Upcoming Industry Meetings and Webinars, January 1 - 31, 2023

Here are the webinars and local events I'm aware of for January 1 - 31, 2023. I don't have anything to do with them from a planning perspective, so please reach out to the individual event producers with any questions. I also don't get paid or get anything out of this other than the satisfaction of helping to get the word out.  

1/5/2023 - AIIM+, Records Managers Coffee & Conversations: Blockchain in Information Management (members only)

1/5/2023 - NAGARA, Charting the Course(s): Records Management Education for Target Audiences

1/5/2023 - ARMA Triangle, The Impact of the Digital Age in Archives

1/10/2023 - ARMA Twin Cities and ARMA North Dakota, Go from Good to Great, from Great to Exceptional

1/10/2023 - ARMA Chicago, Records Policy Writing

1/10/2023 - ARMA Northeast Ohio, Metadata Matters. Please reach out to Eileen Cook eileencook@westfield-bank.com to receive a meeting link/invite.

1/10/2023 - ARMA Dallas, New Year Social and Tour

1/10/2023 - AIIM+, Meeting the Challenge - M365: Sensitivity Labels in Purview (members only)

1/10/2023 - MER Sapient and Contoural, How to Protect Data Under Legal Hold When Applying Automatic Disposition

1/11/2023 - DGPO, Business Value Assessment to Identify Data Governance Priorities

1/11/2023 - AIIM, Social Networks' Impact on Information Management

1/11/2023 - San Diego ARMA, Privacy-enabling Your Retention Schedule

1/11/2023 - ARMA Metro Maryland, How CPSC Prepared for the Pandemic

1/12/2023 - MER Sapient and Shinydocs, The Value of the Current State Assessment of Your Data 

1/12/2023 - ARMA Houston, Holiday Social

1/12/2023 - ARMA Greater Seattle, Taking a Journey Through Our Information Universe

1/12/2023 - IAPP and ObservePoint, Shining a Light on Dark Patterns: Good Marketing vs Consumer Manipulation (members only)

1/17/2023 - ARMA Milwaukee, Modernizing Your Data Retention

1/17/2023 - ARMA Mile High Denver, Building and Sustaining Your RIM Program with a RIM Playbook

1/17/2023 - AIIM+, Meeting the Challenge: Data Literacy (members only)

1/17/2023 - ARMA Central Missouri, What's New and What's Coming for Records Management in Microsoft. For more information, email Lori Grothoff - lgrothoff@orscheln.com. 

1/17/2023 - IAPP and Cisco, Privacy in the World of Hybrid Work: Solving the Cloud Challenge (members only)

1/18/2023 - ARMA Nebraska, Unstructured Data Management Suspense

1/18/2023 - ARMA Southern California Inland Empire, GIS Data 

1/18/2023 - ARMA New Jersey, Smartphones, Cloud Computing, Mobile Devices, and Ephemeral Storage: How to Prepare Your Organization for the Risks Arising from Different Emerging Technologies

1/18/2023 - Contoural, How to Protect Data Under Legal Hold When Applying Automatic Disposition 

1/19/2023 - ARMA Liberty Bell, The Intersection between Privacy and IG

1/19/2023 - ARMA St. Louis, Archive Cleanup: Ending 20 Years of Status Quo

1/19/2023 - ARMA Detroit, Litigation Holds 101 - What, Why, When, How...

1/19/2023 - ARMA Arizona, Awesome on Your Own Terms: Bypassing burnout & banishing the lie of work/life balance

1/19/2023 - ARMA New England, AI and Machine Learning: How to Apply to RIM

1/19/2023 - ARMA Greater Columbus, We Want to Hear You...And Free Lunch

1/24/2023 - ARMA San Antonio, IGIM v2.0 and IG ISO 24143:2022

1/24/2023 - MER Sapient and Preservica, 300+ Pros Weigh-in: The State of Play of Long-Term Records in Microsoft 365  

1/24/2023 - Practicing Law Institute and Contoural, Creating a Compliant Privacy Data Retention Policy That Avoids Conflicts and Is Easier to Execute (members only)

1/25/2023 - AIIM and Cadence Solutions, Maximizing Templates, eSignatures, and Automated Reminders

1/25/2023 - Austin ARMA, RIM 101 Workshop

1/25/2023 - Austin ARMA, Taking a Journey Through Our Information Universe

1/26/2023 - ARMA Toronto, Virtual Social

1/26/2023 - ARMA Jacksonville, Information Governance: Keep Your Information Assets from Turning Into Liabilities

If you know of a webinar or other local/regional event during this period that is focused on IM, IG, RM, etc. that's not listed, let me know here or at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com. 

If you're looking for a speaker, I'm available to speak at your chapter or event. For more details, see http://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/im-available-to-speak-at-your-meeting.html; this post also lists a few other speakers who are available and quite good. I published a separate blog post about how to find speakers and what to look for at http://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/finding-speakers-for-your-event-part-1.html. 

IGP CEU Opportunities

Update 12/4/2023: All of the ARMA webinars are behind the new LMS, so you'll need to search for them in their bookstore interface, and likely log in with an ARMA account as well, though I don't think you need to be a member. 

It's that time of year for many Certified Information Governance Professionals (IGP). Your 60 CEUs need to be submitted by the end of the year, and if you're like many, a) you've procrastinated and still need a few credits and b) you're not sure where to find some of the less commonplace topics like ethics and risk. I put this post together in the hopes that you may find it helpful as you wrap up your recertification requirements. You can find the details about what's required for renewal here: https://www.arma.org/page/IGP-recertification

Note: If ARMA thinks IGPs need to submit, e.g., 2 hours of ethics, or 4 hours of risk management, I think they need to have at least that number listed and readily available / findable on their website. 

The listings below include free resources from ARMA's website and others to allow IGPs some choice in what to submit for CEUs. I make no claim as to their quality, as I did not sit through every minute of every one of them, but the descriptions seemed like they would be good fits. I also have no relationship with any of these other than standard professional memberships in some of the associations listed. You may need to register to access the webinars, but I didn't link to anything behind a member paywall I don't think. 

There are some vendor-sponsored sessions; I didn't ask their permission to list these and you will likely need to fill in a form to get access. I also limited vendor sessions to no more than 2 per category. If you see something you think should be removed, drop me a note at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com.  

