Findability

I had the pleasure of hearing Peter Morville speak at a conference on Resource Discovery yesterday and his message really started to challenge my thinking on the role of IM.

I've been a disciple of metadata for many years.... tweak the search engine. But dont forget about the Information Architecture (IA)

Here are my take-aways:

Search is a way to learn. What we seek changes based on what we find. In our quest to optimize search we have to be careful that we do not remove the learning opportunity that search provides.

Search is not the only answer. We need to provide facetted navigation to provide context ...

In order for search to be successful:

• the best results HAVE to be first
• people expect actionable results
• auto-complete is a must
• auto-suggest, because it helps people get un-stuck
• predictability is a must, so that the next click is not a mystery

Some great examples of poor website IAs and ones that worked.  Very grateful to have seen him speak.

Keeping it under wraps

I'm way too expressive with my emotions and I can see how it often hurts my career. Like right now, I'm working on an impossible task and I feel completely over-whelmed. My manager wants to see confidence --that he's assigned this to the right person. And all I can do is procrastinate and complain. There's no getting out of this either. It HAS to get done by an internal resource. I am the fucking schmuck! This classification structure and retention schedule (yes, I am still working on it) is so daunting. Here's what I'm up against.

I've never done this before. No one at my company has ever done this before. It hasn't been done since 1962. Many have tried, but no one has succeeded. I'm not even sure it's the right thing to do. We tell our end users that we are at risk for keeping information longer than we need it. We're not compliant, we're spending too much money storing info that has no value, the crap pollutes our search results, takes up valuable office space and needs to be dealt with. Really? Paper needed to be dealt with otherwise you would run out of physical space. But why not just buy more storage? Figure out what needs to be kept in 'active' storage, give users a way to mark "the thing" and move the rest to some other area where it can still be accessed, but it won't cloud your view of the world. The 'thing' is basically the FINAL document -- the one that provides the best evidence of what you've done. It's not even the stuff I write. It's the document that gets approved by someone important. The rest is 2nd rate and should be deleted whenever, or not!

K, I digress. My trepidation: nothing I come up with will ever be complete. How can I account for every single shit scrap of information that is produced? I'd need to consult with everyone and no one will agree because it's too late -- everyone describes information differently. There is no perfect classification scheme in the sky.

I've got to figure out a way out of this somehow. Who likes working on loser projects? I need a winner. Maybe I just wrap it up and say look -- I did this much on my own using research. It's a starting point. You want to make it better, then give me a team and we'll take it on the road. Give me a technology we can put it into and then we can be done with it. I've got to stop feeling like it's all my responsibility. Perfectionism is stifling me.

K, I know what I have to do.

How to be convincing

I finally have the ear of my Bosses Boss and I'm struggling to get him to see things my way. He's a super busy exec and doesn't have much time or patience for the IM problem which has traditionally been our defense for getting funding for IM -- the loss of corporate memory, legal risk or disposing of the wrong information, the invasion of privacy of disclosing personal info, etc. So I've got to figure out what he wants and show him that my suggestions are the only viable solution. So much fucking pressure!
The other part of me doesn't want to care. Put myself out there, only to be slammed. He's an IT guy, IM is a thorn in his side that I'm sure he'd love to be done with it. How did we go from a budget of 1 million to less than 20% of that? How did we go from a team of 7 to 4? It's pointless. I'm horrible with rejection too. When I really care about something and put myself out there, I can't help but take it personally when my ideas go no where. But then again, I should take a risk. If I don't make a case for change that I really believe in then I have no right to complain. I got up early this morning to outline the business case that was swimming around in my head last night. I'm going to do this.

What's in the box?

Any day now the SharePoint team is going to traipse over to my desk and ask me what metadata to apply to information stored in SharePoint -- not just the fields (that's the easy part), but the controlled vocabulary too. What's in the drop down box D? Panic attack. I haven't got a clue. I have a better sense of what might work, but I have no idea how to get there. So much pressure to create a bullet-proof solution -- the right combination of terms that will let users find exactly what they are looking for, understand it's raison d'etre and allow us to systematically know when the information is no longer of value and can be removed. Oh, the fucking pressure! I can't go back to the users. It's too humiliating. How many times have we asked them to tell us about what they do, the information they create and use and how long they need it for. So I have to figure this out for the entire company on my own by reading and interpreting confusing legislation that requires focus which is not my specialty. I know I can do this but I don't like doing it and I'm motivated by work that I like. But there's no way out here. My career is on the line. I've got to just put my head down and get through this. Dig deep and interpret the legislation to the best of my ability -- don't be afraid to ask questions and just make a lot of assumptions. It's better than stalling, which is what I've been doing for the last 9 months. Oh the fucking pressure. Gotta take my medicine baby. xx

It's not sexy

Got it - Information Management is not sexy. But do people even know what it even is? Public Servants should -- it's one of our core competencies after all.  I have some ideas on how to sex it up, but my management feels IM is serious business and simplifying the message will make it sound less complex then it really is. Well guess what, it's not complex AT ALL
.

