Records Management as part of Staff Development?

We held our first online workshop on the new Records Management 2.0 social networking site last Friday on the topic of ‘what does RM have to offer the information literate user? Though the number of participants was quite low, the debate was lively and certainly interesting enough to justify arranging another scheduled workshop on another topic in the near future.

One of the thoughts which the discussion prompted in my own mind was the potential value of the RM function actually forming part of the ‘staff development’ (or similar) unit within an organisation – usually to be found as part of the Human Resources function. As we all know, the records management team - or individual records manager - can currently be found in a wide variety of places within the organisational structure (IT, information services, legal/compliance, facilities management, Chief Execs office etc) but rarely, if ever, within HR.

At first glance they might seem unlikely bedfellows, especially given the great stress placed on RM as part of legal compliance in recent years. But my fear is (as expressed during the discussion) that we, as a profession, are currently seen by many individual users as being too bureaucratic, heavy-handed and ‘dictatorial’ and therefore as part of ‘the problem’; rather than as an ally, someone with practical answers to real problems and someone who understands and sympathises with their needs. I know many of us strive to take as many steps in this direction as we possibly can, but perhaps by so often being inextricably linked to the policy and management functions of the organisation we make this task far harder to achieve than it would be if we were seen to be on the side of the users. After all, at the end of the day it is their actions – rather than policy frameworks and central diktats – which have the greatest impact on how our records are managed. To a great extent this has always been the case, but is a trend which continues to increase the more technology continues to empower the individual user.

There is often a lot of talk about the records manager making use of the ‘carrot’ as well as ‘stick’ but my suspicion is that this is usually more along the lines of "this new process/system/policy that I am about to force you to use is actually great because…", rather than "what could we do to help make your life easier?".

An admirable summary of Managing the Crowd

I am indebted to James Lappin at TFPL for posting as succinct a summary of the main points contained within Managing the Crowd as you are ever likely to find.

In fact, it makes me wonder what I wasted the other 60,000-odd words on...

Launch of the Records Management 2.0 social networking site

Some of you may recall from previous postings that I have been keen to try to conitnue discussion and debate about the future of records management and in particular with regards to its role in the 'Web 2.0 world'; and hopefully to find ways of enabling those with an interest in this area to work together to create practical solutions.

After investigating a few different approaches I settled on creating a social network within Ning, not least because this platform combines the ability to keep in touch with like-minded colleagues with useful tools including online forums and event management. To be honest, I was still thinking through the details of how best to take this foward when a particularly interesting and robust debate about the future of records management on the Records-managment-uk jiscmail list convinced me that now was the right time to run with this (ready or not!). As with any such site, it will succeed or fail depending on the commitment of its members. Initial take up has been brisk, lets hope this burst of enthusiasm is sustained and turned into ongoing collaboration, discussion and progress.

If anyone else would like to join this site, please drop me an email and I will send you an email in return containing the relevant joining instructions.

Separating management from storage

I’ve recently been mulling over the nature of the relationship between where we store the information we create (the repository) and the rules governing its management – not least because it seems to represent one of the fundamental divides between the approach to records management which I am advocating (RM2.0 for shorthand) and the majority of ECM products on the market.

In the pre-Web 2.0 world there was a division between the applications we used to create information (e.g. MS Word) and the repository we used to store our outputs. We didn’t store our documents in Word, we stored them on our C://, on a separate file server, or even a removable storage device (though the MOD are beginning to wish they hadn’t!). All of which created a separate shared repository available for the storage of unstructured information created by a range of applications. This, in turn, influenced the nature of first EDRMS and latterly ECM technologies, the majority of which included their own separate repository for storage and intrinsically linked it to their management/rules layer.

As noted in Managing the Crowd: "The crucial difference with Web 2.0 services such as You Tube, Flickr, Facebook and the like is that they are content storage repositories as well. They no longer just represent the tools, but also the filing cabinet" which changes things considerably – especially when you consider that the majority of these services may be hosted outside the organisation. In this model there is no shared underpinning repository, nor is it possible to create and rely upon an intrinsic link between the management/rules layer and the repository of content we wish it to control. To my mind, this places those systems which are built upon the assumption of a combined repository and rules layer at a severe disadvantage by closing off the ability to manage information which it does not itself ‘physically’ hold.

One of the reasons for musing over this now was in the wake of an interesting chat I had the other day with some folks from Computer Associates marking the release of their new CA Records Manager product. In contrast to most other ECM products it apparently does not include its own integral repository – it’s a management layer only, managing content in its original native location. Though there are still currently limitations in terms of how widely this management layer can be applied (not yet extending to encompass the externally hosted Web2.0 services mentioned earlier) it seems to me to at least represent a more open-ended solution which at least offers the promise of achieving some of these wider, more demanding goals, further down the line.

