I'm going to do my darnedest to keep my thoughts relatively brief and then get around to finally starting a blog post on this topic.

Larry rightly rails against yet another buzzterm in our industry. I agree in principle. If you're changing your title simply to reflect a perceived opportunity to increase your value by using a buzzterm, you're doing it wrong. On the other hand, if you truly have a scope that exceeds what we consider to be "records management", by all means you should be looking for a new title.

That's what happened to me. I started the day job as Director of Records Management and within a couple years, I had a whole host of new responsibilities including, data privacy, computer forensics, e-discovery, PCI compliance, SOx compliance, risk assessments, and information security policy (I'm sure I missed something there). "Records management" no longer fit that amalgamation of responsibilities. "Information Governance" did.

Part of the problem is that there is no singular definition of "information governance". People who lean in the legal direction consider it records management plus e-discovery. People who lean in the IT direction consider it more about "big data", "data governance", and data architecture. I live within IT, but also within Information Security, so I have a much more blended and expanded viewpoint.

Until we get better understanding of the scope of Information Governance, it is going to be impossible to define it with any singularity. In my view, if you spend your time herding boxes and folders, you're not doing governance, you're managing. If you are writing information-oriented policy and controls that are aligned with your organization's risk appetite, and working to build measurable audits against those controls, you're governing. 

I have two basic missions: Prevent loss of data that matters; Minimize disruption to the business. Some of you may have heard me explain those phrases in a records context, but this time I'll let you all digest them a bit.

More to come on my blog.

 
Patrick Cunningham, CRM, CIP, FAI
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"Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier." 
-- Colin Powell

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