ICRM Opens Nominations for Board of Regents

The Institute for Certified Records Managers (ICRM) announced today that it is seeking candidates to serve on the ICRM Board of Directors. Active CRMs in good standing are invited to apply for candidacy to a Board of Regents position. CRAs are not eligible to serve on the Board Regents.

Open positions include: 

• President-Elect/Treasurer
• Regent, Exam Development
• Regent, Application and Member Relations
• Regent, Marketing and Communications

Nominations must be received by August 19, 2022. To apply, log into the ICRM website and then go to https://www.icrm.org/board-application. 

ARMA Announces Availability of Updated IGP Exam

ARMA announced this week that it has completed its update to the Information Governance Professional (IGP) certification exam. The updated exam is now generally available for candidates. 

The announcement, including the process and some background information, is available at https://magazine.arma.org/2022/07/the-igp-exam-new-and-improved/. The updated resources and link to register are available on the main IGP page at https://www.arma.org/general/custom.asp?page=igp.

(Full disclosure: I had a minor role in the update, participating on the standard-setting (i.e. passing score) workshop). 

AIIM Re-Announces Search for CEO

AIIM International announced today, July 20, on the AIIM Community (members only) that it has appointed an executive search firm to find Peggy Winton's successor as CEO. Apparently none of the ones they interviewed, or that applied but didn't get interviewed, made the cut. 

I'm posting the job description here just so it can get wider visibility - they need a strong CEO in place ASAP. Key gatekeeping requirement is 7-10 years of senior association experience and a bachelor's degree. They also want someone with knowledge of or experience in information management, which drops the potential pool of candidates dramatically - just not a lot of those unicorns out there to choose from. 

If any of my connections are interested, you can send a cover letter and resume to AIIMCEOSearch@vettedsolutions.com.

Here's the job description. I did find it interesting that while membership and conference and events were specifically called out, the CIP certification, or certifications broadly, were not, despite them being one of the top revenue lines for associations that develop them properly and market them effectively (or at all). This despite just having announced this week the intent to refresh the CIP program and exam. 

OVERVIEW

The Association for Intelligent Information Management (AIIM) is seeking a dynamic Chief Executive Officer (CEO) to lead the organization, which serves information management professionals and firms which provide their business solutions. In the digital transformation age, the information management professionals rely on AIIM for its independent research, education, and professional certification to keep current and advance their careers. Members value the AIIM community and networking opportunities, including the annual conference which attracts global non-members.

AIIM is excited to seek its next CEO who will replace a retiring executive, shape the industry and organization’s future, and build on past successes. Reporting to the Board of Directors, AIIM seeks an innovative, trusted, and transparent leader with a collaborative style who can effectively lead and promote the organization, drive membership and revenue growth, as well as develop and market new member-value-based programs, products, and events. A successful candidate will thrive in an association of individual members, firms, and solution-provider firms while emphasizing relationship-building, industry and professional advancement, and thriving through dynamic change. Further, the right professional fit will be a future-focused strategic thinker, growth-oriented, a quick study who maximizes resources, especially human capital – members, sponsors, and staff.

Established in 1943, AIIM is the world’s leading association dedicated to the information technology industry and its practice. Today, the mission remains relevant and meaningful as industries and businesses are experiencing a generational shift around how they manage their information and records. AIIM is a 501(c)6, tax-exempt membership organization. A 12-member Board of Directors governs AIIM. Long before the pandemic shifted work locations, AIIM’s virtual staff team of 14 executed the association’s work from their home offices in the U.S. and U.K. AIIM’s annual budget is approximately $3 million.

