New England Chapter

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  • 1.  Is Anybody Out There?

    Posted 06-03-2024 15:35

    Hey all you New Englanders!

    I had a great conversation with Ally the other day about supporting the community. One message she shared with me is that some folks feel shy about asking questions in the community. They feel as though their questions might sound elementary or silly. Well, I say, ASK AWAY!! Ask your questions because not everyone is at the same professional knowledge level or experience as another person. We can all learn from each other, help one another out and support where we can regardless if you've been in the profession over 20 years or just starting out. However, we can only support each other if we ask our questions and answer from the knowledge and experience, we have gained. 

    Using the "Cross post to" option when drafting your post can help you gain reach. So, don't get discouraged if a reply hasn't been posted yet. It will get seen and responded to as the brain trust ponders and formulates a response. 

    Remember, I'm here to support our New England community in any way I can. So, please, feel free to ask your questions. If I don't have an answer, rest assured, someone else will. And if not, we'll make sure to direct you to the right person who can help. We're all in this together, and your questions and contributions are what make our community thrive. 

    Wishing you all peace and light, professional family!


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    Donda L. Young, CIP, AIIM Fellow
    President / Principal Consultant
    Helias Consulting
    She/Her
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  • 2.  RE: Is Anybody Out There?

    Posted 06-03-2024 18:56
    Edited by Kevin Neal 06-03-2024 18:58
    Hi Donda, from the other coast!
     
    I want to ask a question to your group supporting your ASK AWAY!! suggestion. I find that although I live in the heart of Silicon Valley out here on the West Coast, as it relates to practical Information Management skills we leave a lot to be desired (with a few good exceptions). We are always looking for the next new-shiny thing I reckon and find it tough to concentrate on fundamentals. :-)
     
    First of all, before I ask my question, at a very high level organizations typically spend money on IT systems for two general reasons. The first is "offensive", which is for more efficiency to do more with less and automate tasks to improve the bottom line finances. The second is more "defensive" for compliance/governance, risk reduction and security as this is usually an expense to the business that isn't as easy to quantify in hard dollars. 
     
    This said, with the emergence of AI, there certainly is the element of "offensive" to use AI to mine datasets, provide analytics and lots of other great potential use cases, and companies are spending like crazy on AI, without a doubt.  HOWEVER, we are also quickly seeing the dark side of AI with deepfake, creating bad datasets without clean input data, as well as making bad/hallucinations and possibly very serious wrong mistakes with answers (i.e. finance or healthcare for example).
     
    So, my question is, now that the potential downside of AI could be more serious than the positive outcomes, will organizations slow down and invest in creating effective LLM (Large Language Models) for use in their AI systems, or will we do what typically happens and just move forward in our zeal to deploy the next new-thing and not seriously consider the negative consequences of properly planning out our Information Management strategy as it relates to AI specifically?



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    Kevin Neal
    P3iD Technologies Inc.
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  • 3.  RE: Is Anybody Out There?

    Posted 06-04-2024 08:28

    I'm here!

    @Kevin Neal, my view on your question is that very often it will be the second part of your last statement, similar to how almost any new technology is launched.  As Information Management professionals, I think that one of the biggest challenges we face is keeping our foot in the door.  We have to be aware of so many different technologies, and also be aware of what our company is thinking, and be sure we get a seat in those meetings.  I think that many organizations rush to deploy without giving full consideration to the IM strategies needed.  The AI craze reminds me a bit of when companies first deployed Sharepoint.  Anyone who asked for a SP site got a site, without much thought to the IM strategies.  Suddenly, companies were faced with moving to the cloud and in order to do so, they had to figure out what was in their SP sites - many of which had been abandoned but still had data in them.  In my opinion, it's critical to stay in the know as far as what is going on with your IT and what they are considering implementing BEFORE they actually implement.



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    Susan Gleason CIP, CRM/CIGO, IGP
    Head of Information Governance
    Withers Worldwide
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  • 4.  RE: Is Anybody Out There?

    Posted 06-04-2024 09:48

    @SUSAN GLEASON. Ahhhh, the dreaded Sharepoint-sprawl. That's a good analogy.

    Hopefully organizations can keep a bit better control over what AI is used and how their LLM's are trained. Realistically though, I think IM professionals need to be planning for everyone to be using bring-you-own-GPT, and how that can, or can not, be used in the overall corpus.



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    Kevin Neal
    P3iD Technologies Inc.
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  • 5.  RE: Is Anybody Out There?

    Posted 06-14-2024 11:10

    Thanks for chiming in, Kevin! I agree with Sue. It's going to be a throw-the-tech-out-there approach and see what happens in the implementation. Then, we will have the 'mess around and find out' results, which will require clean-up, just like all the other tech implementations. It's sad, really. Given how hard IM professionals have worked and communicated to educate against this behavior, it just keeps happening. IM pros must relentlessly pursue a seat at the table and, more so, put governance controls and checklist in place with the procurement, architecture, and risk management teams regarding the purchase and implementation of technology. 

    Implement attestations to audit against the controls. The metrics will speak volumes and outline areas for correction and improvement.



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    Donda L. Young, CIP, AIIM Fellow
    President / Principal Consultant
    Helias Consulting
    She/Her
    ------------------------------