Print.IT - issue 50

24 PRINT.IT 01732 759725 INFORMATION MANAGEMENT That’s the cost of doing business. But, facing disruption, executives are always going to look to where there’s innovation around the customer experience. That’s going to take priority every time. The two aims are not incompatible, as long as the conversations around information change. We’ve got to move away from the idea of hanging onto information and controlling it and begin to set it free. We are trying to help our records management members change the conversation to focus on what information can do for business? Yes, someone has to be the steward of that. But you don’t lead with the compliance issue – no one cares about it. You’ve got to lead with the empowerment and enablement aspect. JG: Has the Facebook/Cambridge Analytica scandal and GDPR changed things in any way? PW: Frankly, I’m not sure that our information management professionals are the ones heading up GDPR readiness. The more you learn about it, the more you see that so much of it is documentation and process-oriented, rather than being truly holistic. That’s my opinion. I find that the people who are doing GDPR readiness in organisations aren’t the information management folks, they’re in IT or administration. As regards the whole Cambridge Analytica scandal, you can’t fight greed. We always express horror when there is a mining disaster or an oil spill. People say things like ‘They didn’t have good records management or good document management’. But that’s not true. It’s what the executives choose to do with that information, and most times they choose to hide it. It’s all about greed and you are always going to have that. JG: Is AIIM changing the services it offers in response to changes taking place in information management and the challenges your members face? PW: Yes, it is. At a high level, we need to focus on educating the people within our member organisations who can put the policy, the technology and the processes in place that let colleagues take advantage of having content management and analytics already baked into new platforms. We need to explain how they can build on those platforms to take their businesses to a whole new level. On that basis, we have three main goals this year. One is to fill the knowledge and skills gap around modern records management, which we don’t believe other parties are doing. Two, given the growth in our line of business membership, we need to create more relevant and digestible learning assets for the new information brokers. Training in classrooms to earn a Masters degree is just not going to cut it any more, so we are building brand new courses – all online and in small chunks – around AI, blockchain, RPA and the cloud. Finally, we are making changes to the one certification we have out in the marketplace – the Certified Information Professional. When we launched CIP over 6 years ago, we hoped it would be the everyman certification, but two things were wrong with it – it was too mired in what we know as ECM and contained a lot of things that the rest of the world probably wouldn’t care about; and, secondly, it didn’t align well with our training courses – taking them wouldn’t necessarily help you pass the exam. We’ve now changed all that. We’ve made our courses more digestible and relevant and we’ve made them align with the CIP, so it does behove you to take some before doing the exam. I was a sceptic about the certification, but I took the prep course and became a CIP and I honestly believe it is now relevant for people who don’t have a long legacy in our world. So, the third goal of ours is to make sure we future-proof that with regular tweaking and updates. JG: I see you are hosting a Women in Information Management reception at AIIM Forum UK. Please could you tell me a little more about the initiative. PW: We launched it at the US AIIM conference last year to help women take leadership roles in organisations, starting with our world, which is decidedly male, decidedly white older male. The initiative is now a year old and has a community of 2,000. There is no fee to join, but you do have to sign up. We do a variety of activities throughout the year – a lot in the form of webinars, but we do also meet up and try to connect people. JG: I always think of the records management world as having a high proportion of female employees. PW: It does, but they tend to have lower management positions. When you look at the solutions providers in our space and all the VPs of product marketing etc., they are predominantly male, and the CIOs are still predominantly male. So yes, there are many women records managers, but they don’t have a seat at the table. While we aim to elevate the role of records manager regardless of gender, getting more women in leadership and high-level positions is a very specific objective of ours. JG: Finally, what do you hope delegates will have taken away from AIIM Forum UK? PW: We want them to be really comfortable with our intelligent information management roadmap. That will provide them with a good learning path, with a good blueprint for achieving digital transformation. Our change of name became official on January 1 and I want to make sure that the AIIM Forum UK community feels good about that and understands the roadmap. The four elements of the roadmap give people something to work with other than a blank whiteboard and the assumption that digital transformation happens with a big bang. Because it doesn’t. www.aiim.org.uk ...continued We’ve got to move away from the idea of hanging onto information and controlling it and begin to set it free