Welcome to our wild and wonderful world! You have certainly hit u
Kim,

Welcome to our wild and wonderful world! You have certainly hit upon one of the biggest frustrations in our industry. A lot of the "buzzword bingo" that you see comes from the vendor community. I think it ultimately is an IT thing. You have to sort out the core concepts from the buzz and try to find a path that incorporates the right mix for the organization that you're in. As I noted earlier, my definition of Information Governance includes a heavy focus on information security, by nature of where I'm placed. In many (if not most) organizations, a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) wants nothing to do with records management. I'm fortunate in having a series of enlightened managers who understand that information protection starts with identifying the information. That's what we do best. 


I think it is important to have a fairly deep understanding of records management. The challenge is getting the opportunity to really analyze records and information and know what makes up the flow of information in your organization. I had a very fortunate career path where I had lots of opportunities to do deep dives into a lot of organizations' records from top to bottom. That's often impossible today. You have to be a person who asks questions and makes connections. You have to understand your organization. You're going to have to translate IT to lawyers and legalese to tech-speak. Spend some time looking into the preparation of a 30(b)(6) deposition witness. You should be prepared for that role with regard to your organization's records. Spend some time looking at COBIT and ISO 27001 so you start to understand information security controls. Learn how to audit -- really audit against a set of controls. Good records management is another set of
 controls designed to protect information. 


There's more(!) to learn, of course, but you have a career in front of you. If you can put all of this together, you can have a heckuva career. At the core is understanding what a record is and how to set the retention of that record. But underlying that simple process is so much more. And yes, some of it is buzzwords and vendor gabble. See what resonates... and what sticks. 

 
Patrick Cunningham, CRM, CIP, FAI
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