I figured that I should respond to this discussion as I, for good or bad, opened 
this can of worms. To move aside the discussion around my background so that 
we can discuss the points in the article. Not as many folks on the Records 
Management side know me as do our counterparts in the Information 
Management and SharePoint space. I am not a Records Manager nor would I 
ever claim to be. I had been primarily on the technology side, I've run an 
information management consulting firm, built a document and digital asset 
management system, and was formerly a Director at AIIM. As for the expert 
moniker, that was far from self-assigned, especially in the arena of Records 
Management. However, that hasn't prevented me from discussion around where 
RM meets technology, which I believe is the crux of what has brought us to this 
point.

First, please note that this article was gleaned from a half hour interview by 
phone and that I was trying not to give away the full conclusion of my 
presentation at the AIIM Conference next week in Orlando. This piece was 
intended as a "teaser" for the Conference, and as such, it seems it has

teased quite well but let me attempt to bring the discussion full circle here.

Let me start by asking everyone a question that I believe moves the discussion 
towards the points that were brought up in the article... 
When a Record is disposed from the Records Management system, how confident 
are you that the information contained is actually now gone from the 
organization?

We used to be able to say with high certainty that it was removed in entirety 
upon disposition. It used to be that our single ECM or Information Management 
or "whatever label you want" system fed into our Records Management systems 
as an exclusive relationship. Our technology environment is different now, each 
employee in our organization may hold enterprise information on their phones, 
laptops, tablets, computers, shared drives, email, Google glasses, etc., etc., etc.

If the goal of Records Disposition is to remove the information to reduce risk 
within the organization, how many organizations can say that they are indeed 
achieving this? Combine this issue with our mandates to retain with an eye 
towards the anticipation of litigation and consistent disposal.

No, what I'm proposing isn't new. What is new is our technology environment 
and budding technology which can handle multiple repository retention 
management across all organizational information, not just Records. It is my 
opinion, and the opinion of many others that traditional records management is 
struggling with scalability in the face of our current technology environment and 
that it must change in order to continue to meet the promises of risk reduction 
for our organizations.

I'm not trying to be controversial or attention grabbing, nor was I in any way 'in 
control' of the content that came out of this interview. I simply see an ongoing 
problem and believe that we need to have a discussion around how to move 
forward.

To continue the conversation...

If you don't believe that what I proposed is the viable way forward but you do 
accept that Records Disposal is no longer meeting it's obligations for the majority 
of organizations, what are some of the alternative ideas that help us resolve this 
major issue?

If you don't have these issues, congratulations to you because you are doing a 
far better job than most of the organizations that I encounter in my training and 
consulting work.

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