The need for dynamic records management

I’ve made the point before that one of the greatest challenges posed by Web 2.0 to records management is the fact that the underpinning focus of control has now shifted significantly from the organisation to the individual (a fact acknowledged by Time magazine two years ago when it made ‘You’ its prestigious ‘Person of the Year’ in recognition of the fact that in the Web 2.0 world ‘You’ control the information age. This trend is, of course, contrary to many of the assumptions on which records management is based which relies upon and extols the virtues of organisation-wide standards, policies and conformity.

In the latest print edition of Information World Review (though curiously not yet on their online version which is still showing last month’s column) David Tebbutt alludes to the same general trend in relation to social networking technologies:

“Forget centralised planning and control. No one can plan these connections, or their value, in advance. Power shifts to the participants who, frankly, deserve it most”.

Though not talking specifically about the RM and governance agenda, its not difficult to see how these same trends apply in this context and point to the need for far more reactive and dynamic approaches to information management which are able to adapt and change ‘on the fly’ .

The 10 (published) principles of Records Management 2.0

Finally, after many months of effort and angst, I have held a copy of my finished, published book in my hand. Authors are prone to equating the process of writing a book with that of pregnancy and giving birth to a child. Rather foolishly I tried this analogy earlier today to my wife who is currently 7 months pregnant….

Without sounding too clichéd I would genuinely love this book to represent the beginning, rather than the end, of this (self imposed) mission to rethink and reinvent records management to ensure it is fit for purpose in the modern world. I have been gratified to receive several supportive emails from around the world from other professionals who share my concerns and desire to initiate change. What I would love to do is to build on this by establishing a community of like-minded records managers, plus those from related professions such as the library world and of course the web technologists. I am sure that collectively there exists the expertise and range of skills required to make a genuine difference to our profession, its just a question of identifying the right online tool(s) to facilitate this creative discussion and, perhaps, finding the odd bit of funding to help make this happen. I make no apologies for the fact that my book raises far more questions than it answers, but now those questions have been raised and are out there for discussion lets move on to actually doing stuff: practical stuff that results in applications and approaches which can make a real difference. If anyone is interested in being part of such a community feel free to let me know, likewise if you are familiar with any ‘business models’ and/or technical platforms to help realise them (or sources of funding of course).

Finally, I thought I would end with some of the conclusions from the book (don’t worry, it doesn’t spoil the ending!). Part of my conclusion is that what we need at present is a set of guiding principles and shared characteristics which help define ‘Records Management 2.0’ and which can be used to set the parameters for any further development work in this area. More detail on each of them is given in the book and naturally they are all open for discussion (see Principle 9) but I thought they might at least get the debate started and were a fitting way to celebrate the arrival of the book.

Records Management 2.0 must be:
1. scalable to an (almost) infinite degree
2. comprehensive: with the potential to address all aspects of the management of information throughout its lifecycle
3. independent of specific hardware, software or physical location
4. extensible and able to absorb new priorities and responsibilities as they emerge
5. potentially applicable to all information
6. proportionate, flexible and capable of being applied to varying levels of quality and detail as required by the information in question
7. a benefits-led experience for users, that offers them a positive incentive to participate
8. marketable to end users, decision makers and stakeholders
9. self-critical and positively willing to embrace challenge and change
10. acceptable to, and driven by, the records management community and its practitioners

The way forward? Niche solutions for niche problems

One of the (very few) advantages of being laid up at home with tonsillitis has been the opportunity to catch up on some reading when energy levels allow.

One thing which caught my eye and which I never expected to see was an advert in the 17th May issue of The Spectator for an advert for a records management system. After all, think about it? When was the last time you picked up a major, national current affairs periodical, with no ties to records or information management and saw such an advert? I thought so.

The full page advert is for Niche Records Management Systems, a specialist system for police forces and is jokingly aimed at the new Mayor of London, Boris Johnson (presumably on the assumption that he should buy it for the Met Police). Of course, in reality, it’s designed to appeal to more than just one person but what we can assume from this is that this is an advert for a records management system which is not aimed at the records manager, nor even the IT manager – but the senior executive, policy maker and purse string holder.

The ad then goes on to spell out in clear empirical terms what benefits have been derived from implementing such a system by other police forces (e.g. “Hampshire Constabulary – a sex offender caught in four hours, not two days; North Wales Police – 42% reduction in case file preparation time” etc).

Now these are bold claims and I’m in no position to be able to comment on the true contribution of records management or this particular system to achieving them (so please don’t see this as any endorsement of this particular product which I know nothing about). For me the interesting thing is to contrast this with the usual way in which RM systems (and often RM as a whole) are marketed. Here it is being sold as a specific answer to a specific problem; rather than as an enterprise-wide ‘bucket’ and ill-defined answer to all information woes.

There is no mention of this system helping your police force to cope with FOI or vague promises to reduce costs. No, its selling points are its direct contribution to achieving the specific organisational targets on which senior managers are themselves judged. This is not RM as a universal panacea, nor RM as self-evidentially important. It is RM as a specifically designed niche solution to a niche problem in a niche market and as such is aggressively targeting a market which we seldom seem to reach.