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From History to the Horizon

This presentation takes an historical look at the Records profession.

• Why Did it begin?• What did it look like?• Where are we today?• And, where is this all going?

These are questions that will be addressed. Additionally, the speaker will provide time for questions from the audience.

This is an interactive session that should provide perspective

on the RIM profession

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the genesis of the RIM profession• Gain an understanding of future skill sets

required to be relevant in the RIM profession• New ideas from the Q&A session

A little about your presenter

• Director of Records for Husch Blackwell LLP

• Adjunct Professor for Emporia State University

• Certified Records Manager, MBA, BS in Management and Organizational Development

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From History…

Early Records

• Oral tradition– History was passed down by elders– Subject to individual memory– Subject to bias– Remember the game telephone?

The Birth of Records

• Complexity and volume led to change

• Clay tablets were used to record information

• Required knowledge skills such as reading, writing, math, and analytical skills

The Birth of Records

• Early RIM managers were next to royalty

• Records kept to document laws, real estate, and finance (often to facilitate tax collection)

• Wide scope of authority in few hands

Transitions

• Complexity led to uniform records (forms and indexing)

• Standardization resulted in lower requirements for the custodians, and thus less respect

Enlightenment

• Ah, the printing press• Reading made fun• Proliferation of readin’ and writin’• Devolution of the profession• Don’t try this at home!

RIM’s Dark Ages

• Everybody’s doing it!• A lost art• Almost total decentralization• No market for the expertise

A Shift To Sanity

• Volume and complexity of society and the law led to change

• Military• Government (mostly in the form of

archives)• Medical

Records Rebirth

• Technology – Friend or Foe?• Computers=Paper• Organization and sanity• Still little respect and low pay

The Bad New Days

• Files in the basement• Little influence• Little respect• Low pay

Examples• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myG8hq1Mk00&feature=related• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9NeHYeNlEA

Today

• RIM is Information Governance• RIM is Content Management• RIM is a solution

© Husch Blackwell LLP

To The Horizon…and Beyond

Attribution

The following slides represent thoughts on the future of RIM from a number of industry experts. Research provided by Joseph Huth.

The Future of Records ManagementAbove The RIM (Blog)

Patrick Cunningham, CRM, FAISeptember, 2010

• The days of starting in the file room and getting promoted into managing the records management department with 40 staff are likely gone from most organizations.

• The base of records management will shrink and, at the same time, higher end positions will likely come to the fore as adjuncts of litigation functions or compliance departments.

• Those positions will require education, deep communications skills, and significant business sense.

• Most records managers will have little opportunity for advancement, those who do advance have great foundations to cover a broad spectrum of information issues, and these opportunities will likely come along for a small subset of the profession.

http://cunninghamabovetherim.blogspot.com/2010/09/atr-future of-records-management.html

The future of records management and the implications for RM education – a personal view

Records about the World – (Blog)Andrew Warland, Information and Records Management Consultant

November, 2010

• The meaning of a record will change.  This change will include a shift from the concept of a digital record as a single binary object with (separately stored) associated metadata, to structured data probably using a form of XML much like we find in the docx we see today.

• Records will cease to be something ‘different’ from other forms of information, or needing to be ‘declared’ and will instead be all types of information created, received or stored by an organization that is not personal information.

The future of records management and the implications for RM education – a personal view

Records about the World – (Blog)Andrew Warland, Information and Records Management Consultant

November, 2010

• Information will no longer be stored or presented in pre-defined collections or aggregations based on the legacy classification structures of the old physical world of records, but viewable dynamically, ‘on the fly’, fitted to a user’s profile and interests.

• The skills required by records managers (or whatever their future name may be) will be increasingly focused on the ability to understand and manage structured data rather than unstructured digital objects with associated metadata.

http://andrewwarland.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/the-future-of-records-management-and-the-implications-for-rm-education-%E2%80%93-a-personal-view/

(Published in Informaa Quarterly, the official magazine of the Records Management Association of Australasia (RMAA), November 2010)

How will the 21st century keep records?Thinking Records (Blog)

James Lappin, Records Management Consultant and TrainerMay 8, 2010

• There is no guarantee that the 21st century will settle on a uniform way of keeping records.

• The competition between technology companies is driving constant development of new formats for the communication and storage of information.

• This competition is fuelled by the fact that the world wide web acts as a giant laboratory in which new collaboration/communication formats can be developed, tried and tested.

• When these formats are successful on the web they are inevitably brought into the enterprise after a time lag.

http://thinkingrecords.co.uk/2010/05/08/how-will-the-21st-century-keep-records/

Records management: the plasterer's hammer?Records management futurewatch (Blog)

Steve Bailey, Record & Information ManagerDecember 6, 2010

• Can we really hope to find ways of meeting the myriad, highly specific, highly personal demands of our user community in a way which not only pleases each individual user but also in a way which continues to meet the obligations and interests of the organisation as a whole?

• By shining a light on the behaviour, needs, opinions, tendencies and motivations of end-users, Human-Computer Interaction, or HCI is the first step towards achieving truly effective records management systems

Records management: the plasterer's hammer?Records management futurewatch (Blog)

Steve Bailey, Record & Information ManagerDecember 6, 2010

• But it also offers some tantalizing prospects: not just RM systems that users actively want to engage with, but also the possibility that we could start to use this new found knowledge of user behavior to design and create records management systems that can actually manage records ‘automatically’ (at least in part) based on this behavior – in a way similar to that used by Amazon et al to organize their content to aid the user experience.

(Published in the latest volume of the Records Management Journal. (Vol 20, No 3))

Will Technology Make Records Managers Obsolete?In Context (Online Magazine)

Chris Hohman, Solution Manager, RIM and ComplianceSeptember, 2010

• With the stunning growth of information created and collected by organizations, the role of the records manager seems more crucial, not less so.

• The advent of social media and the questions it raises about the temporal nature of much of that information present new challenges to companies and organizations and increases the need for someone to figure out what to do with all of this new information.

• Records managers need to facilitate collaboration between business units to effectively manage organizational information.

Will Technology Make Records Managers Obsolete?In Context (Online Magazine)

Chris Hohman, Solution Manager, RIM and ComplianceSeptember, 2010

• They need to facilitate a culture of information management awareness. This can be done through competence, collaboration, and consensus.

• If RIM professionals step out of their back rooms and demonstrate knowledge and value, and then build on their technology skills to help their organizations successfully navigate the accelerating changes in the creation and distribution of information, the future is theirs to own.

http://www.incontextmag.com/article/Will-technology-make-records-managers-obsolete-

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How does the RIM professional prepare?

Skill Sets

• Information Governance– Standards– Laws– Regulation

• Technology– Language– Systems– Connectivity– Preservation

Skill Sets

• Human Resources– Laws– Market– Competencies

• Business– The mission– Resources– Selling the program– Selling yourself

Resources

• Education– Higher Ed– Technology Centers– Online and brick and morter

• ARMA– Local chapters– Webinars– Conference

• And don’t forget the value of the Expo!– Online courses– Competencies and Self-Assessment

Resources

• Listserves• Other professional associations• Networking with peers• Internal resources (co-workers)• AIIM

– Certification opportunities– Webinars– Online education

• Others?

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Questions…and perhaps some answers that make

sense

Presented by:

David B. Steward, CRMDirector of Records, Husch Blackwell LLP4801 Main Street., Suite 1000Kansas City, MO 64112(816) 983-8860

David.Steward@HuschBlackwell.com