This presentation, delivered virtually to the ARMA New England Chapter on March 31, 2022, offered thoughts on how information is managed (poorly), how to clean up file shares, and how to change the conversation from compliance and cost to enabling better business outcomes.

1. It’s 2 A.M. – Do You
Know Where Your
Information Is?
ARMA New England
Jesse Wilkins
President and Principal Consultant
Athro Consulting
March 31, 2022

2. Your Dark Information
Image source: CNN Money http://goo.gl/nux3l5
Information
Overload

3. Food for Thought:
How does your RM program support your organization’s
business outcomes?

4. Agenda
It’s 2 a.m. – Do You Know
Where Your Information
Is?
Cleaning Up the Mess
Harnessing Your
Information to Create
Business Value

5. TEH INFORMATION EXPLOSION!!!!

6. Where
Information
Lives
In recordkeeping systems
In other systems
In other places
In the cloud
In apps

7. The Cloud

8. And Information (Still) Lives in Paper

10. Agenda
It’s 2 a.m. – Do You Know
Where Your Information Is?
Cleaning Up The Mess
Harnessing Your Information
to Create Business Value

11. Step One:
Stop the
Madness
• Turn off file shares!
• Turn off .PST files!
• Turn off SharePoint!
• Turn off One Drive!
• Turn off Teams!
• Turn off Slack!
• Turn off email!
• Turn off the Internet, and go home.

12. Step 2: Make the Change
“The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second-
best time to plant a tree is today.”

13. “Where Do I Put My Stuff?”
Step 3: Give your people guidance!

14. of corporate
information is junk
Step 4: Clear it out!
68%

15. Step 5: Use the
Tools
• Dozens of file analysis
tools available
• Identify PII/PHI/PCI
• Identify other sensitive or
confidential information
• Quarantine, remediate,
enrich
• Support migration
• Different tools have
different strengths &
weaknesses

16. Tools don’t fix
the underlying
problems!
So look at those
first….

17. Step 6:
Sustainment
• Onboarding, training,
reminders, refreshers,
etc. etc. etc.!
• Build filing structures –
and automate as much
as possible
• Direction on where to
put stuff
• Remove the file shares!

18. Agenda
It’s 2 a.m. – Do You Know
Where Your Information Is?
Cleaning Up the Mess
Harnessing Your
Information to Create
Business Value

19. The Business of the
Business
• The business is in the business
of the business

20. The Business of the
Business
• The business is in the business
of the business
• Information has to drive
business value

21. The Business of the
Business
• The business is in the business
of the business
• Information has to drive
business value
• Records and information
management has to drive
business value

22. “Information is an Asset”
• Great – how about treating it
like one?
• What if companies treated
their money like they treat
their information?
• https://www.bytebacklaw.com
/2016/01/what-if-companies-
treated-their-money-like-their-
information/

23. The Bottom
Line
• Companies don’t care about
compliance*
*Well….
• Companies care about the
bottom line
• We have to shift the
conversation from compliance
to cash!

24. Drive Business Value. Good information
management practices directly benefit the
bottom line of the organization.

25. Drive Business Value. Good information
management practices directly benefit the
bottom line of the organization.
The reverse is also true.

26. Understand the Compliance Issues - privacy,
legal, etc. – but position them as drivers of
business value.

27. Aviation Charts - Before Aviation Charts - Now
Digitize
Everything
That
Moves

28. Let’s Talk Turkey!

29. How Can Your RM Program Enable
Successful Business Outcomes?
• Be specific!
• Anticipate, and answer, the question – SO WHAT?
• YOUR answers follow….

30. How Can Your RM Program Enable
Successful Business Outcomes?
• Fines for the organization if we can’t find it or lose it
• Support fiduciary responsibility to our investors
• Reduce discovery costs
• Legal ramifications if we can’t find customers’ documents
• Improve customers’ ability to get self-service
• Speed up responses to requests for information (govt context)
• Get a loan at any branch in the province
• Save $10k on storage

31. How Can Your RM Program Enable
Successful Business Outcomes?
• To support improved customer service
• Improve ability to access documents quickly for clients
• Competitive advantage
• Getting rid of stuff not needed helps us produce information that
is requested
• Customers could get a mortgage/loan/loc at any branch in the
province.
• In last 6 months, we have destroyed enough boxes to save
$10k per year on storage

32. How Can Your RM Program Enable
Successful Business Outcomes?
• Investor reporting, tracking assets and accounting, tracking
Letters of Credit totaling millions of dollars...
• Speeds up approval process for contracts and financial
transactions
• Reduces amount of time an attorney takes to locate
documents...saves an average of x hours per attorney/per client
• Enable faster turn-around times to support client outcomes and
satisfaction
• By managing our inactive records we saved $100K in storage
costs over 10 years

33. Questions?

34. Additional
Resources
• Infonomics, Douglas B. Laney
• Making Enterprise Information
Management Work for Business, John
Ladley
• Selling Information Governance to
the Business, Sunil Soares
• The Digitization of the World from
Edge to Core
https://www.seagate.com/files/www
-content/our-story/trends/files/idc-
seagate-dataage-whitepaper.pdf

36. For More
Information
Jesse Wilkins
President, Athro Consulting
https://www.athroconsulting.com
jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com
Twitter: @jessewilkins
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessewilkins