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It’s two weeks before Christmas, and the debate again rages over how Santa Claus can visit every qualifying child in the world, in just one night. As an information management professional, though, my question has to do with his Naughty/Nice list, and whether it’s a compliance document.

I believe it is.

You see, there’s a case to be made that this document is fundamental to Santa’s operation and thus qualifies as a business record that needs to be managed. So here’s what I want to know:

• What are the criteria for being placed on one list vs. the other? (e.g., performance measures, anecdotal evidence, demographic profiling)

• How does he apply that criteria when determining who’s to go on which list? (e.g., behavior tracking, social media searches, legal discovery)

• How does he capture the contact and shipping information for those to be listed? (e.g., opt-ins from letter writers, toy store mailing lists, direct observation)

• Where is this information stored? (e.g., local database, in the cloud)

• What is his policy for securing that information? For keeping it updated? For disposing of it?

• Where are these policies posted?

• How does he maintain confidentiality regarding who receives what specific gift? Is this information ever disclosed? To whom, and under what conditions?

• How is the delivery workflow actually performed and monitored? Is any performance data utilized for process improvement purposes? What happens to it then?

Even today, no one asks the jolly fellow about any of this, but you probably won’t be so lucky. So I have just one thing to say: be good, for goodness’ sake!

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