Do you know what your employee’s are doing on the social networks? Are they giving away trade secrets, or just sharing their daily life in the office? Have you considered these social networking sites can have record keeping and retention and disposal issues and concerns to contend with?

And that’s really only part of the problem – the other BIG issue is this – we cannot keep up with technology, and look after the legacy systems as well. We are drowning under an avalanche of information and we don’t seem to have a shovel to dig ourselves out.

So – what can you do?

Prioritise – what needs to be managed NOW – today.
What will you lose access to – if you don’t migrate the information?
Can you outsource the process of digitising old information?

We can’t do it all – ourselves – even though we may want to. After all, you never know what you will find. But we can’t, and neither we should – after all, not everything we’ve kept, needs to be “kept” – but that doesn’t mean you can stick your head in the sand and hope you’ve captured everything either.

Companies buried under avalanche of digital content – vnunet.com

Companies buried under avalanche of digital content

Three quarters of businesses failing to manage new communication media

Ian Williams

vnunet.com, 03 Apr 2009

Managing the growing deluge of electronic office documents is still a major challenge for nearly half of all businesses, according to research from non-profit content management organisation AIIM.

The group’s State of the ECM Industry 2009 report found that three quarters of companies have no control over modern business communication channels, such as instant messaging, blogs, wikis, social networks and text messaging.
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The research also revealed that the drivers behind enterprise content management have shifted from compliance to cost savings and efficiency over the past two years, as the credit crunch has started to have a greater impact.

“For many organisations, poorly managed and out-of-control information represents a huge potential source of bottom line savings in this tight economy. If only organisations would just take this cost saving seriously,” said John Mancini, president of AIIM.

“Controlled content can be fed into business processes to speed them up, cut down travel via project collaboration and form a knowledge base for the business. Uncontrolled content represents a lost opportunity, and a major compliance risk.”

AIIM’s study found that by bringing content into a controlled and searchable environment, companies can save money through more efficient business processes, lower storage requirements and enhanced productivity.

The survey also found that spending on document-centric business process management and workflow is likely to grow strongly in 2009, with enterprise search, email management, document management and records management all set to show positive growth over the coming months.

After attending a Copyright seminar the other day I am now just a little more interested in these kinds of projects. Yes I agree these images should be made available for everyone to see. But in the terms of copyright – as in who owns the rights to show or not show these images – therein lies the problem. According to my recollection of the problems associated with copyright and image (photograph) collections – we should get release forms signed by everyone associated with the image. This includes family estates of the deceased, the photographer as well as the people who are still alive and portrayed in the images. Given the size of these collections – a major problem, and one probably never to be solved. Whether anyone who sees these images and objects to them being there because they do not want them to be – as in – it would undermine or humiliate the person in the image – then there should be a take down clause . But who knows – maybe no-one will object.

Open Data: Rare Trove of Army Medical Photos Heads to Flickr | Wired Science from Wired.com

An Army archivist is undertaking a massive project to digitize and make public a unique collection of rare and sometimes startling military medical images, from the Civil War to Vietnam.

This previously unreported archive at the Army-run National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., contains 500,000 scans of unique images so far, with another 225,000 set to be digitized this year.

Mike Rhode, the museum’s head archivist, is working to make tens of thousands of those images, which have been buried in the museum’s archive, available on Flickr. Working after hours, his team has posted a curated selection of almost 800 photos on the service already.

“You pay taxes. These are your pictures,” Rhode said. “You should be able to see them.”

The collection includes images of injured veterans, medical treatments (like the hernia operation above), the first airplane crash investigation, and public health warnings about the dangers lice posed to World War II soldiers.

War: Captured and Freed

Compthumbs

A gallery of images from the
National Museum of Health and Medicine

While making archives like this one accessible may seem like common sense, many of the federal government’s collections of photographs, data, and documents remain locked up inside inaccessible archives. The vast majority of the Library of Congress’ collections, for example, remain offline.

There used to be a reason for keeping these materials away from the public: They were physical artifacts that were degraded by regular handling. It made sense to preserve them for serious researchers.

Now, though, with the advent of cheap scanning, storage and bandwidth, the barriers to making public domain materials actually available to the public have disappeared. That is, except for organizational inertia and cash.

