On Fri, 28 Mar 2014 09:09:47 -0700, Larry Medina <[log in to unmask]> 
wrote:

>Back to your comments above- some information that comes into an
>organization arrives as a "Record"... not all information.  Each
>organization should have a definition of a "record" in their RM Policy or
>other guidance documents.  If they haven't established the definition of a
>record, then they are unable to categorize information (based on its
>content and value) to determine what series it belongs to (in their
>retention/disposition schedule) and they can't determine how long to keep
>it.

Larry, do you delegate the declaration process to your user base? I think what 
most of us have found is that users are not able to handle the influx of 
information from the new multiple device, multiple channel, multiple format 
environments that we are in. Policy is great in theory, in practice, nearly 
everywhere I've been, it isn't working. 

Even folks in this Listserv, some of the best, brightest, and most informed 
Records Managers in the world, admit that they can't assure that when a Record 
is disposed that the information contained within that Record is actually removed 
from the organization.

Yes, the axe thus far has fallen upon the C-Suite, but how long is it until the C-
Suite changes the imperative to ensure that they avoid that axe? Once they find 
an alternative way forward that doesn't put their roles at risk, they will take it. 
When that occurs, it hurts Records Managers and diminishes their role (as I've 
seen in a few early adopters making changes).

Please know that this critique from my end is also not personal but is something 
I see occurring from my training and consulting work. My roles in the industry 
have always been at the intersection of where information meets technology. 
From my perspective, this problem has been addressed by the C-Suite before it 
lands on their doorstep.

There are organizations right now that are switching to "Retention Management" 
across all organizational information (or whatever misnomer we'd like to call it, 
ILM, KM, etc., none of the labels really match what is occurring). They manage 
retention buckets by identifying and categorizing all organizational information 
based around metadata, not by declaration, and though their enterprise 
taxonomy and classification. The roles of the RM departments in the 
organizations that I've seen go this route have been in creating and managing 
the rules to categorize information.

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