Where I Ended Up - a 30-Day Update

30 days ago today was my last day at AIIM. Over the last 30 days I've done a lot of reflecting on the past and thinking about the future. I have to admit that I have not yet found the answer to life's eternal questions - besides, Doug Adams already did that. 

So what did I do the last 30 days? I've read a ton of books on everything from certification development to AI to association management to product marketing. I've taken quite a few online courses from Coursera and LinkedIn on those topics. I've started working on my exercise regime again - after all, if I'm available for in-person events, at some point I will have to put on pants that fit. 

Tell Us Already! 

Oh, I also started a company, Athro Consulting.  This is the answer to the question in the title. I'm offering consulting services in a couple of key areas: 

Information governance and information management consulting. In particular, I focus on strategy, planning, and process-type issues like business assessments, building program roadmaps, developing information governance and records management programs, and identifying and upskilling required staff. 

Training development and delivery. I've been a trainer since 1993, when I graduated United States Marine Corps Drill Instructor School and became a drill instructor. In terms of industry training, I started teaching courses on IMR'S Alchemy product line in 2000 and on CompTIA's now-retired CDIA+ program in 2003. IMERGE Consulting was AIIM's first training partner in North America, and I taught AIIM's first in-person training course in North America in January 2006. 

In the nearly 16 years since, I've developed or updated more than 20 AIIM courses and delivered more than 200 workshops including public, private, train-the-trainer, and custom to students around the world. 

In the months to come I'll be developing and delivering some of my own workshops, as well as partnering with some organizations that I support. In the meantime, if you have training you need delivered, particularly relating to information governance, information management, records management, etc. let's talk!

Certification program development and delivery. This is a little more esoteric in that not everyone needs a certification program developed, but there are a lot of ways for a certification program to go sideways if not planned and executed properly. I led the technical development of the original AIIM Certified Information Professional (CIP) program in 2011 and the overall development of the program updates in 2016 and 2019. Before I joined AIIM, I worked on the now-defunct CompTIA CDIA+ and TAWPI ICP certifications as well. 

Note that we're not limited to personnel-type certifications like CIP - I've also developed a couple of vendor partner certification programs.

Evangelism and thought leadership. I love writing and talking about this stuff. I love learning new stuff and sharing it. I love theory, and I love practical application. I love learning lessons learned and sharing them, and hearing horror stories and sharing them. Despite having been a vendor, a consultant, or a training provider for most of my career, I've always been focused on the message of improving organizations through effective information practices, regardless of who signed my paycheck. 

You can see some of my presentations on Slideshare - I need to add some of the more recent ones, but even the ones there now will give you a feel for how I approach speaking. 

If you're reading this, you know I blog; I also have a number of posts on the AIIM blog. I've written some longer-form things too, including the AIIM Social Business Roadmap and How to Conduct a Social Business Assessment, and, more recently, two editions of the CIP Study Guide. I'm always excited to learn about something new and then understand, and help others understand, how it can improve the way their organization works. 

How I Work

Here's what Athro Consulting offers in terms of approach. 

I'm a professional, and I have very strong ideas on ethics and their importance. 

My role is to be a guide. I know some stuff about how good information governance, records management, etc. can and should work. I don't know everything about everything, and I'll be honest about my limitations. I am a quick learner, and will go overboard learning about something if I need to. 

I believe in standards and best practices and will make the case for why you should follow them. That said, it's your business, your training program, your culture, and my role is to help your organization be more efficient, more effective, and more successful. If that means following different standards and practices sometimes, so be it.  

I believe that consulting engagements should not stretch on indefinitely, but should end, and should end with the organization having the knowledge and ability to continue to drive things forward. 

I'm willing and able to travel as needed. I'm vaccinated for a lot of stuff, and I'm a pretty cheap date, given sufficient advance warning. 

If you think I can bring some value to your organization, feel free to drop me a note at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com. My permanent Gmail account, jwilkins13@gmail.com, still works as well. I'm happy to have a call, Zoom chat, etc. at your convenience. 

Ness Labs: The educational and economic necessity of lifelong learning

100% agree. I'm biased, of course, because I'm in the training business. But I really do believe in the three reasons the article gives - lifelong learning helps you to: 

• Adapt to an ever changing market
• Spot new opportunities
• Explore different career paths

The second bullet goes on to note, "By exposing ourselves to more knowledge across various fields, we are increasing our chances to discover a need or a gap to be filled." 

