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AIIM conducts surveys of actual practices and issues surrounding a number of topics, including records management, under the program of AIIM Market Intelligence.  The latest findings, under the title of Records Management Strategies – plotting the changes, found that most organizations are now aware that they need to implement management policies and systems for electronic records.

There are thousands of laws and regulations that identify records and information that need to be created and maintained for various periods of time.  In a number of countries, there are laws stipulating at what point the records and information must be destroyed.  For example, the Data Protection Act in the UK.  Ignorance of these requirements is not accepted.  These requirements must be identified by organizations and compliance is required.

Years ago, reducing the cost of managing paper and other physical records was the major concern.  With electronic records, organizations are now storing terabytes and petabytes of content that is becoming very expensive to maintain, considering the cost of the storage media and the administrative costs, including backups.  This falls under a current trend referred to as Big Data – the vast quantities, and diversity, of content being created in organizations.

We have vast amount of records and data housed within our organization in many different applications and repositories.  Simply looking in our desk drawers and file cabinets doesn’t work any longer.  Being able to search and retrieve critical electronic business information is very important for both organizations and the staff.

A major theme of electronic records management is the idea of being able to share information across the organization.  We should be able to find and use information no matter what department or location it was created, and stored, at.  Of course, access controls must be in place.  A second important trend in business is the growth of using social media applications to carryout collaboration, to publish important information and to identify resources that can allow us to come up with better work product.

A third major trend in business is the increased use of mobile devices to allow us to create records and information, to access it and to carryout work processes, such as review and approve actions or tasks.

From the legal perspective, in the United States, we have the Federal Rules of Civil Procedures (FRCP) which requires the preservation and delivery of electronically stored information (ESI) relevant to the matter.  Examples of the types of ESI included are e-mails, instant messaging chats, documents, accounting databases, CAD/CAM files, Web sites, and any other electronic information that could be relevant evidence in a lawsuit.  Also included in e-discovery are “raw data” and “metadata,” which forensic investigators can review for hidden evidence.

This encompasses more than the official records of organizations.  All content falls under the scope of information assets and needs to be identified, we need to know where they are stored and properly managed.  Clearly, records management no longer can address only the official records of the organization, but all content. 

In 2005, Cohasset & Associates made the point, from their survey, that eDiscovery was the largest unmanaged expense within corporations.

Over the past seven years, there has been an emphasis placed on better managing ediscovery and reducing the cost of legal discovery.  Many of us are familiar with, and use, the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) (www.edrm.net) which clearly places, up front, the proper management of information for faster, easier, cheaper and better ediscovery.

In the AIIM Survey, Records Management Strategies – plotting the changes, electronic records management was considered very important to improve litigation performance and cut costs.  It was found that the sum of costs associated with audit, litigation, fines and damages could be reduced.

Managing our electronic records must address the protection of intellectual property within our organizations, along with confidentiality and privacy issues that exist.  Intellectual property is no longer just found on paper and, perhaps, lab books that can be housed in a secure file room or locked cabinet.  These files need to have access controls and permissions applied so that they are properly protected.  We will be discussing security later in this course and the importance of audit trails to see what activities have taken place with the records.   The release of WikiLeaks, and the damage that it has caused, has got the attention of an awful lot of people.

In this day of electronic commerce, we are aware of many events in which personal and financial information was either lost or stolen.  These have very serious consequences which must be prevented.

Many businesses have classified/sensitive information as they provide products and services to government entities.  In all cases, for national security and other legal reasons, the records and information need to be properly protected.

Does technology have an impact on records and records management?  The answer is that it certainly does.  Decades ago, we needed to manage hand-written, and typed, documents.  PCs came along on everyone’s’ desks and we started to get computer created files.  We also have files generated from other computer applications.   The use of email became pervasive as did instant messaging.  Over the past number of years, social media content has become common place and, from a number of sources, is the fastest growing content within organizations.  The popularity and greater use of audio and video formats require different means of managing this content.  Hand and hand with this diversity of content is the sheer volume of content that is being created in our organizations.

The environment for records management is certainly changing.  We need to become knowledgeable about the different technologies being used for collaboration, communicating and doing our work.  We need to be familiar with the technical solutions that are available to manage our records.

How are you bringing about change in records management within your own organization?

How are these new technologies impacting your ability to manage your records?

I will be speaking at the following events:

• January 31st - February 3rd, 2012 AIIM ECM Masters in Silver Spring, MD
• February 7th - 10th, 2012 AIIM ERM Masters in Dallas, TX
• February 28^th– March 2, 2012 AIIM ERM Masters in Amsterdam, Netherlands