Information Management - 15 hours

• AIIM, Operationalize IIM for Organizational Success
• AIIM, From Paper to Digital: The Digital Transformation Journey Part 1
• AIIM, From Paper to Digital: The Digital Transformation Journey Part 2
• AIIM, A Fresh Approach to Long-Term Data Compliance
• AIIM, Like a Phoenix Rising From the Ashes: IM Leaders Should Seize the Opportunity
• Access, Retention Beyond The Curve
• Access, Creating a Defensible Disposition within your RIM Program

Information Security - 4 hours

• ARMA, Benefits of Record Management
• ARMA, Poking Holes in Big Buckets - The Impacts of Data Privacy and Security on Simplicity

Privacy - 4 hours

• IAPP, lots of webinars, limited to members - https://www.iapp.org
• ARMA, Data Privacy Via Data Security
• ARMA, Maintaining Data Privacy During the Great Resignation
• AIIM, Identifying the Trends and Minimizing the Risks with Your Sensitive Data
• OneTrust, Mitigating US Privacy Risk to Control your Organization’s Attack Surface
• Access, The Secret is Out - Privacy is Driving RIM
• Access, Privacy and Retention in the 21st Century - Not Your Grandpa's Retention Schedule
• TeachPrivacy.com, Privacy and Innovation Strategies for Privacy Analyses of New Technologies

Risk Management - 4 hours

• ARMA, Data Retention - The Blind Spot in Your Retention Program
• ARMA, Are You Risking it All?
• AIIM, Rethinking Risk: What AIIM Research Reveals About New Drivers and Approaches

Legal - 4 hours

• ACEDS, limited to members - https://www.aceds.org
• ARMA, What is the GDPR?
• New York State Archives, Legal Discovery: the Role of Records Management

Technology - 4 hours

• ARMA, Introduction to Information Architecture in MS365
• ARMA, Retro Governance with MS Teams
• AIIM, Putting M365 to Work for Information Management
• AIIM, When Information Management and Automation Converge, Everybody Wins
• AIIM, How to Utilize M365 to Become a Records Management Jedi
• AIIM, How to Optimize M365 for Information Professionals (3.5 hours)
• Access, Case Studies on Information Governance in Microsoft 365
• Access, Tips and Tricks for Managing an ECM Tech Assessment

Business - 4 hours

• AIIM, The Coming Revolution: Driving Profit Through Data Management Efficiency
• AIIM, Get Real-Time Visibility of All Your People and Processes
• Access, Unlocking Customer Value Through Effective IG
• Access, Information Governance – Business Alignment is a Must

Ethics - 2 hours

• ARMA, Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
• New York State Archives, Legal Issues: Ethics
• i-Sight, Professional Ethics: How to Recognize and Reduce Risk
• Rimon Law, Social Media: Legal Ethics and Records Considerations

The remaining 19 hours can come from any of these areas. 

If you know of any other good resources that fit any of these descriptions, please send me a note at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com and I'll add them. 

The Information Management Menu - November 2022

The November 2022 issue of my IM/IG/RM-y newsletter, The Information Management Menu, is now live at https://mailchi.mp/1fbadc8f3d9c/the-information-management-menu-november-2022. Highlights include:

• Calls for participation from CompTIA, ARMA Canada, ARMA Houston, and more
• My recipe for pickle soup(!)
• Links to my ARMA Magazine article, broken into three separate blog posts
• Ten conferences and industry events through February 2023

The newsletter is free to subscribe, and I'll only ever use your name and email to send it to you. Listing your announcements or events is also free - as long as they are relevant to me and this audience. For more information about The Menu or anything on it, ping me at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com. 

Make Your Recertification Program Easy on Your Certificants!

TL: DR: Exactly what the title says - make it easier for your certificants to recertify! 

I've written often about the importance of certification maintenance - for example, here's a post I wrote on certifications and renewal requirements last year, which was itself an update to a post from 2017. In a nutshell, I believe that certifications need some sort of regular renewal requirement, to help ensure that certificants stay abreast of changes to the discipline, related technologies, etc. Some organizations require certificants to take the assessment/exam again, others require or allow them to submit continuing education units (CEUs), and some offer the choice. 

When it comes to submitting CEUs, most certifying bodies don't really care where they come from, just that they be applicable and relevant and meet any other requirements such as minimum duration. That said, every once in a while an association will attempt to limit CEUs to just their content, often justifying it because it's unique in some way. This is almost always a ploy to make more money, either directly or indirectly; if you sat in on such a discussion, you'll invariably hear a variation on, "Why would we send people to competitors' websites by accepting their content for CEUs?" I submit that if you look at a certification's recertification requirements and they only accept their own content, it's not a certification that will offer value or long-term relevance and you should look elsewhere. 

Similarly, some certifying bodies offer more credit for their own content, or less credit for someone else's, of similar length, depth, and quality. Again, this is an indicator of a certification that will not remain relevant for long. The overwhelmingly standard approach, at least in the information management industry, is 1 hour of education = 1 point towards the renewal requirements. There are some other nuances, but that's the basic approach. Most certs require 20 points per year of the renewal cycle. So if you look at the points awarded for an event, and they are different depending on the source - for example, your conference awards 3 points per 1-hour session - look for a more relevant and viable certification. 

If you want your certificants to use your events for CEUs, make it easy for them to do so. Several years ago, AIIM added a note to every landing page that says, "This webinar is approved for X.X hours of CIP Maintenance Credits." Simple. And AIIM doesn't require credits in each domain or in different types of content delivery. 

ARMA, on the other hand, does require credits in a variety of areas for its Information Governance Professional (IGP) certification, to wit: 

• Information Management (15 hours required)
• Information Security (4 hours required)
• Privacy (4 hours required)
• Risk Management (4 hours required)
• Legal (4 hours required)
• Technology (4 hours required)
• Business (4 hours required)
• Ethics (2 hours required)
• General (19 hours required)

ARMA does have a list of webinars on their website, but you have to click each individual one to see a) what (one) domain it applies to and b) how many CEUs it's worth. Some of them also cover more than one category; for example, a recent webinar called "Data Retention: The Blind Spot in Your Privacy Program" is listed as 1 CEU in the Risk topic but it would likely apply to the Privacy topic, and perhaps the Technology topic as well. ARMA used to have lists of webinars applicable to each of the 8 specialty topics above, but at some point that was removed from the website. I'd love to see them bring that back. 

