Digital Landfill

Become an "8 things" author...

Get published.  Be famous (sort of)!  Be rewarded for your expertise (in the traditional way of a non-profit organization)!  If you would prefer to be anonymous (some organizations have the most pesky legal counsels), we can come up with a cool fake name for you.  Humorous is OK, even in the world of ECM.

Become an "8 things" guest blogger for me.  

700-1000 words describing 8 things about some subject that you are passionate about (related to the world of documents, records, and process for now).  The topic can be broad and strategic or narrow and "how to" oriented - you make the call.  Just contact me with your idea via email at johnmancini@aiim.org.  

Ultimately, you could be published in one of our e-books.  Check out 8 Reasons You Need a Strategy for Managing Information -- Before It's Too Late.

Here's the list we've published.

8 steps you can take to better manage your inbox

8 things you need to know about Twitter and business

8 things vendors need to know about selling document management to small businesses 

8 things you need to know to build an ECM strategy 

8 things you need to know about SharePoint governance 

8 things you need to know about using ECM for regulatory compliance  

8 things you need to know about information risk 

8 things small businesses need to know about document management 

8 things you need to know to manage the explosion of information  

8 things you need to know about content classification and ECM  

8 ways to increase user adoption in an ECM project  

8 reasons why information governance makes sense   

8 steps to the ISO 15489 Records Management methodology   

8 steps to consider when starting an ECM project    

8 things you need to know about workflow and business process engineering   

8 document management practices that are cost-effective and eco-friendly

8 key e-mail trends 

8 things you need to know about mergers and acquisitions in the ECM, BPM & BPO technology sector

8 fast facts about the state of the document management industry 

8 things to look for in a document management service provider 

8 ways to reduce your storage and bandwidth costs for document imaging solutions  

8 things to consider when looking for ECM consultants  

8 things you need to know when using ECM technologies to go green  

8 reasons to take advantage of AIIM Certificate programs 

8 steps to getting started with Twitter  

8 things to consider in selecting the right scanner  

8 things SharePoint 2010 needs to be a true ECM system  

8 things that changed the history of document management 

8 things you can do with an enterprise wiki 

8 perspectives in ECM projects that can make me see double  

8 things you need to know about developing an ECM information architecture 

8 more things you need to know about SharePoint 

8 things you need to know about preservation of e-documents for litigation and regulatory investigations 

8 Steps to Avoid Process and Organizational Problems when Implementing an ECM System 

8 things to remember when managing ECM applications 

8 things you need to remember about e-discovery 

8 things I learned about OCR from small and mid-sized organizations 

8 things to consider when implementing SharePoint with another ECM engine

8 things you need to remember about message/email archiving 

8 secrets of an effective content or records management implementation 

8 Things to Remember When Implementing an E-Mail Policy

Thomas Bahr and Karsten Seifert work on projects for Enterprise Content Management within the Information Management Competence Group of BearingPoint. They have more than 10 years experience in ECM software. 

BearingPoint is an independent management and technology consultancy. Owned and operated by its Partners throughout Europe, BearingPoint is offering its clients the best possible value in terms of tangible, measurable results by leveraging business and technology expertise. The company currently employs 3.250 people in 14 European countries and is serving commercial, financial and public services clients. 

Did you know that AIIM has a comprehensive e-mail training program?  Check it out.

8 Things to Remember When Implementing an E-Mail Policy

1 -- Have a policy in place. 

A necessary step in professionalizing your email management is to develop and to publish an email policy. 

But what is a policy? A policy is a written proclamation from the top management or authorized board like the Corporate Compliance Office. It is an outline of general requirements, principles or rules for the use of the medium email. 

Why is it necessary to an email policy? Because email is not an option in today´s business! In 2008 BearingPoint conducted a survey about email management. More than 90% of all participants claimed email as important or very important for internal and external communication. About two thirds of the respondents indicate that more than 25% of their emails contain business-critical information and one third indicates that emails contain more than 50% business critical information. 

But in more than 50% of companies the user is the one who decides about deleting or archiving an email. Less than 50% of companies have a policy in place. To ensure legal compliance and to protect both the company and the users from misuse of the email system, you need to establish a policy framework for developing, enforcing and monitoring an email policy. 

2 -- Define ownership and involve the stakeholders. 

