I think we can sit and debate this issue all we want and it is all well
and good, but if we, as records management professionals, do not set
forth an agenda for action, we're simply wasting electrons.

I could sit here for the next hour and write a point by point response
to some of the things that have been written here, but I won't. If you
recall the line from the movie Apollo 13, Gene Krantz (btw, one of my
all time favorite ARMA Conference motivational speakers) says. "Let's
look at this thing from a... um, from a standpoint of status. What do
we got on the spacecraft that's good?"

I don't believe that our profession is in the dire straits that the
Apollo 13 mission was in. But I think we oftentimes spend way too much
time rehashing the battles won and lost in the past, rather than
looking to the future. We don't celebrate success to the extent that we
should. We just aren't that good at tooting out own horns. And we do a
darn poor job of setting big audacious goals for ourselves. Jim Lovell
would have never been in Apollo 13 if John F. Kennedy hadn't committed
the United States to putting a man on the Moon. But Lovell didn't sit
there and blame Kennedy for the failure he was experiencing. He set a
new goal -- and a goal that, for several days, did not look achievable
-- returning safely to Earth. Compared to the race to the Moon, getting
back to Earth was a seemingly minor goal, but to him and his two
colleagues, it was the biggest goal of their lives. And so must we set
goals for ourselves and our profession. We need to take a new look at
how we do things, how we measure ourselves, and how we move the
profession and professionals ahead. 

So, "What do we got...that's good?" What I would suggest to you all is
that we have a developing profession that is at the threshold of
something very good. However, we need to set some serious stretch goals
for ourselves as individuals and as professionals.

I poked around the websites of some other organizations this morning
trying to understand this membership and certification issue that has
been tossed around. I'd like to invite members of the List who possess
other certifications and / or belong to some of these organizations
that I mention below to talk about their perceptions of other
organizations vis a vis our profession's organizations.

I looked at the International Institute of Municipal Clerks, the
Project Management Institute, and the Institute of Management
Consultants. Why? Well, I know that people in our professional also
often hold certifications from these organizations.

The PMI is pretty much off the charts. They are growing almost
vertically. Frankly, I never even heard of the PMP until several years
ago, and I've been working with project managers for 15 years. I'm
going to suggest that the growth of the PMI and the PMP certification
is rooted in the massive Y2K projects where organizations and
consulting firms needed to find a baseline measure of competency for
the herds of project managers that were being hired to manage these
projects. In addition, the growth of Six Sigma and related process
improvement initiatives has fueled the growth of the designation and
the organization.

The IIMC seemingly has a certification for every member. It appears
that at least 75% of the IIMC's members have some sort of set of
initials after their names. What that tells me is that the barriers to
"certification" are relatively low.

The IMC boasts 10,000+ members, yet I can only think of a couple that I
have ever met -- both of whom were in our profession. Keep in mind that
I have worked for consulting firms for the past ten years. That tells
me that either the folks who have it rarely point to it, or it tends to
be out of the mainstream.

In looking at all of these certifications, certificates, and whatnot, I
notice that virtually all of them can be attained in one sitting. There
are barriers to entry in terms of experience and education, but once
you get over that barrier, it is a relatively simple matter of passing
a single exam.

So have we, as a profession, set our barrier to meaningful
certification too high? Is the CRM, in reality, what other
organizations might call a "Master" level of certification? Should
those of us who are CRMs really be "Master of Records Management" or
MRM?

So, "What do we got...that's good?" I would suggest that we have an
opportunity to take a fresh look at our profession in the next several
months. ARMA International will very shortly release the long-awaited
Competencies document. That document should finally allow us to point
to the competencies that records management staff need to have at each
level of the profession. What that should enable us to do is provide
measures of competency at various skill and experience levels, thus
lowering some of the barriers to meaningful additional credentials.

In my mind, the CRM will remain the gold standard. That doesn't mean
that we can't grant certifications or certificates for records analysts
or electronic records specialists or retention schedule specialists.
That doesn't mean that we can't develop vertical industry
certifications or certificates where records are managed in very
focused ways, requiring an additional set of core skills. That doesn't
mean that we can't recognize with a certificate some basic level of
understanding of the records management profession and its issues.

At the same time, we need to find ways to ensure that our profession
becomes more "sticky". What that means is that we need to educate
organizations on career paths for records managers and roles into which
the records manager can evolve. While we do this, the records
management profession needs to mature and define a core body of
knowledge that is meaningful and consistent. Not that long ago, I was
at a meeting and got into a discussion with a person who has been on
the periphery of our profession for many years. While he is not a
records manager, per se, he is extremely influential in developing
standards and practices that affect our profession. I was telling him
about some gaps that I perceived in the standard that he was
facilitating. He took me aside and told me point blank that records
managers need to stick to their own knitting. He felt that we wander
off into other areas of concern and never really define our
profession's bounds and standards. There are a lot of things that we
care about and know about and need to know about, but we should really
stick to developing and enhancing our core. He felt very strongly that
we need to stick to just two things: retention and retrieval. And, you
know what? I'm beginning to agree with him. When you really drill down
into those areas of practice (and I really need to spend some time
dissecting those concepts), there is an incredible amount of depth of
knowledge that is required to make those things happen well within an
organization -- and both areas of focus add value and reduce risk when
done well.

So, "What do we got...that's good?" Well, as a profession, we have
better than 50 years of accumulated wisdom. We have an international
standard. We have a top end certification. We have varied and global
means of information sharing and communication. We have a core
infrastructure of professional organizations (and yes, even trade
organizations) with local presence to deliver education, training, and
vendor information. And now we have a demonstrable set of needs that we
can address (Sarbanes Oxley, HIPPA, FACTA, privacy laws, Federal Rules
of Civil Procedure, etc.). We *got* lots of things that are good; what
we need is leadership across the profession to get all of us pulling in
the same direction.

Folks, whether you want the job or not, you are the leaders of the
profession. While there is certainly a small core group of folks who
have seemingly many things to say on the List or elsewhere (and there
is certainly some correlation between people with big mouths here and
people who find themselves on various Boards and committees), all of
you who have joined the Listserve have done so to advance your
knowledge of records management and periodically contribute your
thoughts to our body of knowledge. That makes you a leader. That means
that you need to develop yourself and others. That means you need to
speak out within your own organization and outside your organization.
That means you need to step up and tell the people who run these
professional, certifying, and trade organizations what YOU want
delivered to you. There has never been a better time, nor a more
receptive audience, to hear what you want for YOUR profession.

An agenda for action will be set by these professional, certifying, and
trade organizations. It is your responsibility to influence both the
organizations and your employers on what is important to the
professional. Set aside the differences of the past and set a big
audacious goal for yourself and the profession.

Failure is NOT an option.


Patrick Cunningham, CRM
Records Management Strategist, Hewitt Associates, Lincolnshire, IL
Treasurer, ARMA International

(847) 295-5000
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(My comments are not the official position of Hewitt Associates or ARMA
International, nor should they be taken as official statements from
either organization. I have sole ownership and responsibility for these
comments. I have placed the names of Hewitt and ARMA here so facilitate
contact with those List members who would like to reach out to me to
debate, applaud or react to my comments. You know where to find me.)

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