Thank you for your responses.  I apologize for not giving more 
information.

My company is a "high tech" consulting/services firm specializing in 
Enterprise Asset Management.  We also develop custom software products.  A 
lot of our contracts are with the federal and state governments, DOD, and 
public utility companies.  We also have contractors in various foreign 
sites, such as Iraq, Japan, London, and some others I won't mention.  For 
more information about the company, see our website at www.trmnet.com.

Our headquarters is in Alexandria, VA and we have branch offices in 
Philadelphia, San Diego, Seattle, Honolulu, Prospect KY, and Chesapeake, 
VA.  The company is growing rapidly, but has never had a Records 
Management Program.  I have been working to set one up.  I had no training 
in RIM. when I started here almost a year and a half ago.  I was learning 
as much as possible from the Listserv, ARMA membership, and lots of online 
research.  Currently, I am enrolled in the Records and Information 
Management Certificate Program online through Chippewa Valley Technical 
College.  When I first came here, lots of our records were stored in 
closets and under people's desks.  I have been performing inventories, 
interviews with users, developing retention schedules and transferring 
inactive records to offsite storage.  Most of my work has been with 
administrative and financial paper records (and some electronic).  There 
is also a large segment of project and R&D electronic records which I have 
not gotten access to yet.  However, I have met with the VP's in those 
areas to let them know about the RIM program and what I want to 
accomplish.  They became interested when I gave them examples of 
executives being indicted and the type of information that got them into 
trouble.

Our company is undergoing a change in business processes and part of that 
will involve getting an electronic records/document management system 
which will connect and serve the whole company.  Up until now,we have 
operated in more of a "silo" fashion.  That was fine when the company was 
small, but it is a hindrance now.  One of the VP's sent a representative 
from Spescom to give a demonstration of their product to my boss and me, 
while he was waiting to see our President. 

We need a way to bring all the records management (including some email) 
and document production efforts together.  I have been looking at systems 
on my own.  It wasn't until the rep from Spescom demo'd his product to our 
boss, that management began to seriously consider getting an electronic 
rec mgt system.  I liked the one we saw, in that it seemed to incorporate 
Records Management principles in its design instead of having RM "piggy 
backed" onto an IT system.  But I want to encourage the management to look 
at other solutions before buying the first one they have seen. 

I have not heard anyone mention Spescom in all the time I have been a 
member of the Listserv, so I want to see if anyone knows about them.

I have not really defined our requirements here, but I just want to let 
you all know the situation I and my company are in.  It is growing rapidly 
and has gone from a small company to a medium sized one in the time I have 
been here.

Thanks for your interest and your advice.

Diane Dodge
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