Remember that an email policy affects your organization and all of your employees. Make sure that at least the Legal/Compliance department, IT department, HR and the Board of Directors are involved in developing the policy in order to reflect all viewpoints in the organization. And if you are located in Europe, don’t forget to involve your workers’ council. To ensure a mature and effective policy, it’s absolutely necessary to define who is responsible for developing, monitoring and updating the policy. Typically the Corporate Compliance Office is the owner of this policy. 

3 -- Define the objectives and usage. 

First of all your policy should use clear and simple wording to be effective. Use bullet points to define the objectives of the policy and the proper use of email so that employese can easily find rules in case they are unsure. 

Define the purpose of the policy.  Some typical purposes... 

• To ensure the proper use of the company’s email system 
• To guide all users that create, use, and manage email as part of the daily business 
• To make users aware of what your company deems acceptable and unacceptable use of its email system. 

The policy additionally defines the usage of your email system:  

• Who is allowed to use the system (allowable users).  Is it only internal staff or external partners working for the company, too?
• Permitted uses - is the use of email allowed for business purposes only? If private use of email is occasionally allowed, remember to do some investigation into already existing company policies and ensure that your email policy is compatible with these existing policies. 
• Restrictions for using the email system.

4 -- Do not forget retention and disposition. 

Your policy should cover the aspects of retention and disposition. Emails and attachments should be classified and archived according to a retention schedule. A retention schedule describes all document types that need to be archived and is ordered by the defined retention periods per document type and for a global acting company at least by country. Keep this schedule clear and easy to use. Retention is one side of the medal; the other is disposition. This section of the policy should state that emails need to be disposed at the end of the lifecycle. 

5 -- Remember eDiscovery issues. 

Of course disposition is not allowed when your company is under legal hold during a litigation. When developing a policy for email archiving make sure to include a section dealing with eDiscovery issues! The section should describe what happens when your company is hit by litigation or by subpoena. It should state the mandatory process of litigation hold and all responsible contacts. 

6 -- Train your employees. 

Parallel to publishing your email policy via internal communication mechanisms like newsletters or intranet sites, you should train and verify the awareness of the policy with your employees. Training and verification are important success factors for your policy. The objective is to get users aware on how to work and how to comply with the new policy and procedures. According to BearingPoint’s survey, over 50% of the respondents use newsletters to verify that their employees are aware of a policy. 25% use learning mechanisms.  Make sure to monitor for compliance with the policy. 

7 -- Monitor enforcement. 

Be sure that the policy is used and accepted. Collect feedback about it. If required, refresh the training.

8 -- Develop a policy management framework. 

Put things together: stakeholder, usage, legal issues, retention, archiving, security, enforcement, training and monitor. Follow the lifecycle of information for your policy management: policy development, training and auditing.

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Some other posts worth checking out re: email and inbox management:

8 steps you can take to better manage your inbox
8 key e-mail trends 
8 things you need to know about preservation of e-documents for litigation and regulatory investigations 
8 things you need to remember about e-discovery 
Have you downloaded our two e-books?  What are you waiting for?

8 Things We Learned on the Way to Twitterville

A fun article in Association Publishing on some of the challenges we've encountered along the way to leveraging social media technologies.  The shoemaker's children always have problem finding shoes!  Click HERE for a copy of the article in this month's magazine.

A note:  We also do really good training for organizations on best practices related to E2.0 technologies and Government 2.0 technologies.

8 Secrets of an Effective ECM or ERM Implementation Now Available

Our latest e-book -- 8 Secrets of an Effective ECM or ERM Implementation -- is hot off the presses (if such a thing can be said of an electronic publication).  Check it out.  Totally without a catch.  No registration.  No charge.  Tell your friends and colleagues.  I'm especially thankful for the colleagues, gurus, and pundits who contributed their expertise and knowledge to the book.

We've also spruced up the first e-book -- 8 Reasons You Need a Strategy for Managing Information -- Before It's Too Late -- and made it way prettier and easier to read.  If you already have a copy, it might be worth it to download again.

Check them out.  Help us spread the word.

Thanks to All Veterans

Our thanks to all the veterans, past and present, who have served and are serving our country.