Information management continues to evolve as technology, uses and practices need to keep up with modern business. This is no truer than today’s current business and technological advances. AIIM, since its inception, has been at the forefront defining and driving industry practices and supporting the professionals that serve it. Keeping ahead of and leading the conversation with a vision for the future of information management is a critical to AIIM and what our membership expects of us and our leadership. Being at the helm of AIIM is an opportunity for a forward-thinking individual who would be excited to usher in and lead the next era of intelligent information management.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Strategic Leadership: Provides leadership, vision, and guidance to assist the AIIM Board of Directors in strategy development to advance and grow the association and its relevance to intelligent information management.
• Industry Ambassador and Awareness: Serves as the industry ambassador and, through the sponsor community and other external key leadership relationships (industry-leading executives, such as Hyland, IBM, Microsoft, and OpenText), they stay on top of trends, challenges, and opportunities, to grow and support the overall community.
• Thought Leadership: Identifies and advances the voices of influential thinkers in the community who can serve as beacons of change and transformation.
• Communication: Demonstrates a passion for AIIM, its mission, and its programs, serving as the face of the organization and champion for the industry. As AIIM’s spokesperson raises the organization’s visibility and promulgates a positive image.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI): Champions DEI values within the association’s membership, staff, and industry.
• Staff Leadership: Inspires, engages, and develops the staff, including mentoring the executive team. Develops and implements staff policies, including a performance evaluation program and competitive compensation and benefits packages. Manages contracted services and assesses their performance.
• Governance: Partners with the Board of Directors and its Committees to establish the association’s strategic goals and objectives and make policy and business practice recommendations. 
• Financial, Business, and Operational Management: Ensures the organization’s fiscal health, legal integrity, and compliance with applicable laws. Develops, implements, and is accountable for the association’s annual budget and operating plan.
• Membership: Ensures membership growth and provides programs, research, and products that meet member needs, ensuring a solid return on member investment.
• Conferences and Events: Plans and executes educational content-rich meetings and events that inform, inspire, and provide valuable learning and networking opportunities for members.

EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS

• Seven to 10 years of executive or senior-level association leadership experience, including working with a nonprofit board of directors, transformational change, and shaping strategy, direction, and execution.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent education and experience.
• Background experience or knowledge of information management trends and practices.
• Ability to address problems and challenges, bring creativity and new solutions for continuous improvement, and move beyond current processes and practices.
• Knowledge of finance, budgeting, marketing, and small business management acumen.
• Leadership and management experience in a virtual environment with a remote staff team.
• Committed to recruiting, engaging, working with, and retaining a diverse membership and staff.
• Track record of driving/increasing an organization’s membership and revenue.
• Entrepreneurial mindset and experience in creating a more significant impact with limited resources.
• Proven experience in strategic planning, setting annual goals, execution, and accountability for results.
• Strong communication skills – verbal, written, public speaking, and listening. Ability to communicate complex concepts and industry issues.
• Outreach and networking skills, including the ability to persuade, build excitement, and clearly articulate the value and strength of the organization to its various stakeholders.
• A collaborative leadership style that includes working with members and volunteers.
• The ability to grasp critical information about members, their businesses, and the industry in which they operate to anticipate trends and issues that impact the industry.
• The ability to strategically assess critical information and proactively translate strategy into action.
• A staff management style that coaches, develops, leverages, and values a team.
• Member/customer service focused and consistently exceeding expectations.

The position requires 15% travel to business meetings and industry events.

MEASURES OF SUCCESS

The specifics regarding measures of success, including metrics, will ultimately be agreed upon by the new CEO and the AIIM Board, but at the end of the executive’s first year, the Board would expect the following:

• A smooth transition of leadership.
• The CEO has established strong relationships with the AIIM Board, members, and staff and communicates regularly and effectively.
• Demonstrates a solid understanding of the industry and completes an assessment of the membership model, revenues, programs, products, and meetings.
• In partnership with the Board, develops a strategic plan, vision, and objectives for the association’s membership and revenue growth.
• Establishes impact goals and success metrics for communication, marketing, and outreach programs.
• Develops and tests the business case for membership and the value proposition.

AIIM Announces Kickoff of Update to the CIP Exam

Caught this on LinkedIn just now; it was also posted to the AIIM Community (members only) but, at least so far, not emailed to active CIPs yet. AIIM has announced that it is beginning a project to update the Certified Information Professional (CIP) exam. 

