I think part of the reason we're still debating is that every organization's 
culture is different.  Our job is to figure out how it will work with what we've 
got (some parts of a corporate culture we can change, some parts we can't - 
maybe they started using some terms before you got there and they are too 
ingrained to change them). So, for one company, they may have Documents 
vs. Records. A second company may have Official Business Records vs. Non-
Official Records. At another company they may put it ALL on the schedule to 
ensure that non-records are disposed of in a reasonable timeframe.

The theory seems pretty straightforward. Define a record, keep it for the 
retention period and make sure that all copies are destroyed no later than the 
original. So why is it so hard? It's all the "other" stuff that's not originals, but 
copies, drafts and things that maybe don't fit the definition of a record, but 
still might need to be retained or disposed of. 

Users can get confused if this "other" stuff isn't defined for them in a way that 
makes sense to them. Unfortunately, the names we associate with them 
cannot be universal across companies (some attorneys might have a fit 
with "Non-Official Records" because maybe they think it seems under-handed 
in some way; some find the use of "Document" confusing because of it's 
common use in litigation). So somehow, we have to balance the policy, the 
terminology and the training in such a way to maintain compliance against 
creating policies and procedures that everyone can understand and do.

Opinions my own and not those of my employer.

Laurie Carpenter, CRM
Burbank, CA

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