The organization that runs the NMHM — the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, funded by the Department of Defense — hasn’t signed off on Rhode’s plan to bring medical history photos to the people.

“The Army does not appreciate people using Army resources for sites that they don’t consider to be related to your job,” Rhode said. Flickr, like many social media sites, is blocked by the Army.

Still, Rhode is continuing to push to get the photos, a precious resource, into the light of the internet.

“We have pictures from all types of military conflicts and all different types of medicine and issues in medicine,” Rhode said. “We love the stuff that we’re able to play with and want to bring it to everyone else in the world.”

Sara Piasecki, the head of historical collections and archives at the Oregon Health Sciences University History of Medicine Library, said that the NMHM collection is unique and better funded than most medical-history resources.

“A lot of the funding agencies are focused on humanities studies, but they almost never include medicine,” she said. “That’s why the stuff they’re doing out in Washington is so important. You don’t often get to see those kinds of archives.”

I’m not sure about this or not. I have an extensive wardrobe of clothes for every occassion. But do I really need one? Or would a couple of nice skirts, tops and a jacket or two thrown in for the cooler months work better?

Do you have a uniform? Is that uniform provided for you? What does it consist of? And can you create your own version?

Create a work wardrobe that works for you – find career advice, review employment news and search for jobs at careerone.com.au

Create a work wardrobe that works for you
By: Madeline Healy

It is 7am, you have just jumped out of the shower and are facing the horror of horrors-choosing an outfit for work. For men it is often just a matter of stepping into a suit, whereas women need to consider a variety of factors.

With research and a modest budget, even the most time-strapped back-to-work mother can put together a work wardrobe.

Fashion stylist Di Cant says there are different dress codes for different workplaces, but a few rules are universal.

“You should look like the job you do,’’ Cant says. “If you work in a law firm, you should dress in a more formal manner.’’

Black suits are ideal in the corporate world, Cant says, but shift dresses can be more stylish.

“Dresses will work but there are boundaries. When businesswomen wear them they give the look of total immaculate grooming.”

As for mums returning to work, a new wardrobe does not have to be expensive.

“You need to buy a few outfits that really work and take the pain and worry out of choosing what to wear.”

Working mothers should choose basics in natural, grey and black.

“I do suggest you have one good jersey dress in the wardrobe,” Cant adds.

Meanwhile, Westfield stylist Kim Ring believes women need to take a little more time when dressing for work.

“A lot of women in their 30s have lost a lot of self-esteem,’’ Ring says.

“But they should always remember: it’s about dressing for the job you would like, not the one you are doing.”

She also says that women should never feel intimidated or too dressy.

“If you’re too casual it can affect productivity because you’re not in the right frame of mind to be professional,” Ring says.

Buying one basic suit is the ideal way to set up a wardrobe, adding the dress, shirt and waistcoat when you can.

“Create a little uniform yourself and keep all the suiting in classic colours,” she adds.

Knee-length skirts are a must, as are closed-in shoes and stockings in corporate jobs.

In creative industries such as fashion and media, Cant says denim can be OK.

“Dark denim always looks more professional and the jeans should be boot cut and not low-rise.”

Graduates, says Cant, must consider their shape and the industry they are going into.

“Invest in one great outfit for all of your interviews and that way if you feel good, you’ll look good.”

And what are the biggest mistakes in dressing for work?

“Halter neck tops,” Ring says. “You should never dress like you’re going to a nightclub … it’s embarrassing when you see people wearing the wrong clothes.”

What to do and not to do when dressing for success

DO wear stockings if in a corporate position
DO wear peep-toe or covered-in shoes with sensible heels
DO look like the job you do, or aim higher for the job you would like
DO wear knee-length skirts
DO buy good accessories—good shoes, a signature bag and sunglasses
DO wear scarves as accessories, rather than noisy jewellery
DO wear a shirt with a collar in a casual workplace
DO invest in at least one well-cut suit
DON’T wear jeans to corporate jobs
DON’T wear ripped jeans
DON’T have painted toenails in strappy shoes
DON’T wear miniskirts
DON’T wear T-shirts with logos on them, even in casual workplaces

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In times of economic downturn organisations are having to be doubly wary about laying people off. Not only do you lose important company history as the people walk out of the door – you may lose your database as well.

