Best Wishes in 2012 to all ARMA SWO Members

As ARMA SWO heads into the new year, the focus is on education, both for our members and others less fortunate. At the last board meeting, a decision was made to meet a challenge put out to the Canadian Chapters to donate towards the ‘African Book Project’. The ARMA International Educational Foundation (AIEF) has committed $10,000 to purchase eight core records and information management books for 18 universities and four national archive institutions in Africa. The ARMA SWO Chapter is happy to support this worthwhile cause.

January’s Online Session of the Month will be Cracking the Content Conundrum: A New Way to Apply Content Based Retention to Individual Unstructured e-Records. Organizations are challenged by the need to apply content based retention periods to individual unstructured records. Given the volume of records generated and the rapid pace of business, the traditional records management approach (requiring users to classify their records) becomes overwhelmed and is not a viable solution. Organizations, therefore, ride the risk of a seesaw: keeping everything and keeping nothing.
This “content conundrum' is costing organizations millions of dollars a) in excess data storage costs and b) potentially huge legal fees - for retrieval and review to meet their legal and compliance records requirements.
This web seminar from the 2010 MER Conference provides participants with a proactive approach to developing a strategy to identify and apply retention to unstructured records. Specifically, this web seminar explores innovative, new approaches - drawing upon lessons learned and tools used in other disciplines - to identify, classify, and manage unstructured content. Attendees will learn how to develop an effective strategy to:

• Identify the (unstructured) record types that present the greatest risk to the organization,
• Identify high risk records that reside in unstructured data sources,
• Evaluate content and human-based content classification tools to apply retention to unstructured records, and
• Develop an effective quality assurance process to measure the reduction in business risk.

Gain valuable insights, suggestions and lessons learned from HCSC’s experience and success!

Benefits of ARMA Chapter Membership
Our members have found that belonging to a local Chapter to be a great source for networking with colleagues and attending local educational offerings with knowledgeable speakers. Chapter members receive a discount on the registration fee when attending local workshops. You will also have access to the "Members Only" section of our Chapter website, which is regularly updated with information of interest to our members. Please encourage your records management colleagues to consider membership in ARMA International and the Southwestern Ontario Chapter. Further information can be obtained by emailing membership@armaswo.ca.

Information Lifecycle Governance
Mark April 11, 2012 on your calendars as this is the date for our next workshop on Information Lifecycle Governance (ILG). Industry experts from IBM and Doculabs will be discussing the state of the ILG industry, what is happening in the industry and what pain points organizations are experiencing. Doug Magnuson from IBM will be presenting on Information Lifecycle Governance (ILG) and solution considerations that are available and how to make them operational. This will give the participants an understanding how to build a team with a shared vision and give them the support to develop a real business case. Cost is $150 for ARMA members; $175 for non-ARMA members and will be held at the Elmhurst Inn in Ingersoll. Registration deadline is April 2, 2012.
Please email Drina Kurschinski at marketing@armaswo.ca if you are interested in attending.

Has your e-mail address changed?
If you are a Chapter member or mailing list subscriber, don’t forget to let us know your updated information, to ensure that you continue receiving our communications and information about upcoming education opportunities, like the November workshop and Session of the Month.