The social dimension of records.

It’s New Year’s Day.

Good luck this year.

Fight the good fights.

What you do and what you fight for is important - but keep in mind that we’re in a time of flux and that the way we do it might have to change.

This year the thing I’m going to try and keep in mind is that records is a socio-technical discipline.

This just means that the quality of the outcomes we produce are dependent not only on technical dimensions, but on social ones too.

We are the keepers of the technical aspects - all the techniques and technology.

Unfortunately, everything meaningful that we can do in the technical dimension is dependent on the social one.

When we get things right in the social and technical dimension, good recordkeeping becomes cultural - it’s just how things get done.

If we only get things right in the social dimension - the same thing happens. People find a way because no one who has worked in a high quality, well organised information environment wants to go back. It might look ugly - but it will work.

When we only get things right in the technical dimension - things get interesting. If you ever been stuck with your office techie while they expound on all the technical reasons why the latest thing they’re interested in is superior to all the other things you don’t understand or care about for many technical reasons expounded at length - this is what other people think of us when we “get everything right” in the technical dimension.

So my ask for this year is to keep in mind the social dimension of records.

Standards are changing, regulatory agencies are changing, technology is changing.

The thing that isn’t changing is that we are still reliant on people understanding why recording things is important.

If they don’t, nothing else will work.

If we make it hard, confusing or uninteresting, we will fail, regardless of how good our techniques and technologies are.

So this year, please keep in mind the social dimension of records.