What's in a name?

Alan Bell raises some interesting issues in a recent posting about the wisdom (or not) of ‘Records Management2.0’ as term, his main argument being that although the technology and how we need to do things has changed this has not, and should not, change our fundamental goals and objectives and that as such “ all this talk of version 2.0 is perhaps not as helpful as it could be”.

As the person who coined the phrase Records Management2.0 (though hardly original I know) it may be surprising to hear that I don’t necessarily disagree with much of Alan’s argument, as the following extract from my keynote at the RMS conference indicates:

“The archive and records management professions are innately conservative; indeed we rightly pride ourselves on taking the ‘long view’, a position that is entirely appropriate when you consider that we are responsible for record collections often spanning several centuries. But, I would argue that whilst our professional goals and objectives should remain absolutely fixed and solid, this does not mean that our methodology and working practice must do likewise. The two are not inextricably linked and indeed it is not just desirable, but necessary, that we are prepared to constantly and fundamentally challenge the way in which we do things, to ensure that we are fit and able as a profession to continue to strive to achieve our objectives”

Where Alan and I do differ, I think, is in the degree of change required; whether this does or doesn’t justify the moniker ‘2.0’ and the practical usefulness of it as a term. For all the reasons laid out in my book I do believe that the issues raised by the Web2.0 movement – and not just of a technical nature, but reflecting the changing attitudes and behaviour of users, the nature of organisations and how information is viewed in culture and society – do fundamentally challenge enough of the old order of records management to make a clear division with what has gone before both necessary and desirable. Though at the same time we should not lose sight of the fact that for all the apparent difference implied by the 2.0 suffix, it is still attached to the term ‘Records Management’ and as such there is more that unites us than divides us.

In many respects I think Alan’s thoughts and this response demonstrate that the term Records Management2.0 is serving its intended purpose. I believe the most important role it can currently play is in raising awareness of the issues and generating debate (and hopefully solutions) about what this means for the records management profession. My own view remains that the depth and degree of rethinking and change required does legitimise the decision to call it something other than just ‘records management’, and given that such change is a direct result of the impact of Web2.0 it seems to make sense to me to be obvious about that link.

For me, another advantage of keeping a very deliberate and obvious link between Web2.0 and Records Management2.0 is to avoid confusion about its aims. From some of the responses I have received both from some individuals and professional bodies I do sometimes worry that people think I am advocating throwing out all that has gone before and replacing it wholesale with the kinds of methods and techniques outlined in the book. Nothing could be further from the truth. Where records management works, great. We have ISO15489 and a raft of other standards and best practice telling us all how to do it in time-honoured fashion and there is little or no place (for now at least) to be taking the kind of steps that I am advocating. Hopefully the Records Management2.0 title makes it clear that what I am talking about are solutions designed to fit very particular issue – those with their origins very firmly in the technology and movement that we know as Web2.0.

A Records Manager's 2.0 Manifesto

Taking our inspiration from Laura Cohen's Library 2.0 Manifesto, the following 12 statements were agreed by contributors to an online forum hosted on the Records Management2.0 Ning social network held on Friday 3rd October.

The aim of this manifesto is to encourage records professionals to positively embrace the opportunities and challenges presented by the increasing use of online technologies (variously referred to as Web2.0, Office2.0 social software, cloud computing and Software as a Service) within their organizations and to actively consider their implications for records management theory and practice. By doing so we hope to encourage debate within the profession, promote research and stimulate innovation – thus empowering records managers to play a full and important contribution to the shaping of this major new IT paradigm.

A full list of those who contributed to the drafting of this manifesto is included at the bottom of this document.

