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The agricultural age has come and gone.  The industrial age has done the same.  There is little disputing that we are now in the information age.  It is said that there will be more information created in the next two years than in the whole history of civilization.  A theme that is discussed is that successful companies will not be the ones that have the best information, anymore, but the ones that can manage the avalanche of information – separating the valuable information from the rest.

This will require new ways of working in our offices, homes and such places as airports, where we are doing work while waiting for flights.

Discussing the Program Charter in AIIM’s ERM Specialist course, we discuss ten records management principles that will need to be followed for organizations to be successful in this new information age.

These ten principles include: 

• Records will be routinely created, shared, used and stored in electronic form
• There will be an increase in individual responsibility for managing information; only one copy of an information object will be stored; there will be greater use of short cuts and hyperlinks; a the culture of sharing information encouraged 
• Access to information will be controlled;  there will be increased oversight using audit trails; there will be backup and recovery of computer systems (actually testing recovery processes before they are needed); users will share information except where access cannot be permitted for a defined reason (such as sensitive information) 
• ‘Capture’ is the process of declaring, classifying and storing a record; information will be indexed (metadata will be applied to the records); indexing will be based on the organization’s taxonomy and thesaurus; ERM will require the minimum possible effort from users 
• File structures (classification scheme) will increase sharing, improve access and collaborative working; users will be able to define file structures suitable for their local business needs; records management professionals will ensure that the file structure in constantly updated 
• Powerful searching capabilities will be available and will operate across the entire IT infrastructure; search capabilities will find information without precise details; search capabilities will be subject to access controls 
• Every information item will have an 'owner' responsible for its management, protection and eventual disposal; owners will provide guidance on use of the information; information governance will need regular reviews 
• Retention schedules will govern information removal; archiving and disposal actions will be scheduled automatically; retention schedules will be reviewed annually 
• Collaborative working features,“a working practice whereby individuals work together to a common purpose to achieve business benefits”, will be available to users who need them; will requires a flexible culture; workflow will be used for routing records; different workflow capability levels will be implemented; collaboration will be implemented alongside ERM 
• The software and organizational structure will support the environment envisaged in the ERM policy statement

Will these new ways of working be adopted immediately – absolutely not.  Will this require a change in the culture of our organizations – absolutely.  Will this transition be easy – no way.

However, for businesses and other organizations to be successful in this new information age, the principles, listed above, must be adopted.

Will this transition to new ways of working take place – there is no other alternative.

Tell us about your success in changing the way your users in your organization?