I'd also love to see a certifying that "gets it" start listing other organizations' relevant webinars and events for which CEUs would be granted. I don't expect them to go out, check everyone's websites, and update them, but if a certifying body offers review and preapproval of a third party event, I think that event should be listed on their website. I think all of our IG/IM/RM-y associations and certifying bodies are missing a trick by not curating that type of content - heck, I'd be willing to pay for a centralized source that I could use for my privacy certs, and my IG cert, and my RM cert, etc. 

Upcoming Industry Meetings and Webinars - December 1 - 31, 2022

Here are the webinars and local events I'm aware of for December 1-31, 2022. I don't have anything to do with them from a planning perspective, so please reach out to the individual event producers with any questions. I also don't get paid or get anything out of this other than the satisfaction of helping get the word out.  

12/1 - IGWorld Magazine and Exterro, Accelerate Your CPRA Compliance Program

12/1 - ARMA Triangle, Unique Challenges of Managing White House Records

12/1 - ARMA Metro NYC-LI, IG/RIM Impact on the Business: Perspectives, Roles and Successes from Different Industries

12/1 - NAGARA, Communications Skills for Records Managers

12/1 - ARMA International, Are Your Risking It All?

12/1 - ACEDS, E-Discovery Day: Exploring the New ISO Standard on Information Governance

12/1 - IAPP and TerraTrue, How to Future-Proof Your Privacy Program (members only)

12/3 - ARMA Vancouver, Winter Social

12/5 - RIMPA Global and Leadership Through Data,  Here's a Flavour of What You Can Do with the EDiscovery Tools

12/6 - ARMA San Antonio, Member & Vendor Social Event

12/6 - ARMA Calgary, Drafting Effective IM and Privacy Policies

12/6 - Austin ARMA, Holiday Social (members only)

12/6 - MER Sapient and Contoural, Applying Records Retention to Structured Data

12/6 - ARMA International and Leadership Through Data, M3S65 Audit and Investigations

12/6 - AIIM+ and Contoural, Coffee & Conversations: CCPA Penalties (members only)

12/7 - ARMA Metro Maryland, Improving Access to Historical Records Through Crowdsourcing

12/7 - Upstate New York ARMA, Records Management Challenges and Lessons Learned. Contact Ted Hanousek at thanousek@bhlawpllc.com. 

12/7 - ARMA New England, Holiday Networking and Charity Event

12/7 - Contoural, Records University Class 3, Automating Records Management

12/7 - IRMS Islands: DPO, Why You Should Be Worried About Microsoft 365

12/7 - IRMS, The Difference Between Archiving, Preservation, Perpetuation, and Archives

12/7 - IAPP and Exterro, Next Gen Privacy: Breathing Life Into Your Legacy Inventory Process (members only)

12/7 - ACC and Exterro, Lessons from the First CCPA Enforcement: GPC and Beyond (members only)

12/8 - MER Sapient and Archive360, Data Minimization: Making it Part of Your Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Program

12/8 - IRMS, Tackle the Security Risk of Information Sharing at Scale

12/8 - IAPP and BigID, Data Lifecycle: The Path Less Chosen (members only)

12/8 - OneTrust, Mitigating US Privacy Risk to Control your Organization’s Attack Surface

12/12 - RIMPA Global, Rhubarb and Custody: All Talk and No Traction

12/13 - ARMA Mile Hi Denver, So You Want to Spruce Up Your Policy? RIM Policy Creation/Refresh

12/13 - ARMA Dallas, Preventing Employees from Hoarding Electronic Documents

12/13 - ARMA International and Leadership Through Data, SharePoint Fundamentals

12/13 - ARMA Chicago, How Privacy Laws Impact Your Retention Schedule

12/13 - ARMA Madison, "I Love Our Organization's IM Policies," Said No One.

12/13 - ARMA Milwaukee, Building Your RIM Foundation

12/13 - ARMA Northeast Ohio, Stranded Digital Records - What they are and why you should rescue them

12/14 - ARMA Nebraska, Mysteries of Followership/Charity Auction/Alumni Day

12/14 - ARMA NCR Ottawa, Tangibly Operationalizing Information Governance to Reduce Information Risk

12/14 - AIIM International and Microsoft, Redefining Information Management: Integrating Content AI in the Flow of Work

12/14 - Contoural, Records University Class 4, Training and Employee Behavior Change Management

12/15 - Legal IG Roundtable. Contact Leigh Isaacs at leigh.isaacs@us.dlapiper.com for more information. 

12/15 - ARMA Detroit, Establishing a Records Management Audit Program

12/15 - AIIM Florida, Deliver Compliant, Accessible Documents in 3 Easy Steps 

12/15 - ARMA Arizona, Considerations for Treating Data as an Asset in Transactions

12/15 - OneTrust, Privacy and Trust as a Strategic Imperative

12/15 - ARMA International and Cadence Solutions, Microsoft Purview eDiscovery

12/16 - ARMA Greater Sacramento, 24th Annual Christmas Charity Social

If you know of a webinar or other local/regional event during this period that is focused on IM, IG, RM, etc. that's not listed, let me know here or at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com. 

If you're looking for a speaker, I'm available to speak at your chapter or event. For more details, see http://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/im-available-to-speak-at-your-meeting.html; this post also lists a few other speakers who are available and quite good. I published a separate blog post about how to find speakers and what to look for at http://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/finding-speakers-for-your-event-part-1.html 

Re: vendor/consultant-led webinars, I know that demos are quite educational, as are customer case studies - but they are generally too narrow (and self-serving) for me to list them. This is irrespective of source; AIIM/ARMA/MER/etc. webinars that are basically sales pitches won't get listed either. MER Sapient-type stuff, or Access Sciences' webinars, are good examples I'm happy to include. If you think yours will pass muster, contact me at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com and let's talk. No cost to list anything, I just need the details (and for it to meet my criteria for education). 

AIIM Opens Call for Speakers for AIIM23

AIIM has announced it is accepting applications for speakers for the AIIM23 conference, scheduled for April 25-27, 2023 in New Orleans, LA. AIIM has included potential titles and sessions on their submission form; other submissions are welcome as well. 

Submissions are due by December 31, 2022, at 11:59 ET; for more information or to submit a proposal, visit https://gzclelland.wufoo.com/forms/mn05jj60pforsm/.

Upcoming Industry Meetings and Webinars - November 16-December 15, 2022

Here are the webinars and local events I'm aware of for Nov 16 - Dec 15, 2022. I don't have anything to do with them from a planning perspective, so please reach out to the individual event producers with any questions. I also don't get paid or get anything out of this other than the satisfaction of helping get the word out.  

