Hi Laurie, 

I haven't read it - and at $279 I most likely won't. That said, I think the
distinction comes in whether/how non-records are being managed. The idea is
that records require records management, while non-records require something
less than full-blown RM. 

<snip> The premise is that not everything is an official "record" that is
declared and put into a repository such as an ECM system.</snip> I agree
with this wholeheartedly. I know there are organizations for whom everything
is a record (yes, I'm looking at many of you government types) but it's
still the exception rather than the rule, and many organizations elect to
implement ECM for much more than RM, including imaging to create convenience
copies, web content management to manage the website front-end (at least),
document management for versioning, etc.

To your points, I believe that retention management is both a subset and
overlapping set with records management, depending on whether you are
talking about retention of records or of non-records. 

Further, the ECM system should be able to apply retention to records - and
as you note, that's a common approach. The challenge is that there is a lot
of information in the organization that isn't records yet - or will never
become records. Think drafts of contracts in many organizations for
instance. So this bandwagon attempts to recognize that most people aren't
records managers and much if not most information is not records - but there
is nevertheless a need to manage those non-records more effectively, whether
for discovery management, better records management eventually, or even
increased productivity today from being able to find stuff (and not casually
delete it). This is the "I" in RIM - but it doesn't require the overhead of
RM, any more than most records require the additional overhead associated
with vital records. 

So I don't know if I'm on the train or if it's the same train - but I think
there is a place for more effective information management without needing
to declare every single thing in the ECM system as a record. This is where
the retention management piece comes in. 

Regards, 

Jesse Wilkins
[log in to unmask] 

List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html
Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance
To unsubscribe from this list, click the below link. If not already present, place UNSUBSCRIBE RECMGMT-L or UNSUB RECMGMT-L in the body of the message.
mailto:[log in to unmask]