Hi all, with apologies for being late to the party and thanks for the
mentions by Fred and others. I do follow that blog and did read the article,
and I have some nits to pick but fundamentally I don't disagree with Mr.
Wright's premise. 

Graham stated, "I think most people have been sucked into the IT lie that
email is complicated (kinda like the Emperor's New Clothes)" and asked why
it had to be so complicated compared to other types of content. Fred posted
just the perfect response, and others agreed with him. Graham then used the
example of a single bill to Sears and isn't that an easy one to file? 

My response, and I expect Fred's response since he has already led us up to
that point, is that it's not the one bill from Sears, which *is* an easy
one. It's rather the other 100-150+ emails we receive a day that have to be
sifted through, determined whether they require action, taking the action,
and filing the message. At 30 seconds each that's more than an hour a day,
and I submit that many of you have to spend more time than that to file some
of them properly because they have multiple attachments, deal with multiple
topics, are in response to multiple message threads, etc. 

It's not that email is to be treated differently per se, but rather that
email and some of the other technologies expose the inherent lack of
scalability associated with some of the more traditional practices. This is
not to denigrate those practices, nor the principles they are based on.
Email should be managed according to content. But a casual user at these
volumes is hard-pressed to differentiate "work" vs. "non-work" without email
consuming the entire day. So using the three-zone structure that Mr. Wright
described, which is also used and recommended by many consulting firms, many
larger organizations, and many messaging and RM vendors (or 4, or 5, but the
point is a tiny number of zones), meets the minimum requirements for
retention in many instances. 

By the way, I have stated this a number of times in this medium but it bears
repeating: At its most basic, records management is item management. File
plans are there to provide metadata to records which otherwise do not have
it or have only minimal amounts of it, so it can be accessed, retrieved,
managed, and dispositioned as warranted. The single biggest benefit to any
type of electronic records over other types of records is that the
classification structure is not AS important. You don't have to file stuff
in the ONE RIGHT FOLDER because a) it may not fit and b) it's often just as
findable if not more so without putting it in a folder. If it's textual-type
information it can be full-text searched. Metadata can be searched,
Attachments can be searched in many systems. 

30 years ago both IT and RM were aghast at the possibility of users having
their own computers and doing their own thing. We managed for the most part
but the profession had to update its best practices with guidance from its
fundamental principles. We put stuff on the web and that forced some more
changes with regards to what a public record is, security through obscurity,
the necessity to redact or remove personal information, etc. Now we're
looking at another opportunity to update our best practices in light of what
users can do and in light of what the technology and search technologies
allow. In ten years I believe that many of us will look back at detailed,
highly granular retention schedules and file plans the same way librarians
today consider the Dewey Decimal System: Useful in its time, an interesting
historical artifact, but not really relevant in the present. 

I know this is heretical. I don't want to start a flame war or respond to
accusations that "I just don't get it". I do. I know many are wed to the
traditional hierarchical classification structures. I just don't think they
are as important in the digital era as we think they are.

Respectfully submitted, 

Jesse Wilkins
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