In my mind, this article underscores what seems to be a growing dichotomy
between public and private sector practice. In the private sector, records
management increasingly appears to be defined solely in terms of its tools
and risk management. I think this diminishes the profession and its true
value, and cedes important territory to other players that will not be as
effective in meeting organizational goals, because they don't have any
familiarity with a body of knowledge called "records management". Larry,
your comments on the article are spot on in this regard.

In the public sector, we seem to be going in a different direction, and
records management is being defined as part of a continuum with archives
that addresses risk/cost control, compliance, transparency/accountability,
and historic memory. Locally speaking, in spite of our own economic woes,
public sector records management/archives programs are thriving as they
never have before (knock on wood). In my opinion, one of the reasons for
that is the integrated archives/records management nature of these programs.
The ones that don't have this integration are not doing as well.

The article recommends that records managers become more comfortable with
risk, and I wouldn't  disagree with that, but its diminished depiction of
the profession as primarily a risk reduction strategy appears to undermine
its conclusions. If your primary function is to reduce risks, I would think
that being reluctant to compromise in that regard would be a good thing. If
one of your many skills is controlling cost AND mitigating risk, then the
type of compromise this article suggests makes more sense, but cost control
appears to be ceded to others. After all, we are too detail oriented to be
serious players in that regard - we want "perfection".

Its use of the Forrester survey is one of the reasons why I don't
participate in such surveys - one could just as easily explain the lowering
participation of records managers in IT strategic planning as a result of
the economic downturn (less resources to plan with), and not our alleged
similarities with librarians (which, btw, is an insult to both records
managers and librarians, many of whom I know personally and are anything but
shy!).

Having said that, I do agree with this statement:"Understanding the
strategic compromises that can be made to deliver better, faster services to
the business without compromising compliance mandates is the core diplomacy
21st century records managers need to learn."

My only caveat is that this has always been a "core diplomacy" of the field.
-- 
Dwight Wallis, CRM
Multnomah County Records Management Program
1620 SE 190th Avenue
Portland, OR 97233
ph: (503)988-3741
fax: (503)988-3754
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