Wow--so sick of hearing that we are not understood. 

As someone who has been working in the field since the mid-1980s, I have to
observe that if the C-level in general does not get the value of records
management as a contributor to organizational success and liability
protection (at a minimum), then we are not being well served by our
professional associations and may well be under-valuing ourselves. 30+ years
and no change?

In my own career, I made conscious choices to retain the records management
portfolio as I rose up the ranks, introducing the field at higher and higher
levels as a foundation of organizational capacity--something I noted many
records managers did not do. 

Many of us choose to distance ourselves from the RIM and
administrative/filing association in order to escape the perceptions this
article speaks to. For me, there was a price to pay at times, but I have not
regretted the strategy. It took me to meetings at the World Bank in Paris
where I was able (as a guest) to open dialogue in circles concerned with the
assessment of intellectual capital in nations, states and communities (e.g.
Moody's assessment of international credit rating) and to new understandings
of IT resource management for international conglomerates based in Asia.

I urge colleagues to step back and re-think how we engage. Records managers
bring a technical expertise, but as you rise in your career, your value is
not in technical application but in understanding the import of that
application. It is less a matter of what to do, as to why. 

Records management is the foundation of transparency, accountability, of
course, but also of learning, of evidence-based practice, of improvement and
innovation. This is what sells in the C-suite. RIM is the source of and
ground for action, for success. 

One guy's thoughts...

John James O'Brien, CRM MALT
IRM Strategies

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