Everyone who has been with an organisation for some time will have knowledge of an organisation. How it works, the ins and outs of who does business with whom – their minds a veritable database of your business. And some may feel justified in taking the bits they don’t know personally or can’t remember at any rate.

So if you don’t want your company business to become another company’s business you may want to secure your information before culling your workers….

Most fired workers steal data on way out the door, survey shows

Most fired workers steal data on way out the door, survey shows
Symantec-sponsored Ponemon survey finds that 59% of respondents took data with them
By Ellen Messmer

February 23, 2009 (Network World) A survey of 945 individuals who were laid off, fired or quit their jobs in the past 12 months shows that 59% admitted to stealing company data and 67% used their former company’s confidential information to leverage a new job.

That’s according to the “Jobs at Risk = Data at Risk” survey published Monday by Ponemon Institute LLC. The research firm found that 61% of respondents who felt negatively about the company took data, while only 26% of those with a favorable view did. Only 31% of those surveyed said they had “trust” in their former employer to “act with integrity and fairness,” 25% were “unsure” and 44% did not have trust.

Of the respondents, 37% said they were asked to leave, 38% said they had found a new job and 21% moved on because they anticipated layoffs.

The respondents described their work roles as 20% corporate IT; 10% financial and accounting; 24% sales; and 8% marketing and communications, with the remainder spread across fields that include general management, logistics and transportation, research and development, and human resources. They came from close to two dozen vertical industries, such as manufacturing, health care, education and government.

“There are many tragic scenarios now where people are under tremendous pressure,” said Kevin Rowney, founder of the data-loss-prevention division at Symantec Corp., which sponsored the survey because it wanted more insight into the data-theft problem.

Rowney said he personally knows of a bank where employees on the day they were laid off all tried to grab corporate information about high-worth individuals, thinking it could help them in the future.

According to the survey, e-mail-related information and hardcopy files were the most popular types of documents to walk away with. Least popular were making off with PDFs, accessing database files or stealing source code outright. Thefts were carried out by simply walking out with paper documents or by transferring data onto a CD, DVD or USB memory stick, or sending documents out as e-mail attachments to a personal e-mail account.

Some admitted they knew taking information was wrong, but 79% who admitted to taking the data offered various reasons why they did so. They said the information might be useful in the future and said such comments as “everyone else does” and “the company can’t trace the information back to me.”

Rowney said he believes a lot of this behavior is “emotional in a time of stress” rather than “sneaking individuals” carefully plotting a data heist over months. “A lot is in the heat of the moment, people make unwise decisions,” he added.

Surprisingly, 24% of the survey respondents said they still had access to their former employer’s computer systems after they left, with over 50% of them saying that the access continued for between a day and a week, and 20% said it lasted for more than a week.

While Rowney acknowledged that “there is no silver bullet” to prevent all thefts of paper documents and electronic data, he said there are many steps that companies can take to use technology and enforce clearly defined data-protection policies to prevent a lot of the problems.

I’m still not convinced about the longevity of anything electronics based – if we are talking “LONG TERM” archiving that is, and please don’t get me started on permanent retention and disposal of electronic records. Permanent so long as the software doesn’t change, permananet so long as you keep everything live and migrate it across the platforms…..

But what about cloud computing?

On a personal note, I do use the cloud as a backup to my land based backup processes – they can’t all go out of business on the same day – or maybe I shouldn’t say that….

Iron Mountain aims cloud-based storage service at inactive data

Iron Mountain aims cloud-based storage service at inactive data
Off-site storage vendor adds Virtual File Store service for archiving static data files
By Lucas Mearian

February 23, 2009 (Computerworld) Iron Mountain Inc. today announced a cloud-based storage service for data backup as part of its digital archiving and storage-as-a-service offerings.

The new Virtual File Store (VFS), offered through the Boston-based vendor’s Iron Mountain Digital division, is being pitched as an enterprise-class archiving service that gives users a lower-cost means of storing and managing static data files than keeping them on in-house systems does.

John Clancy, president of Iron Mountain Digital, said in a statement that the online storage service is targeted at the “50% to 60% of corporate data” that is inactive.

