--- Taina Makinen <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> How different was your presentation from
> what you had originally planned (as per your Feb. 2 posting), if at
> all?

Well, I decided that I should go with what I do best, so I dusted off
"Outsourcing and Records Management: A Global Perspective" and they
were all asleep within minutes. The teacher thanked me for an hour of
quiet time and I went on my way, quietly leaving them all small records
boxes...

Seriously, I opened with slides of the Gettysburg Address and Thomas
Jefferson's words inside the Jefferson Memorial. I got them thinking
about how writing things down are what makes a record. We talked a
little bit about the records they might have at home and how long their
school records might be kept (at least 60 years from graduation -- they
wanted to know if they could come back and look at their friends'
records, so we talked quickly about privacy). I talked about a few of
my horror stories, then showed them pictures of some bad records
management, followed by good records management. We then went on a
world tour of the places I've been. I handed out their folders and they
quickly set about putting the mini-boxes together, which is the point
where I think I lost control of the crowd...

I built them a records box and we guessed at how many would fill up the
Sears Tower (Answer: around 53,000,000 by my calculations). I talked
about needing to know math and the alphabet. I talked about my
education and the kids wanted to know how I learned to wrap the labels
on their folders. 

I showed them my mobile "office" and all the stuff I carry on my back
from place to place so that I can work anywhere on the planet.

I showed them my Blackberry and asked them if they knew what it was...
the best guess was "Mulberry!" Note to Research in Motion: Your need to
market better to the ten year old crowd.

I left them with some more mini boxes, had one of the kids try to put a
big records center carton together -- and left that and my
transparencies for their teacher -- she thought the records box would
come in handy when talking about volume. 

We also briefly touched on how much output one of the big laser
printers at my office can generate (1200 pages per minute). I explained
that the printer would fill a records box in two minutes...
"OOOOOOOOOO!" I told them that the roll of paper that fed the printer
weighed 1000 pounds and was the equivalent of 80,000 pages... they
found that really cool.



Patrick Cunningham, CRM
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"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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