“Heroism is latent in every human soul - However humble or unknown, they (the veterans) have renounced what are accounted pleasures and cheerfully undertaken all the self-denials - privations, toils, dangers, sufferings, sicknesses, mutilations, life"  (Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain)

8 Things to Consider when Developing an Information Retention Policy

Brett Tarr, General Counsel with eMag Solutions, is an attorney with broad experience in litigation and electronic discovery, having spent several years at a prestigious national law firm.  Additionally, he has served as Head of Marketing and Operations for several mid-sized corporations, building both traditional and Internet-based marketing campaigns.  Brett holds a Law Degree in litigation and intellectual property as well as an MBA in Marketing and Management.

All too often, businesses discover the need for a document retention policy either when it is least convenient to implement or too late in the game.  Particularly in today’s litigious environment where virtually any form of information (paper, electronic, or audio) can be used in litigation, being proactive in this regard can save an organization from headaches and excessive costs.  An organizational retention policy provides for the systematic review, retention and destruction of information and records received or created in the course of business.   Below are 8 items to consider when developing your company’s retention policy.

8 Things to Consider when Developing an Information Retention Policy

1 -- Understand the need for a formalized retention policy.  

Having a retention policy in place is about more than just making space and keeping clutter-free; it can be a great asset should litigation arise.  The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) state that parties are to discuss preservation at the “meet and confer," but in practice, preservation decisions should be made long before.  Proactive policies establish that good faith efforts have been made by your business and help facilitate the entire litigation process 

2 -- Do you know what is “Reasonably Accessible” under the updated Federal Rules?  

FRCP 26(b)(2) delineates the standard for discovery of electronically stored information based on the concept of “Reasonably Accessible," with a two-pronged test for “Undue burden” or “Undue cost." Developing a good retention policy puts your company in control of which elements of information are available and discoverable under the new Federal Rules.

3 -- Identify which types of records should be reflected in your retention policy.  

Just saying “save it all” won’t work; you need to specify.  Successful retention policies will target the following types of information and records: Employment, Account and Corporate Tax Records, Legal Records, Electronically stored information (computer disks, hard drives, emails, web content, audio files/voicemail, information on thumb-drives/PDA’s/digital devices).  You will also need to take into account if your organization’s line of business and any specialty information that may be unique to this sector.

4 -- Make sure to ask yourself all the key questions.

• Does your retention policy reflect obligations imposed by all local, state and federal regulations?
• Has your company previously had to produce information for litigation discovery? 
• Does your company have adequate means for ensuring that information is not improperly destroyed?
• Is there adequate guidance for what information must be preserved?
• Have you accounted for replication and storage of paper documents? 
• Have you properly addressed email policies?

5 -- A company’s retention policy is only as effective as its implementation.  

It must receive buy-in starting at the top level of management and then be filtered down throughout the organization.  Policies should be easy to follow and should include periodic audits.  Your organization should renew these policies every few years, to allow for adjustments in company operations and changes in technology.  It is also important that your policy is flexible, including allowances for suspension of the policy when a litigation hold is in place.

6.  Regular enforcement is key.  

Retention policies must be regularly enforced even when no litigation or investigation is looming.  Sporadic enforcement may be viewed as strategic bad faith destruction, rather than information management occurring in the ordinary course of business.  This may result in organizational liability.  You should perform regular, scheduled checks to ensure that employee practices of destruction and retention consistently conform to the plan.  One employee’s carelessness can open up the entire organization’s information for discovery.

7 -- A properly executed retention policy can serve as a roadmap.  

It will be a helpful tool to prepare for litigation, providing both in-house and outside counsel with a roadmap for finding information in case of internal investigations, disaster recovery, regulatory requests, or litigation. If your company is to develop a functional retention policy, then it must know where all of its information is kept and how that information is stored, including names of custodians and types of servers and backup tapes used.

8.  Take stock of your backup tapes, i.e. practice Intelligent Asset Management (IAM).  

You need to determine what tapes are necessary for continued archiving.  If your company has created a compliant records retention policy, then generally there would be no need to keep tapes that fall outside of the retention requirements.  In some cases, you may have to adjust retention policies to avoid archiving tapes that are not needed and serve no useful purpose.  Identify and preserve backup tapes that are consistent with current preservation requirements and litigation holds.  Your retention policies should explicitly spell out how backup tapes are handled.  Interrogate and adopt the management of your tape media catalogs – manage your tapes and know where they all reside. 

