Click here to take the survey.

As a reminder, I have included below some of the most interesting infographics that we generated based on our last survey – please feel free to steal them and use them in your presentations (with proper attribution of course) as you build your case for Information Governance.

ARMA Metro New York Educational Day

March 29, 2012, New York City

“Risky Business? - Just take those old records off the shelf! A panel of industry experts takes a fresh look at how applied Information Governance can mitigate risk and elevate business productivity through enhanced information management. ARMA International President Galina Datskovsky moderates a panel composed of e-discovery guru Ron Hedges, IG mavens Barclay Blair and Tamir Sigal, and RIM visionary Marcy Zweerinck”

Moderator:  If You Don’t Need it, Delete it – Best Practices for a Defensible Deletion Program

Inside Counsel Magazine Webinar

April 18, 2012 at 2 pm

Moderator of a webinar hosted by Inside Counsel magazine with Anthony J. Diana of Mayer Brown and Stephen Stewart of Nuix.

More details as they are available.

Keynote: Information Governance: A New Opportunity for Records Managers

Archive Systems User Conference 2012, New Orleans, LA

April 23, 2012

“Information Governance has a emerged as an exciting new concept for managing information –  one that promises to at last marry records management, IT, legal, and business requirements into a holistic discipline with high-level executive support. Current challenges like “big data,” cloud computing, social media, and consumerization of IT  all require a steady hand from from professionals who understand the delicate balancing act that is information governance. Records managers have a central role to play as this new world unfolds. In this dynamic keynote, learn how you can maximize the your value to the organization, focus on the new skills you need, and, above all, not take yourself so seriously!”

Keynote: Information Governance and Social Media Management

OpenText Customer Forum, Cleveland OH

April 26, 2012

Panelist: Social Media in the Enterprise-Bliss or Peril?

Canada 3.0 Conference, Stratford, ON

Tuesday April 24, 2012,  1:40pm – 2:25pm (panel) and 2:25pm – 2:55pm (open discussion)

Workshop and Panel: Information Governance Policy Development

Virginia Bankers’ Association E-Discovery and Information Governance Forum, Richmond VA

May 7, 2012

“We live in the Information Age, which has seen marvels in technology unimaginable only a short time ago, and consequent changes in human interaction.  At no time in history have we so thoroughly documented our thoughts, decisions and actions, mostly by electronic means.   Having access to this information can create significant benefits to companies, and also significant risks, if the information is not properly governed.This all-day forum will arm you with critical concepts and skills in two significant areas:

Electronic Discovery: Responding to requests for your company’s information in litigation and regulatory investigations can be painful – especially in an era where we are creating and storing more information than ever before. However, smart organizations can take advantage of key legal concepts have developed in case law that provides litigants and regulated entities with the means to significantly reduce this burden. Moreover, when used strategically, electronic information can provide profound advantages and drive early resolution of a case.  During the eDiscovery portion of the forum, we will discuss these key legal concepts and provide practical advice on how to employ them.

Information Governance:  Much of the pain of eDiscovery can be avoided if organizations take control of their information – before eDiscovery trouble strikes. Information Governance is a new framework for managing information in a way that not only reduces eDiscovery cost and pain, but can also help financial institutions run more efficiently and profitably. The Information Governance portion of the forum will introduce participants to this framework, then provide them with the opportunity to see the framework in action through interactive, real-world exercises focused on critical Information Governance issues such as litigation response protocols, email use, social media, and bring-your-own-device.  Attendees will participate in policy development exercises that will provide them with a foundation for developing their institution’s own Information Governance policies.”

Keynote: The Role of the CIO in Information Governance

RSD European CIO Leaders Forum, Basel, Switzerland

May 11, 2012

Workshop: Social Media Governance

Click Here to Register

AIIM, Calgary, AB

May 17, 2012

“The Social Media Governance workshop is a half-day interactive event where a small group of practitioners are lead through a series of presentations and exercises that teaches them how to craft a social media governance policy and program. The workshop examines the business, legal, and technology issues related to social media use in the enterprise through real-world examples and use cases. It provides examples of how leading organizations have addressed social media governance issues and provides a forum for participants to discuss issues unique to their organizations.”

Speech: Information Governance in Global Commerce

Asia Pacific Information Management Conference 2012, Honolulu, HW

July 12, 2012

Information Governance: A comprehensive program of controls, processes, and technologies designed to help organizations maximize the value of information assets while minimizing associated risks and costs.

In order for any market or business concept to become truly mainstream, there must be consensus on its definition. IG, as an emerging field, has no such consensus. Multiple parties have advanced multiple definitions. However, there is cause for optimism: most of these definitions are quite similar in concept, if not in language. On the flip side, however (as explored in this report), there is still significant variance in what people mean when they use the term information governance.

We are interested in advancing the cause of information governance, as we believe that IG is the best chance that organizations have to truly get their information under control and to maximize its value. As such, we have advanced a definition here, at the beginning of this section. If you find value in our definition, then use it. If not, find a way to define IG in your organization that will maximize the chance of IG being taken up as a central concept in the way you manage information.

