The AIIM Blog
Keep your finger on the pulse of Intelligent Information Management with industry news, trends, and best practices.
Compliance | Information Governance
The best time to get serious about information governance is yesterday. The second best time is now. For years we have been accumulating information in various forms from paper to electronic documents and social media content such as blog posts and tweets. Many organizations think that they have to keep all of this information. What they fail to realize is that not all information is equal. By keeping information that isn’t needed and not following an information governance plan, organizations put themselves in jeopardy. Proper information governance includes getting rid of information that no longer has any value to the organization. Simply put: you don’t need to keep it all – and you shouldn’t. The more information your organization accumulates, the more risk it generates. This combined with cascading changes in legal requirements means that organizations need to get serious about information governance. Here are three reasons why:
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Enterprise Content Management (ECM)
I recently had a conversation with outgoing AIIM board member Michael Croal (Cornerstone Advisors). I thought I would capture the core of it in this blog post. I think there is a lot of meat here regarding the industry and how we sell and position content-centric solutions.
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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.
People often seem to think oil & gas companies are leading-edge and have enough money to invest in whatever systems they like and that they live in a World of 3D models, data, and analytics. The real picture is often very different. Exploration and production companies, who search for and extract hydrocarbons, see information systems and information management as something necessary but not something that excites the interest of the board. Data is certainly much in evidence, but information overall is not treated as ‘the new oil’ by the industry. Much of the focus on data is within the geoscience discipline, from the creation of seismic surveys to reservoir modeling and interpretation. The techniques have changed a bit, but mostly we see increases in resolution, frequency, and speed of analysis. This clearly improves the odds of making a discovery and reduces the financial risks of drilling.
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Data Privacy Day began in the United States and Canada in January 2008 as an extension of the Data Protection Day celebration in Europe. Data Protection Day commemorates the January 28, 1981, signing of Convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection. Data Privacy Day is now a celebration for everyone, observed annually on January 28. One aspect of the complicated set of Data Privacy issues facing companies and individuals that AIIM has focused on has been the implication of pending European Data Protection Regulations as they relate to the storage and management of content in the Cloud. The AIIM publication is the most comprehensive view I know of European laws and regulations related to the Cloud.
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Change permeates and envelopes us, and is the one constant in our lives. Think of all the workplace changes in just the past few years related to how we create, use, share, retain, and dispose of information. Our ever-increasing need to collaborate and communicate, to analyze and innovate, and to “be mobile” has led to sometimes massive change to existing technologies as well as new solutions that enable us to attain our objectives. Since change is inevitable, then why is the lack of managing that change the number one reason technology projects fail? The oldest and strongest emotion in mankind is fear, with fear of the unknown topping the list. So perhaps it is fear of the unknown that is behind the failure to adopt, accept, and enable change. Often, change management efforts focus on process changes and training employees on those revised processes required by the implementation of new technologies. There is so much more to change management, however, than a training plan and a communication protocol. Where change management is really needed is on the “people side” of change. What are some obvious signs of employee resistance to change? Decline in productivity as employees feel de-motivated Key employees get frustrated and quit Work-arounds (often very creative!) escalate A culture of failure grows, and employees ask themselves, “why bother?” Deterioration in morale and employees spend a lot of time sharing in the misery A mistrust of management and leadership due to a lack of transparency and availability Employees proactively try to sabotage the system Let’s look at the other side of the coin now, where change is embraced and integrated. The impact to the bottom line can be significant. Adapting to change (and doing so quickly) in response to marketplace needs or technology innovation can result in a competitive advantage, increased market share, and profits. Organizations that refuse to change get left behind. Of course, not all change management efforts are the same. The magnitude of the change (type, scope, size, number of employees affected, etc.), the potential resistance, and a vision of what the change will look like are all significant factors in determining the complexity of a change management strategy. An initial impact analysis will help define the capacity for change. However, if there is one key critical success factor to all change management initiatives, it is a clear demonstration of leadership support. Is there a leadership team that is accountable for the success of the change? Do leaders invest their personal time and attention to following through on actions related to the change? Come join me at AIIM where, straight from the trenches, I will share real-life examples of successful change management efforts as well as epic failures. We’ll investigate the winning formula for successful integration of change into the organization – whether it’s a change in information management roles and responsibilities, process and procedures, and / or technology. Incorporating key change management principles will increase the success of change management initiatives by applying a structured framework of methods, tools, and processes, to manage the change from current to future state and realize real ROI.
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Intelligent Information Management (IIM) | Process Improvement
We've been interviewing the sponsors of the upcoming AIIM Conference for their predictions for the future of the industry, a preview of the conference, and a look at some of the biggest challenges facing information professionals right now. Here, I sat down with Dave White, Chief Technology Officer at Quark, to chat about content processes.
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