Records management - dry? boring? or as thrilling as entrepreneurship?

Far too frequently, that old chestnut surfaces about records management being so hard to promote within organisations. the common refrain, even within the domain itself, is that it is so boring, so dry, and implicitly so lacking that it is no wonder business is unable to manage records!

ARGH!!

Recently, I let my passion fly in a post to the roughly 2500-person internet-based community that is focus on records management. Here's an excerpt.

"Records are containers of knowledge, of perception, of meaning. They are evidence of action taken, of thought underpinning possibilities, of lessons learned. Recordkeeping is the source of outcomes, the tool for quality improvement, the safeguard in litigation, the evidence of compliance, the expression of individual and collective tacit knowledge, made explicit."

To this I would add, if you are not managing your recorded information resources effectively, you are not managing your risk--or your capacity to achieve. In fact, you are not managing.

What an amazing flood of affirmation followed! Testimonials from the world's largest copper trading company, from one of Canada's top retail conglomerates, from individuals spanning the globe! Did I strike a chord? Guess so.

On a practical level, if you are excited about your business and the potential for meaningful outcomes, then part of that is an (I say) entrepreneurial take on the meaning inherent in the information and knowledge resources you are building. What a great thing it is to be able to know that achievements are realized, to learn best practices and spread these where needed. What a satisfaction it is to spot the problem and identify ways to avoid it in future, or to realize a pattern and discover opportunity for innovation! What a total impossibility when the records are unavailable or unreliable.

In 2002, I met with Andrew Wong, then Director of Administration, Chief Secretary for Administration in the Hong Kong SAR Government and said, "there will be a time when someone in your position will be deemed inadequate for the job if they do not understand the importance of managing records in accord with their value to business." As Principal Archivist and Director, the Government Records Service, it seemed pretty well my job to advocate at the most senior levels.

But, everyone, records manager, scientist, executive, clerk, politician and citizen...every single person had best get a grip on the relationship between recorded information, decision processes and accountability for outcomes. As more and more of our knowledge resources are subsumed into the minds of computers, we are vulnerable to selective presentation and serious misinterpretation of collective reality. We see the sad result in the death of children in care, in corporate failures, in war.

Seriously, records are as thrilling as success, saving lives, empowering integrity, shaping democracy. It is high time we managed them as the vital resource they are.

What are you doing about it?