Digital Landfill

Tomorrow (Dec 1) marks the introduction of new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP). The good news is that for the first time, a framework has been put in place governing electronically stored information (ESI). The bad news is that for the first time, a framework has been put in place governing electronically stored information. (Note: An AIIM webinar will explore this subject on December 6th. Click here for registration information.)

The new rules do establish a safe harbor that protects parties that inadvertantly lose information through the routine, good faith operation of an electronic information system. They also provide potential relief from producing electronic information that is not "reasonably accessible."

The reason that this is bad news is that many companies and organizations have a long way to go in developing a basic strategy toward responsible and effective information management, and the new rules make clear that a responsible approach is expected.

A new AIIM survey of 820 end users on electronic records management (to be released next week) highlights how far organizations have to go. For example...

Only 57% say they have a formal policy related to classifying information as records.

Only 36% have a formal policy related to ligitation readiness.

Barely half (53%) have a policy in place for insuring that all information potentially relevant to a litigation is preserved.

47% have "no spending planned" related to managing information in the context of discovery and litigation support.

Only 48% have a statement in their employee manual related to employee responsibilities associated with records and information management.

Only 41% of the organizations surveyed have delivered training for employees on information management issues.

Many non-public companies dismissed the records and information management requirements association with Sarbanes-Oxley as not relevant to their companies. That won't be the case with the new requirements; the new rules make clear the an effective and responsible electronic information management infrastructure is a requirement, not an option.

At least if you want to have a ghost of a chance in court.

Came across on an RM listserv some interesting links re: perspectives of the National Archives on new collaborative forms of communications. Specifically,

NARA Guidance on Managing Web Records

Implications of Recent Web Technologies for NARA Web Guidance (web portals, RSS, blogs, and wikis)

Frequently asked questions about Instant Messaging

According to a Pike & Fisher report, only seven percent of corporate attorneys view their companies as prepared for new federal court rules governing discovery of electronically stored information that take effect December 1, according to a recent study.  AIIM is conducting a webinar on this topic next week on December 6th. 

A separate survey report released November 27 revealed a related corporate problem: management at U.S. companies has demonstrated a lack of action to develop policies and systems to secure mobile data messaging, processing, and storage devices, such as laptop computers and cell phones. Despite the clear data security threats posed by the use of mobile devices approximately 40 percent of respondents said they do not have formal mobile device data security policies in place or measures to manage mobile data tracking and back-up and archiving for regulatory compliance purposes, the report said (source:  Electronic Evidence Update, Pike & Fisher).

The findings reinforce many past Industry Watch surveys by AIIM related to (mis)mangement of electronic information within organizations.

I recently came across an advertisement in Parade magazine (yes, I will admit that) that caught my attention. The ad was a few pages back from reading the Personality Parade, which examined these questions (among others):
• What's the secret behind the longevity of the romance between Justin Timberlake and Cameron Diaz?
• Did Will Ferrell initially make his mark at Saturday Night Live by impersonating others or creating his own characters?
• How is former Miss USA and Dancing With the Stars contestant Shanna Moakler dealing with her recent breakup with Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker?

The ad was by the people at the McCormick Spice Company, and it asked me to do something that product manufacturers don’t do too often. The ad asked me to look at their product and determine if it was any good.

The idea was that if your spices are in a container that lists Baltimore, MD as the place of manufacture, the spices are at least 15 years old. Ditto anything other than black pepper in those little square containers.

Now of course, I understood the method to their madness once I looked in the cupboard and took a gander at some of our spices. Cinnamon? Fine we, use a lot of that. Chile powder, that’s OK too. And cumin and curry powder were fine. But Allspice? Must have been used once for some Thanksgiving pumpkin pie back before my daughter was even born since the container seemed completely full. Fennel didn’t make the cut either, and I can’t even think what it might have been used for at some past juncture. Caraway seeds fell short as well; I guess those plans to make made rye bread in great volumes as a home business never quite panned out.

I’m not sure where Old Bay falls, since that is in fact clearly in a square container, but not one of those red and white ones. And we have at least 8 or 9 containers of Old Bay, since it is the one thing we always forget to bring to the beach each year and then need.

It’s always good every once in a while to take a look at the “stuff” we have collected over the years and figure what still is useful and what is not. Some of the things going on in the ECM industry are certainly forcing this kind of systematic reassessment. [Note: Now before I get letters, let me make clear that I am not saying our industry is “aging.” But I am saying that the core ECM industry is maturing.]

I recently read a Harvard Business Review article (yes, when is the last time you saw Parade and HBR referenced in the same article?) called “The Consolidation Curve” (by Graeme K. Deans, Fritz Kroeger, and Stefan Zeisel). The authors studied the consolidation patterns of a wide variety of industries over an extended period of time. They conclude that industries typically go through four stages of evolution: 1) Opening; 2) Building scale; 3) Focused expansion; and 4) Balance and alliance.