“Storing all that data in-house is not a sustainable storage strategy for companies today that are faced with soaring storage costs and shrinking IT budgets,” Clancy claimed. He added that VFS can free up “precious storage resources” for users while ensuring that archived data is secure and easily accessible if needed for electronic discovery or other purposes.

Elliott Townsend, IT manager at Bruns-Pak Corp. in Edison, N.J., said as part of Iron Mountain’s announcement that the data center design and construction services firm is currently using VFS along with Iron Mountain Digital’s LiveVault service for backing up server data. The combination gives Bruns-Pak “an extremely robust and cost-effective disaster recovery solution,” Townsend said.

Iron Mountain said VFS offers virtually unlimited storage capacity and can be integrated with a company’s existing storage infrastructure to migrate inactive files to the vendor’s data centers over a VPN. Authorized users can then retrieve files on an on-demand basis via a secure Internet connection, and applications can be set to automatically access data as needed.

The new service is priced on a gigabyte-per-month fee that factors in the length of retention time as well as the amount of data being stored, according to Iron Mountain. But representatives of the company were unable to give specific cost information today.

In the employment world, we see some of the best and a lot of the worst examples of resumes around. People seem to think near enough is good enough, so don’t bother to spell check or sentence check their work. They don’t seem to mind telling the entire world their personal circumstances – and fail repeatedly to give the prospective employer the information they need. Can you do this job? Then prove it. And the only way we can do that is through the words that we use.

As I have said many times, if you cannot sell yourself on paper, you will never do it in person

Courier Mail Mobile/PDA EDITION

Making a bad job of it
Kay Dibben | January 24, 2009

POOR spelling and grammar, verbose resumes and applications that include too many personal details are killing the chance of job seekers finding work.

Recruiters and those who help applicants prepare CVs and resumes say they are astounded by some of the obvious mistakes that job applicants make.

“The world of texting and emails has lowered people’s standards of English,” Jeanette Hannan of Brisbane firm Resumes for Results said. “I receive emails with text message jargon. I straight away dismiss them.”

Some applicants put too many details about their private lives, and wrote resumes that were 20 to 30 pages long.

“They will put in that they are married, how many children they have, even the dog’s name,” Ms Hannan said.

One woman even detailed her husband’s and father’s job qualifications.

Ms Hannan said job seekers often failed to sell their achievements, such as boosting sales achieved in a previous job.

Kevin Alexander, practice leader with recruitment firm Hudson, said many people forgot the importance of the resume document.

“It is the document that the candidate will be initially judged against, and therefore it is vital to get right,” he said.

While candidates could get away with a few lapses in their resume in the past, as the job market intensified this year employers would look for those who stood out, Mr Alexander said.

Many people with great resumes fell at the interview hurdle and job applicants needed to be prepared for several interviews, he said.

Recruiter Glenda Stenner said the internet had made it too easy for people to apply for jobs, and as a result some applied for too many positions, including those for which they were not qualified.

She has seen bad spelling mistakes, particularly in resumes of people applying for administrative positions.

Ms Stenner said employers and recruiters were being inundated with applications, and resumes and cover letters needed to have enough impact to get the job seeker on to the shortlist.

“It should be just the facts,” Ms Stenner said.

One employer said he sometimes had to scroll down five pages of information before he found out where an applicant had worked.

Ms Stenner said some applicants failed to tailor cover letters to the position, and were sending the same cover letter over and over, with the same mistakes.

Deborah Barit of Impressive Interviews said many applicants did not explain what they did and tried to give employers too much information they were not interested in.

Saving time and money moving from a paper-based record filing system, to an electronic document and records management system has got to be two of the best reasons for doing so. At a time when everyone needs information yesterday, as well having far too much information to cope with – projects that can assist organisations with better workflow should be considered as essential, not just would be nice to have one day.

State courts install e-filing system – Local – SunHerald.com

State courts install e-filing system
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

HATTIESBURG — The federal court system’s electronic case-filing system is moving to Mississippi state courts.

Mississippi is the first state to get the PACER management system for its circuit and chancery courts, with Madison County as the test site.

Chancery court was made the starting point because its documents aren’t like anything filed in federal court, Madison County Chancery Clerk Arthur Johnston said.