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The policy your company creates should identify those records that need to be maintained and contain guidelines for how long certain information should be kept and how they should be destroyed.  By following these 8 steps, one can work to ensure that nothing gets left in the cold.

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Have you downloaded our free e-book yet?  Get your copy of 8 reasons you need a strategy for managing information now.  Our maybe an audiobook version for listening in the car or on the treadmill?  Click HERE.

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These posts may also be of interest:

8 things you need to remember about message/email archiving 

8 secrets of an effective content or records management implementation 

8 things you need to remember about e-discovery 

8 things you need to know about preservation of e-documents for litigation and regulatory investigations 

8 steps to the ISO 15489 Records Management methodology   

8 reasons why information governance makes sense   

8 things that always worried you about legacy content, but you were afraid to ask about

Since joining Vamosa in 2001, Nic has helped transform the company into a sector-defining software and solutions company specializing in the emerging area of Enterprise Content Governance (ECoG). Nic has led the expansion of Vamosa in the US, while continuing to work closely with the UK team on Vamosa's strategy and vision for the recently launched suite of products.

8 things that always worried you about legacy content, but you were afraid to ask about

1 -- Your content is probably not in the best shape.  

One of the reasons why you are implementing your new ECM system is that you want your content to be better managed than it has been up until now! You will need some "tough love!" – you have to lay down the law.  "Governance" is the watchword and it calls for the 4 Cs of content governance –content needs to be clean, it needs to be classified, it needs to be correct and it needs to be credible.

2 -- You probably have a lot more content than you need. 

Most legacy content stores are littered with duplicate content; with content that is no longer relevant to your business or contributing to the cause.  But how do you work out what’s "correct" and what isn’t?  You need to do content discovery to identify duplicates (and near duplicates, or versions) of web pages, Office documents, PDFs and images. You then need to establish what stays and what goes. This act alone can reduce your content volumes by 40%-60%.  The benefits are significant costs savings and collapsed project timescales.

3 -- No matter how shiny your new CMS is, your content can trash it.  

Your favorite systems integrator -- or maybe your best project team -- have been tasked with building this crystal cathedral to corporate content.  Look at the project plans: where is the work plan to find out where the legacy content is hiding, what it consists of and who is using it?  More often than not it is pretty far down the priority list -- many times it is an afterthought.  Some pretty huge ECM implementations have looked great on paper, but have failed to deliver because they have overlooked  the content they have to manage.

4 -- Your content authors are human – and it shows! 

The actual content may range in quality from A+ to an F.  Plotted on a graph showing the content’s quality score against corporate, technical and compliance criteria your legacy content might be lucky to get a C+. But that is worrying:  if your content gets a pass, but only just, how prepared would you be for a real "content crisis?"  If you were hit by litigation, a product recall, or a corporate scandal, would your content hold up to scrutiny?

At times like these you will wish you had implemented the content governance model you just didn’t have time for in the project plan.  Failing to cover content compliance (an establishing policy if you don’t have one) when looking at your legacy content is simply replicating your existing problems in your new system.

5 -- We can do this the hard way or the easy way. 

Do you really know what you actually have out there?  What is published, what is stored, and what is "invisible" because it can’t be found using the search engine?  Similarly, how can you find out what is published and what is also being used, as opposed to just sitting there burning fossil fuels?   Do you know what your existing metadata implementation covers (and more importantly what it doesn’t)?  

Short answer:  you really need to carry out a thorough and in-depth analysis of it all - content, storage, logs, metadata, information architecture, links – the whole nine yards.  You can’t measure what you don’t know.

6 -- Where are the tactics and what is the strategy? 

This is where it can get really interesting.  If your IT or project guy comes to you and says "I know how to get this content into the new system – I want to build/buy a content migration tool," then you should start to prepare for that sinking feeling.  Migration should be seen as being part of the governance thought process, not an excuse to acquire a "tool" to take content from one place and put it somewhere else.  "Lift and shift" is the fastest route to replicating your current bad habits in your new system.  Legacy content has to have new life breathed into it, and it has to be crafted to maximize the benefits afforded by the new system.  Otherwise it’s back to business as usual, and in another two years time you will be looking to move your content again.

