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Member of the Week: Governance, ERM, and Peddling Faster with Monica Crocker

By Bryant Duhon posted 04-01-2013 12:00

  

 

Monica Crocker has been an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) consultant since 1991. Monica serves as Corporate Records Manager for Land O'Lakes, helping tailor ECM solutions to meet clients’ business needs.  Prior to joining Land O'Lakes, Monica implemented an ECM solution at the Minnesota Department of Human Services that included 1,500 users, 10s of millions of documents and 46 separate document classes. Her expertise includes enterprise strategies for content management, records management, electronic discovery, taxonomy design, project management and business process redesign.

She is Member-at-Large on the Minnesota Chapter of AIIM Board and has received AIIM’s Distinguished Service Award. 

Q: What do you do and how did you get there? 
 
Crocker: I am the Corporate Records Manager at Land O’Lakes. I spent a couple decades consulting on enterprise content management implementations all over the country and had to get schooled on records in the process. They happened to have BOTH positions (ECM Analyst and Corp Records Manager) open at Land O’Lakes when I applied, so I was hired into one and then moved to the other.
 
Q: What was your best day at work? Worst? 
 
Crocker: Best Day at work was participating in a ceremony where every member our project team, including 30 individuals with developmental disabilities that did extraordinary backfile conversion work, received an achievement award from the Governor’s Office. Great, now you’ve made me get all teary eyed.
 
Worst Day was when I found out our program to employ welfare to work moms in the backfile conversion area was being terminated because the attorneys couldn’t decide who was liable if they misbehaved. FYI, none of them had misbehaved or showed any propensity to do so.
 
Disclaimer: neither of these days happened in my current position.
 
Q: What are you proudest of?
 
Crocker: Providing career opportunities to individuals that were not currently in positions that were challenging or rewarding.
 
Q: What is your No. 1. goal today—and what is your greatest content-related challenge?
 
Crocker: My number one goal today….peddle faster!
 
My CURRENT greatest content related challenge: Overcoming the perception that SharePoint Governance is achieved by limiting site storage.
 
Q: You've written frequently about the people side of records; what's most difficult about getting "mainstream" business people to see the value of managing records properly?
 
Crocker: The mainstream business people are EASY to convince to manage records in accordance with organization policies and standards. They understand the value of those records and the information they contain. Plus, they don’t pretend to be records management experts, so, for the most part, they’re happy to have guidance because it allows them to focus on their work instead of figuring out how to manage records. Plus, they recognize how liberating it is to get rid of stuff they don’t need and to be able to find stuff they do need.
 
Q: Why is governance a good thing?
 
Crocker: Because it makes the sun shine and puppies’ tails wag. And keeps me out of your office.
 
Serious answer: unless you have infinite time and energy, you will never be able to keep up if you take a reactive approach to managing information or records. Governance allows you to implement a proactive, high level strategy for information management that empowers the people that have the most to gain from effective information governance. I always say the good news about governance is that it’s simple….the bad news is that it isn’t easy.
 
Q: You’ve just become a Certified Information Professional (CIP); what’s your view of this new certification from AIIM?
 
Crocker: ‘bout time…
 
Q: Why do you consider yourself an information professional?
 
Crocker: Because if I didn’t, I’d have to go back to waiting tables and politeness isn’t my strong suit. 
 
The answer you should publish: I had the amazing good luck to get in on the ground floor of the Enterprise Content Management industry just as imaging technology was revolutionizing it. So, I started there and have been around to figure out the technology and regulatory changes as they happened. I was also fortunate to get my mom’s practical approach to life (a/k/a laziness)…so I blow right past theory and rhetoric to the implications of a new technology or regulation on how work gets done. 
 
Just for fun:
 
Q: What are your three favorite websites?
 
Crocker: Wildcatsanctuary.org; Passiveagressivenotes.com; and Thebloggess.com
 
Q: What are the three greatest books ever written—and what’s on your nightstand today? 
 
Crocker: The World According to Garb by John Irving, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
 
On my nightstand: See What I'm Saying: The Extraordinary Powers of Our Five Senses (shameless plug for a book written by a smart, funny friend)
 
Q: What are the three greatest movies of all time—and what’s the last one you’ve seen?
 
Crocker: The Shawshank Redemption; Any Monty Python movie; and Any Clint Eastwood western
 
Last movie I saw….Skyfall. Also the only movie I’ve bothered to see TWICE in the theater.
 
Q: What was your first concert—and what are the three greatest songs on your iPod?
 
Crocker: So embarrassing….Ted Nugent’s Wango Tango tour. It was truly awful. Please don’t print that.
 
I don’t listen to songs…I still listen to albums. I’m old school….but not in the cool way. The three ALBUMS currently in rotation are: The Minnesota Beatles Project Volume 4, Punch Brothers Antifogmatic, and Poliça Give You the Ghost


#Records-Management #governance #InformationGovernance #ERM #ElectronicRecordsManagement #ECM
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