A day of two halves

Yesterday was pretty hectic, as I rushed from the office in the morning to an ARMA Europe seminar in the afternoon to the SLA Europe Winter Warmer Quiz in the evening!

AMRA Europe Seminar

The ARMA event was held at the Ritz, sponsored by Autonomy, so a groups of records managers in their Sunday best enjoyed coffee/tea served in real china cups and saucers, while being served mini-high tea style nibbles (the tiny apple strudel come filo parcels with chocolate dipping sauce were particularly scrumptious!) on glass platters by a bevy of black suited waiters.  All very impressive and decadent.

All too soon, however, we were ushered through into another room, similarly swagged and gilded, to listed to what turned out to be some very interesting and informative talks.

First up was Galina Datskovsky, SVP Information Governance at Autonomy from the USA, and president-elect of ARMA International this year.  Galina gave an indepth review of the GARP standard (Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles) with some entertaining anecdotes of issues organisations can get themselves into without sound RM policies in place.  She said one indicator that RM isn't very developed at an organisation is where the records management team reports into Facilities, whereas an indicator of a more advanced programme could be where a committee of legal, compliance, IT, RM and users meets regularly to set policies and strategies.

Second to speak was Jon Guard of the DLM Forum and author of MoReq 2010.  He spoke about the difference between standards which set out principals, like GARP or ISO 25489, and those which are intended to be used to create functional specifications, like MoReq or TNA 2002.  Jon described the modular nature of the reviesed MoReq standard, which is designed to cope with the need for interoperability between systems and the specific requirements of differently regulated sectors.

SLA Europe Quiz

After a swift dash across town to the City, I met up with a group of colleagues from Fabric and we prepared to face Tony's scary questions.

Amid much hilarity and overly-loud whispers (well shouts in some cases) of the answers (which probably didn't help anyone around us, to be honest, since most of them were wrong), we managed to come storming into last place.  As this meant a 'booby' prize of six books to share amongst the team we weren't too gutted however!

In a change from previous years pizza was replaced by platters of nibbles - including chicken nuggets, sandwiches, nachos and chips.  This went down very well, as did the new table allocation system.  Great fun was had by all, and I only just managed to catch my 10.20 train home.

- Nicola Franklin

GCC Inching Closer to Unified VISA System

Following the recent announcement of relaxed labour laws in the UAE, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states have announced that they are working on issuing ‘unified’ visas for ‘foreign tourists and businessmen’.  This is common sense – it means that people travelling to one GCC state on business will not need to apply for new visas when hopping around what is a relatively small geographical area.  It also makes life easier for GCC citizens wishing to take their foreign employees with them as they move around the region – maids for example.  Previously a maid would have to apply in advance for a visa to another GCC state, hindering the smooth movement of citizens (and therefore business). 

It will be interesting to see how this plays in Saudi Arabia, which has tough entry criteria – business men usually need an invitation from a business partner within the country before applying for an entry permit, a process which takes days or even weeks.  It will also be interesting to see if Saudi Arabia implements special provisions to prevent access to women who hold a unified visa.  Clearly such matters will take time to be ironed out but the thrust of all of these new laws is towards a more open, flexible business environment.  Great news for the region and for companies doing business here. 

- George Stothard

Where is the country heading?

There is increasing awareness in the public arena of the growing threat to public libraries, through the fantastic work being done by the Voices for the Library Group and by young professionals like Johanna Anderson and her Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries campaign.   Added to this is the slower and less visible erosion of school library provision across the country, as described by Caroline Roche on the CILIP communities blog. 

 CILIP also reported a couple of weeks ago that the Government consultation paper ‘Liberating the NHS: An Information Revolution’, while a welcome focus on information management, missed out on consideration of the role of external content in the health service:

“...the importance of information to clinical practice, medical education and Continuous Professional Development by NHS staff, and the needs of research are not given sufficient coverage.”

Overall the picture is not a happy one.  Widespread misunderstanding &/or ignorance exists of the vital role that librarians and information professionals of all types play in ‘making sense’ of the information overload that is widely accepted to affect many people. 

Further closures of public and school libraries could deprive many of the most needy groups in society of access to information.  This loss is occurring at just that time in history where the internet and social media are making information literacy vital to success; success in work but also in life, in education, in getting a job, in claiming benefits, and so on across an ever increasing spectrum.

What will this country look like in 5 or 10 years time?  What will it be like if there are children growing up without access to a library of any kind, GP Consortia instead of PCT’s, again without librarian support to give them the medical evidence on which to base practice, and unemployed and disadvantaged people with no one to help them get online?

It doesn’t sound like a country to be proud of.  Blaming the public, or anyone else, for this state of ignorance won’t help resolve the problem, however.  If we are to avoid this situation becoming reality then all librarians, information professionals, knowledge managers – whatever we call ourselves – have to band together and reach out to the public and the government and make the case for librarianship.

- Nicola Franklin

LIKE21 Event - Detect, prevent and reverse information blackholes

Thursday evening saw me arriving at the Crown Tavern in Clerkenwell withouth any cash on me, retracing my steps back to Farringdon to find a cash machine, and finally arriving as Hannah Kazerani was in full flow describing her experiences as a consultant advising organisations on their information management.

The long walk was well worth the effort, as Hannah is an engaging speaker and the situations she described had everyone in the room nodding in recognition.  She told how one utility company where she did an information audit turned out to have 32million documents stored which were duplicates!  It seemed common practice for computer outsourcing companies to routinely tell their clients they needed to increase their document storage by 40% year on year - whereas Hannah's experience was that this varied from 20 to 45%.

We weren't allowed to escape with simply listening to Hannah's entertaining anecdotes, however.  She got us all to put our thinking caps on and to work in groups to consider several questions (apologies to Hannah for paraphrasing her carefully thought out questions):

• What eight topic headings would you have for an Information Governance project?
• How would you engage successfully with IT colleagues?
• How would you go about a Sharepoint implementation?

Unsurprisingly beer and cake were mentioned as techniques to engage with IT, while topics for Information Governance included information audits, taxonomies, retention/disposal plans and training. 

By this time the food was arriving, and a hot meal and wine accompanied by a load buzz of conversation was certainly a very welcome end to an altogether enjoyable evening.

- Nicola Franklin

Innovative Monetisation – the future of Facebook?

The UK version  of Facebook Deals launches today. 

Whilst many of Facebooks attempts’ at change and innovation are met with online protests and increased requests for a dislike button, Facebooks latest offering in localised marketing may be the exception to the rule.  Big name advertisers are already signed up with a broad range of offers – Starbucks will be offering 30,000 free coffees today, Debenhams will give away 1000 beauty products, whilst Mazda will be giving away 5 cars.

How it works:  Facebook users are able to check on their Smartphone for places nearby via the Facebook Places feature – this will then show which venues have a deal.  Think of it as a cross between Groupon, a Tom Tom satnav and a cut out coupon.  Typically, users will then simply have to show their phone to serving staff.

What I like about this offering is that it really is marketing at its most relevant.  Not only is it localised but there are also different  types of deals – charity deals, loyalty deals, individual deals and friends deals.  In addition, it develops the role of Facebook even further, with many likely to use the site to save money, as well as connecting with friends/games etc.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to try and get my hands on a Mazda....

- Tom Lakin