First thing you do to practice good IM is PLAN for your information needs. You sit down with your team and ask questions -- what type of information do we need to collect for this project? who needs access to it? where are we going to store it? are we going to name our files a particular way?, are we going to be collecting or creating sensitive (private) info? are we going to minute our meetings or just the actions?, etc.
 

Then you DO -- You document your activities and your decisions following all the great rules you agreed to with your team. And at the end the project you look at all your information and toss the crap and keep the good stuff, which is anything that serves as the best evidence of what transpired -- the key decisions points, proof of where you spent $ and final deliverables that will inform future work.
 

And that's pretty much it. There's a bit more that we IM Specialists do behind the scenes plus public servants need to know a few more things such as -- if you have to hand over info because of an ATIP request then hand it over, don't delete it ... DUH! These are common sense and I'd rather not belittle people's intelligence, but we have to inform them or else they will plead ignorance ... which isn't much of an excuse, but we have to CYA.

So my ideas to make this as painless as possible ... I will save for another post. As I re-read what I just wrote, I'm thinking "FAUUUUK ... I must be missing something here ... is this all there is to IM FFS?"

The Need to Know

The 'Need to Know' is a requirement in the public service to be able to access information that is considered sensitive or classified (if compromised, might cause harm to personal or national interest). The need to know requirement means that just because you have personal security clearance up to a certain level does not entitle you to be able to see all the information at that level. You have to be able to show that you need it to fulfill the duties of your job.

Well, it's BULLSHIT. In today's information age, people expect to get access to government information. How is it that I can file an ATIP request to get access to just about any bit of government information WITHOUT making a case for my 'need to know'? Public servants are on our dime and we're entitled to know what they are doing and what they are not doing. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big advocate for privacy. But personal information can easily be severed to protect privacy and 3rd party confidences. Too many civil servants hide behind this paternalistic 'need to know' and unjustifiably mark their documents 'secret' to keep others out.

I predict that this so-called 'need to know' will die it's rightful death within the next 10 years. I'd like to personally do what I can to make it happen too.

Our mission

A colleague asked me this the other day. And I had to stop and think about it for a minute. What is my Team's purpose, really? Who do we serve? What are we trying to accomplish? Those are simple questions that should direct our every move. But somewhere along the way we've lost our purpose. And now we have a new big boss who sees our role quite differently than we see it. He's helping me realize that we exist to serve our clients -- in the FIELD. We're a small team and there's always been a lot going on at headquarters or even within my branch to keep us busy. We've never really supported the field, other than socially (they're a great bunch of people). And since it's only a functional relationship (they don't report to HQ), it's really not much of a relationship at all.

I used to always mock those corporate mission exercises. Talk about a waste or consulting dollars. The statement is never more than its fancy plaque. How do you actually implement a new mission -- how can you change the culture without changing the players? But maybe we need to take a closer look at this. Right now, we are falling way short of everyone's expectations and that is not a good feeling.

 

I've been thinking about it all weekend. None of the old priorities -- the EDRMS, Classification Structure or Retention Schedule -- the pillars of our existence up until now, seem to mean anything to our new boss. Good god, he wants us to pitch in and start boxing up legacy records! I know some of our team (myself included to some extent) think we are beyond clerical work. We're stuck in the theory and would rather leave the minions to figure out how to implement it. Well those days are over. I've gotta get all cosy with paper files again and start showing my new value or else we will no longer exist as a Team -- yikes!

Talking with Passion

Nothing turns me on more than to hear someone speak with passion. They're not reading from a script, they are speaking from the heart. They really know their material because they've internalized it and can deliver it at the drop of a hat. It's no wonder my old man is a televangelist junkie. I too am immediately drawn in by passion.

It was when I first heard my 'then' boyfriend tell me about what the environment meant to him, that I realized he was deeper than I had originally thought and that there something there worth getting to know. I feel the same way today about my friends and colleagues. My mentor had passion about our field -- I would spend hours listening to her talk at length about why information needed to be managed. I fell in love, took up the cause and am still preaching it.

 

Only like with religion, it's not easy to accept when your passion lets you down. I've been at this long enough to know that IM is not the answer I thought it was. I've drank too much koolaid. My passion has faded. I need something new to believe in, something or someone to give me hope.