11/16 - ARMA Nebraska, Social Media Security Forensics - A Legitimate Expectation of Privacy?

11/16 - ARMA Northern Virginia, M-19-21 Discussion

11/16 - ARMA Greater Washington, DC, How M-19-23 Can Drive Your Pursuit of M-19-21

11/16 - ARMA Milwaukee, How Privacy Laws Impact Your Retention Schedule

11/16 - ARMA Jacksonville, Tour - St. Augustine Archdiocese Archives & Shrine Museum

11/16 - ARMA SCIE, Exploring the information wilds using the records alphabet 

11/16 - ARMA Houston, Leadership Secrets from Santa Claus

11/17 - ARMA St. Louis, Data Analytics in McCarthy Construction Endeavor and Information Management at St. Charles

11/17 - ARMA Golden State, Foundations of RIM: Disaster Planning

11/17 - ARMA Arizona, Collaboration Best Practices for RIM/IG Program Success

11/17 - Innovation Driven and Lewis Brisbois, CPRA! VCDPA! Are You Ready?

11/17 - ARMA Greater Columbus, Records Management Escape Room

11/17 - ARMA Liberty Bell, Panel Discussion: Records Management/Information Governance as a Career

11/17 - ARMA New England, Leadership 

11/17 - ARMA Alaska, A Practical Approach to Managing Email

11/17 - ARMA Utah, Managing a Lit Hold Got You Down? Let's Talk About It!

11/17 - ARMA International, Data Retention: The Blind Spot in Your Privacy Program

11/17 - Iron Mountain, The Next Decade of RIM - Where Do You Fit In?

11/17 - IRMS North, Data Governance Workshop

11/18 - TSLAC/TXDIR, Annual e-Records Conference

11/18 - AIIM Wisconsin and Milwaukee Bar Association, Law & Technology Conference

11/22 - AIIM+, Meeting the Challenge - Canadian Privacy & Protection Act (members only)

11/23 - IMCanadaConnect, RIM at New Brunswick Power

11/24 - ARMA Toronto, Virtual Social

11/24 - IRMS Public Sector, Options for Managing M365 Records with an E3 License

11/25 - GovernmentFrameworks.com, When Records Managers Speak to Executives

11/29 - ARMA and Leadership Through Data, Retro Governance with MS Teams

11/29 - IRMS London & IRMS Legal, Strategic Thinking for Information & Records Managers

11/30 - Austin ARMA, Moving to a "Paper-Lite" Records Environment

11/30: AIIM and Iron Mountain, Jobs to be Done: Understanding the Catalysts for Organizational Transformation

12/1 - ACEDS, E-Discovery Day: Exploring the New ISO Standard on Information Governance

12/1 - IGWorld Magazine and Exterro, Accelerate Your CPRA Compliance Program

12/1 - ARMA Triangle, Unique Challenges of Managing White House Records

12/1 - NAGARA, Communications Skills for Records Managers

12/1 - ARMA International, Are Your Risking It All?

12/1 - IAPP and TerraTrue, How to Future-Proof Your Privacy Program (members-only)

12/6 - ARMA San Antonio, Member & Vendor Social Event

12/6 - MER Sapient and Contoural, Applying Records Retention to Structured Data

12/6 - ARMA International and Leadership Through Data, M3S65 Audit and Investigations

12/6 - AIIM+ and Contoural, Coffee & Conversations: CCPA Penalties

12/7 - Upstate New York ARMA, Records Management Challenges and Lessons Learned. Contact Ted Hanousek at thanousek@bhlawpllc.com. 

12/7 - Contoural, Records University Class 3, Automating Records Management

12/7 IRMS Islands: DPO, Why You Should Be Worried About Microsoft 365

12/8 - MER Sapient and Archive360, Data Minimization: Making it Part of Your Data Privacy and Cybersecurity Program  

12/8 - IAPP and BigID, Data Lifecycle: The Path Less Chosen 

12/13 - ARMA Mile Hi Denver, So You Want to Spruce Up Your Policy? RIM Policy Creation/Refresh

12/13 - ARMA Dallas, Preventing Employees from Hoarding Electronic Documents

12/13 - ARMA International and Leadership Through Data, SharePoint Fundamentals

12/13 - ARMA Chicago, How Privacy Laws Impact Your Retention Schedule

12/13 - ARMA Madison, "I Love Our Organization's IM Policies," Said No One.

12/14 - ARMA Nebraska, Mysteries of Followership/Charity Auction/Alumni Day

12/14 - AIIM and Microsoft, Redefining Information Management: How Content AI Transforms Digital Work

12/14 - Contoural, Records University Class 4, Records Management Training and Employee Behavior Change Management

12/15 - ARMA Detroit, Establishing a Records Audit Program

If you know of a webinar or other local/regional event during this period that is focused on IM, IG, RM, etc. that's not listed, let me know here or at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com. 

If you're looking for a speaker, I'm available to speak at your chapter or event. For more details, see http://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/im-available-to-speak-at-your-meeting.html; this post also lists a few other speakers who are available and quite good. I published a separate blog about how to find speakers and what to look for at http://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/finding-speakers-for-your-event-part-1.html. 

Re: vendor/consultant-led webinars, I know that demos are quite educational, as are customer case studies - but they are generally too narrow (and self-serving) for me to list them. This is irrespective of source; AIIM/ARMA/MER/etc. webinars that are basically sales pitches won't get listed either. MER Sapient-type stuff, or Access Sciences' webinars, are good examples I'm happy to include. If you think yours will pass muster, contact me at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com and let's talk. No cost to list anything, I just need the details (and for it to meet my criteria for education). 

ARMA Announces Call for Nominations to the Board of Directors

ARMA has announced it is accepting nominations to serve on the ARMA International Board of Directors for a three-year term beginning July 1, 2023.  Nominations are being accepted for the President-Elect and a Director position. In order to qualify, candidates have to have been a member in good standing of ARMA for five consecutive years, served a minimum of 1 year on the ARMA Board or some other leadership role within ARMA within the past 5 years, and be nominated by a member in good standing (including self-nominations). 

There is a lot more detail on ARMA's website at https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.arma.org/resource/resmgr/files/boardelection/2023/final_board_position_qualifi.pdf.

For more details, or to nominate yourself or someone else, visit https://www.arma.org/general/custom.asp?page=Board_ElectionInformation.

Aside:under these qualifications, I don't qualify to serve on the Board, even though I previously did serve on it from 2007-2010, as well as serving on the AIIM board from 2004-2005. I think it's an unfortunate choice because it will tend to keep similar thinking on the Board. There is an outside director role, but I don't think that's sufficient. Eh bien. 

