Guest Column: 10 Questions For Creating A Secure Records Management Program

By Cheryl Young, Oce Business Solutions

Changes to technologies, laws, and business structures have resulted in a perfect storm for businesses across the globe. Records management is no longer limited to the hard copy in a box in a warehouse. The explosion of discoverable content in wikis, blogs, social networks and cloud computing systems have added to records and information managers' challenges managing email, PDAs, smartphones, shared drives, VOIP and intranets.

In this article, the terms records and information are used interchangeably because most of us still consider a record to be hardcopy and information to be electronic. It's important to note that content is the driver for identifying the importance of a record or information, not its format. Format comes into consideration during preservation methodologies in order to ensure that an authentic and reliable record of the business is available five, 10, 50 or 100 years from now, when it is needed.

In any assessment of where the business stands, the classic questions need to be asked of the information used on a daily basis.