1. I recognize that the world of information culture is changing fast and that records management needs to respond positively to these changes to provide systems, policies, advice and services that are helpful to my organization, my teams and my colleagues.
2. I will educate myself about the information culture of my users and look for ways to incorporate what I learn into the records management solutions we offer.
3. I will let go of previous practices if there is a better way to do things now and will actively work towards the elaboration and formulation of new principles and practices.
4. Whilst I recognize the need for final assured quality in record-keeping systems this should not inhibit constant experimentation, innovation and development.
5. I will help users to take advantage of the Web2.0 services they need to deliver the agreed benefits to our organization.
6. I will avoid requiring users to see things in records management terms but, rather, will shape services to reflect users' preferences and expectations.
7. I recognize that records management does not have all the answers and will work openly, collaboratively and constructively with other IM and IT professionals in tackling the issues we face.
8. I recognize that it is not easy for users to keep records and will endeavor to develop automated and embedded RM solutions so as not to add unnecessary burdens to their working life.
9. I will work to improve the organization’s capability of keeping and understanding its records so far as is possible, whilst recognizing that we will never have perfect solutions for capturing and managing our records.
10. I will, at all times, strive to maintain a balance between the needs of my users and the legal, regulatory and operational requirements of my organization.
11. I recognize that although technology moves quickly, organizations often change slowly and will work to expedite our responsiveness to change, whatever its pace.
12. I will strive to deliver a service both users and management can trust and that is transparent and open to all stakeholders.

Contributors to the drafting of the above include:
Steve Bailey, Matthew Brown, Clare Cowling, Nicola Franklin, Rachel Hardiman, Tony Haworth, James Lappin, Elizabeth Lomas, Ton de Looijer, Tom Munzer, Phillip Ruston, Nicole Schulz

We are currently exploring the possibility of having this manifesto officially 'endorsed' by some of our professional bodies and would love to hear from any representatives from such bodies. We would also be interested to hear what individual records professionals think about the manifesto and how best to further promote its contents to our fellow professionals

What happens when there are no 'clouds' in sight?

Its all very well outsourcing your mission critical applications to 3rd party providers, but what happens if they prove to be less reliable than expected?

The recent outage of Gmail for 24 hours seems to have reminded many IT managers of some of the potential downsides of cloud computing and of no longer being a master of their own domain (literally!).

"a major concern and objection to SaaS applications is their performance and availability, since they're provided by the vendor via the Internet and accessed by end users through browsers. When the applications become slow or altogether unavailable because of problems in the vendors' data centers, IT administrators have little to do but sit and wait for the problem to be fixed. This often creates extremely stressful and tense situations for them if the outages are prolonged and their end users become angry."

More details of this incident and the problems caused are available from Computerworld

Apple's Genius points the way for RM2.0

In Chapter 9 of ‘Managing the Crowd’ I make the point that “Largely as a result of … technical advances, we now live in a world defined by information storage; ours is now a culture in which size most definitely matters. Just take each new generation of iPod that hits our shops. Have you ever seen an improved ability to decide what tracks you want to delete quoted as a selling point? No. The fact that it now has a 16Gb memory, compared with the 8Gb available last year, or the 4Gb the previous year, however, most definitely is”.

In this context it was interesting to read over the weekend that iPod will no longer be selling their 160GB iPod Classic. As the Daily Telegraph puts it, “ (perhaps) people have realised that, although the iPod has the potential to put their entire CD library in their pocket, they only ever listen to a few hundred favourite songs”. So maybe there are limits to our love affair with storage after all.

More interesting still, particularly in relation to Records Mgt 2.0, is the new ‘music-recommendation engine’ which the new Nano has built into it. According to the article by Claudine Beaumont “Genius will scan through your music collection looking at genres, the number of albums and songs you have by a particular artist, as well as the ratings you have given them. It will also look at the characteristics of the song itself, such as beats per minute… (it then) beams it back to the iTunes mothership. From there, it is able to build dynamic playlists of other recommended tracks, based not only on your library, but that of other iTunes users with similar tastes”.

So here we have the appraisal of large volumes of content based on information value and decided by a combination of both user opinion and user behaviour. Plus a system which combines the views and actions of the individual with those of the broader user community to provide a more informed analysis based on the ‘wisdom of the crowd’. Well whad’ya know. If we were talking about online business records, rather than music records, I’d say that Apple have just taken a pretty big stride towards realising Records Management 2.0.

Google - the future of the newpaper archive?

Another interesting innovation from Google, News Archive Search that will make 'millions of pages of archived newspaper content available for free'.