I do think that serving on a Board can be incredibly rewarding - the work, for sure, and contributing to the success of the organization, but also the lifelong connections that result. Having said that, if you're going to try to get on the board simply as a resume padder, do everyone a favor and don't - ARMA's in an interesting enough position as it is without sandbaggers and backbenchers taking up legitimate leadership spots. 

Upcoming Industry Meetings and Webinars, November 1 - 30, 2022

Here are the webinars and local events I'm aware of for November 1-30, 2022. I don't have anything to do with them from a planning perspective, so please reach out to the individual event producers with any questions. I also don't get paid or get anything out of this other than the satisfaction of helping get the word out.  

11/1 - MER Sapient and Contoural, Privacy-Enabling Your Records Retention Schedule

11/1 - AIIM+, Records Managers Coffee & Conversations: Certificates of Destruction & Legal Implications (members only)

11/2 - ARMA Baton Rouge/Lafayette, Plain OLD Logic

11/2 - Epiq and Microsoft, How Microsoft Purview Improves Information Governance and Compliance

11/2 - AIIM, Operationalize IIM for Organizational Success 

11/2 - ARMA and Leadership Through Data, All M365 Training Stack

11/3 - AIIM Southwest, Considering AI - Critical Information for IG Professionals

11/3 - ARMA Triangle Chapter, You're So Sensitive! Why IG and Data Privacy Should Be Best Friends

11/3 - MER Sapient and Valora Technologies, Implementing a Virtual Vault with Autoclassification

11/3 - NAGARA, Planting the Seeds for Collaborative Work: How to Grow a Cross-Functional Team

11/3 - ARMA and Netwrix, The NIST Framework for Full-Cycle Privilege Orchestration

11/8 - ARMA Twin Cities and ARMA North Dakota, Modern, Compliant and Easier to Execute Record Retention Schedules

11/8 - ARMA and Leadership Through Data, What is the GDPR?

11/8 - ARMA Dallas, IG and Cybersecurity

11/8 - ARMA Chicago, Presidential Records

11/8 - AIIM+, Meeting the Challenge: M365 - Ignite Recap (members only)

11/8 - ARMA Northeast Ohio, The New Holistic Approach to Records Management. Contact eileencook@westfield-bank.com for a meeting invite.

11/9 - ARMA San Diego, ARMA InfoCon 2022 Debrief

11/9 - ARMA New Jersey, Getting it Scheduled 

11/9 - ARMA Greater Seattle, It's a "Deletion Party!" with the University of Washington's ROT Squad

11/9 - ARMA Metro Maryland, Digitizing in the 21st Century

11/10 - ARMA Detroit, Best Practices for Records Management in SharePoint

11/10 - ARMA Hawaii, Site tour of Access & Informational Presentation

11/10 - IAPP, CPRA Checklist: How to prepare in the next 6 weeks (members only)

11/14 - IAPP, You're Not Ready for the CPRA if Your Vendors Aren't, But There's Still Time (members only)

11/15 - ARMA Mile Hi Denver, RIM Standards and Principles

11/15 - ARMA Atlanta, IG and Cybersecurity

11/15 - ARMA and Leadership Through Data, Introduction to Information Architecture in M365

11/15 - ARMA Central Missouri, Tour of Shelter Insurance New Addition. Email lgrothoff@orscheln.com for more information.

11/15 - ARMA Madison, Records Without Corners: Do You Know What Your Records Are?

11/15 - Meru Data, Colorado Privacy Regulations: What Businesses Need to Know

11/15-17 - ARMA Boise, Drafting Effective Policies Workshop with Lewis Eisen

11/16 - ARMA Nebraska, Social Media Security Forensics - A Legitimate Expectation of Privacy?

11/16 - ARMA Northern Virginia, M-19-21 Discussion

11/16 - ARMA Jacksonville, Tour - St. Augustine Archdiocese Archives & Shrine Museum

11/17 - ARMA St. Louis, Data Analytics in McCarthy Construction Endeavor and Information Management at St. Charles

11/17 - ARMA Golden State, Foundations of RIM Workshop: Disaster Recovery 

11/17 - ARMA Arizona, Collaboration Best Practices for RIM/IG Program Success

11/17 - Innovation Driven and Lewis Brisbois, CPRA! VCDPA! Are You Ready?

11/17 - ARMA Greater Columbus, Records Management Escape Room

11/17 - ARMA Liberty Bell, Panel Discussion: Records Management/Information Governance as a Career

11/17 - ARMA New England, Leadership 

11/17 - Iron Mountain, The Next Decade of RIM - Where Do You Fit In?

11/18 - TSLAC/TXDIR Annual e-Records Conference

11/22: AIIM+, Meeting the Challenge - Canadian Privacy & Protection Act (members only)

11/29 - ARMA and Leadership Through Data, Retro Governance with MS Teams

11/30 - Austin ARMA, Moving to a "Paper-Lite" Records Environment

11/30: AIIM and Iron Mountain, Jobs to be Done: Understanding the Catalysts for Organizational Transformation

If you know of a webinar or other local/regional event during this period that is focused on IM, IG, RM, etc. that's not listed, let me know here or at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com. 

If you're looking for a speaker, I'm available to speak at your chapter or event. For more details, see 

http://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/im-available-to-speak-at-your-meeting.html; this post also lists a few other speakers who are available and quite good. I published a separate blog about how to find speakers and what to look for at http://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/finding-speakers-for-your-event-part-1.html. 

Re: vendor/consultant-led webinars, I know that demos are quite educational, as are customer case studies - but they are generally too narrow (and self-serving) for me to list them. This is irrespective of source; AIIM/ARMA/MER/etc. webinars that are basically sales pitches won't get listed either. MER Sapient-type stuff, or Access Sciences' webinars, are good examples I'm happy to include. If you think yours will pass muster, contact me at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com and let's talk. No cost to list anything, I just need the details (and for it to meet my criteria for education). 

Building a Records Management Playbook, Part 3: How to Build a Records Management Playbook

This originally appeared as an article on the ARMA Magazine website on 9/26/2022, Build and Sustain Your Records Program with a Records Management Playbook.

Part 1: What's a Playbook?

Part 2: The Playbook Structure

The actual process of building a playbook is fairly straightforward. The two key challenges are in determining what plays to include and what platform to build it on. 

