When I first started hitting the conference circuit and blogsphere last year with my concerns regarding what the rise in Web2.0 and particularly Office2.0 solutions might mean for the future of records management, many I spoke to thought it would never happen to their organisation. So whilst it may have been an interesting theoretical exercise, many dismissed much of what I said as being largely irrelevant to their organisations and their circumstances - particularly if they worked in the public sector. Even at the RMS conference in Edinburgh last month many I spoke to were still clinging to this belief.
But all the while the signs are that this is the direction in which we are heading. Whether this be the use of YouTube to conduct public consultation, as addressed earlier this week, or Paul Dodgson's post on the RMS Blog discussing how Leicestershire County Council is already 'dipping its toe' into Google Apps to explore its potential. Certainly in the Higher Education sector things are moving a pace. Whereas this time last year there were only a couple of examples of institutions wishing to outsource their email to externally hosted services there are now dozens with most IT departments currently at least exploring the pros and cons.
Make no mistake about it: this is something we, as records and information professionals, need to come to terms with and quickly - and not just by paying lip service to it, but by developing new approaches which meet records management objectives in radical new ways.
1 comment:
Steve
I agree with you that the whole web 2.0 application business should be of greater interest for organisations for many reasons. I personally work for a company that is thinking of outsourcing email and using a variety of web 2.0 tools to facilitate collaboration internally and externally. It is quite shocking how little concern was initially given to information security, access and life-cycle management. But even more interesting is the fact that members of staff have previously taken matters into their own hands by using external applications to support their project work. I am sure that is the case in many organisations and few of these might be aware that some of their corporate information might be lost that way for ever or eat least be exposed to security breaches.
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