of a challenge when coupled with unstructured electronic files like email, word documents and spreadsheets.

The Caribbean is no exception to the need for compliance and no exception to the acceptance and implementation of ERM and ECM. Perhaps they should be looked at as a shining star of inspiration and example of governments and private business looking to the future and preparing for the ever expanding world economy.

Written by Bob Larrivee

Terminology (2)

Talking to the BCS about whether BCS needs a BCS

Writing my previous post about Information Lifecycle Management and listening to some of the presentations at various events, it reminded me of a continuous frustration of someone who has been working for various hardware and software manufacturers for the last 15 years: The use of Terminology !

Just last week at an end-user conference I was listening to some of the foremost German consultants within the DMS and ECM space talk to a large number of end-users. A quick question around showed one thing: half of our listeners didn't understand what we were talking about. Not from a technical perspective, but the acronyms, TLA (Three letter Acronyms) and ETLAs (Extended Three Letter Acronyms) that are so prevalent in our industry.

Why not keep it simple, clear and less confusing... especially lets stop making terms up just to differentiate our offering. We really do not need more abbreviations, but instead more commonsense clarity! It is something we have to spend a lot of time during our training to make our students understand.

...and for those of you wondering. It was the British Computer Society I was talking to about whether Basic Content Services need a Business Classification Scheme.

But I am sure the readers out there can come up with even more over the top abbreviations or descriptions from our industry. I am open to suggestions.

by Hanns Köhler-Krüner

Discvovery: Where does it end?

Recent news in the land of discovery unveiled a case where the Courts are requesting information be disclosed that is (was) resident in the RAM of a service providers server. RAM (Random Access Memory) is temporary and not permanent storage, at any stretch of the imagination.

In discussions I had with several individuals regarded as quite knowledgeable in this area, I was asked if I was serious or merely joking with them regarding the cpature of informaiton from RAM. When I showed them the article summary, they laughed and then turned quite serious in that the only way to effectivley accomplish this and prepare for such an instance is to incoroprate a constant monitor of some type, that would feed a repository of unknown proportions. As it stands, there is hardly a business in place who could afford such an endeavor and just as few who would be able to comply with this request form the Courts.

The question now becomes one of where does it end? At what point does the interpretation of regulation overstep the boundry of practical into absurd? Should we now record and store every instance of a web meeting? Should we now be required to save every IM session? Should we now be required to record and save every session we use video conferencing?

While I understand the reasoning for the Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, I hardly think the intention is to place such undue burden. In my opinion, I feel that the interpretive aspects of a regulation like this one will open much discussion and concern but in the end, all will settle into a common state where expectations are realistic and preparedness is readily achieved.

Written by Bob Larrivee

EU Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) and US Regulation National Market System (Reg NMS)

You often hear about the MiFID in the European Union and the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Reg NMS in the United States, and I just came across a good whitepaper that explores the impact of these regulations; their differences and similarities; and the information management challenges they present is drastically changing the way the industry handles market data. This paper by TowerGroup is available from EMC's website.

By Atle Skjekkeland.

Is Facebook ready for the business world, or is the business world ready for Facebook?

I have lately been reading some good posts about social networking and online community building. Many of us have for some time now been members of LinkedIn or/and OpenBC (now Xing), but without really feeling part of a community. Facebook has previously been attracting more ‘younger’ people, but it seems like they are now attracting people of all ages.

Facebook is open to enterprise developers, and some companies have also started to use Facebook for enterprise networking, e.g the Deutsche-Bank Group with 6,352 Facebook members. Only staff with a valid Deutsche-Bank Group email address are able to join their private network on Facebook.

For more reading;

• John Mancini’s post "My Daughter is Horrified: "You're on Facebook??!!!"
• Andrew McAfee’s post "The Teenybopper Network" and "Facebook Now Open to Enterprising Developers"

And feel free to connect with me on Facebook:-)

By Atle Skjekkeland.

ECM Market Trends 2007-2010

Gartner expects the worldwide ECM software market will reach  $4.2 Billon in 2010. In 2007, worldwide ECM revenue is projected to total $2.9 billion, a 12.8 percent increase from 2006.

Gartner expects like many of us that offerings will be split into two tiers: broad, platform-based ECM solutions that will tackle process-centric and mission-critical documents, while streamlined basic content services (BCS) offerings will appeal to companies that need only entry-level functions, such as version control, check in/out, access control and audit trail.

They see value in BCS and ECM technologies being used together, but also that BCS will increase the adoption of ECM technologies. Organizations will start to understand the value of information assets using BCS, which will drive some of them to adopt full ECM solutions.

They also expects more consolidation and quality, performance and ease of use improvements of ECM and BCS software products.