 

Maybe I'm destined to become a motivational speaker ... or join a cult? Whatever my future, I know that I happiest when I surround myself with people who have passion and more importantly when I too believe that what I am doing makes a difference.

How do I ...

I've had it with our Intranet space and am doing a complete re-write of the content and architecture. Yet, I know that I am bound to come up against some major resistance from those on my team who love wordzzzzzzzz. Readers don't want to scroll through crap. They have a short attention span and want quick answers, so they can get on with doing their work.

How do I: ... organize my files
... describe my information
... handle personal information
... get rid of my files
... respond to this ATIP request
.... contact my IM Specialist
... get more training

Other than some basic info on who we are, what we can do for you and what's new, this is all we really need. Now, how do I .... convince the rest of the team that my solution is the way to do? Here's where my influencing skills need work. Maybe I should put it in front of a few end-users and share their feedback (which will be nothing but positive).

Sustained Attention

From an RM Job Description (CR-04): Sustained attention for short periods, averaging 2‑3 weeks per year, is required when developing technical specifications to accurately depict the information management structure; lapse in attention may result in missing or misunderstanding key information..

YIKES!

I have ADHD. Self-discipline is not my friend. I need to lock myself in my office, disable my Internet access and just get 'er done. Help!

Why should I click on you?

I've been thinking a lot about the sheer volume of information out there and how it's becoming increasingly important to know something about the information you've found before you make the investment to actually read it.

We're all strapped for time and unless someone I trust tells me that I 'have to' read something, upfront, I want to know:

what it's about
why you think I need to read this
how long it is
what I will learn from it
if it's from a reliable source
how recent it is
where I can find more info on it

Back in the days of paper, your Librarian or Records Manager would help answer these questions. Today, it's not so easy. Thankfully websites provide some context with linking. But in my opinion, auto-tagging and summarizing with technology can only go so far. It has to come from the author. Really, people need to learn how to market their content. I want to start now by writing neat little abstracts that let the reader know why (or why not) they should give up 10 mins of their day to read my stuff. It doesn't have to be long -- just needs to answer the question "Here's why I wrote this in the first place". It's also a great way to bring meaning to my work -- D's own legacy.

How make this idea go viral...

Information Management is Dead

I'm starting to read more and more about the death of my profession as an IM Specialist and rather than refute it or bury my head in the sand, I couldn't agree more.

I often get stuck on explaining just what IM is.  So I revert to a tired slogan for lack of anything else more concise -- 'it's about being able to make sure that the right information is available at the right time in the right format and at the right cost'. In the old days of paper, you relied on Records Managers to describe, organize, search and retrieve your records. But once digitial information arrived, the RM became obsolete. End users managed their own files at their desktop and the rigor of classifying and culling information was thrown by the way side, which is why shared drives are basically dumping grounds of poorly described, duplicate, and obsolete information. Enter the IM Specialist -- someone with the same organizational and analytical skills as the Records Manager, but who is comfortable with technology and can advise on how to navigate your digital nightmare using best practices (which are so pathetically obvious, it's hard to believe that someone actually pays me to do this). You don't know what to name your file? -- How about just calling it what it is? You don't know what information to delete in your email? Try most of what's in your inbox for starters.

One of the big responsibilities of the IM Specialist is to develop a 'Retention Schedule' which is supposed to be a mission critical document that says -- "this is what we keep information on and this is how long we keep it for". So if the company gets sued and can't come up with the documents or emails, they simply point to their approved Retention Schedule and say "too bad so sad, the information was deleted and this here Retention Schedule covers our asses". I won't bore you with how we come up with this magical schedule. In fact all I've done in my six years in this field is talk about it. We have yet to actually DO IT.

Corporate risk doesn't really resonate with end users, so I usually sell it with Search. If you keep everything, including the crap, it'll be harder to find the good shit, right? (of course I attenuate at work, just not in my blog). This is usually sellable because we all know how shitty desktop searching is -- if I search for 'information management', I'll get everything with the words 'information', 'management' or even fucking 'ment' in it. But thanks to advances in technology, namely Google, why delete anything? There is no master Retention Schedule for the Internet, baby! If you have a kick-ass search tool, the good stuff will float to the top and the crap info will remain out of sight. The only time we need to actually delete anything is if there's legislation that stipulates that you have to get rid of something after a specific time period. And really, there's NOT a lot of these out there.

