The management of recorded information resources demands attention to your business, not somebody else's.
Imposing solutions designed for another context will not meet the needs of your own unique environment. Strategically, it may backfire, losing support that you might otherwise have gained.
Four problems that are often observed are summarized below.
Reliance on third-party, out of context policies
Reliance on generic retention policies and approaches
Focus on records instead of their place in achieving outcomes (products and services)
Data gathering limited to domestic rather than international experience and contexts
“The whole world has undergone a change of enormous significance that affects all communications, literature and information. There has been a shift from a culture in which written documents were essentially stable and permanent, to a culture in which all writing is ephemeral, dependent on complex and expensive machinery, and in which no record will survive except as the result of deliberate, specific, expert and continued efforts toward preservation. It is hard to foresee all the results of such a far-reaching change.”
Cook, M. 2004. Research in Integrated Management and Services for Urban Development records Archives
Communication: English is, I like to say, an imprecise language with meanings seen in general parlance that differ (sometimes dramatically) from what things purpost to mean. This way lies misunderstanding.
In an interesting exploration of the meaning of dialogue, David Bohm, Donald Factor and Peter Garrett touch on aspects that may reveal why society (whether in the workplace or private life) prefers conversation to dialogue.
Writing for the London Times, Christopher Booker proposes that shale can be a source of power that solves the energy problems of our time--and into the future. Near the end of an interesting piece, he decries the dogma that demands adherents of alternative energy to rally against fossil fuels. But, dogma spelt backwards = am god ... the prevalent attitude of those who decry anything but fossil fuels.
IMO, we need a diversity of solutions to generate power that is translatable into a universal energy that can be applied to virtually a maximum number of products. I claim no special expertise, so may be off base in thinking that electricity is the universal energy.
A lot of resistance to exploring alt-energies comes from vested interests of manufacturers of various products (like gas fired cars). If everything ran on electricity, then the issue would be--how do we generate that? For some areas, sun. For others, wind or wave. Others--perhaps shale.
It is the dogmatic rejection of ideas that gets me. Ideas are the most important fuel we have!
Diversification is key to both survival and satisfaction. With that in mind, I have been expanding my role in design in my Canadian property interests. That has led to a challenging opportunity in Cyprus designing and advising on a 10,000 sq ft villa under construction.
It's a great experience built upon past roles as a Facilities Manager and entrepreneur in property development (not to mention a fine arts background). Thing is, through it all, I am learning and observing practical aspects of intellectual capital and knowledge management. It's another "in the trenches" reality check, the sort I have built my career around.
RaptorZX#'s video does explain a lot. Here's hope it gets the play it needs - and not just within Canada.
From another perspective, the internet is increasingly a tool for specific and general learning, accountability to citizenry, relationship development, off-loading infrastructure from institutions to individuals, etc. Lots of meat for unexpected consequences of a move such as the CRTC's effort to implement UBB on behalf of established, profit-seeking interests as the expense of Canadian intellectual capital development.
While some countries are increasing free access to wireless as a means to encourage the building of intellectual capital, Canada seems poised to put up barriers to development of its most critical resource: us. Yes, the intellectual capital of a nation eclipses other resources in terms of future potential...it is the last thing a nation should get in the way of.
Profit seeking interests (which include corporations but also, as is too often forgotten, us: shareholders) naturally see that differently.
In a democracy, we elect people to look our for our interests beyond the short term. But our structural capital (how we run elections, how we license business - eg UBB) is aligned along the lines of assumed scarcity of resources. Should we be surprised when the people we elect and whom they appoint don't look beyond the frame of their immediate reality?
As the video reveals, scarcity of resources is a plausible, familiar and therefore sellable idea. But it is a fallacy where access to data is concerned.
The internet is more like love: the more you have, the more it grows; the more your give, the more it grows. The UBB applied to love would mean that people who love "too" many other people are consuming a resource, leaving others unable to find love. Is the reason you're not on a date right not because somebody else is?
Hmmmm....maybe that's way the CRTC doesn't love the Internet. Unloved.
Attended a book launch at the Fairmont Empress this week for the newly published autobiography of Bert Whyte.
I met Bert and Monica for the first time in Moscow, 1978. Great raconteur and all 'round interesting person. Monica's incisive wit and broad knowledge are treasured today, long after Bert's passing.
This looks to be an interesting read...can't wait to crack it!
Thanks to Anna Maria Tremonti for continued, great interviews on CBC's "The Current".
IMO, the devolution of the US has been a disturbing, increasingly dark slide for some years. Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm are fiction - good reads, but fiction.
What is playing out south of the border is real life.
On the surface, it seems too comfusing and complex to grasp. The media has been co-opted by its own economic interests. Individuals in all walks of life, considering themselves intelligent and caring and manifestly not what "the other" says they are, rise up in righteous indignation. It's a maelstrom of emotion that pushes out rational consciousness. Seemingly obvious contradictions are obscured by Orwell's "newspeak". Co-dependent relationships with institutions far removed from human considerations drive irrational positions that are defended without regard for true outcomes.
The gloss is a caring, equity oriented sensibility that masks a brutality that threatens to consume a once great society. Below the surface, self-interest, greed, dysfunction and lack of compassion breed patterns of violence, systemic abuse, and corruption: an empire in decay.
Hedges describes this as the Wiemar-ization of the USA. It's a scary thought that I am seeing mirrored in social media comments after the November mid-term elections of yesterday.
Will Canada's inner strengths (similarly confused in the public discourse but evident in the fabric of "good order") be enough to withstand the vortex? Perhaps Gordon Campbell's resignation is an indicator ... let's see what develops.
Will be attending an event on sustainable communities thanks to the Royal Bank this weekend. Hoping for inspiration!
Listening to Ingrid Betancourt on CBC The Current: inspirational. "We must see through the eyes of 'the other' ... to build constructive societies."
This is no less true of organizational management. Key are recorded information systems that allow us to find and retain authentic knowledge to support decision processes.
The devolution of civil society seen in Betancourt's six year captivity is also something we see in the workplace, in schools. The forgiveness she offers is far more rare. Pocklington commented on the lack of civility in his USA experience ... I feel that Canada must safeguard against such erosion of civility. Popular TV shows are no help.
When Joseph Campbell said, "follow your bliss", I took heed, rejected the offer to continue as Hong Kong Government Records Service Director and continued my journey. Staying on in Asia, I remained amazed and invigorated.
Now I am also expanding my design interests and have a gig designing and advising on a 10,000 sq ft villa in Cyprus.
Part of the journey involves intellectual challenge: learning through my business focus in knowledge resource management. Part of the journey involves the experience of different cultures: living or visiting people in Vietnam, Australia, Sweden, Thailand, France, China, Cyprus, the Netherlands, the UK, etc.
Part of it is a return to personal work toward my inner self: music, art, and seeing reality while being open to the joy of 'flow' through meaningful engagement. I have met leaders, artists, thinkers, musicians, entrepreneurs along the way.
There is satisfaction in making one's own way. Partner Robert Tornack and I created IRM Strategies. For me, it is a an expansion of earlier activity in Canada where I ran a niche consultancy in privacy, access and records management until recruited to Asia.
Feel synergies? Connect!
sums it up in a new book, 
.
and 
are fiction - good reads, but fiction. 
