On Aug 27, 2013, at 7:04 AM, RECMGMT-L automatic digest system wrote:

> From: mwhaider <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: An now Emporia State will receive Lesson #1
> 
> Good Morning Hugh,
> Either you had a fabulous weekend - that hasn't quite ended or you are
> waiting for a tape to arrive in your vault:)  Thanks for the Monday morning
> jolt - better than coffee:)
> Mary

I did have a wonderful week, as I had two of my children home for a visit. Each moving into the next phases of their lives and that had me very happy. To hear sounds from the upstairs bedrooms for a change instead of a whole floor of your house just vacant.

But I am excited for the Emporia State students as they just dropped into a pool of knowledge that is better than the Internet, Bing, and assorted Wikis combined.

I have always enjoyed the give and take of the List. Larry in the kindest way possible pointing out that “Important Records” is not a real class of records; with me incredulous but over time accepting. The swirling surf of change that electronic records management is bringing to our field. What better place for new students in the field of records management to gain exposure to the leading minds in the field. Does such a learning environment exist in other fields?

They arrive just in time to witness Big Data once again trying to dash records management with their latest failure. Big Cloud has spectacularly failed as a records management strategy but not before ruining many a career and possibly crushing a few corporations.  A Case Study in the making for new students.  

I am sure that it was Big Data who convinced the NSA that the capability to listen in on every phone call, every email, every discussion group was possible.  They just failed to tell them that saving everything means you have no time for discrimination of the information asset to sort "risk from recipe." Yesterdays paper had an article that said the NSA staff were all down in the dumps because they can’t understand why we are all upset with them.

The simplest directive for new students in records management: Consider cutting edge but at all cost shun the bleeding edge.

How many billions of dollars could be saved if we followed that simple directive in all technology.

One thing I have noted with Peter’s RAIN is that it is overwhelmingly about failures. Technology that loses lawsuits. Business practices that create exposures for PII and HIPAA. Most often it is the clash of new laws and their impact on the real world. The government pressing us onward into electronic records where the masters of that domain fail to see the importance of longevity of the record, the security of the record and the ability to store those records by class and retention schedule. Where each new technology repeats the sins of the Father. 

Hugh Smith
FIRELOCK Fireproof Modular Vaults
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