Determining What Plays to Include 

As noted throughout this series, the plays in your records management playbook should include only those that you execute regularly. But responsibilities and documentation are often scattered across roles and information stores. 

First, start by reviewing any existing documentation of your records management processes—SOPs, flowcharts, procedures, etc. 

Next, review any reports or other paperwork that you generate on a regular basis. These will often help to inform the metrics as well. 

You should also review any existing job aids—checklists, glossaries/lists of terms or acronyms, naming convention cheat sheets, and so forth. Do not overlook the records policy and retention schedule—while these are the source of a few plays themselves, the retention schedule in particular often documents other records management-related tasks that result in the creation of records. 

Look at job descriptions for the roles on the records management team—but make sure to compare them to the work that the members of the team are doing. Performance reviews can offer value as well, by identifying current expectations and priorities and potential gaps. 

Finally, if you are just starting this process, a note of caution. Records management textbooks are a rich source of information, but they could lead you to developing and including many plays that you are just not doing. This can call the value of the playbook into question. 

Where Should You Build Your Playbook? 

Playbooks can be built as Word-type documents, as spreadsheets, or as PowerPoint-type presentations. There are tools designed for playbooks and similar types of authoring. A wiki can be a great way to build a playbook—each play is its own article, with links to related plays and to all the references and supporting materials. 

But the platform and its attendant capabilities do not matter as much as the answers to these questions:

• What platform is easiest to access and use for those who will be using the playbook?
• What platform is easiest for the team to maintain the playbook?

If users cannot use it, or if the team cannot maintain it, it will become shelf ware just like the traditional SOP manual. 

Who Should Build the Playbook?

You! Well, you and any other subject matter experts who can describe the plays and their individual components. Again, in smaller organizations or records management programs this might be the single person running the program; in a larger organization or with a broader playbook, you will need to identify the right people to weigh in. 

You will certainly also want to reach out to anyone identified as having a records management responsibility (e.g., through the RACI chart) who is not a formal member of the records management team. 

Maintaining the Playbook

We have stressed throughout this series that the playbook is a living document that needs regular care and feeding to remain relevant and useful. Change is a constant; changes to technology, changes to legal or regulatory requirements, and changes to how the organization does business all require that the playbook be regularly reviewed and updated. In fact, reviewing the playbook should be a play in your playbook!

When the team finds out about a change that will impact a play, someone should be assigned to update the play with a timeline. Similarly, if the team determines a need for a new play, it should be assigned and scheduled. For example, developing a retention schedule the first time is a project. But reviewing and maintaining it are plays; once the retention schedule is finalized, those plays should be defined and added to the playbook. 

Conclusion

A playbook is a great way to take your program to the next level. It takes some work up front to ensure that it is complete and accurately reflects the way your program works today, but once you have it, you will never look back! 

Building a Records Management Playbook, Part 2: The Playbook Structure

This was originally published as part of an ARMA Magazine article, "Build and Sustain Your Records Program with a Records Managemetn Playbook." 

Part 1: What's a Playbook?

Part 3: How to Build a Records Management Playbook

The records management playbook is intended to be self-contained; that said, there is a tradeoff between being comprehensive and being unwieldy, especially for an organization with a mature records management program. In that case, it makes sense to focus only on the plays, and move the other elements listed below into supporting documentation. It may even be worth breaking the playbook into two or more parts—for example, records management processes and records program processes.

Depending on how you build and publish your playbook, it may make more sense to link to your supporting documentation—the detailed procedures, checklists, flowcharts, standards, and anything else that supports a particular play.

The playbook will have three distinct parts: the introduction, the actual plays, and any appendices.

The Introduction

This entire part should be brief—no more than a page or two for each section, and shorter is better. Some organizations leave this section out entirely and make this content available as a separate, supporting document.

The introduction, if included, should set the stage for the playbook. It could include any of the following sections.

Introduction to the playbook. Much of this is included in Part 1. 

Introduction to the records management program. This should introduce your records management program: its purpose and how it supports organizational outcomes. It should also outline any unique aspects of how your records management program works within your organization—for example, unusual administrative or reporting requirements. Again, will often vary for different jurisdictions or industries.

Organizational context. This helps to orient new staff to the organization and the plays in the playbook. This section would include:

• Organizational mission. What does your organization do, and what does its legal and operational environment look like? These can help those reading the playbook to have some additional context over why the plays are the way they are. For example, a law firm’s records program must deal with client records, while a government agency’s may have to deal with Freedom of Information or open records-type requirements.
• Organizational culture. Is your organizational culture more focused on reducing and managing risk, or on accepting reasonable risks that are relatively low impact? Do you encourage people to be creative, or to follow directions closely? Again, these can shape the granularity and level of detail in your plays.
• Definition of roles and responsibilities. These are the roles involved in the execution of the records management program, directly and indirectly, and who would be included on a RACI (responsible, accountable, consult, inform) chart. A large and mature records management program might include the following individual roles: director of records management, records manager(s), records analysts, records coordinators. It might also include some sort of a steering committee. A smaller or less mature records management program might have a single person, with a non-records related title, or even be a part-time role. Indirect roles might include those with which records management team members need to collaborate, such as IT, or whose approval is required under certain circumstances such as Legal signing off on policy changes.

The Plays

There are hundreds of potential records management plays that could be included in a records management playbook, and there are certainly many more that would be unique to jurisdictions and industries. But as noted earlier, the playbook should contain the plays that the organization actually executes. It should not include such an exhaustive list of plays, many of which are not in place or even contemplated yet.

For a more mature records management program, it may make sense to group plays into categories, so they are easier to access and manage. Here are some broad categories of records management plays—but there are a couple of points to keep in mind. First, each of the categories below may include several to many individual plays.

Second, some of these categories may not seem specific to the records program, but the individual plays would. For example, plays under the decommissioning legacy systems category would focus on records appraisal, disposition of legacy records and information, and so forth.

Finally, this list does not include any standard management or project management plays, which are also necessary and may be part of the records management program, such as budgeting, defining business requirements, marketing and championing records management, records management system administration, and so forth.

Potential categories of records management plays for the playbook:

• Capturing and filing records
• Digitizing paper records
• Responding to requests for records
• Conducting records, information, system, and process inventories
• Developing metadata and classifications schemes
• Maintaining the records retention schedule
• Applying retention and disposition
• Reviewing and updating governance documents
• Migrating recordsDecommissioning legacy systems and user information stores
• Remediation of redundant, outdated, and trivial information
• Evaluating systems for records management capabilities
• Change management
• Assessing and auditing the records management program

Depending on your organization and approach, you might also include “records management-adjacent” plays such as privacy and data protection, e-discovery, archives, or document control.

