While ERKS systmes benefit from users' desire for enhanced access to
information, that has never been my primary motivator in automating RIM
process.  Rather, the motivator has been to enable a comprehensive,
systematic management of the recorded information resource.  

IMO, there will always be hydrid record series, whether the hydrid is
digital and CD ROM, paper or microfilm, etc. Paper is merely a medium -- one
that has as much legitimacy in a defined context as any other. That is,
absolutely appropriate in some contexts, clearly inappropriate in others. So
long as a fraudulent signature may involve study of the pressure with which
a pen is held as seen in the written result, and so long as customer service
means going half-way with customers who do not care to interact with you
electronically (for a variety of increasingly legitimate reasons), so long
as the population served represents the extremes in computer literacy, and
so long as storage of electronic data requires physical containers, then I
am happy to manage hybrid records.  Media is relevant as a consideration in
cost effective management decisions, but otherwise should be a factor of
organizational effectiveness and values. 

Re paper, generally, it is portable and legible in circumstances digital
data is not. Period. That view does not make me a dinasaur, or a luddite.  
I've been using electronic means to create and manipulate data since my
Kaypro II and its C/PM operating system. I'm with Nolene and Lorinda on the
computer literacy front.  For a brief summary of my IT progress, check out
my GET page at: 
http://www.irmstrategies.com/global/story.html (and if anyone is intersted
in the Global Engagement Trust, a movement to get people active on the net,
do jump in). 

John James O'Brien, CRM, MALT
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IRM Strategies
www.irmstrategies.com
www.s4k.com

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