Wake Up! ARMA Canada
I just spent the last few days (May 25th – 27th) at the ARMA Canada conference in Calgary. As you’d expect it was great to get together with people that I typically only engage with online. But that’s not the reason I go through the effort and expense of attending. I come to this and other conferences to learn and see what’s new, and maybe make some new connections (that whole networking thing). Unless there’s something really compelling (there wasn’t, for me) I do much of my learning on the trade show floor rather than by attending sessions. I try to figure out what’s new, innovative, and exciting by talking to the vendors and attendees.
- What’s new? Other than RSD’s first appearance (I think) at ARMA Canada, nothing really.
- What’s innovative? Nothing really.
- What’s exciting? Nothing really.
The problem seems to be that the Records Management community is not evolving with the times. Sure, they say “information governance”, but I’m not convinced they know what it means or what the implications are. They talk about social media, but do they use it (there was actually a session during which they were taught to tweet). They talk about cloud but then do nothing about it other than give in to the boogie man prognostications. Shit! Even the younger RM folks are sounding like the older ones who are close to retiring.
Based on what I saw and heard at the conference, I hold no optimism that the state of Records and Information Management will join the 21st century any time soon. RIM professionals are complaining about not being given the dues and respect they deserve (and they DO deserve it) but they have to take it, not wait for it to be handed out. ARMA Canada as an association is not helping. They’ve had pretty much the same content, speakers, and vendors since I went to my first conference in 2008. Yes, the names have changed, but you know what I mean.
I’m not sure how, but ARMA Canada needs to freshen things up a bit. Dump the vendors that do nothing but SharePoint stuff or physical records management; that stuff hasn’t changed since the shelf was invented. Attract vendors that represent the new way of doing business and are influencing and enabling digital transformation of business. Solicit speakers that want to do more than talk about how to build another functional file plan or how to implement an ECM platform. ARMA Canada needs a slate of speakers and vendors that represent a balance of what today’s realities are, and what the very near future will hold for managing information.
I’ll wait until I see what the agenda for next year’s conference is, but if it’s pretty much like this year’s this is likely my last ARMA Canada conference for a while. And if things don’t change fast, the RIM profession will be further marginalized, and I’ll likely contribute to the further marginalization; not because we dislike RIM and RIM professionals, but because the rest of us have to move forward to succeed.
Just to add a little positivity …
Over dinner with a friend of mine I got a good look at Oracle’s Document Cloud (I think that’s the name). It’s Oracle’s offering to the EFSS (I HATE that name) market. It’s really, really slick. The version I saw (not sure if it’s generally available yet) looks as easy to use as Box (which is what I use for my business). I know a couple of things about where Oracle is going with it, but not a ton. One thing that I do really like about it is that it sits on top of Oracle Web Center Content so all the security, metadata, workflow, and retention are taken care of. By the way, for those of you who care; Oracle’s Web Center Content is likely the best kept secret amongst ECM platforms. It’s a secret because Oracle really sucks at marketing it.
A few people asked me about the PHIGs (Principles of Holistic Information Governance) that I put together a couple of years ago; you can download them here.
Image taken from http://www.a-tips-of-life.com/tag/awake/
Case Study: Managing Information – How and Why
This is the second case study type thing I’m trying. It’ll likely be the last for a while as I have nothing left that I can publish without getting sued. Ah, the joys of being an independent consultant. Anyways …
This case study has to do with the project referenced in the two posts linked below. You may want to read them to get a better overall view of the project :
The document I’m sharing is part of a set of four docs that were delivered to the client. The purpose of each document is explained in the case study document.
The client in the case study builds electricity infrastructure; they are heavily regulated. They took the decision a while back to use SharePoint as their ECM pillar (though they don’t really know what ECM is). They also don’t have an Information Management strategy, nor any type of dedicated information governance structure. Though they rely heavily on information, and generate tons of intellectual property, they don’t do much about treating information as an asset. As far as they are concerned, information is IT’s problem and the business is just a client.
I was working as a subcontractor with ARC Business Solutions on this project. One of the key contributors to the project and the document was Chris Riley. You can follow Chris on Twitter at https://twitter.com/HoardingInfo. We knew early on in the project that the client was in ECM trouble and needed help. Though not part of the project mandate we wrote the docs up anyway (No. We didn’t bill the client extra.).
Without further ado … click the link and check it out: Managing Information at client name.
Feedback is appreciated.
The image in this post is my first attempt at visually representing the Principles of Holistic Information Governance. Click on it for the original PHIGs post and a larger version of the image.
Chris Riley, along with Shadrach White, is a co-author of Enterprise Content Management with Microsoft SharePoint.
PHIGs Graphics
I’m working on a graphic to represent the PHIGs. Which do you prefer?
Grahic A
Graphic B
Graphic C
Adopting ECM – A Case Study in Failure
Earlier this year I completed an assessment of Alfresco for a university client. The university licensed Alfresco several years ago and did not have much success. They hired me to find out why, and what to do about it. The options they wanted to look at were to continue on with Alfresco or switch to SharePoint. An option they weren’t willing to consider was a cloud based option. I gave them one anyways, based on Box. Unfortunately I was asked to remove that option from the final report. Oh well.
While the platform in question was Alfresco, I can’t stress enough that the failure had nothing to do with the platform. Under the circumstance nothing would have succeeded. You can read a bit about it in an earlier post here.
I’m trying something a little different; because of my altruistic nature I am making the final report available as a downloadable PDF. I figure there’s stuff in it that many could use, and perhaps critique that would be helpful.
I want to thank Laurence Hart for his contribution to the report and the overall project. Thanks, Laurence. You can follow Laurence on twitter at https://twitter.com/piewords and check out his blog at http://wordofpie.com/.
Anyways, just follow the link and you ought to get to the report (no fees, no signup, no tracking). Feel free to provide feedback.
University ECM Assessment – I’m using Box to share this content. Please let me know if you have any issues.
Image: “Paris Tuileries Garden Facepalm statue” by Alex E. Proimos – http://www.flickr.com/photos/proimos/4199675334/. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons