Do you get asked to manage the future, where you need to be able to forecast risk management, make decisions on upcoming plans/projects or any other type of work which generically falls under the umbrella of your organisations strategic plan or its mission statement?
As Information Professionals we are often seen as oracles. To help us with this "gift" we have the IIM National Conference coming up from 14 - 16 August, in Canberra. The Conference has come up very quickly for it is only one week away, scary especially if you have not registered. This is your last chance to register. To register Click Here.
Mark Rogers is one of our Information Professionals whom I speak with on many occasions, lately, we have been speaking about the IIM National Conference, so I asked him to write down what he was saying to me.
'Several years ago when I was relatively new to information management, I attended my first IIM National Conference in Brisbane and found it to be an extremely valuable primer for a range of IM topics that I had only a passing familiarity with, a valuable opportunity to interact with vendors to understand the capabilities of their products without the "hard sell" and, a great networking opportunity with colleagues in other organisations. Since then, I have attended a number of IIM conferences as I have always found conferences run by the professional associations to be excellent value for money. This year the agenda is an extremely good one - the challenge will be in deciding which presentation streams to miss out on.
This year I am also presenting a case study. I'm approaching it not so much from the perspective of "aren't we great" but to lay out the issues and challenges that I think face most of us and the approaches we are using to address them. I hope that this may help others in similar situations or who don't know where to start. I expect in return, that in the breaks, I will have some useful discussions with other delegates and perhaps some of the vendors who may be able to bring their own perspectives to the challenges I face. In this way I expect to come away from the conference with new insights, new ideas and some fresh approaches.'
Mark Rogers
IP Australia
IIM Conference presenter, stream facilitator and delegate.
Over many years, IIM has recognised the limitations of its existing website and have spoken with users of our site to gain their feedback on how the site could better meet their needs. This feedback has been used to enhance the "look and feel" and functionality so that it becomes a useful resource in your role as Information Managers
As part of the redesign, IIM has created a "Contribute" page where you, the ‘user’, can submit articles, research papers, events of interest, job vacancies or simply be part of a discussion by submitting queries and/or feedback.
The National President, Robine Polach, will launch the new IIM site at the IIM National Conference, being held in Canberraover the period 14 - 16 August 2007. The idea of ‘Contributing’ to a site is a new one, so if you want to see how it works and learn about the new IIM initiative you will need to register for this conference now.
The IIM Board would like to thank our 'users' for their feedback and hope that these new features will improve your experience in visiting our new IIM site. Once the site is launched if you have any comments about the new functionality, please contact webmaster@iim.org.au .
The final strata of IM professionals are the people who take data from the systems that others have built to generate information. Over the Information Management Series, published in the previous Newsletters, we have provided an overview of the wide range of skills needed to manage information.
With issues such as immediacy, the desire of users to have more control over their data and, the increasing ease in which data could be manipulated, organisations needed to rethink the management of data/information.
It also became apparent that the best way to protect and manage corporate data and provide reporting capabilities was to duplicate the data into a reporting data base. Initially only selected data was imported into these reporting data bases. The complete reporting collection was known as a data warehouse and the selected sub-sets of data became known as data marts.
The weaknesses of this approach became apparent when data marts were generated using different techniques and different time frames, leading to the inevitable “my data is better than your data” arguments. Most large corporations now have data warehouses or a reporting repository. About ten years ago, accepted wisdom was that the data warehouse was simply the repository and all information should be generated from sub-sets or data marts. All the people, processes and procedures are in place to allow organisations to control their information.
Standards: The objective of standards is to provide guidance on establishing processes and policies. It is with the notion that information that has been created, captured and stored electronically is used as evidence of business activities.
During my research I have come across the International Organization for Standardization, and felt after reviewing the site, it was another resource that would be useful to Information Professionals. I have extracted an excerpt from this site and, with their permission, placed it into this edition of the IIM Newsletter.
"The vast majority of ISO standards are highly specific to a particular product, material, or process. However, the standards that have earned the ISO 9000 and ISO 14000 families a worldwide reputation are known as "generic management system standards".
"Generic" means that the same standards can be applied:
to any organization, large or small, whatever its product
including whether its "product" is actually a service,
in any sector of activity, and
whether it is a business enterprise, a public administration, or a government department.
"Generic" also signifies that no matter what the organization's scope of activity, if it wants to establish a quality management system or an environmental management system, then such a system has a number of essential features for which the relevant standards of the ISO 9000 or ISO 14000 families provide the requirements.
"Management system" refers to the organization's structure for managing its processes - or activities - that transform inputs of resources into a product or service which meet the organization's objectives, such as satisfying the customer's quality requirements, complying to regulations, or meeting environmental objectives."
This material is reproduced from the Website of ISO (International Organization for Standardization) www.iso.org with the kind permission of ISO Central Secretariat.
Even though I read this letter, below, in the Readers Digest it does bring me to think “What are we doing to ensure versioning?” If in the work environment we have a good sound information system, the public generally does not seem to know about it. But what about at home? Should we, as information professionals, manage our personal documents with the same rigour as we do in the work environment? Is there something out there for the ‘Jack or Jill’ (normal) people of the world?
Reading the Future
"BOOKED for the Weekend" (Art of Living June) brought to mind a novel I read recently. In this science-fiction scenario, a time traveller for 200 years into the future shares details of what life is like then. One of the most precious commodities in her time is high-quality paper. In a world where technology rules, it has become apparent that being able to commit thoughts and happenings to paper is far superior to electronic storage.
It is easy to identify with such sentiments. While we are blessed with the ready and speedy availability and recall of information stored electronically, many of us would have experienced the frustrations of trying to retrieve photos and writings stored on media that are now out of date.
While we struggle to call up photos on old floppy disks, a tattered wedding album is able to bring back distant memories. And although the newest version of a word processor can’t read five-year-old files, a First Grade writing book in a box in the garage reveals early literary attempts.
Without having to depend on electricity or special equipment, books - from papyrus scrolls to modern-bound editions - continue to be the most lasting and accessible format for the preservation of human record.”
This is a direct copy of a letter sent to the Readers Digest “YOU SAID IT” page. August edition 2007.
IIM is pleased to advise it has endorsed1 the following external conferences.
Organiser
Event Details
Conference Link
KM Asia
Enhancing knowledge culture and discovering new possibilities
29-31 October 2007
Suntec Singapore
International Convention & Exhibition Centre
Ark Group is proud to bring you KM Asia 2007, a pan-Asian event, now in its seventh year. Ark Group has leveraged its position at the heart of the KM community by collaborating with KM practitioners to ensure that the direction and content of the event adds real value to your time at KM Asia 2007.
1. IIM makes every endeavour to ensure quality and relevance to our members. No warranty applies to these events
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