Record vs. recording- and at least one reason we're managing so much garbage.

We are assaulted by a volume of information which we can not process - even if we had nothing else to do.

Only a tiny fraction of it is worth recording.

At least one of the reasons we're managing so much garbage is we've stopped talking about recording.

It's not hard to understand why.

At some point in the recent past, records management lost its power.

This was because it failed to adapt to a complete change in the people doing the work and a complete change in the economics of storage.

Everyone else realised this before we did, so they stopped listening to us.

Out of a desire to get them to listen, we've stopped talking about records.

But it's a textbook case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Many people wear "I don't talk about records" like a badge of honour.

Right now, we are producing more information than at any time in human history.

Only a tiny fraction of it is worth recording and managing.

The important thing to remember about recording, is that it takes effort.

So it has to be worth the effort.

Somewhere, there is a decision that creating a record is worth the effort of creating it.

If there's no decision, anything that gets kept just adds to the mess.

If we won't talk about that distinction, no one else will.

And we will be stuck managing an ever increasing pile of garbage.

So we've stopped talking about it.

What are we managing?