This has been a most intriguing discussion. Problem is, it is rapidly becoming a circular argument. To those of you who want a refereed publication, I would suggest very strongly that you set about building a business case and collecting volunteers and contracts for articles, not to mention finding people capable of reading and judging the articles to your standards. Since there seems to be a large crowd of academics and students clamoring for this, you have a nice list of potential participants. When you have this ready to go -- and a mock-up of your first issue -- you should then shop the publication wherever you choose. Up to that point, it is simply vaporware.
Reading these related threads from the past few days, I see a number of people saying that "ARMA should do this" or "ARMA should do that". Um, last time I checked, many of you are ARMA members and many of you are perfectly capable of volunteering if you feel strongly about filling a need. Being passive and then whining about how "ARMA" didn't do what you wanted is a cop out. If this is what you want, DO SOMETHING TO MAKE IT HAPPEN!
In my opinion, the one thing that our profession really lacks is a singular and authoritative body of knowledge. Building a body of knowledge is a good first step to being recognized more broadly as a profession. But doing that building is difficult and often thankless. Yes, much of it could be accomplished through more academic and theoretical articles, as well as more monographs. I have had the opportunity to write three articles for ARMA's publications. I doubt that any of them would ever pass a truly academic test, but they have been well-received as practical approaches to current concerns. As an author for ARMA from time to time, I know how desperate ARMA is for writers. I find it interesting that for all of this hue and cry for a refereed publication, ARMA continues to have to beg for authors to come forward. Heck, ARMA will even pay authors for their articles!
As for the Foundation, the Foundation continues to focus on growing its endowment, while delivering a small number of quality publications (and a few scholarships). While some folks seem to think that $500,000 is a lot of money to do things with, it is a pittance for really getting things done. The Foundation needs to grow the endowment to at least $2 million to get to self-sufficiency -- and that is still not a huge amount of money to deliver a consistent stream of educational products. The Foundation's endowment is also an opportunity for those of you who feel strongly about education -- make a contribution to grow the endowment and enable new avenues for professional education.
I am continually astounded by the depth of thought in this profession by many of the people who have made impassioned pleas to the List on this topic. There is an incredible amount of brainpower out there that would be seriously beneficial to the profession if harnessed in a cohesive manner. But that takes an effort and leadership, most probably from among those who see the need, possess the knowledge, and have the benefit of the time to impact the profession. I would encourage those of you who are most impassioned and able to contribute to the profession to make yourselves known to ARMA's leadership. But you also need to make yourselves and your issues known to the membership. As Doug pointed out, the Board looks carefully at what ARMA's members demand in membership surveys. There are many needs, but few dollars -- and allocations of dollars to programs which the membership does not perceive as valuable is a course that is set for member
disengagement. While I personally feel that this is an area in which we should be allocating time and money, I also know that it is an area far below the value threshold for most of ARMA's membership. The opportunity is to then to engage the membership in a manner that brings them to understand the value proposition that you bring forward -- that this is not simply an impractical academic exercise, but an exercise that can bring forward documented processes, calibrated studies and benchmarking, and accepted standards of practice. That's the case that you need to make -- otherwise, it becomes a bunch of boring theory from people who have no concept of what life in the trenches is all about.
Patrick Cunningham, CRM, FAI
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"Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier."
-- Colin Powell
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