Here is the announcement as it was posted; I'll have a few thoughts on it after. 

The role of Information Management is extending beyond the traditional boundaries and continues to evolve. As such, the CIP key Body of Knowledge (BoK) and the corresponding exam must also evolve.

To that end, AIIM is undertaking the project to audit, edit, and update the CIP BoK – and we're not doing this in a vacuum.

We're recruiting Subject Matter Experts – like you – actively working in Information Management who have the knowledge, expertise, and time to collaborate on this project. At the conclusion of this project, we will be publishing the CIP v2023 BoK, Study Guide, and updated bank of exam questions. This project will be headed by a leading industry project manager well-versed in this type of an undertaking.

The project is commencing the first of August and is expected to run through February/March, 2023.

The deadline to submit your application is Friday, July 29. We will confirm your participation the first week in August. Submit your application here. 

Domains:

• Creating, Capturing, and Sharing Information
• Extracting Intelligence from Information
• Digitalizing Information-Intensive Processes
• Automating Governance and Compliance
• Implementing an Information Management Strategy

The AIIM Community is built on how we share and learn what we know. Your participation would be so much appreciated. Thank you in advance – and I look forward to working with you.

My thoughts/questions: 

First, in my opinion, working on a relevant, meaningful certification is a fantastic experience. I've gotten the opportunity to do it with 2 vendor certifications programs, several other associations, and of course three times at AIIM and it is incredibly rewarding. I strongly encourage qualified (i.e., passed the proctored CIP exam) CIPs to consider volunteering for this. 

Next, I'll be curious to know who the "leading industry project manager well-versed in this type of undertaking" is - since there are several undertakings in question:

• Updating the Body of Knowledge, which should be (but never has in the history of the CIP exam) be based on a job task analysis, and by which I think they mean the exam blueprint
• The job task analysis I just mentioned, which is also the foundation for the exam blueprint but which is not in their list
• The exam bank - the actual exam questions
• The CIP Study Guide

The first three can be led by a motivated project lead and diligent volunteers and be done within the time frame they outline above; the Study Guide is a whole other semi-related chunk of work and bigger than I think they think it is if it is to align, or at least not contradict, all of the current AIIM+ Pro content. Updating all of that AIIM+ Pro content should be part of this too, if AIIM is going to continue to claim that AIIM+ Pro is "loaded with training courses that cover the body of knowledge that makes up the CIP exam."

I hope as well that this is an external project manager - in my mind there is zero chance that this can be successfully led by current staff who are already fully engaged and then some. And I hope whoever this project manager is has the strength of character to do the update the right way, as outlined in ISO 17024 and by lots of different resources available through the Institute for Credentialing Excellence, rather than being browbeaten into a substandard "certification" that "removes the friction from the process". To paraphrase John F. Kennedy's moon speech, people take certifications "...not because they are easy, but because they are hard..."

I'll also be curious to know who their psychometrician is. There's a whole process to developing the actual exam that goes beyond just writing X number of questions on Y different topics. Items have to be drafted and reviewed by different people. Items have to be scored and assessed for their validity. The scoring standard has to be set appropriately and not simply arbitrarily set to e.g. 70%. I was always very open and transparent in how we built and updated CIP, and I call on AIIM to do the same. 

Finally, as I've written in many previous posts, the CIP could really be something special if it's done properly and if anyone at AIIM ever learns the first thing about marketing, but I have no faith whatsoever in the current senior leadership at AIIM and their ability to do that. 

Anticipating a question/comment: I am not going to apply to participate as a subject matter expert. I would be happy to be that external project manager, but I'd run the update the way it's supposed to be done, rather than the way I fear senior management will cause it to be done - that's a big part of why I left AIIM last year in fact. And I don't think they can afford me. I hope that those that do apply as subject matter experts give due consideration to what they want the CIP to be and how to maximize the value of the CIP to the broader industry. 