To that same end, I wholeheartedly recommend the book Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, by David Epstein.

H/t: WBT Systems (https://twitter.com/WBT_Systems)

How Much Does Your Product Cost?

This is the first in a series of posts I plan to write on pricing in the information management industry. 

I saw an interesting ad today for some training of relevance to me. It was developed by one of the industry's leading experts on the topic, looked to be of great quality, and packed a lot of content into a very short course, which is perfect for me. I decided to buy it, but there's no pricing and no way to purchase. I checked the package it's part of, and same thing. I finally found a "Store" button, which showed me the pricing, but it took several more clicks because I had to decide how long to have access to it as part of the purchase process. The time it took me to find pricing, evaluate the options, and get to the payment page took almost as long as the runtime of the course itself. 

I'm a big fan of the "They Ask, You Answer" approach to marketing developed by Marcus Sheridan. One of the key tenets of the TAYA approach is that there are 5 really big questions that almost all customers have, and that you should be answering: 

• How much does your solution cost?
• What are the negatives or issues with your solution?
• How does your product or solution compare to alternatives?
• What is everybody saying about your solution?
• What is the best solution available?

He notes that most organizations are afraid to answer these, for fear of scaring customers away. Instead, he argues, organizations that don't providing pricing drive customers away because they get frustrated. You may have experienced this yourself when shopping for a car. There is generally a price, but it's understood that that's the starting point for haggling. This process has been so uncomfortable for so many people that we've seen a surge in "no-haggle" buying - there's a price, you take the car at that price. 

The information management industry is notoriously opaque in its pricing. Go to the website of any vendor listed in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, Forrester Wave, or any other analyst report. Go to the website of any vendor you've seen at a conference or whose webinar you've attended. 99 times out of 100, you won't be able to find pricing for their products. If they are really transparent, you might be able to find pricing for training, or certification exams, etc. And hardware often has pricing listed, too - it's pretty easy to find scanner pricing, for example. But you likely won't be able to see and compare two RM solutions. 

I know what you're thinking, and what the vendors are howling: Every organization is unique. Yes...and no. Unless you're delivering custom software for every customer, at some point a customer is getting a set of capabilities. You know how much those capabilities cost - if you are on a government schedule, that pricing is probably public, and certainly your sales people know where the starting price is. It should be pretty straightforward to make at least your "sticker price" available. 

If you disagree, please reach out to me at jwilkins13@gmail.com. I will keep your name and organization, and any organizations you reference, confidential. 

Happy Birthday, CIP!

Today is the 10th anniversary of AIIM's Certified Information Professional (CIP) certification exam and program. On September 23, 2011, the CIP exam went live as the Information Certification and the first 50 or so CIPs who worked to develop the exam were grandfathered in. We don't number CIPs in this fashion, but I suppose Atle Skjekkeland, the architect and main creative force behind the certification, would be CIP #1, and I would be CIP #2 as the technical lead. 

The first CIP exam taken, and passed, happened the next day, September 24. As of my departure from AIIM, nearly 2,000 people since then have passed the exam and earned the designation. I don't know what the future holds for CIP, but I know we did some really good work in putting the exam together in 2011 and for the updates in 2016 and 2019. I am grateful to everyone who supported CIP during my tenure at AIIM and I hold the development and maintenance of CIP as one of my personal career highlights. 

Christian Buckley, buckleyPLANET: Evangelism is about Building Advocacy

Great post that outlines the key roles and activities of a technology evangelist. I’m surprised, in the era of content marketing, the Challenger Sales methodology, etc. that more solution providers don’t recognize the benefits of a dedicated evangelist.

H Layer Credentialing: Sorting Through Credentialing Confusion: Understanding the Difference Between Certificate and Certification Programs

Good basic article on the difference between certificate programs and professional certifications. I was going to write a post similar to this, but hey. :) 

Certifications and Renewal Requirements

This is an update to a post I wrote in February 2017. 

Real certifications have, or should have, some type of renewal or continuing education requirement. The CDIA exam I took in 2001 has almost zero relevance to the technology and process environment of 2021. And in fact this is one of the key benefits of a formal certification as compared to, say, a certificate or even a full degree program - once you complete a degree or certificate, that's it. As soon as you're done it starts getting stale. 