The Appendices

Appendices can include anything that would be helpful to those using the playbook to sustain the records management program. For example, if your organization has conducted a maturity assessment, such as the one aligned to the ARMA Information Governance Implementation Model, the results could be included as an appendix. We mentioned earlier the possibility of including a full RACI chart, with contact information, as an appendix. A full list of references and resources might be helpful as well—not just organization-specific resources like policies and procedures, but also things like industry standards and reference works. A glossary and list of acronyms and abbreviations may also be of value.

The Structure of a Records Management Play

Each play should include several standard elements. This makes it easy to maintain them and to add new plays over time.

Name. This is the name of the play and should take the form of “verb-noun,” e.g., “Send Boxes to Offsite Storage.” Make sure that the name accurately describes the play using your organization’s terms.

Purpose. Why is this play in the playbook? What is the business value of executing this play?

Description. The overall description of what is required to execute the play. This should include enough information for someone new to be able to follow the steps in the play but should not necessarily be a fifty-nine-step checklist—rather, it should describe the intended outcomes. If there is a fifty-nine-step checklist, we can link to that in the references below.

Players or responsibilities. The play should identify the primary role responsible for executing the play. Since different plays will have different players, I like adding a mini-RACI chart for each play, and then rolling up all the individual RACIs into a full RACI chart either at the start of the playbook or as an appendix. It is up to you whether to include a point of contact—for maintenance purposes, it may be easier to include contact information as part of the full RACI chart if you create one.

Cadence. This refers to both the frequency of the execution of a play as well as the actual timing. For example, your “Send Boxes to Offsite Storage” play might be done every month, but only once a month, and only at the end of the month.

References. List all the things that can support the efficient and successful execution of a play: policies, procedures, guidelines, checklists, templates, standards, job aids, etc. If you can link to these so they are immediately available, even better; some ideas follow in the section on building the playbook.

Metrics. As the old management truism states, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Every play should have at least one metric that is relevant to how and why it is executed and that aligns to the overall goals of the organization. These should be quantifiable to the extent possible, and if you can get a financially quantifiable metric, that is even better.

Here is an example of an actual playbook play.

In the final post in this series, I'll look at how to actually build a RM playbook. 

Building a Records Management Playbook, Part 1: What's a Playbook?

This originally appeared as an article on the ARMA Magazine website on 9/26/2022, Build and Sustain Your Records Program with a Records Management Playbook.

Part 2: The Playbook Structure

Part 3: How to Build a Records Management Playbook

What if your organization’s entire records team won the lottery today and quit? What would happen to your records program? How long would it take your organization to rebuild the team from scratch? If you had a records management playbook in place, your newly hired team could hit the ground running!

What is a Playbook?

In sports, a playbook describes the “plays” a team executes to accomplish its goals and objectives—generally, winning a game or match. Plays are tailored to specific circumstances: the team’s personnel and capabilities, the opponent’s capabilities, and the specifics of the in-game situation. Some plays just do not come up very often, while others are executed regularly throughout the game. Some plays only come up at the end of a period of play or towards the end of the game. And once the game is over, the coaching staff reviews the plays and the team’s execution of them and makes changes to get ready for the next match. 

Similarly, a business playbook describes the plays that a particular organization, department, or work process executes to accomplish its goals and objectives. Larger or more mature organizations might have multiple playbooks, while smaller or less mature organizations might have everything in a single playbook. 

In this article we will focus on the records management playbook—that list of plays that a records program will execute on an ongoing basis. Different records programs will operate at different levels of maturity, so some programs will include more plays in their playbook than others. And different organizations have different cultures, and the playbook needs to reflect those realities as well. 

So how is this different from a standard operating procedures (SOP) manual? The playbook is like an SOP in that it lists the things to be done and some detail about how to do them. But plays go beyond just the tasks and activities required to include things like metrics, references, and key players. It also includes cultural values and mechanisms for making decisions when the play is not so clear-cut. We will look at the structure of the playbook and the plays in more detail in a subsequent post.

It is also the case that in many organizations, SOPs were written years or even decades ago. Because they tend to be scattered around the organization, they are not maintained well, and because of that, there is often a significant divergence between what the SOP says in describing a process and how that process actually gets done. Again, the playbook can provide value by having everything in one place and in a readily maintainable format. 

Through a playbook, the organization can: 

• Identify and implement best practices and standards
• Ensure that operational practices are consistent, repeatable, and standardized to the extent possible
• Ensure resources and priorities are aligned to common goals
• Train new employees to perform within the guidelines, become a part of the desired culture, and develop shared values
• Ensure that important expertise, on which their business results depend, does not walk out the door when employees are unavailable, transition to a different role, or leave the company

The records management playbook’s objective is to provide best practices for the records program, not to substitute for management and leadership. It is critical to balance the importance of standards and guidelines with the value of local management discretion and individual employee creativity (and see https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/what-is-a-playbook-in-business).

Another way to look at the records management playbook is that it contains what someone would need to know to execute the various tasks required to sustain the records management program over the course of thirty, sixty, or ninety days—even up to a year. What are the things you do, create, monitor, or report regularly? What are the questions you answer every day or every week? These should be in your playbook. 

The playbook is a living document. As the team develops new processes, they should be turned into plays and added to the playbook. As the team updates, streamlines, or adds processes to reflect changes in the organization, its technology, or legal or regulatory requirements, the team should also update the plays in the playbook. The playbook thus becomes the sole source of truth for all things involved with and related to your records program. 

What the Playbook is Not

At the same time, the playbook should reflect the reality of what is done and how it is done. It makes no sense to write a play about disposing of legacy emails if legacy emails are not in fact being disposed of. In other words, it is not a list of best practices and the ideal world if time and resources were no object. Rather, your playbook should be accurate as to what you are currently doing, and as your program matures, those changes should be reflected in the playbook. 

It is also not a list of how some other organization does things. A different organization, even in the same industry and jurisdiction and similarly sized, will have a different level of maturity, different organizational culture, and different personalities involved. It might be helpful to look at another organization’s records management playbook for ideas and completeness, but you should not try to implement its playbook as-is in your organization. 

This also means that plays should include some amount of flexibility, because things change, and sometimes the circumstances require that a play be executed differently. Inflexible adherence to whatever is described in a particular play may miss something and will tend to encourage employees to ignore it. Again, with effective leadership and management, this sort of flexibility should not be a major issue. 

