December 1, 2008
Conference Presentation
Last week I presented at the Public Sector conference about the need to have sound security and access control policies around information management systems. The presentation was well received, which is always a bonus, so I've posted it up on Slideshare if anyone is interested.
November 13, 2008
New Job = No Blog Posts
I started a new job not long after my last post, hence the fact I haven't posted for a while. The new job has been keeping me very busy, but I'm starting to get on top of it now, so new post.
I attended the State Records Authority and GCIO Records Managers' Forum today which was very good. Some really good Case Studies about how agencies have gone about trying to implement EDRM systems and other things they've done to try to get on top of managing digital records.
It's actually re-inspired me about some of this stuff, dealing with some of my new daily tasks had taken the edge of my enthusiasm after the RMAA Conference. So now I have new enthusiasm to take on some of the issues in my new job, which I hope I can keep going, I'll keep you informed - not that I think there are any of you reading this :-)
I attended the State Records Authority and GCIO Records Managers' Forum today which was very good. Some really good Case Studies about how agencies have gone about trying to implement EDRM systems and other things they've done to try to get on top of managing digital records.
It's actually re-inspired me about some of this stuff, dealing with some of my new daily tasks had taken the edge of my enthusiasm after the RMAA Conference. So now I have new enthusiasm to take on some of the issues in my new job, which I hope I can keep going, I'll keep you informed - not that I think there are any of you reading this :-)
September 10, 2008
Web 2.0 and Records Management
I've just spent the last three days at the RMAA Convention, and I'm a little "technologied"-out I must admit. It seems like an illness to place 2.0 after everything at the moment, regardless of whether the discussions had anything to do with the Web 2.0 tools.
But, moving on from this issue, the Records profession does need to come to terms with the new technologies of blogs, wikis, RSS, mashups and the like. There was not a lot of advice about how to do this, what the real implications may be and, most importantly, what we shouldn't have to worry about.
I think that this is really a burgeoning area that needs to be evaluated further, so I'm going to be dedicating a bit of time to brainstorming it here on my blog. Please feel free to pass comment and join in discussion about this.
But, moving on from this issue, the Records profession does need to come to terms with the new technologies of blogs, wikis, RSS, mashups and the like. There was not a lot of advice about how to do this, what the real implications may be and, most importantly, what we shouldn't have to worry about.
I think that this is really a burgeoning area that needs to be evaluated further, so I'm going to be dedicating a bit of time to brainstorming it here on my blog. Please feel free to pass comment and join in discussion about this.
September 6, 2008
New Job
In a week's time I will be starting a new role with the State government. This will be one of the most challenging jobs I've had due to the fact that I will have a team of 30 personnel to manage in records, archives, document management, library services and mail services.
I'm getting very excited about the new role, but a little daunted at the same time. I hope to use some of the new GTD skills that I have been learning over the last six weeks and will be using this blog to capture some of the challenges and solutions that I encounter in the job.
Hopefully the crap that I've had to deal with in my current position over the last few weeks has taught me some valuable lessons that I will carry with me into the new role - unfortunately I currently feel that my lesson is to not trust people, hopefully there's a more valuable one underlying that.
Wish me luck.
I'm getting very excited about the new role, but a little daunted at the same time. I hope to use some of the new GTD skills that I have been learning over the last six weeks and will be using this blog to capture some of the challenges and solutions that I encounter in the job.
Hopefully the crap that I've had to deal with in my current position over the last few weeks has taught me some valuable lessons that I will carry with me into the new role - unfortunately I currently feel that my lesson is to not trust people, hopefully there's a more valuable one underlying that.
Wish me luck.
August 6, 2008
Problem of working with the intangible
This post starts with a little bit more about me - I am an Information Professional (records, information management and knowledge management) working in Government. This is required knowledge to place the following rant in context.
How hard is it for people to think about the information they create when they are storing it? How hard is it to think "well this is a policy document so I should put it with the other policy documents and give it a title that will let people know what it is"? Seriously people, if it was important enough for you to spend your time creating it in the first place, isn't it important enough to store it in a way that you (or other people working with you) can find it again?
I don't know why people don't do it. Maybe it has to do with the short attention span society we live in, maybe it's the fact that people are so output driven that they don't think of how that product can be used in future, maybe they're just LAZY and are content with doing the bare minimum to get by. Any way you look at it, this is something that needs to stop. People need to be trained to think about this, to put a greater value on the requirement for them and others to rediscover the information products they are creating now.
Technology can certainly help make this better, but the problem is that the technology is making it easier to not have to bother about doing this properly. Better search tools, tagging, improved metadata are all fantastic developments in IT tools, but they support staff misnaming documents and placing them in the wrong folders - which still affects their browsability. And at the end of the day, large organisations move very slowly with technology. So the advances I just mentioned won't be available in my department (or most other government/large industry departments) for a couple of years.
The only way to make it better is to train staff, show them the benefits and ensure that the organisation supports their needs to take the extra time to get it right. When you work in a service organisation whose output is information (as so many of us do nowadays) we need to ensure that we don't end up too output focused - after all, we aren't a production line producing widgets. Our strength and skill is in the people we have and their ability to research, collate and create information, that is our product. But unlike traditional manufacturing environments we can reuse our product, our product informs our ability to make further products and as such, storing our product appropriately so it can help others in the creation of other products is just as valuable to the organisation as the creation of the product in the first place.