By Atle Skjekkeland.

Information Lifecycle Management - The Convergence of two “Worlds”?

Last week I was at an IDC Storage Roadshow in Ljubljana in Slovenia. When I first received the invitation I started thinking about what AIIM as an ECM Association could possibly contribute to a conference that focused on the latest storage technologies and Information Lifecycle Management (ILM). We use the same terms, but we mean different things which makes speaking to a crowd op potentially hardware oriented visitors a daunting task.

I was pleasantly surprised. The questions and subjects raised by all speakers showed that even though you may be working for a storage manufacturer or have your main business out of providing hardware services, this does not mean that Content as an object that is part of a business process  is something that you do not care about. Instead, all speakers, although also showing off their latest hardware and storage technologies and using the ILM to mean moving data down a variety of different storage media, also showed awareness of business problems and business drivers.  Moreover, the participants, 95% of which confessed to be IT and hardware interested “got it”. Their questions, although also about access times and cost per MB, GB, TB, and PB, also showed acute awareness of the need to look beyond just the technologies to the strategies behind it.The presentation about Content Management rather than Storage Management went down very well.

In the end I was left with only one regret: I wish I had had more time to talk to some of the many end-users present to see how far along the road to ILM, both the Storage as well as the ECM kind, they had gotten.

There were two comments however that I want to leave you with, both of them on stage: “Just save everything, especially when it comes to email!” and “The days of the clever consultant are gone. Everything is provided in a box these days.”  I disagree completely with both of them, but would be curious to hear your take on these two statements.

By Hanns Köhler-Krüner

What is the retention schedule for stiletto heels?

I met an old friend a few days ago that now works as Corporate Records Manager for a large public sector organization in the United Kingdom. They use Iron Mountain to store a lot of their paper records offsite, and my friend has carefully been monitoring what they have been storing for 10+ years.

He has so far found stiletto heels, a tee pot with saucers, and a few lunch boxes in the records boxes being returned from Iron Mountain after 10 years storage…  This is a sign of the current state of records management in many organizations. My friend works for a very regulated organization with well defined policies and procedures, but users needs need to be motivated and monitored to ensure compliance. It seems like some of his users have seen the records boxes and used them to store their shoes...

Take a look at my previous post for more information about how to set up a compliance framework.

By Atle Skjekkeland.

Social Networking Adoption

Charlene Li from Forrester has an interesting post about their new Social Technographics report in her blog. Forrester surveyed 4,475 US adults in December 2006 and 4,556 youth in October 2006 and to learn about their use of Social Computing technology adoption.

They group consumers into six different categories of participation – and participation at one level may or may not overlap with participation at other levels.

• Step 6: Creators 13% (publish web page, publish or maina a blog, upload video to sites like YouTube
• Step 5: Critics 19% (comments on blogs, prost ratings and reviews, etc)
• Step 4: Collectors 15% (Use RSS, tag Web pages, etc)
• Step 3: Joiners 19% (use social networking sites)
• Step 2: Spectators 33% (read blogs, watch peer-generated video), listen to podcasts, etc)
• Step 1: Inactives 52% (None of these activities)

Only 13% of US online adult consumers are "Creators" meaning that they have posted to a blog, updated a Web page, or uploaded video they created within the last month. Technorati claims that there are 71 million blogs out there (and some of them have to be good…), while Gartner claims there are now already 200 million ex-bloggers…

Alas, those records, I knew them well!

Earthquake! Fire! Floods! Hurricanes! Disgruntled Employees! I think you get the picture.

Information Armageddon looms every second of every day for businesses of all sizes. Whether you are a large corporation or a small business, you face the reality that nature or man could strike at anytime, with a force large enough to impact your business operations and access to your business critical information. The key is to attain a defensible position and prepare.

Consider that hurricane season is upon us, and we hope that another Katrina does not arise. If you live in the Gulf States, you set up a personal store of flashlights, water, food, and other essentials to survive. The question I present here is do you have a business disaster plan and how would you ensure that your records and information are not only protected but also recoverable in a way to re-establish or maintain business continuity.

Think about the critical information you keep in electronic form, how you back that information up and where you store the back up media. Is it in a location that would be protected if flood or other disaster strikes? Is it recoverable and how quickly? If you have a lot of physical information like paper, what would be the impact if it were not recoverable? Think of the floods and water damage caused in recent years. Think about what happens to paper that sits under water for days and weeks. It is lost forever. What can you afford to lose and what should you save?

ERM and ECM systems provide a means to help guard against this scenario. AIIM Education Programs help you align to industry best practices. Are you prepared?

By Bob Larrivee.