Similarly, it is helpful to distinguish between plays which are executed on some sort of a regular basis, with projects which may be executed much less frequently. For example, how often will you change recordkeeping applications? You probably don’t need a “Select and Implement New Recordkeeping Application” play in your playbook. You need a process to follow, to be sure, but that is not a play. 

The Benefits of Using a Records Management Playbook

The benefits of having, and using, a records management playbook include :

• Organization: The playbook includes all the information your records management team needs to operate successfully, in one organized and easy-to-access place.
• Efficiency: The team can save time when they have questions about workflows or procedures, because the answers are in the playbook. They can follow the steps outlined in the document rather than searching through numerous files, locations, and resources to find information. And if it is digital, and why wouldn’t it be, supporting resources can be linked to directly within the play. 
• Work quality: The playbook includes references, standards, checklists, and templates that align with the organization’s existing policy and quality frameworks. Work output will become better and more consistent as a result.
• Employee training: A playbook makes it easier to onboard new team members and roles and help them get up to speed quickly. 
• Independence: Employees can refer to the playbook instead of asking their managers for help for those plays that are included in the playbook. Similarly, supervisors can trust their employees to do quality and accurate work without constant management because they have a playbook for guidance.

In the next post, I'll look at the structure of the playbook. 

The Information Management Menu, October 2022

The October 2022 issue of my IM/IG/RM-y newsletter, The Information Management Menu, is now live at https://mailchi.mp/a50ed8fb86d9/the-information-management-menu-october-2022. Highlights include:

• Calls for participation from NAGARA, MER, IRMS, and more
• My recipe for Johnny Marzetti, aka American goulash
• A recap of ARMA InfoCon 2022
• And more than a dozen conferences and industry events through the end of the year. 

The newsletter is free to subscribe, and I'll only ever use your name and email to send it to you. Listing your announcements or events is also free - as long as they are relevant to me and this audience. For more information about The Menu or anything on it, ping me at jesse.wilkins@athroconsulting.com. 

ARMA InfoCon 2022 Recap

I had the opportunity to attend the ARMA InfoCon 2022 confererence last week in Nashville, TN. This was my first in-person ARMA conference in years, but it felt just like old times. This was a very expensive conference, at $1,699 member / $1,999 non-member for in-person early bird registrations and $749 / $1,049 for early bird virtual registrations. The hotel price was not super-terrible given that it was at the Gaylord Opryland. 

Venue. The conference was held at the Nashville Gaylord Opryland, which is a MASSIVE hotel complex. I easily hit my 10,000 steps goal every day - in fact it was about 1500 steps from my room to the main conference area (each way). I really don't like the Gaylords - they are big, they are somewhat isolated from the surrounding area, and frankly they don't have enough restaurants, coffee places, etc. I can't wait for ARMA's contract with them to be over. 

The expo floor was actually in three separate spaces - one up near the breakout sessions, one in a sort of foyer area, and one in a portion of the ballroom that was also used for the keynotes. It made it a challenge to navigate the floor and talk to the vendors. The booths were also very spread out in each location, so when the prospectus said that the expo floor was sold out, it wasn't for filling the space. I counted just shy of 60 sponsors including about 45 booths and the remainder "business partners" without. 

Website and app. I cannot say enough bad things about the very sorry excuse for an app. There was almost no interactivity at all - you could pick an individual and send them a message, but that's it - no photo stream, no wall, no other interaction was possible. It was good that it allowed you to add sessions to your schedule and then get email reminders about each session. But one of the things I've appreciated in conference apps past was the ability to, I dunno, take pictures and then post them to the app, or scout what everyone is doing for dinner, etc. Yes, Twitter is a thing. No, it's not sufficient. 

The conference website included the usual nod to gamification and scavenger hunting, and like most conference apps, was trivial to game the scores. But the rest of the website was generally pretty good. 

Attendance. According to ARMA's official end-of-conference email, there were 850+ end user and 250+ exhibitors. I tried to count what was listed in the app, but as I mentioned earlier, it's a terrible app and there was bad data quality, with more than a dozen duplicates (including me!) and more than a few that were listed 3x. One attendee was even listed alphabetically by her last name, as most were, and separately by her middle initial.... That said, my total count in the app was around 1,025, which included about 835 in-person and about 190 virtual. I would be curious to see a count of paid attendees but guessing around 550-600 given the number of speakers (~140) - and even the list of speakers had some data quality issues. I'd also note that the sponsor prospectus suggested that there would be 1,500+ attendees:

ARMA InfoCon offers more than 1,500 reasons why your organization may want to hold a user conference or large meeting at this industry-leading event.

ARMA has limited opportunities available for companies that want to hold an event at the ARMA InfoCon location in Nashville, giving you access to our more than 1,500 information professionals and key solutions providers.

Whether you read that 1,500 as just info pros, or including the key solutions providers, it's clear that they didn't get anywhere near that. 

Content. I didn't get to see many of the sessions, but I'm looking forward to reviewing the recordings when they become available. The ones I attended were good and not at all sales-y, even one that was led by a vendor. The panel I moderated on certifications was almost full and I thought it went very well. Thanks again to my fellow panelists Jason Stearn, Michael Quartararo, Melonie Jones, and Andrew Ysasi. 

I heard generally good things about the other sessions - lots of complaints about how many good sessions were scheduled against each other, which is exactly the problem you want to have at a conference! 

Other highlights. Congratulations to ARMA's newest Fellows, Ryan Zilm, FAI, and Rae Lynn Haliday, FAI. 

I stopped by the ARMA Houston suite one night, and I'm happy to say that tradition has continued. Great talking to some folks I knew - and some I didn't! Likewise, the annual gathering of the Clancy Clan took place this year at that famous Irish bar, Kid Rock's Big Ass Honkey Tonk & Rock "N" Roll Steakhouse. 

The social events were generally good, though I still miss the ARMA Canada party. Related: While the ARMA regions have been disbanded, ARMA Canada apparently has not, and they had a plaque at the ARMA booth noting that ARMA Canada 2023 will be held July 16-19, 2023 in Toronto, ON. 

Overall, I thought the educational content was excellent, the other conference-related events were good, the food was pretty good for a conference, attendance was not what it should have been, and the app was atrocious. 

Next year's ARMA InfoCon is scheduled for October 9-11, 2023 in Detroit, MI. I hope to be able to make it again next year.