7 -- Don’t let the tail wag the dog - your legacy content can give you a great deal of insight into best practice.  

In many instances, the old system can expose what you did right, and what you did wrong.  Don’t rely on default values for your system configuration.  Default values may be the easiest choice, but they can be storing up a whole heap of pain for the future.  For example, it may seem very reasonable  that your new ECM has a default value of 60 characters for the content description metatag. But will that suit you? What if half of your existing content has a description field greater than that?  Do you truncate? Do you break the description at the complete whole word before you hit the maiximum? Do you ask your content owners what they want to do?  

The answer is a quite simple “No” to the above – you need to use ALL of these values at a level that suits your needs.  Sounds obvious?  You would be amazed at the number of international companies that get caught out by simple concepts such as this.

8 -- You may have got away with it up until now, but that was probably just dumb luck!  

Your public-facing content is your shop window to the world – the WHOLE world. You control it (you hope) and you have total responsibility for what it says – in good times and in bad.  Your web sites and all of your documents are indexed and maintained for internal use – but when the lawyers call, you want to be prepared.  Under the federal rules of civil procedure (FRCP), the discovery process is there to ensure that the parties are not subject to surprises.  What is actually sitting inside your legacy content could be a ticking time bomb.  So try to eliminate the surprises by ensuring that this legacy content gets transformed in such a way as to make you litigation-ready, and (hopefully) there won’t be any surprises!

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The following ECM implementation-related topics may also be of interest...

1. 8 things you need to know about content classification and ECM  
2. 8 ways to increase user adoption in an ECM project  
3. 8 things to look for in a document management service provider 
4. 8 ways to reduce your storage and bandwidth costs for document imaging solutions  
5. 8 things to consider when looking for ECM consultants  
6. 8 Steps to Avoid Process and Organizational Problems when Implementing an ECM System
   
7. 8 things to remember when managing ECM applications

Scanning and capture experiences needed for latest AIIM survey

Scanning and capture experiences needed for latest AIIM survey
 
We want to dig deep into motivations, issues and ROI for scanning and capture investments. 

What do you scan? 

Which processes work best? 

Outsourced vs centralized vs distributed? 

We need your input. The resulting Industry Watch report will be free for participants to download. You could also win a cool Samsung N130 netbook. Here's the link -- http://www.aiimhost.com/survey

Take the survey now.

Have you downloaded the other AIIM surveys?  They're free.  That's right, free.  Download them HERE.

8 things to consider when deciding to buy or rent OCR capabilities

Kevin McQueen has a Product Management and Business Development background in the cloud based messaging and document management industries.  He currently works with FV Tech, which is an OCR Service Bureau specializing in providing Automated Data Entry/Document Management solutions to automate paper processing for documents like purchase orders, BOLs and EOBs.

Buying software and hardware to enable and in-house Document Management application for data extraction and forms processing versus outsourcing the application should come down to a solid business case that includes quantitative analysis in the form of a cost benefit analysis if outsourcing, or ROI if buying a premise solution using an NPV or IRR formula as part of the equation.  

However, often times it comes down to the company philosophy of building versus renting.   The renting companies believe in focusing on their core competency and reducing cost while outsourcing all non- core functions.  The building companies often are more focused on maintaining control.  The following should be considered in terms of answering the in-house vs. outsourcing question for your organization.

8 things to consider when deciding to buy or rent OCR capabilities (i.e., should you bring the software and hardware in-house or work with a service bureau?)

1 -- Inbound forms- Are your forms paper or digital? 

If paper, they need to be digitized by using a fax service (instead of fax machines) or use scanners to digitize the paper so that they can be entered into a digital workflow to begin the data extraction process.   

2 -- If the images are skewed or of poor quality, they will need to be enhanced with image enhancement software.  

OCR software does not read poor image quality or low dpi images very well; the image will need to be enhanced for an accurate read, so this requires another software package.  

3 -- What kinds of forms are being received?  Structured or unstructured?  

Structured forms have fields found in the same place on every form like a loan form.    Or they may very like in purchase orders or invoices which are examples of unstructured forms.   Some OCR software platforms alone are not very accurate with unstructured forms.  Although software vendors will claim otherwise, will the software vendor give a guarantee for the accuracy claims?  Another important question is how you will handle false positives?  A false positive is when the OCR software recognizes the 7 as a 1 or a 3 as an 8.  