Certifications are designed to allow candidates to demonstrate their knowledge and expertise in certain areas - but they are also markers of dedication to continuing professional development. Someone who has maintained a certification for 20 years has had to make at least some effort to keep up with changes in the industry and technologies.

There are two basic ways to renew a certification. First, many organizations will allow or require certificants to retake the then-current exam. Assuming the exam is updated regularly, this is probably the most efficient for both parties. But certificants really, REALLY don't like to do this - it tends to be more expensive, you have to deal with the in-person or online exam registration and delivery process, many certificants have test anxiety, etc. 

The alternative generally involves having certificants earn continuing education units (CEUs) and paying a fee, typically lower than the original exam/assessment fees. Every program determines what types of activities are appropriate for earning CEUs and how many are required; the typical figures are around a 3-5 year recertification cycle and 10-20 CEUs per year of the cycle, with CEUs awarded at the rate of 1 CEU per hour of educational activity. 

Certifying organizations have to balance the desire to have certificants maintain their credential - and the revenue that comes from them - with the need to ensure certificants really are doing what is expected. If it's too hard, people drop the certification; if it's too easy, it devalues the value of it. 

CEUs and Third Party Events

One way in which certifying organizations try to balance these needs is to offer preapproval to third party event producers/trainers. This provides a number of benefits depending on your point of view:

• The certifying organization shows its relevance and that of its designation, as event producers include its name, designation name, and logo in their marketing materials.
• Event producers have a ready way to demonstrate their commitment to the specific certifying organization and the broader community/industry as they market.
• Individual certificants can attend events secure in the knowledge that they are educational in nature and of some level of quality.
• Candidates can also attend those events and for largely the same reasons; in addition, some credentials require some amount of education to even sit for the exam, and these events can meet some or all of that need.

Every once in a while a certifying body considers this question and determines that it will only accept its events - that makes it more money, or leads, and why should it go to the trouble of accepting, or even promoting, competitive events? This is a terrible idea for several reasons: 

• Most non-technical certifications are designed to demonstrate industry-accepted knowledge and expertise, not that of a single organization or product. 
• Individuals won't limit themselves to consuming a single product or service - rather, they will assume that the certification isn't a "real" one since it doesn't accept their otherwise educational activities. 
• Certifying bodies are themselves part of a community. If AIIM only accepted AIIM events for CIP CEUs, it would only be logical for ARMA, the ICRM, etc. to only accept theirs or at least refuse AIIM events for credit. This results in everyone cutting off their own noses to spite their faces. 
• Education should be evaluated based on its value and content, not whose name or logo is on the cover. 

Frankly, CEUs provide a way for associations to work more closely together. We compete in many ways and on many things - but ultimately we're all in the business of providing value to the members of our communities, and I view all of our various communities as part of the same, larger, information management community. 

No Renewal Requirement, No Certification

It’s also important to understand that the value of a certification, and its prestige, are directly related to the perception of difficulty. As Global Knowledge noted in a recent story, “The 10 IT Certifications Employers Look For”, 

What differentiates these certifications is not only their depth of content, but also their breadth. If they were easy to obtain, would they be so highly sought after and command a high salary?

Organizations should not look at CEUs or renewal requirements as creating friction or raising unnecessary hurdles for their certificants. Rather, they are a way for certificants to demonstrate to themselves and their organizations their commitment to ongoing professional growth and development.

If you offer a certification that does NOT require regular renewal, what you have is not a certification. It's a certificate. Certificates are valuable in and of their own right, but anyone interested in paying for a certification knows the difference. 

Here's a great post that compares and contrasts certificates and certifications: https://www.thehlayer.com/news/differences-between-certificate-certification-programs/

AIIM Announces AIIM+ Subscription Model

Today AIIM announced a program called AIIM+ that converts membership into a monthly or yearly subscription program. The program will officially launch on October 5, 2021. It has two tiers: 

• AIIM+ - basically replaces Professional membership. $16 per month or $160 per year if paid all at once
• AIIM+ Pro - includes AIIM+ as well as unlimited access to on-demand training. $49 per month or $490 per year.  

I like the subscription approach for both tiers because it changes membership and training from something you need to get approval / reimbursement for to something you can probably cover out of pocket. $49/month isn't trivial - but I bet it's less than your cell phone OR your cable bill. 

They are also running a small introductory discount - if you buy by October 4, you can save $20 on an annual plan for AIIM+ or $40 for an annual plan for AIIM+ Pro. 

The announcement doesn't address what will happen with existing AIIM training or, importantly to me, if / how it will address CIP. But maybe more information will be made available on October 5. 

AIIM's blog post, with more details, is available at https://info.aiim.org/aiim-blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-aiim. 

I'm Back on the Speaking Circuit!

I'm happy to let everyone know that I'm available to speak at chapter and industry events. It's been a while, for a lot of reasons. But getting to talk with people is truly one of my favorite things to do in the industry. 

By way of background, I've been speaking on information management-related topics since around 2000. I've been privileged to speak at AIIM 2003 - 2021, ARMA 2003 - 2011, a number of MER conferences between 2010 and 2021, and more than 400 other events since 2003. I've also delivered a number of keynote sessions at conferences, user group meetings, and solution provider events. 

Topics

Here are some topics that I'm very comfortable doing - I speak on them regularly, albeit with different nuances for different audiences. This is not an exhaustive list, just the things I've done more recently. If you don't see your topic or angle on the list, reach out to me anyway and we can discuss. 

• Professional Development for the Information Professional
• How to Build Your Own Professional Development Plan
• The Best Certifications for Records Managers
• Harnessing Your Information to Create Business Value
• How to Implement Social Media Governance
• How to Improve Email Management Through Automation
• How to Conduct a Business and Technical Assessment for Information Management
• How to Improve Your Records Program with a Records Management Playbook

Some of these can be done as half- or full-day seminars or workshops, complete with checklists, guidelines, templates, etc. 

Delivery

I am quite comfortable doing in-person events, but you or your organization might not be. That's OK; I've been doing live remote events since 2004. For remote, I have access to Zoom, Slack, Teams, Webex, Google, etc. and if you have a different platform I'll figure it out. For in-person events, whatever venue you use, I can make work; I've spoken in bars, a bowling alley, and even Fenway Park and the Boston Zoo. 

Fees and Scheduling

Because I'm just now getting back in the groove, I'm not charging any speaking fees this year for association chapters for a typical 30-60 minute chapter meeting. I will charge a fee for half- or full-day events; that fee will depend on the topic, the audience, and whether it's in-person or not. For in-person events, even chapter meetings, I do need to recoup travel costs, but I'm a pretty cheap date. Solution providers and end user organizations? I'm available to speak at your events as well, but I do charge a fee and travel. 

If you're interested, reach out to me at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com to discuss. Right now I'm scheduling about 60 days out; if you're interested in a Spring Seminar-type meeting, the sooner we chat, the better as I think my schedule will fill up. 

Why I Don't Like Virtual Events

In a post earlier in 2021, I noted that I am available to attend or participate in in-person events. In this post I'll share my thoughts on virtual events and why it's really going to take a special virtual event to get my attention. 

The Move to Virtual

As I noted in that post, until recently my last in-person event was the AIIM20 conference in Dallas, TX. That was one of the last in-person industry events before COVID shut us all down. But even in a pandemic, there's still a need for education, and for developing or honing skills, and to satisfy that need for basic human interaction. I'm an introvert, so my day-to-day didn't really change that much, but I know extroverts in particular were heavily impacted by the loss of face-to-face interaction. 

So we all went virtual. Our kids attended virtual school, many of us worked from home and interacted with our colleagues virtually, and events all went virtual. Virtual satisfied the need for interaction and to get things done - most of the time, some of the way. Local association chapters found that by making their events virtual and open to all, they were significantly increasing their attendance. Some associations found that reduced-price tickets and the convenience of virtual attendance resulted in decent revenue, especially compared to the alternative of canceling events altogether. 

The Event Planner's Perspective

Virtual events still require similar amounts of planning as their in-person counterparts. While the logistics required are different, they are no less important to ensure an optimal user experience. Presentations have to be planned, practiced, and, often, recorded and uploaded. The platform has to be tested for capabilities and under load. Vendors have to be set up in the expo floor or its equivalent. Etc. 

