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Today I spoke on a panel at the Seattle ARMA chapter. The topic was SharePoint and Records Management.

I have a simple recommendation for Records Managers everywhere --- Learn SharePoint!

As I have mentioned many times over the past few years …

Records Managers that know SharePoint can have jobs for life!

I was invited by Bill England of Buildingi and we had a great panel: Joe Do from Microsoft. Byron Baker from Blue Rooster, Martin Tuip (recently) of Recommind and me.

Thanks Bill for the invite and thanks to Anton of Garvey Schubert Barer for hosting us. Also, thanks to Andrea Bettger, President of the Seattle ARMA chapter.

Records Managers Know Three Things

OK, records managers know a lot more than three things. But … there are three things Records Managers know that make them invaluable to their organizations. When these same records managers combine these three things with SharePoint knowledge … they become indispensible.

What are these three things?

Records Managers know these three things about the organizations they work for:

1. The Policies
2. The Processes and
3. Where the Bodies are Buried

Another Hot Topic in Records Management

One of the questions that was inevitably going to be asked was how to leverage SharePoint to manage the rise of Social Media from the point of view of a Records Manager.

Just like the efforts needed to handle traditional records management policies related to physical and electronic records the same rules can and should be applied to Social Media. There will be a few tweaks and updates, but the core elements related to the following will still apply.

• Policies
• Programs
• Education
• Enforcement (softly)

As part of the discussion … we also spoke about Data Rot, PDF-A, Legacy Systems and Records and a few more topics that will likely be the grist for another post about SharePoint and Records Management.

The Secret Life of SharePoint

There were questions from the audience about what are some of the best practices fordeploying SharePoint in the real world. Each of the panelists chimed in on these points and the audience interaction was fantastic.

• Content Types (This is THE SECRET SAUCE) of SharePoint.
• Surfacing Data (Martin spoke about the advantage of integrating disparate systems)
• User Experience (This is Byron and Blue Rooster’s Expertise)
  • As-Is & Change Management
  • Don’t Pave the Cow Paths (this was my point on this topic … from one of my favorite books “Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers” – Don’t just rebuild the old processes.
  • Six Sigma (Joe spoke about this and how Black Belts are utilized within Microsoft)

I will likely expand upon some of these in a follow on post. If you were in the audience (or on the panel) and want to collaborate or just chime in please ping me. My contact details are below.

Bill's Parting Question

In 30 seconds ... Why SharePoint 2013?

Between the four of us on the panel we mentioned the following points. These are just a few of the elements that can help the attendees make a decision to upgrade sooner rather than later.

• BYOD/ Mobile (which can now be managed by Microsoft InTune)
• SkyDrive Pro
• eDiscovery
• App Store
• FAST

After the Panel Discussion

Quite a few of the attendees stayed after the panel discussion to continue the conversation and ask a few more questions. A few of the conversations I had are listed here … I look forward to continuing these conversations and perhaps discuss them on a future ARMA session.

• Althea from Path wanted to chat more about SharePoint for Non-Profits.
  • This is a great topic and we will be following up on this.
• Kathryn of Portico wanted to know more about my favorite feature ofSharePoint --- Surfacing Data.
  • She already has great examples of how her architectural firm is integrating different systems - accounting, resource management and image rendering services – into a SharePoint environment.
• Tina and Eric from Seattle Parks and Recreation have a challenge that spans all Four Pillars of SharePoint.
  • They have a need to capture and manage large format paper documents, address material safety data management and build for today and their future deployment needs.

Follow the Seattle ARMA chapter on Twitter or check their website for the next event.

Thanks to everyone who came to the meeting today. It was great to meet you and hear first hand how you are getting it done. For those that I didn’t get a chance to meet please feel free to contact me directly via email or at any of the Social Media contact points below. See you at the next meeting.

In the meantime … Learn SharePoint! Specifically SharePoint Content Types.