So here I am once again working on 'the Retention Schedule', only I don't believe in it anymore. It's a bloody waste of time to go around asking people what information has value to them. If someone asked you this, wouldn't you think "everything I write has value, you dolt!". And then I have to ask: "How long do you need to keep it for" ... To which they reply: "Why not forever, isn't storage cheap? I can pick up a 1 TB removable drive for $40 at Staples, so don't tell me it's costly for you to store my files. Go tinker with some server in a closet and stop wasting my time, you idiot. Jeesh. How much do they pay those CSes, again?"

So between this and my rant about the uselessness of organizing and classifying information, my profession is already dead. Time for a career change. What though?

Classification

Warning: another ranty blogpost.
My boss is counting on me to develop a magic classification system for the entire organization. She thinks I'll be able to just pull it out of my ass -- a magical system that every scrap of information can be categorized against; one that is both intuitive and user-friendly, and seamlessly supports search, retrieval and disposal.

Here's what I have to say about that: IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN SISTA.

First of all, if it was so important and easy to do, then it'd be done by now... and not by me, but by the people who create information in the first place.

Secondly, this is NOT how the real world works. Yes, we need order. Humans naturally group and categorize. Traditionally, foldering aids retrieval. However, information does not fit neatly into singular folders. It's organic, it links, it can be about MANY subjects ... so why stuff it in ONE folder? Folders are DEAD.

So what about 'logical' folders, or tagging? Well .... it's not going to happen either. Not only because we've gone too long without ever having to describe our information, but because the value of a particular piece of information is not always known at the point of creation. It may start out as a simple idea and evolve into something greater. Just look at the web. Do we put things away in folders and click through them to find information? Hell no, we search. Plus, not everything ends up in a 'document'. Thanks to the web, there are many ways to collaborate. Things can indeed happen without spinning documents.

Organization is also personal. We all like the flexibility of having our own systems -- by subject, priority, project, or not at all. Don't impose some kludgy taxonomy that will be out-of-date the minute it's created AND make it harder for me to find my information, just don't.

This blog is a case in point. Some time ago a friend suggested I blog about my purge as I seemed to be having more fun with talking about it than actually doing it. It was also a polite way to say "not that interested D, tell the blog sphere instead". It turned out to be great advice because I'm able to get all my ideas out of my head and make room for ... other useless ideas. I did not attempt any kind of tagging or classification because I did not know what I would be blogging about. Dreaming up potential tags seemed pointless. So I decided to wait until a critical mass was created and then I would let the information show me where there were recurring themes (such as parenting, relationships, enlightenment, fitness, etc.). I'm now at that point. Looking up older posts is painful because I have to remember 'when' I created them. Nothing is really linked so where I've expanded on a particular idea (such as gentle discipline) I have to click through many posts until I find what I want. So will I go back to all 100 posts and tag them? No, I will not. And so it goes.

Maybe I should look closer at auto-classification tools. Users DO NOT want to be burdened with this. I do not want to impose this on anyone. How the hell am I going to convince my management that this is a complete waste of time? FML.

So, what do you do?

Panic. What the fuck is it I do? I should really have that two minute elevator spiel ready -- I love feeling prepared after all. It's just really hard to describe what I do in layman's terms. Actually, it's hard describing what I do without people thinking -- ohhhh, that's so sad ... didn't you used to be an IT Consultant? How much do file clerks make these days anyway? So I stammer through some kind of half-assed job description until eyes glaze over and then I start talking about what I WANT to do which makes things worse because I'm basically lying at this point. And then I just desperately try to change the topic or make an excuse to leave the room.

No more. I've been thinking a lot about the gist of my job and I think I can safely say that I am a Professional Organizer ... of information. You know those Designers on TV that expose people's embarrassing junk, force them to purge all their precious memories (the more tears the better) and then miraculously create a system that really organizes nothing because any mementos of everyday living (toys, mail, books and other shit) have been hidden off camera? My job is similar in that I preach to people about how sacred information is and how its access and storage need to be 'managed' (whatever that means). And just when I have people convinced that they are flushing their valuable knowledge down the toilet and they are ready to step it up ... I tell them that I have NO answers. Yeah, well we 'could' be using technology to describe and store all of your information so that it can be effortlessly found, seamlessly retrieved and re-used again and again .... but you know, there's never enough MONEY, and well it would require that everyone pitch in and work TOGETHER on this and besides, our group have their heads so far up their asses that it will NEVER happen. So just go back to doing what you've always done, it's just now you can feel badly about it.

K - the cynicism is not going to serve me well in my career. Problem is, I've lost my faith! I've got to find some glimmer of hope to hold on to. Work has to be more than a pay cheque for me. If I don't start adding value, then I'm wasting more than only my time at the office. Thankfully, I think there's enough flexibility to make my job what I want it to be. Now, just to figure out what that is .... stay tuned.