It's also very difficult to justify charging in-person pricing for a virtual event - and this applies to attendees and sponsors alike. I'll look at this from each of those perspectives shortly. 

The Vendors' Perspective

Depending on the conference, it's not uncommon for vendors to spend tens to hundreds of thousands or more to gain notice and attention from the attendees. This includes, but is not limited to: 

• Booths - the cost of the booth, the cost of the amenities and tchotchkes, and definitely the cost of staff to work the booth. 
• Onsite events like team dinners, client dinners, happy hours
• Sponsorship opportunities - the lanyards, the bags, printed brochures and data sheets, lunch and refreshment breaks, and the list goes on, only limited by the creativity of the event planners. 

The idea is that you're planting your logo and tagline in attendees' heads, and, ideally, having conversations that can lead ultimately to sales. 

In a virtual setting, this looks a little different - there is a booth, but there aren't really tchotchkes or amenities, and staff costs are definitely cheaper, if only due to travel costs. No onsite events to pay for. And the sponsorships are much more limited (though again not nothing). 

So how does this translate to mindshare and conversations? The plural of anecdotes is not data, but I have heard anecdotally from a number of vendors that they really don't get the same types of value as they do from in-person. Some of this is on them, but I think some of it is that you don't have that dynamic of someone walking by, they see something interesting (which could be your trade swag), and they stop to have a conversation. Attendees have to make the positive decision to click a vendor's virtual booth and engage the team. 

The Attendees' Perspective

Different attendees have different needs and expectations from an event. Setting aside potential sightseeing and junket reasoning, we can sort attendees into a couple of non-exclusive groupings: 

• People new to an organization, role, or profession who need basic education and orientation
• More experienced people looking for specific learning content 
• More experienced people looking to solve a specific business problem and looking to identify solutions that can do so
• People with stories to share. This isn't necessarily limited to speakers, but speakers definitely fall into this group. 
• Long-time community members who go because they always do and are expected to. 
• Networking with like-minded people - renewing old acquaintances and making new ones

The first four groups may be able to get what they need from a well-planned virtual event. Virtual events can be pretty good at providing different levels of content focusing on different angles and issues. Motivated attendees can probably get some solution-focused information and demos, scripted as well as more flexible. 

But the events, and the platforms, vary wildly in their capabilities and how well they leverage them for the last two groups. I attended a virtual conference earlier this year where there were after-hours events scheduled, via Zoom, but the setup was such that there was almost no interactivity available between the attendees. The conference app didn't really provide any capabilities to interact either. 

Some events have tried to leverage some mix of pre-recorded and live sessions. For the pre-recorded sessions, some events have asked the speaker(s) to engage with attendees and their questions and comments in a chat stream. And sometimes that happens! But that's a lot of "some" and "sometimes". 

The conference aspect that I'm most looking for, and missing in a virtual environment, is the serendipitous meeting. That is, I can run into someone between sessions, or at a scheduled networking event, or at the hotel bar, etc. I can see someone across the room and wave them over to introduce them to someone I think they should know. While in-person events have schedules, there's no schedule or specific end time in the hotel lobby or while wandering around town looking for dinner. 

But in a virtual environment, networking sessions have schedules and they end at the scheduled end time. And I haven't really seen a platform yet that made it easy for attendees to continue conversations in that unstructured sort of way. I know some events have started to look at 3D / virtual reality-type platforms, but I don't think that addresses that idea of serendipity and the types of tangential directions those conversations can take. I attended the InfoGovWorld Conference and Expo in September 2021 and it was probably the best application of virtual reality I've seen in a conference setting, but it still didn't really address chance meetings and the creative synergy they can spark. Avatars are also terrible at reproducing human interaction - facial expressions, body language, etc. just aren't really available. 

Aside: Why is movement still so jerky and painful in 3D conference platforms? I play World of Warcraft way more than I probably need to, and movement is fluid and realistic and has been for more than a decade. I think Blizzard Entertainment might be missing a trick - set up a VR conferencing solution with a business-oriented Barber Chair and transmogrification gear and charge $50/attendee. Give me a way to present as well using built-in audiovisual tools, and I'd pay twice that per attendee. 