Okay so most of the publications currently covered are from the US, but it surely won't be long until many of the major UK papers and periodicals start to get the same treatment?

I'm sure it will prove popular with many users, able now to search and browse from the comfort of their home PC using the same simple search engine that they have grown accustomed to. It might prove more of a mixed blessing for the archive repositories that currently house and provide access to the original newspapers (or their nausea inducing counterparts on microfilm): on the one hand encouraging would-be researchers to continue their studies using the additional material they may hold within their repository; but on the other resulting in far less 'bums on seats' within the archive. Plus, of course, increasing the popular assumption that there is no need to visit an archive any more as its "all available on the web"...

Office 2.0 – a reality check?

Rachel posted such an interesting comment on her experience of using Office2.0 technologies at the recent Society of Archivist’s conference that I thought it deserved picking up in a separate posting.

Rachel is absolutely right in pointing to how reliant the ‘dream’ of Office2.0 is on the nuts and bolts of technical infrastructure and quite correct that at the moment that infrastructure is not yet sufficiently developed to turn the dream into a reality. However, I suspect the phrase ‘not yet’ is really key here. In response to Rachel’s experiences I think I would offer the following points (aside from a hearty ‘well done’ for the whole experiment!).

The infrastructure is still developing, but developing fast. I know (from bitter experience!) that relying on wifi access for internet access when on the road can still be a very patchy and frustrating experience. But, what I would say is cast your mind back 5 years or so and then compare it with today. Five years ago I couldn’t even get a mainline broadband connection for my rural home. Today, not only do I get a reasonable BB connection, but I actually first read Rachel’s comments on my Blackberry whilst walking the dog round a field this morning…

Similar evidence of progress can be seen around the country, whether it be wifi hotspots in stations and coffee shops or the increasing number of hotels that are now offering connections (including an increasing number providing free access). Of course this isn’t the same as being universal and I suspect that it will be some time – perhaps another 5 years or so – before coverage begins to approach this. But I find it hard to believe that it won’t happen soon – just look at the rise in mobile phone coverage over the past decade.

Incidentally, Rachel may have had more luck with a 3G card than she suspected. I’ve used one for several years now and though not without their own frustrations, do mean that access to the internet is possible pretty much anywhere you can get a mobile signal (at least at GPRS speeds, if not 3G).

It might also be worth checking out the potential of Google’s Gears. I’ve not yet got round to trying it myself, but the logic of a piece of software which enables offline access to services which are normally only available online (including Google Docs and Zoho) would seem a potentially valuable means of plugging this temporary gap as seamlessly as possible.

So, I guess in summary its worth saying that this blog is called ‘futurewatch’ for reason! The reality of the universal, seamless access to the web that is required to fully realise Office2.0 may still be a little way off, but personally I still have no doubts that it is the direction in which we are heading.

How not to panic when you lose your laptop...

There was an interesting post (now sadly removed) from a delegate at the Office2.0 conference which flew in the face of the current convention: a man who fears that he has lost he his laptop but loses no sleep about the data he might have lost. Okay, so losing something as valuable as a portable computer would have been no laughing matter and then there is all the hassle with filling out insurance forms, sourcing a new machine etc, but (and here is the crucial difference) no panic about the data that’s been lost with it. No fear about personal information falling into the wrong hands. No paranoia about identify theft.

The difference? This owner of this particular laptop relies on his laptop for little more than access to the internet. No data is stored on it (and in all likelihood virtually no applications either). He is a proponent of Office2.0 technology and as a result his data is all stored on secure, backed-up, safely housed, hulking great servers that can’t get left in the back of a taxi or dropped down the back of a pub sofa.

Okay, so I no it is not as black and white as that and there are plenty of potential risks to data security posed by reliance on external service providers and wireless internet connections – but all the same, perhaps in the current climate there is something to be said for moving back to a situation where the client machine is little more than a dumb terminal, devoid of stored data and therefore devoid of risk and of value to a third party. A move which Office 2.0 is perfectly placed to enable. It lets your staff wander around the country with laptops, it lets them work wherever they need and it lets them have access to the data they require - it just doesn't let them take it with them, with all the attendant risks this seems to bring...