I don't see nearly as many of these retrospective blog posts as I used to, which is unfortunate. I like seeing what others in my industry and community though was relevant or important. I especially liked the ones that bookended a year with a prediction for the year to come, and a look back at the end of the year with how accurate they were. I'm nobody to predict the future, so not sure I'm ready to take that on, but I will take a look at how 2021 shook out.
January. I spent most of January, and in fact most of my last months at AIIM, working on what would become AIIM+ Pro. I also held virtual training / office hours sessions for a private client; 2 of the 3 attendees were successful in attaining their CIP before I left AIIM. Oh - and I recovered from COVID-19 (tested positive in December 2020).
February. Finished off the private class, hosted some Records Management Coffee and Conversation (RM C&C) meetings, but otherwise a pretty quiet month working on training development.
March. I delivered what I thought was a pretty successful workshop on professional development that was made available to early bird registrants for the AIIM21 virtual conference. Later in the month I re-recorded it to be available as part of the on-demand content for the conference. I also hosted a couple more RM C&C calls, and on March 25 I got my first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination.
April. Second dose of COVID vaccine, of course. Two more RM C&C calls. And had a minor role in the AIIM21 conference. The high note for me was seeing four new Fellows named, including Harvey Spencer, Nishan DaSilva, Walter Koch, and Donda Young, each impressive and deserving in their own ways, and my friend and colleague Steve Weissman receiving the Order of Merit, AIIM's highest award, for his lengthy and significant service to AIIM and the industry. Only 48 individuals have received that award since its inception in 1954, so august company indeed!
May. Another quietish month professionally, with two RM C&C calls and a lot of focus on training development. This month was more impactful personally, as my daughter completed her middle school and Catholic school tenures and moved on to Denver Public Schools as an incoming high school freshman in the fall.
June. Busy, busy, busy! I delivered live training sessions for a private customer - two cohorts, seven 2-hour sessions each, for 14 total sessions, plus a public course with four more 2-hour sessions. I was teaching almost every day in June! We also hosted three more RM C&C calls.
July. Traditionally a slower month for many of us. I had five more sessions to deliver with the private client, including a case study tailored to their organization. I suspect that this was the impetus for the AIIM Mastery product offering, but as I wasn't involved in its development, I don't know that for sure. Two more RM C&C calls!
On July 28th, I gave AIIM my 30-day notice. I wrote a little about it in early August: What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been...and What Comes Next!
August. That meant that August had to be focused on getting done as much of the training updating as I could and doing what turnover I could. I also hosted my last two RM C&C calls and, as of August 31, became a former AIIM employee.
I also attended my first in-person event since AIIM20 in the form of ILTACON 2021 - I shared some thoughts at https://informata.blogspot.com/2021/09/my-take-on-iltacon-2021.html. Las Vegas was...well, Las Vegas. It was immensely satisfying to be able to interact with my colleagues in person - even masked and socially distanced.
September. I spent a lot of September deciding what I wanted to do next, and decided to return to what I did before joining AIIM - consulting. So a lot of my time went to creating Athro Consulting - from the logo and website, to the LLC, bank accounts, all the things that go into starting a business. I did a bunch of blogging, mostly on training & certification topics (which remain my true love). I also attended the RM C&Cs for the first time as JAM (just a member).
And I attended the inagural InfoGov World Expo 2021. I'm not generally a fan of 3D/VR platforms - while they've come a long way, they are still very immature in my opinion - but the platform did address one of my big issues with virtual events - the lack of serendipitous engagement. It remains the best virtual conference I've attended in these last two years because of the ability to do some meaningful networking outside of individual sessions. I think the other big events in the space really need to think through how to provide that engagement, interaction, and serendipity - and to have it persist between and around individual conference sessions.
Finally, on September 23, the AIIM Certified Information Professional (CIP) program turned 10 years old. I still consider it my single most significant contribution to the industry, having served as the technical lead under Atle Skjekkeland for its initial development and then as the lead architect for it in its relaunch in 2016 and its update in 2019. I haven't heard anything about plans to update it, which seems odd given that any updates will take some time and effort, and given how rapidly we all understand the industry to be changing and evolving. But I do see a CIP prep workshop on the AIIM22 website.
October. I started on a project with a delightful client courtesy of a long-time colleague. It's a short-ish project, but I think we made good progress in a couple of key areas and I hope to continue to work with them in 2022. It took up about half of my time between mid-October and the end of 2021. I did carve out time to attend the two RM C&Cs held in October.
I also attended ARMA InfoCon 2021 on the free pass, which only gave me access to keynotes and some vendor resources. I found it fascinating that they pivoted from in-person to virtual just eight weeks before the event - but didn't reduce the prices to the more typical virtual event costs. They said it was successful, though.... Again, not a fan of the platform they used.
November. Lots of work on the client project. I also gave my first chapter speaking presentation in a while - at least a couple of years! It was virtual, but I really appreciated Austin ARMA's hosting me to talk about "Harnessing Your Information to Create Business Value." Something happened with the RM C&C calls - instead of being on Nov 2, Nov 16, and Nov 30, continuing the schedule, there was only one on Nov 9.
December. I reprised my November presentation with the ARMA Mile Hi Denver chapter. As with November, there was only one RM C&C call, on Dec 7. I posted to the AIIM Community about the 2022 schedule on December 21, and the response was that
It has traditionally been (and will continue to be) held on the first Tuesday of the month. We have decided, however, to hold off the January 4th event since most people will be returning from a bit of a holiday hiatus, and will resume on February 1st!
I don't know whether this is confusion on the part of the AIIM staffer, or an unannounced change. Either way, I think there is enough interest in continuing these conversations to warrant every other week scheduling, and if AIIM doesn't want to do that, I may pick up the slack. So watch this space!
I'm also wrapping up this phase of the client project next week.
So what's coming in 2022? Lots of stuff, most of which I'll write about over the next couple of weeks. But as a tease:
- More consulting - if you're interested drop me a note at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com. Here's what I charge as a starting point.
- Possible participation in AIIM22, ARMA Houston Spring Seminar, MER 2022, ARMA Canada 2022, ARMA Kelowna 2022, and ARMA InfoCon 2022.
- Lots of how-to resources you'll be able to download and use, and share with others, for free.
- Some training announcements I hope will be of interest.
- Speaking engagements for ARMA Toronto, ARMA Twin Cities, ARMA Chattanooga, ARMA New England, and working on firming up ARMA Vancouver and ARMA Edmonton and Calgary. I still have some availability - if you have a chapter and my schedule allows, I'm happy to do so - just drop me a note.
1 comment:
It sounds like you had a busy year, Jessie and have another one in the making. Best wishes to you in 2022.
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