Conclusion

The first conference to figure out the serendipitous networking thing will make a mint. If you know of one that's doing it right, let me know - even if it's not in this industry - so I can check the platform out. But until I find that elusive unicorn, I'll continue to take my convalescent, vaccinated, precautions-taken chances at live events.

Update 1/3/2022: Changed reference to "earlier this year" to "2021". 

When Cheating Exam Cheaters Cheat

Recently, Amazon recommended to me a product called "CERTIFIED INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL (AIIM IQ0-100) Exam Practice Questions and Dumps: Exam Study Guide for CIP AIIM (IQ-100) [sic] Exam Prep LATEST VERSION". 

IQ0-100 was the code Prometric used for the original CIP exam, which ran from September 2011 to April 2016. I didn't buy the book, but I know what it contains, because this isn't the first one I've seen. 

If you're not familiar with the term, "brain dumps" in this context refer to actual exam questions from actual certification exams that are made available to candidates for a fee. Security is a big deal for certifications, but there are ways to get these exam questions, including unscrupulous test center employees and candidates who take the test over and over again, memorizing different questions each time. 

The idea behind brain dumps is terrible, because candidates who shouldn't pass the exam because they don't have the requisite knowledge and experience end up eking out a passing score. This leads over time to the discrediting of a certification because nobody knows if you earned it - or bought it by memorizing compromised exam questions. 

At the same time, many of them are absolutely laughable. In many instances, it's a simple "cheat sheet" - e.g. 1. A 2. B 3. A 4. C and so forth. Almost all certifications today use question and item randomization. That is, the actual questions are randomized, so if 3 candidates started their tests at the exact same time, one might get a question from Domain 1, one from Domain 3, and one from Domain 6. And the individual question distractors and responses are randomized too - so that for a question on, e.g., determining the appropriate retention period, for Candidate 1 the correct answer is A, while for Candidate 2 it's C and for Candidate 3 it's D. 

They also tend to be outdated. As noted above, IQ0-100 refers to the first version of the CIP exam. AIIM is currently on the third version, updated in June 2019. Many of the topics on the first exam have been removed, and while there are some topics that have been consistent across exams, all of the questions are rewritten pretty much from scratch each time to reflect nuances in their focus. So, if you purchase this or another brain dump that refers to IQ0-100, you're getting badly outdated questions for a badly outdated exam. And if you rely on that to pass the current CIP exam, you may perform even WORSE than if you didn't get the brain dump at all. 

I've even seen a few where someone wrote their own questions, which only tangentially relate to the exam at all, and sell them somewhat successfully. 

And these aren't cheap - I've seen them for over $150. These higher end products often include an exam delivery engine - aka random software from a sketchy site. I'm not saying they are all malware - wait, yeah, I pretty much am. If you install it, you deserve what you get. 

So how can you tell if you're about to attempt to cheat the process? Here are some easy ways to tell.

First, if you're looking for these at all, you're doing it wrong, and I hope you fail the exam, whether it's CIP or any other certification. I may even laugh at you and call you out publicly. 

Next, the website will be PLASTERED with guarantees about how you'll pass. Money-back guarantee! Good luck getting your money back - and not having your identity stolen. 

The exam will rarely be referred to by its actual name; instead, it will be referred to as IQ0-100 (CIP), or 350-601 (Cisco CCNP), or MS-101 (Microsoft 365 Mobility and Security), etc. For example: 

Our PDF of MS-101 exam is designed to ensure everything which you need to pass your exam successfully. The MS-101 Questions & Answers covers all the knowledge points of the real exam. We update our product frequently so our customer can always have the latest version of the brain dumps. 

The descriptions will also often be extremely generic with little to no detail about the domains, the topics covered, etc. 

Finally, if you look at the various exams covered on a particular site, you'll see identical verbiage for each exam, e.g.: 

• Our IQ0-100 Exam Dumps PDF contains Complete Pool of Questions and verified Answers including references and explanations (where applicable). Our objective to assemble IQ0-100 Dumps is not only help you pass exam at first attempt but really Improve Your Knowledge about the latest IQ0-100 Course. 
• Our MS-203 Exam Dumps PDF contains Complete Pool of Questions and verified Answers including references and explanations (where applicable). Our objective to assemble MS-203 Dumps is not only help you pass exam at first attempt but really Improve Your Knowledge about the latest MS-203 Course. 
• Our PMP Exam Dumps PDF contains Complete Pool of Questions and verified Answers including references and explanations (where applicable). Our objective to assemble PMP Dumps is not only help you pass exam at first attempt but really Improve Your Knowledge about the latest PMP Course.

