I was reading a case summary today titled “Plaintiff ordered to adhere to document production agreement despite difficulty finding an inexpensive technology provider”, and thought to myself, you know, if this cpmpany was better at managing their informaiton to begin with, they would not be having this issue. It still amazes me how many organizations are not well organized when it comes to their information assets and how much angst it causes when they have to find it.
This is the essence of content management, to get control of the unmanaged information in your organization. The organize and enable findability through the use of metadata. To reach a level of organization that enables you to readily comply with audits, litigation and other inquiries accurately, effectively, and efficiently. Technology alone will not completely allow you to reach this pinnacle, you will need planning, a strategy and team coordination to combine technology use with people and process but in the end, it will be worth the effort.
In my view, this is yet another example or where many organizations lack focus and do not understand the benefit and advantage they gain through optimization of their information management practices. In many cases, you will find at minimum, duplicate files – or even up to hundreds of files with the same titles – residing in the vast silos of storage strewn about the enterprise. These not only cost you in in the area of systems administration, they also put you at risk and increase your eDiscovery costs when required to find and present information related to an audit or litigation. Someone has to sift through the mountain of content to determine relevance, produce it, and present it to the courts or auditors.
The best practice has been and still is, to get control over your content beforehand. Identify what information has business value and, manage it properly. Information that is redundant, out of date, or trivial – referred to as ROT – should be removed from your repositories. Leverage technology to support your content management practices in ways that enable you to find the information you need, when you need it and position your organization to be defensible when it comes time to face the Judge.
What say you? Do you have a story to tell? What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you have a topic of interest you would like discussed in this forum? Let me know.
Bob Larrivee, Director and Industry Advisor – AIIM
Email me: blarrivee@aiim.org
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