Stages 3 and 4 particularly caught my attention. According to the authors, stage 3 (focused expansion) is “a period of megadeals and large-scale consolidation plays; the goal is to emerge as one of a small number of global industry power-houses.” In stage 4 (balance and alliance), the “titans of industry reign” and firms “must find new ways to grow their core business in a mature industry…” The authors also note that “an industry will take on average 25 years to progress through all four stages.”

It brings to mind that FileNet was formed in 1982 when “AIIM” was still the “National Micrographics Association” and we’re now approaching 2007. I recently looked at some of the acquisitions of IBM, EMC, and Open Text over the past ten years. The new math of the ECM industry is that a decade ago, the ECM business of these three companies was conducted by 31 separate companies (at least). These 31 companies have become three. Add the entrance of Microsoft and Oracle into the ECM space, and its clear to me that our industry is well on the way to “Stage 4.”

So what comes next? That is something we will all discover together over the next few years. For one thing, applications rather than technology will reign supreme. According to my “Consolidation Curve” gurus, what will also come next is that the Stage 4 leaders will “create a new wave of growth by spinning off new businesses into industries in early stages of consolidation.” That should make life exciting.

It’s going to be an interesting ride.

According to the technolawyer blog, the top 10 areas of interest among "technolawyers" are...

60.7% Document Management
54.2% Case Management/Docketing
53.7% Law Office Management
53.3% Handhelds/Laptops/PDAs
50.2% Legal Research
48.0% Automation/Document Assembly/Macros
47.8% TechnoLawyer
45.0% Litigation Support
44.9% Business Productivity/Word Processing
43.6% Accounting/Time-Billing

In a few presentations recently, have talked about the "new math" of ECM consolidation (12+14+16=3), and used just three companies as an example. A number of attendees have requested this information, so I thought I would provide...click on the images to enlarge...

Who have I missed? Please feel free to add to my list by submitting a comment...

Just a quick note to thank the thousands of participants in our Industry Watch program for your involvement over the past year. As a result of your willingness to spend time sharing your experiences about content and records technologies, the industry's database of documented experiences is that much richer. In addition, over the past year we have made contributions on your behalf to such organizations are the Pan Massachusetts Challenge, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, the Amercian Cancer Society Relay for Life, the Leukemia Society, and the Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing as a thank you for your involvement.

Watch for the results of our Records Management survey and our Channel survey in the next few weeks, as well as announcement for our 2007 Capture Survey.

Thanks again.

According to preliminary results of a new AIIM survey (survey closes FRIDAY; if you'd still like to participate and get a free copy of the results, click HERE), internal reviews (39%), SarBox concerns (27%), and HIPAA issues (23%) are still the primary drivers for changes in records and information management practices and procedures.

The question we asked was....(% responded YES noted)...

In the last 18 months, has your organization made changes to the way that records and information are managed as a result of the following:

Yesterday, we talked a bit about the primary challenges that end users see relative to email management. The major conclusion was that retention and archiving (the basics, if you will) ranking significantly higher on user priority lists than higher order email challenges--e.g., encryption, auto classification and content filtering.

The second part of this equation...how does this translate into spending intentions over the next 12-18 months?

% reporting plans to INCREASE spending in this area:

Encryption = 29%
Retention = 50%
Archiving = 51%
Auto classification = 37%
Content filtering = 29%

Another piece of this puzzle...For what types of content do you intend to deploy/upgrade archiving applications in the next 6-12 months...? As Richard Dawson used to say...the survey said...

E-mail = 54%
File systems = 41%
Document images = 41%
SAP = 9%
Reports = 23%

One of the issues we explored in our latest email survey was user rankings of the importance of some of the various challenges associated with e-mail management. (Note: AIIM has also published data breakouts for the e-mail survey for healthcare, financial services, and state and local government end users.)

The end users were given a series of “challenges” (see below) and asked to rate them on a scale from “extremely important” to “not important at all.”

Challenges: 1) Encryption; 2) Retention; 3) Archiving; 4) Automatic categorization/classification; and 5) Content filtering or scanning

As one might expect, most organizations are focused on the basics—rightly so at this point, given where most of them are. The top challenges for most organizations at this point are retention and archiving. Here are the percentages evaluating each challenge as “extremely important”:

Challenges (% “extremely important”)
--22% Encryption
--39% Retention
--37% Archiving
--22% Automatic categorization/classification
--20% Content filtering or scanning

Overall, larger organizations place more importance on ALL of the factors. For example, 49% of organizations with more than 50,000 employees rank retention as “extremely important,” and 42% place a similar importance on archiving.

Next posting…how does all this translate into buying intention over the next 12-18 months?