And I don't understand why people don't get this. The person who sits in training and says it's all too hard and they don't have the time to take the extra 1-2 minutes to store a document properly (who can't spare a minute, seriously folks!) is inevitably the same person who will come to me complaining that they can't find anything on the drive. But they don't seem to make the connection that having them do the former will remove the latter problem.
Maybe the solution is that we need to train them to think twice about creating information. Do you need to send that email? Do you need to draft that document or could you simply add a paragraph to the one Fred did last week? Because a large part of the problem is that we are creating too much information now, there is so much out there to find and store ("just in case I need it later") and we seem to generate more paper now than we ever did.
I personally think that this has to do with the shift towards information organisations, the amount of organisations that don't produce anything except documents, advice, words etc. I think humans like to have something to prove that their time hasn't been wasted, and they like to be able to touch that something. Whereas my Dad can step back from the building he's helped to construct and think "that was six weeks well spent", and everytime he drives past he can feel a sense of pride and achievement with his work, what do I have? The documents, policy, briefs, emails etc. that I create are placed in draws, don't provide any tangible product that represents the amount of time and effort I put into its creation and are often ignored by staff.
There is so much information today, so many words, that the pen is becoming far less mightier than the sword. Gone are the days when getting a book published was a difficult and costly process, now I can get online publishers to print them up on demand and suddenly I'm an author. Information workers have to be seen to be creating more and more documents to "achieve".
Maybe I should start making tangible items instead - they would increase my sense of achievement and self-worth and then the fact that the people I work with can't title a document properly wouldn't worry me so much.
How hard is it for people to think about the information they create when they are storing it? How hard is it to think "well this is a policy document so I should put it with the other policy documents and give it a title that will let people know what it is"? Seriously people, if it was important enough for you to spend your time creating it in the first place, isn't it important enough to store it in a way that you (or other people working with you) can find it again?
I don't know why people don't do it. Maybe it has to do with the short attention span society we live in, maybe it's the fact that people are so output driven that they don't think of how that product can be used in future, maybe they're just LAZY and are content with doing the bare minimum to get by. Any way you look at it, this is something that needs to stop. People need to be trained to think about this, to put a greater value on the requirement for them and others to rediscover the information products they are creating now.
Technology can certainly help make this better, but the problem is that the technology is making it easier to not have to bother about doing this properly. Better search tools, tagging, improved metadata are all fantastic developments in IT tools, but they support staff misnaming documents and placing them in the wrong folders - which still affects their browsability. And at the end of the day, large organisations move very slowly with technology. So the advances I just mentioned won't be available in my department (or most other government/large industry departments) for a couple of years.
The only way to make it better is to train staff, show them the benefits and ensure that the organisation supports their needs to take the extra time to get it right. When you work in a service organisation whose output is information (as so many of us do nowadays) we need to ensure that we don't end up too output focused - after all, we aren't a production line producing widgets. Our strength and skill is in the people we have and their ability to research, collate and create information, that is our product. But unlike traditional manufacturing environments we can reuse our product, our product informs our ability to make further products and as such, storing our product appropriately so it can help others in the creation of other products is just as valuable to the organisation as the creation of the product in the first place.
And I don't understand why people don't get this. The person who sits in training and says it's all too hard and they don't have the time to take the extra 1-2 minutes to store a document properly (who can't spare a minute, seriously folks!) is inevitably the same person who will come to me complaining that they can't find anything on the drive. But they don't seem to make the connection that having them do the former will remove the latter problem.
Maybe the solution is that we need to train them to think twice about creating information. Do you need to send that email? Do you need to draft that document or could you simply add a paragraph to the one Fred did last week? Because a large part of the problem is that we are creating too much information now, there is so much out there to find and store ("just in case I need it later") and we seem to generate more paper now than we ever did.
I personally think that this has to do with the shift towards information organisations, the amount of organisations that don't produce anything except documents, advice, words etc. I think humans like to have something to prove that their time hasn't been wasted, and they like to be able to touch that something. Whereas my Dad can step back from the building he's helped to construct and think "that was six weeks well spent", and everytime he drives past he can feel a sense of pride and achievement with his work, what do I have? The documents, policy, briefs, emails etc. that I create are placed in draws, don't provide any tangible product that represents the amount of time and effort I put into its creation and are often ignored by staff.
There is so much information today, so many words, that the pen is becoming far less mightier than the sword. Gone are the days when getting a book published was a difficult and costly process, now I can get online publishers to print them up on demand and suddenly I'm an author. Information workers have to be seen to be creating more and more documents to "achieve".
Maybe I should start making tangible items instead - they would increase my sense of achievement and self-worth and then the fact that the people I work with can't title a document properly wouldn't worry me so much.
August 3, 2008
New Blog - Inaugural Post
For a while now I've been trying to work out what I could contribute to the world through a Blog? What would I want to spend my time talking to readers out there? After a lot of thought and conjecture I have finally settled on "Simply Managed" - a blog designed to help you find ways of managing your information, time and tasks.
Given that I am an Information Manager this would of course seem like a natural choice, but it has taken a while to realise that I may be able to add value to the many discussions that already exist on this topic. I have also realised that I have few peers around me with which I can discuss a lot of the practicalities of my specialisation, so maybe my posts will generate some feedback...
Given that I am an Information Manager this would of course seem like a natural choice, but it has taken a while to realise that I may be able to add value to the many discussions that already exist on this topic. I have also realised that I have few peers around me with which I can discuss a lot of the practicalities of my specialisation, so maybe my posts will generate some feedback...
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