Converga - Article

This article first appeared in the July/Aug 08 issue of IDM Magazine.

Reviewed by Andrew Warland

Clay Shirky, in ‘Here Comes Everybody’ (Penguin Press, 2008) describes the phenomenon of the so-called ‘Web 2.0’, a concept and set of applications including blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and network services, media sharing, collaborative editing and syndication and notification tools (including RSS) that has grown exponentially in the past few years because it offers everybody the ability to participate and contribute equally, and has the tools that people like to use.

Much like the world quickly embraced email to communicate, office applications to record information, and the web to publish, they have just as quickly and enthusiastically embraced the ability to share and make information findable, often to the detriment of systems and processes designed for the physical order. Most large organisations now have immense volumes of electronic information most of it stored in an unstructured sort of way across network drives and email systems.

Against this backdrop of apparent information anarchy, Steve Bailey, in ‘Managing the Crowd’ (Facet, 2008), proposes that records management as a profession and discipline has a chance to ‘get with the crowd’ and develop Web 2.0-based solutions (as opposed to buying in systems) to manage records in the digital order.

Steve Bailey is the Records and Information Manager of the United Kingdom’s Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), and organisation that supports education and research by promoting innovation in new technologies and by the central support of ICT services. He argues that it is not just about the rise of Web 2.0; records management as a theory has been challenged since PCs were introduced and users starting [sic – should be ‘started’] creating electronic information or receiving and sending emails, and not consigning records to formal recordkeeping systems. Access to Web 2.0 tools has only made things worse, where users may use non corporate systems such as Google Docs, Flickr, or Facebook to create and edit contact, share information and communicate with others.

In part one of his three part book, Bailey describes the nature of the changing world noting that the ability to store massive amounts of information has been a major influence in user’s desire and subsequently ability to store it. He suggests that the current and emerging generation of users ‘would far rather search for than manage information’ and quotes a recent article that states that ‘a good search is better than good organisation of the information’ – views entirely consistent with the new digital order.

Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, social networking sites, third party email services and online office applications allow users to create, store, and manage information in a way that makes sense to them. Records managers had enough difficulty dealing with the volumes of unstructured information created and stored internally without regard for records management principles, now they have to deal with users creating information beyond the organisation’s firewall.

Part two of the book asks if records management is any longer ‘fit for purpose’ given the new digital order. Most records managers would no doubt decry this statement and insist that, despite the challenges, records management is a critical part of an organisation’s corporate governance.

Perhaps, where there are legislative and regulatory requirements to manage records or where litigation risks are associated with the information. Beyond that, everything else is potential evidence or information of ‘low value’ that probably does not need to be corporately managed (This is the conclusion that was draaw by a 2007 report produced by the Commonwealth’s Management Advisory Committee ‘Note for File’).

Bailey states that records managers will need to improve their understanding of the apparent gulf between established RM theory and the new practical reality in the digital order, one that even challenges the accepted but self-limiting notion of a ‘record’ (in favour of ‘information’). They also need to let go of a sense of central control over records and put more faith in user’s ability to manage information. This is a big call for records managers.

A key problem for records managers is that end users don’t like to classify information using metadata from an organisation’s business classification system, and yet they have a ‘seemingly insatiable desire’ to ‘tag’ information with their own terms using Web 2.0 tools.

This is because personal tagging of information in the Web 2.0 digital order makes sense; using classification or categorization terms designed for the physical order to keep records in context and to support disposal and retention decisions, doesn’t.

In part three of the book, Bailey suggests that ‘the wisdom of the crowd’ should be used to ‘manage the crowd’, in true Web 2.0 style, and suggests that users should be allowed to tag information created or received in a way that makes sense to themselves and their peers, and decide how long it should be kept (presumably taking into account legislative requirements for keeping records for minimum periods). Security and access controls would be built into this system. Eventually, these users would collaboratively begin to settle on and use terms that make sense in their context. Bailey says this is records management for users; not by records managers.

There are several assumptions here. One is that such tools are really needed and will either be developed or grow out of existing systems, led by the demands of the crowd. Another is that records management standards, including standards for managing information, are either flexible enough to adapt or can be built into Web 2.0.

Bailey doesn’t discount the need for records management and states that the definition of records management in the International standard ISO 15489:2002 is still valid. But he suggests that users must have the right tools to manage records and information more generally.

Interestingly, there are very few Web 2.0 tools available to manage records as records, but increasing numbers of online tools (and vendors) available to store records and information generally. The two key challenges for records management, according to Bailey, are ‘… the sheer volume of information now being created’ and ‘… the diversity of unconnected systems within which [information] is now stored’.

A further challenge is for records managers to ‘understand what motivates information creators and users and … seek to build our approaches around them.’ Records managers (and, for that matter, librarians) need to move quickly, or be left behind as new generations glide from the Web 2.0 world they have grown up with into the office environment.

Will someone ‘out there’ develop a Web 2.0 based records management system, or will the major online providers start to build an organisational version, much like many organisations now use Google search internally? Is it even needed, or is the future something we are looking at and don’t realize it yet? As with all Web 2.0 applications, not all succeed (and Source Forge is testament to this).

Andrew Warland is a senior consultant and advisor on records and information management at Converga, delivering records management services to a range of public and private sector clients.