The Legislature is using federal grant money and a $10 fee on civil-case filings to pay for the project.

He and Rankin County Court Judge Kent McDaniel said electronic filing makes preparing court records for appeal much faster, because documents can be copied from computer to computer instead of making photocopies.

“That is just phenomenal,” McDaniel said. “It takes a few minutes as opposed to a day with clerks rummaging around in files.”

The Madison County system may be ready for public access by early 2009, state Supreme Court Justice William Waller Jr. said.

That would let attorneys to file their pleadings and retrieve documents via the Internet, give courts an efficient tool for docket management, and make court records more accessible to the public.

Each district will decide whether to use the system, the state Supreme Court has said.

U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran helped secure a licensing agreement with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Johnston said his office expects to continue to use paper as well as electronic files for the immediate future. Some files, such as adoptions, will continue to be hand-docketed because they are sealed, he said.

The system also includes a calendar to tell judges when cases are set to be heard, when deadlines approach and when cases need to be decided.

Yet another example of the problems faced by Librarians, Archivists and Records Managers…only get us in when the problem is a MAJOR problem.

How long before organisations will begin to manage their paper based records is a question no-one seems able to answer. And will only answer when they can’t hide from the problem anymore

Records coordinator faces enormous task | newarkadvocate.com | The Newark Advocate

New hire must figure out what county has in storage

By AMY HOLLON • Advocate Reporter • November 21, 2008

NEWARK — Because almost every government agency is required to keep records, everything from court documents to tax records to 100-year-old deeds fill the attic of the Licking County Courthouse, cells of the old jail and the basement of the county administration building.
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The records are scattered, and the entirety of the contents isn’t clear.

Moreover, some of the documents must be kept permanently, but others can be destroyed after a particular period of time. Thus, many documents cluttering space simply might be trash.

For more than 20 years, the county administration has hoped to build a records center to centralize all the documents and form an efficient process for dealing with them.

Recently, the Licking County commissioners moved forward with the long-awaited organization by hiring their first Records Center coordinator, Katy Klettlinger.

All three commissioners admit, however, Klettlinger faces a tall order. They began working with Klettlinger on a game plan Thursday.

“Obviously, we have to identify what we have first,” Commissioner Doug Smith said.

Commissioner Mark Van Buren agreed.

“I think what you are going to find is most of them need to be destroyed,” he said.

Eventually, the commissioners hope to build a records center either from scratch or by rehabilitating a vacant building, but first each record needs to be cleaned, organized, documented or destroyed.

The Mormon church already made copies of hundreds of records in the 1960s and 1970s, microfilming genealogical records, but it is unclear whether the negatives will be obtainable.

Because of the quantity of records, Klettlinger will serve in an advisory capacity, but each department head under the county administration will be responsible for finding the staff to sort his or her department’s records.

As an avid reader of almost anything and everything I can lay my hands on, I am both pleased and a little disturbed by the amount of content being added to the World Wide Web. Google it seems has plans to digitize the world as the following piece testifies. Does anyone else have any concerns? What about the problems we have had with digital obsolescence? And that problem does not get any smaller as the rate of technology changes have shortened dramatically over the last decade. Whilst it could be argued that the Internet will always be around, the information made available to the Internet and the global community via the many search engines and search interfaces we use today, this information still sits on servers somewhere. And servers can and do die, can and do get replaced. They are no different from any other piece of computer equipment we own and use. So why then are we so keen to archive to the Internet ether cloud?

“November 18, 2008 (Computerworld) Google Inc. today said that it plans to archive as many as 10 million photos and digitized images from the Life magazine archives. Some of the images date back to the 1750s, and many have never been published.

Google today announced that it will add the images from Life photographers to its Google Image Search pages. Only a small percentage of the images — including newly digitized images from photos and etchings — have even been published, Google said in a blog post. The rest have been “sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints,” Google said.

“This effort to bring offline images online was inspired by our mission to organize all the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” according to Google. We’re digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time.”

The announcement comes in the midst of a ambitious Google effort to add offline content like newspaper archives to its site. In September, it launched an effort to digitize millions of pages of news archives, making millions of old newspaper articles accessible and searchable online. Google has also been digitizing books since 2006.” Google to archive 10 million Life magazine photos