ECM

The Two Sides of Information Governance

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Sometimes things just fall together. This past weekend, I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark with my sons, reveling as they experienced all the quirks for the first time.

Then on Monday, I had a conversation about Information Governance with a fellow practitioner. They remarked that there were two pillars of Information Governance. At first I agreed, Value (Information Management) and Risk (Records Management/eDiscovery) are the two dynamics at play in Information Governance.

I then realized that they were really two sides of the same coin. They are not as separate as two pillars might be. They are intertwined. After a little thought, I decided that the headpiece to the Staff of Ra from the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark was actually the perfect paradigm.

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The IGI Tackles Information Governance for All

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The Two Bobs, Office SpaceThe Information Governance Initiative (IGI) released their 2014 Annual Report this week. I was actually sent a preview copy, but I was at the beach and it took me a while to get to reading the entire report. I could have readily written a simple write-up based upon the great executive summary, but I wanted to dig deeper.

I am glad that I did. It is easy to argue with the conclusions but without reading the facts behind them, it is wasted effort. That is one thing that I really like about the report, there was real thought into what the results of their surveys and conversations meant. That is something that you don’t see in many of these reports.

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Joining the Practitioners at the Information Governance Conference

The Information Governance Conference LogoLast week I talked about my upcoming visit to the Information Governance Exchange, which is an event filled with business owners and decision makers. The next week in September, the 8th through the 10th, I will be winging my way up to Hartford, CT for the Information Governance Conference (InfoGovCon).

The InfoGovCon will be filled with practitioners participating in an agenda filled with different perspectives on Information Governance from multiple industries. There are also training sessions from ARMA, the Information Governance Initiative, and many others.

While there, I am presenting on Removing the “Work” from Information Governance. Sounds interesting but what does that mean?

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Repeating Past Mistakes Won’t Make ECM Work

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Stitch banging his head against the wallEvery now and then I read a post that makes me wonder if the older Enterprise Content Management (ECM) vendors are intentionally trying to keep the industry stagnant. They make a fair penny selling to people who tried their competitor’s solution and failed. Whey not keep it up for another decade?

That was my response when I read How Free Puppy Syndrome Can Ruin Your ECM Strategy. My first thought that this was going to be a generic attack on open source. While I no longer work for an open source vendor, I am still a fan and think that open source solutions provide strong value.

It wasn’t that simple. The article attacked everyone who is trying to take the industry from one of failure to one of universal adoption. I am going to address all the bullet points.

The author meant for each point to be an indicator for failure.

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Heading to the Information Governance Exchange

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Recently I’ve begun filling my Fall conference calendar. I always enjoy attending conferences because it is a great way to test my ideas and to hear new ones. The best conferences leave me with fresh perspectives and concepts that I want to try out immediately.

I always enjoy returning to some conferences, like AIIM and Monktoberfest, because I know that I will get value from my fellow attendees. New conferences are different experience. They provide an opportunity to meet and interact with a new community. The first week of September, I am trying one such conference located here in Washington, DC, the Information Governance Exchange.

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You Will Never Have One Place for All Your Content

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Dr Who in the rainYou read the title correctly. No matter how hard the industry works between now and the time you die, or are simply drooling in a wheelchair, you will never have one place for all of your content. I’m not simply talking the difference between work and personal pieces of information. Whether you are at work or home; on your computer, tablet, or phone; or any combination of those, you will always have content you need to access in multiple systems.

A little depressing isn’t it?

That doesn’t make it less true. If it makes you feel any better, it will not be entirely your fault. The problem is that you and your company do not own all of the content that you use. There is content out there that originates, and lives, in other places.

And there is nothing you can do about it.

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Doom and Gloom for Dropbox and Box?

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If you have been anywhere near twitter the past week, you’ve seen the article from ZDNet asking Can Dropbox and Box survive as independent services? The author, Ed Bott, then goes into the pricing competition for storage and how both services are falling way behind the curve to Google, Apple, and Microsoft.

Ed misses the point. This isn’t about storage. Not anymore. It is also about convenience. How well can you synch across all your devices with products from the big three? How well do those products work with other applications on your mobile devices?

Even more importantly, how well do those applications serve the enterprise?

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Information Governance and Records Management Need to get Radical Together

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A couple weeks ago I ranted that we were beginning to make many of the same mistakes with Information Governance that we had made with Enterprise Content Management (ECM), and to some extent Records Management. The post stimulated posts from James Lappin and George Parapadakis.

I respect both of them and it is entertaining to see them taking completely opposite approaches to the problem. It would be entertaining, for me at least, to see them debate the issue. I suspect it would get quite…energetic.

Of course, being on extremes, they both missed the mark.

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Information Governance Repeating the Same Mistakes

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One thing I’ve been doing a lot of recently is observing the rise of Information Governance. It is eating all the bandwidth that Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Information Management, and Records Management have historically consumed. All the same players are involved; each trying to make a name for themselves.

As I participated in today’s #InfoChat, I quickly realized that the exact same chat could have taken place 10 years ago. Just substitute #ECM for #InfoGov and it would fit. There were no “new” ideas presented, just slight twists on the same concepts that have been pushed for the last 20 years.

We get it. Success requires “People, Process, and Technology.” How about telling us how those factors should behave and work together? What new technology might help smooth processes to make people’s live easier?

TELL ME SOMETHING NEW!

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Information Governance is a Journey

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Scene from Stand videoI’ve been talking a lot about Information Governance of late. The reason I’ve been doing it is because if it simply becomes a term used in place of Records Management we will have wasted an opportunity. Information Governance is different. It needs to be different.

Records Management failed. We need a new approach. Information Governance has the potential to be that new approach, if we tackle it correctly. If we get lazy, we will be fighting the same battles for another decade.

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