Karl, yes, we know the answer to that question is business leaders whether in government or private enterprise. One reason for concentrating on retention and destruction that is often used in government, is the necessity to supply information (as long as it is being retained) to satisfy information access requests under FOI. But in reality a counter to that is your argument exactly. If the focus is on future business needs, the information would be findable and accessible anyway, and government should be prepared to always be transparent over time. Some models for isolating historical information should be given consideration but it has to occur before the information is created. The RM/IM Community is losing the war in the information deluge but importantly, also losing relevance as long as already limited resources are not pointing to the front line.
You’re on a roll at the moment Karl, I look out for your posts!
That's very kind of you to say Loretta - thank you, I'm glad you're finding them stimulating.
I also think your comments about future business needs and relevance are spot on.
I've been bashing retention management pretty hard recently, not because I think it's a bad tool, but because it's a tool. It's not the point of what we do, and not what our organisations are asking for and if we keep talking to them about things that they don't care about, and making them the focus of our profession - we won't have a profession any more, and I think that restoring the standing of records management needs to be priority 1. To me, this means delivering consistently to the things our organisations actually need until they feel like they can't live without us - and they definitely aren't asking us for retention management.
Karl, yes, we know the answer to that question is business leaders whether in government or private enterprise. One reason for concentrating on retention and destruction that is often used in government, is the necessity to supply information (as long as it is being retained) to satisfy information access requests under FOI. But in reality a counter to that is your argument exactly. If the focus is on future business needs, the information would be findable and accessible anyway, and government should be prepared to always be transparent over time. Some models for isolating historical information should be given consideration but it has to occur before the information is created. The RM/IM Community is losing the war in the information deluge but importantly, also losing relevance as long as already limited resources are not pointing to the front line.
You’re on a roll at the moment Karl, I look out for your posts!
That's very kind of you to say Loretta - thank you, I'm glad you're finding them stimulating.
I also think your comments about future business needs and relevance are spot on.
I've been bashing retention management pretty hard recently, not because I think it's a bad tool, but because it's a tool. It's not the point of what we do, and not what our organisations are asking for and if we keep talking to them about things that they don't care about, and making them the focus of our profession - we won't have a profession any more, and I think that restoring the standing of records management needs to be priority 1. To me, this means delivering consistently to the things our organisations actually need until they feel like they can't live without us - and they definitely aren't asking us for retention management.