4 -- What accuracy rate is required to guarantee a reduction in FTEs for the data entry task?

This is an important component of your business case.  In other words, labor can be both a fixed and a variable cost.  How will this apply to your data entry operations scheduling?  If your accuracy rate with OCR software is mid 80s, will this justify a reduction in FTEs?  

5 -- What is the lifespan of the hardware and software before it is obsolescent for your IRR formula?

Software and hardware depreciate much faster than other equipment and must be accounted for in the ROI formula.  We believe the software life cycle can be as short as 6 months is a maximum of 18 months for OCR software.  Remember Moore’s law for the hardware.  Consider the time of implementation, training and depreciation in deciding whether an in-house solution is really the best choice.

6 -- How will the OCR software interface with your document management package or Image archiving solution and is work flow required?   

What is the capital expenditure for archiving hardware and software?  We have found that many legacy ERP systems using an AS400 cannot accept a file upload.  

7 -- It is important to consider your overall requirements and cost.

What is the annual cost for hardware, software, training, maintenance, IT support and implementation for an in-house OCR solution versus the transactional cost of using an OCR Service?  How much will the learning curve cost?  What is the cost of implementation delays?   

8 -- When considering the capital expenditures equation, is risk part of your discount factor for the NPV equation for an on-premises solution?  

We have many customers that were obtained after an their internal OCR Document Management project failed.  A service offers a guarantees in the form of service level agreements.  Equipment and software can always be purchased.  

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For niche applications like an OCR document management for automated data entry, one must consider both the hard cost and soft cost of processing paper when evaluating against the cost of maintaining the status quo.  Depending on the application, the soft cost often adds up to more than the hard cost.  For example, consider the cost of mistakes caused by data entry errors.  These costs should include, rekeying cost, stocking, shipping and customer service.   

With today’s movement toward SaaS and cloud computing, I believe the argument becomes even stronger toward outsourcing a niche application like a Document Management for data extraction using an OCR platform.  

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Some recent posts on imaging/scanning that may be of interest:

• 8 things I learned about OCR from small and mid-sized organizations 
• 8 ways to reduce your storage and bandwidth costs for document imaging solutions  
  
• 8 things to consider in selecting the right scanner  
  

Process automation is only as good as the weakest link in the process

One of the points we try to make during our educational events (especially our ECM seminars) is that an automated process is only as strong as its weakest link.  

In other words, you can automate all you want, but if there is piece of the process that doesn't work, it will drag the best of intentions and the best of automation to a grinding halt. 

A case in point.

First, I will admit some ownership to the problem here by my/our procrastination.

That said, some background. My daughter Erin is in middle of the college application process.  A couple of the schools she is applying to have November 1 deadlines for Early Action.  One of the schools, much to our surprise, had a November 1 deadline not just for the application, but for all the items in the application "folder," including SAT scores.

I was pretty amazed at the automation of the SAT enrollment process and grading process during the applications for Erin's older brothers.  So I imagined that the easiest part of meeting our November 1 deadline would be having Erin's scores sent off to her schools.  I should note that she did not list any schools on the distribution list for the scores when she took them (an oversight).

Not so fast, document management poo-bah.

For reasons that are still unclear to me, when you request scores, here's what to expect... "About four weeks after we receive your request, we will send a cumulative report of all SAT and SAT Subject Test scores that are available and reportable to the colleges and programs you have noted..."  

4 weeks? We have electronic information. Being sent electronically to recipients. Being requested via electronic means.  And it requires 4 weeks of processing time?  Longer than it took to grade the test in the first place.  Hmmm....

Like I said, an electronic process is only as strong as its weakest link.

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Perhaps of interest....

51 Fast Facts for Presentations

Information on AIIM Training 

A recap on AIIM #ecm e-book availability

You can download in multiple formats from the AIIM web site.  

You can download an audiobook from iTunes.

If you are a supercool iPhone person, you can download directly to your iPhone and view it there by looking at the Stanza app, checking the Smashwords collection, and searching on author Mancini.

If you want to check out a PowerPoint summary, go HERE.

Want a list of what's in the first book, go HERE. 

Want to be part of the next e-book?  Click HERE.