Hi Gerry, 

I look forward to your additional comments. 

In brief response, though, I think the point he makes is the same as David
Weinberger makes in Everything is Miscellaneous - that it is increasingly
difficult to impose hierarchical authority on network-based structures in a
way that works. As he restated, "The network treats hierarchy as damage and
routes around it". 

In the mesh network model he describes, there isn't a ready way for "the
man" to crush the mesh because there isn't a simple single line in the way
there is in most of our organizations. It's my iPhone, and your Treo, and
Larry's laptop, and and and. Each of us has a connection to the Internet;
those lines are provided by the telcos, but because it isn't one line or
even from one provider, it's difficult to cut them all. 

If your EDGE subscription dies (or gets crushed), you might be able to use
MY connection assuming I allowed it, and by extension, if you're in my
network, maybe I do (and maybe I don't, but that's another discussion and I
assume that if we're sharing, power is the least of my worries). 

It's the same with DRMed materials: at the end of the day, there's got to be
output to a monitor, speakers, etc. to be able to meaningfully interact with
it. If it can be output, I can capture it. And upload it to YouTube or its
successor. It may not be 100% perfect digital reproduction, but it'll be
close enough. 

What does this mean to RM? Well, the file plan and RRS are pretty
hierarchical constructs for controlling information. No, I don't mean that
they are constructed hierarchically necessarily, though the overwhelming
majority of them are. I mean that they impose a similar "the man" approach
to controlling information - often for very good reason. But it's not just
the volume that challenges the modern RM program; it's the Blackberries, and
my iPhone, and web-based access, and personal email accounts, and IM, and
SMS, and and and again. Users eschew command-and-control whether imposed by
IT (they don't allow IM, users use web-based or their cell phones' IM
clients or SMS) or RM (same same). I think that is one of the most
significant challenges to the profession today and one which will reshape it
ways most of us haven't contemplated or even considered. And at the rate at
which technology advances, the time to ponder this is now, not retirement+1.


Jesse Wilkins
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