While we believe that definitions are important, we also believe that organizations too often get caught up on the semantics of defining things. This is understandable, but usually is a waste of time. Rather than focus on the differences in this debate, we feel it is useful to focus on the similarities. In fact, we believe the following should be captured by any definition of IG, regardless of the specific words used:

• IG should always address all information types. We believe, as do our clients and survey respondents, that IG always should incorporate all information types – both structured and unstructured.
• IG is the umbrella. We believe – and our survey respondents agree – that IG should be used as the highest-level description for your information management activities. This is a big part of what gives the concept its value and power.
• Legal risk and business value. At the highest level, IG is about managing information better. Sometimes we want to manage it better because an outside party – such as a government body or court – is telling us we have to, and sometimes we want to mange it better simply because it helps us be a better business. Any definition of IG should recognize this duality.
• Controls, processes, and technology. IG should incorporate all the tools needed to better manage information. This includes organizational controls – commonly expressed in the form of policies and procedures. It also includes the processes that are driven by these controls, and the people who develop, enforce, and follow those processes. Finally, it includes the technology that enables us to both control and to exploit our information assets – a very broad category of software and hardware.

Our report is available for purchase here. But, I have a limited number of coupons for a complimentary copy of the report, so if you are interested, contact me ASAP (btblair (at) vialumina.com).

“With just a few clicks,” you can self-restore entire site collections within 30 days after they are deleted.

Hmmn. Sounds like yet another area where SharePoint governance will be required –  and resisted –  by SharePoint admins.

1. Defining Information Governance
2. The Difference Between Information Governance and Records Management
3. Components of a Successful Information Governance Program

With this project, we tried to provide a quick grounding in the fundamentals of Information Governance for the records and information management community. I think it turned out great, and I hope you find it useful. The video whitepaper is sponsored by RSD, Inc.

Here is a teaser for the Information Governance Video Whitepaper - registration with RSD is required to view the rest of the content. Let me know what you think.

• Social Media
• Big Data
• Cloud Computing

Somewhere waaaay down at the bottom of this list comes, “Governing shared network drives.”

However, in real life – outside of the hype cycle – solving the shared drive problem is right near the top of the list for my clients. The massive growth of SharePoint has been driven in large part by enterprises (or at least, departments within enterprises) looking for an incremental and easy replacement for shared drives.

However, most project teams tend to underestimate just how “incremental” the shift from shared drives to SharePoint or ECM is. In fact, in my experience, the problem is vexing enough that many project teams effectively throw up their hands and end up moving the big pile of unstructured manure from one unmanaged, fragrant corral to another (albeit a less fragrant, more attractive corral).

My firm has worked on this problem many times, and we are excited about a new partnership with Perram Corporation that allows us to finally bring intelligent process and intelligent technology to bear on this problem in a pragmatic, real-world way.

On Thursday, February 16th, we are going to walk you through some of the most useful things we have learned about this problem. We are hosting a webinar at 11 ET, which you can register for here. Hope to see you there.

The timing of the piece was great, as just last night I came across the autograph that Sir Tim Berners-Lee gave me near the beginning of my career. In 1999 – when XML was still shiny and new –  I wrote a paper about XML’s role in secure electronic documents. The W3C (web standards organization) published the paper and invited me to present it at the 8th Annual World Wide Web conference in Toronto (along with co-author John Boyer, a key player in the development of XML standards). It was a big moment in my career. After my session, I saw Sir Tim standing in the back of a session, and approached him for an autograph. I find asking for an autograph – something I have done only a few times (Johnny Bench as a kid, recently, Muhammed Ali) – an emotionally complex experience, with competing feelings of shame, vanity, timidity, and brashness; but with the genetic handicap of being a polite Canadian acting as white noise behind the whole damn emotional cacophony.

In any case, Sir Tim was great, and it was a real treat to meet him.

Here’s his autograph, on the inside cover of the conference proceedings book.

Since I scanned the page, I have I had been puzzling over what the writing above his name reads. Did I get someone else’s autograph at the conference too? If so, who was it? I don’t remember any other encounters. What were the letters, and what did they mean?  Had Sir Tim not invented the Web, this may have become a lifelong mystery. However, a quick trip to Google (feeling a little silly typing the seemingly random letters, “KUTGW”) instantly revealed that it was – of course – an acronym for Keep Up The Good Work. The answer was so obvious in hindsight that my brain immediately forgot that I used Google to come up with the answer and decided to give itself all the credit.  A couple more searches for “Tim Berners-Lee autograph” (hint, hint, SEO gods) revealed that he has used this inscription elsewhere, so I’m pretty confident that’s what it reads.

So if Sir Tim Berners-Lee had not invented the Web, I would not have been able to use Google to decipher his inscription. But, if he hadn’t invented the Web, I would never asked for his autograph in the first place. Whoa, dude, that is excellent. Okay, okay I am going to stop right now before I cause an irreparable ripple in the fabric of time itself and create an alternate reality where litigation is primarily a battle over who has failed at information governance least horrifically, and is no longer about fact-finding, truth-discovering and justice-doing. Hey, wait a minute . . .