Information Management Blog

The AIIM Blog

Keep your finger on the pulse of Intelligent Information Management with industry news, trends, and best practices.

Lewis S. Eisen, JD CIP CVP

Lewis S. Eisen, B.A., J.D., CIP, offers an approach to drafting policy that has been adopted by groups at organizations across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. He is the author of the international bestseller ’How to Write Rules that People Want to Follow: A Guide to Writing Respectful Policies and Directives.’ Contact him for information on running a one-day workshop for your chapter or region.

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Intelligent Information Management (IIM)

Rethinking Acceptable Use Polices

A staple of many Information Technology (IT) policy suites is the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), intended to govern what people working in the organization can and cannot do with the technology we provide them. IIM professionals and consultants push to have these kinds of policies in place, and countless templates and best practices are available on the Internet to use as a starting point if we don't have one already.

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Electronic Records Management (ERM)  |  Intelligent Information Management (IIM)

The Gulf Between IM and IT

How many times have you left a joint meeting of members of your organization's Information Management (IM) and IT teams thinking that everyone was on the same page, only to find out a few days later that the decisions your colleagues in the "other" unit took away were totally different from what your unit did? It happens more often than we think. And when it does happen, we should consider ourselves lucky if it takes only a few days for the inconsistent understanding to surface. The tough cases are those when the misunderstanding doesn't come to light for weeks or even months.

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14 Steps to a Successful ECM Implementation

Making an ECM implementation successful requires planning and attention to detail. The best way to create the right solution is to identify organizational goals and priorities. Learn how to manage a successful implementation in our free guide.

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Information Governance  |  Intelligent Information Management (IIM)

Positioning Rules as Solutions

As you already know, people are more likely to follow your rules after they buy in to the reasons behind them. But you can take it one step further, and provide your “rules” as solutions instead of orders. Amazon’s Kindle publishing team understands this concept well. I was preparing the Kindle edition of my recent book, following the production of the softcover edition. The printed book is in full color and uses a rich burgundy to highlight text. As you may know, some Kindle models are restricted to shades of grey and sepia. If a book is going to be compatible with as many devices as possible, it needs to specify an alternative color for highlighting on monochromatic devices. Kindle could have handled it badly. They could have shown me a policy that looked like the following:

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Information Governance  |  Intelligent Information Management (IIM)

Intelligent Information Management (IIM) Policies and the Law - Part 3

In this series, we've been exploring the intersection of IIM policy and the law in order to help IIM practitioners and legal specialists work together more effectively by gaining a better understanding of the relationship between the two. So far, we've covered: Part 1 - IIM Policies and The Principle of Hearsay Part 2 - IIM Policies and "Ordinary Course of Business" Now, let's compare IIM policies to contracts.

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Information Governance  |  Intelligent Information Management (IIM)

Intelligent Information Management (IIM) Policies and the Law - Part 2

In this series, we've been exploring the intersection of IIM policy and the law. The idea here is to help IIM practitioners and legal specialists work together more effectively by gaining a better understanding of the relationship between the two. In my first post, where we explored the principle of hearsay, we left off asking about the relationship between IIM policies and the "ordinary course of business." So, let's take a look.

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Blog Feature

Information Governance  |  Intelligent Information Management (IIM)

Intelligent Information Management (IIM) Policies and the Law - Part 1

Every so often, IIM practitioners and lawyers cross paths. One such intersection is around policy writing. As practitioners modify and improve their IIM policies, it's important to keep in mind how those policies specifically relate to the law. Understanding that relationship better will help IIM and legal specialists work together more effectively.

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