Update 7/19: Peggy Winton, outgoing AIIM CEO, just replied to the original LinkedIn announcement, "Future-readying. Modernization. Think different. #aiim". This confirms to me that she, at least, learned nothing from the February announcement changing the exam to an unproctored one and requiring retakes every three years - one of the points made in that announcement was, "In consultation with members of our community and professional training/certification experts, we make these changes to align with modern pervasive learning best practices." I'd love to see more members of the CIP Community push back and ask for more clarification on precisely what she means by her comment. 

The Information Management Menu, July 2022

 The July 2022 issue of The Information Management Menu is now live. I included a couple of announcements, a lot of events between now and Oct 31, and a new regular feature - an actual recipe! This month's recipe is for savory oatmeal - and a couple of variations on it are linked in the newsletter. 

Check out the newsletter at https://mailchi.mp/f322780ef184/the-information-management-menu-july-2022.

About Those "kejserinden nye klæder" Posts....

I think by now everyone knows my thoughts on the compromised CIP exam. But in the last few weeks something...interesting...has happened, and I got asked about it the other day, with a suggestion that I might have been behind it. 

Someone has been intentionally publicly compromising the exam by posting real questions, and answers, around industry websites and blogs. I first found out about it when an anonymous poster tried to post 4 comments to this blog on May 17, 2022. I moderate comments, so when I got the email about there being comments to approve or not, I took a look and immediately recognized them for what they were and disapproved them so they would NOT show up on my blog. I also retook the unproctored CIP exam to confirm that they were real exam questions and answers, and they were. I've also seen at least one other blog with a similar comment. Each comment consisted of 15-20 exam questions and answers. 

Then, on May 22, someone named "B Cummins" sprayed the AIIM community with what appears to be a single post. I get email announcements when there are posts in groups I'm a member of, and I got them from CIP Study Group, CIPs Unite!, Records Managers, and the Open Forum. I also got sent it directly through the Community messaging; I heard from at least one other person that they had received it via message as well. 

Each post is structured the same way:

CIP Exam Compromised

kejserinden nye klæder

NIAGLHLIRLSWDY

And then the exam questions and answers. I put the phrase through Google Translate and it comes back with "the empress new clothes" in Danish. I tried to Google the acronym and couldn't find anything that seemed to make sense. 

The Community sites were cleaned up pretty quickly, and as I noted above the comments were never live on this blog. But I want to be absolutely clear: while I disagree with AIIM's handling of the CIP, and have for some time (in fact, it's why I left AIIM last year), I would never, under any circumstances, stoop to actually publishing real exam questions. It goes against everything I believe about certification programs and exams; moreover, I have too much respect for all the CIPs who passed the proctored exam, and even those who passed the unproctored one, to dishonor their achievements by publishing live exam questions. 

Now, I did save a copy of one of the five times I took the unproctored exam. AIIM announced on May 12th that they had a plan to return the exam to a proctored status in approximately 60 days, and I will be taking the proctored exam again and comparing it to the one I saved to see if they updated the exam, which is absolutely essential since it's clearly out in the wild, or if they simply took the shortcut of turning proctoring on for the same, compromised, exam. I know where I'd put my money given their behavior regarding the exam over the last 6 months, but maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. Once I know the answer either way I will "double-delete" the unproctored exam I saved. 

But in the meantime, I want to make this 100% clear through this post: I did not make the B Cummins posts, I certainly didn't attempt to post those comments to my own blog, and I have no idea who is behind this. I wish I did, because I'd publicly expose and denounce them for the cheating cheaters that they are.

If anyone, particularly anyone at AIIM, has questions, I'm happy to entertain them including sharing the complete messages I received through the Community, from the Community posts, and from my blog. AIIM staff would be able to see the questions and confirm them on their own; anyone else, I'll of course remove any exam questions before sharing the messages. If you want to take me up on this, feel free to reach out at jwilkins13@gmail.com.