You can find literally thousands of these sites, mostly automatically generated, using a search for the exam code, e.g. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22iq0-100%22

So. Do yourself, and your industry, a favor. Don't try to take the easy way out - and probably get burned in the process. There are legitimate prep courses and workbooks available. Put in the work, put in the time, learn all the things, and you'll crush the exam and be prepared for whatever doors the certification opens for you. 

My Take on ILTACon 2021

I had the opportunity a couple of weeks ago to attend my first ILTACon conference. I attended the in-person event, which was held in the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, NV. Attendees were required to show proof of vaccinations in order to receive badges and masks were mandatory (but more on that shortly). 

The conference content

I attended a number of sessions - some in-person to support the speakers, some streaming from my room while I worked on other things. Overall I thought the sessions I attended were pretty good. They were as a rule very lightly attended - the biggest one I sat in on was 29 people in a room that could have held at least a couple of hundred. 

The expo floor was almost completely empty every time I went in except at lunch, and even then the attendees seemed to be more focused on refueling than in speaking with the vendors. (Aside: the food was really good; I like the repeated takes on "shakers" full of salad and dressing.)

The size of the conference, even if everyone had attended in person, didn't really match the size of the venue, so it felt a bit like the last couple of peas rolling around in an empty can. There were more than 2,100 registered, but only about 650 attended onsite, and at least two large vendors, Litera and iManage, didn't send their teams to the conference either. ILTA has some wrap-up stats at https://www.iltacon.org/wrapup21. 

I found some of the discussions with attendees fascinating - some of the issues they described are things that I think many organizations have already solved or at least addressed. I felt a definite maturity gap between this audience and the ones I'm more familiar with through AIIM and even ARMA. After talking to a couple of colleagues there, I think this gap was even more pronounced between law firms, who still seem to be very paper- and dictation-focused, and corporate law departments who seemed to me to be further along in their digital transformation efforts. 

I mentioned masks earlier. As I noted, masks were required unless an attendee was eating or drinking. I'd guess at least half the attendees made a point of carrying something to eat or drink pretty much constantly so they could dispatch with the masks to some extent. This was also the case at the networking events at the end of several of the days - everyone had a plate of food and a drink, and masks were the exception. 

And who brought the dog?! I didn't see a service vest on it; while I love dogs in general, this one looked absolutely miserable every time I saw it including at several of the networking events. 

The conference venue

As noted above, the conference was held at the Mandalay Bay hotel and casino in Las Vegas. The first couple of days we shared the hotel with some kind of music festival. Despite signs posted all over the hotel, many of those attendees went mask-free or poorly masked - lots of chin masks on display. In fairness this was also true of the random people walking around the hotel - again, lots of coffees and bottles of water on display to justify the lack of mask. 

Lots of restaurants, multiple Starbucks on site, a nice shopping area in the mezzanine between the Mandalay Bay and the Luxor, so it was a nice getaway. Crazy silly ridiculously expensive though - my large black coffee was $5, and the little Starbucks breakfast sandwiches went for $6.95 each. Dunno if this is how Las Vegas is now, but it was a little eye-opening. 

Conclusion

I think ILTACON was a well-designed event for its attendees, who seemed to be much more focused on improving existing law firm processes and operations than on things like e-discovery or information governance. I think they did a fair job with producing a hybrid event and ensuring the safety of attendees. I don't know how the solution providers felt about the value provided but it didn't seem like very much to me. As for me, I may be willing to give ILTA 2022 in Washington DC another shot, depending on my employer by then, but at this one I felt pretty out of place and disconnected between what I do and what the conference seemed to focus on. 

MER Announces Call for Speakers for MER 2022

 MER has announced its call for speakers for the 2022 MER Conference, scheduled for May 10-12 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Proposals need to be submitted by October 15, 2021. For more details or to submit, visit https://www.merconference.com/page/1901704/call-for-presenters?ct=t(A-09-Call-for-Presenters-Sept-07).