What Did I Learn at the ARMA Conference in Las Vegas?

This was a follow-up question to my last month’s article titled "Why am I’m going to the ARMA Conference in Las Vegas?” My reasons were: the educational sessions, vendor show, meeting and talking with other professionals in the records and information management field.

This year I prepared an agenda of educational sessions and vendors that were of specific interest to me as a consultant. However, I found that I had misjudged my allocation of time for visiting the vendor show so I limited my sessions to those that were of the most interest to me and that would benefit my clients.

Before the conference I read the excellent article, “Big Buckets for Simplifying Records Retention Schedules” by Susan Cisco, Ph.D., CRM, in ARMA International’s Hottopic , 2008, and I was interested in hearing more on how they managed the actual legal research information in the “Big Buckets” approach. While the subject of the legal research was not covered during the session, I did find the session interesting and confirmed some of my perceptions on the topic. I would highly recommend reading the above article that was included with your ‘Information Management Journal’. In particular, read the pros and cons of the “Big Bucket” approach on page 4 and 5 of the publication, plus the other articles on the subject in the publication by Bruce Miller on “Strategies for Improving Electronic Recordkeeping Performance” and John Montana’s,(JD), “Legal Implications for Using Big Buckets”.

I attended a second session on Big Buckets by Cheryl Smith (NetSmith Inc.) titled “How to Develop a Big-Bucket Retention Schedule”, on their approach in implementing a records program for a federal agency. I found it quite interesting and they provided handouts that made sense. They reduced their overall retention schedule down from 299 records series to three buckets. At the end of the session they mentioned they had some record exceptions left over...I assumed they used little junior buckets? Overall the session was worth my time.

Apparently “Big Bucket” was this year’s buzz word as many of the speakers were mentioning the “new” methodology for managing records in today’s environment. One of the reasons for the need for this new methodology was that the “client” doesn’t understand the old method. I do not agree with that argument.

I did attend an excellent session titled “Web 2.0 and the Records Manager” by Robin Riat (National Archives and Records Administration). She provided a great overview on the subject and outlined some of the disadvantages the organization should consider when using the technology. She provided some great on-line resources that would demonstrate how the technology may be used to the advantage of the corporation or agency. The main point I got from the session was you really need to work with your IT and legal departments to insure an awareness of the consequences of using the technology (what technology?). Your existing document management policy should be updated to include the use and/or the restrictions on use of this technology.

I attended two very good poster sessions (what is a poster session?)held on Tuesday provided some excellent information for someone coming into the profession. They were:

Amy Ellis, El Paso Corporation, poster session on “Developing a Records Management Training Program” provided an excellent roadmap for anyone wanting guidance in the development of a program. It was well worth stopping by and reviewing the posters.

Richard Smith’s, Express Scripts, Inc., poster session on “Six Starting Points for a Records Management Rookie” also was well worth stopping by and viewing. While this program was geared towards someone just entering the field, it provided anyone in our field a quick outline of the objectives and benefits of a document management program.
Remember most of the speakers provided handouts that were on the Conference Handouts disk to conference attendees.

As a records management professional who works as a consultant I need to keep abreast of what is going on in the records and information management field. That is why I spend much of my time attending the vendor show at the conference. Again, this year all the major vendors in the field were in the exhibition hall and provided me with excellent information in their sessions and/or the handouts. The one vendor, Microsoft, was absent, but many of the vendors were touting their product’s ability to connect seamlessly to Microsoft’s Sharepoint. I think the saying “So much to see and so little time” is appropriate in this case. I found that I did not have sufficient time to digest all the information without memory overload. I brought home what seems like a box full of literature and demonstration disks that I can review at my leisure.

I counted 4 sessions that were labeled appropriate for entry-level RIM practitioners. In my opinion none of the sessions taught the basics. I would imagine that many of the attendees were new to the profession. It would seem appropriate to provide a basic track that would include subjects such as inventorying, retention schedule development and classification systems.

I also enjoyed spending time at the ARMA social events, ICRM meeting and reception, and Listserv party where I got a chance to re-new old acquaintances and meet new people. It was a pleasure to again visit with Bill Benedon, one of the fathers of modern records management, who is also a great contributor to the ARMA Listserv.

I was not happy about the LONG walk required to get to the conference sessions from the Hilton Hotel (plus another ¼ mile to my hotel).

But, overall I was very satisfied with the sessions I attended and the information received from the vendors. I am already getting excited about attending the next conference in Orlando, Florida in 2009.

In case you are interested in an explanation of Blogging, Wiki’s and Twitters the following URL with a short video was posted to the RM Listserv by one of the members. Check out: http://www.commoncraft.com/

Past articles on records management can be found on my BLOG site at http://askthecrm.blogspot.com/