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

Here are the industry webinars and events I'm aware of for July 1-31, 2023. Conferences are listed through October 31, 2023 because they have longer lead times. I don't have anything to do with any of these 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.

7/4/2023 - IRMS Legal, "I Love My Organization's IG Policies", said no one

7/6/2023 - ARMA Vancouver and VCC, Privacy Issues and Risk Mitigation Strategies for Cloud-based Videoconferencing Tools 

7/6/2023 - NAGARA and CivicPlus, Quick Wins: Technology for Making Records More Accessible

7/11/2023 - AIIM+, Meeting the Challenge - M365 - Purview Insider Risk Management (members only)

7/11/2023 - AIIM+ and Colligo, How to Rock Email Retention in Exchange Online and Microsoft 365 (members only)

7/11/2023 - IRMS Schools Group, Most common data breaches in schools and how to avoid them

7/11/2023 - Mer Sapient and Contoural, How to Finally Get Your Company to Care About Over Retention

7/11/2023 - ACMP, OCM Delivery Creates Intrinsic Business Value (members only)

7/12/2023 - AIIM, Moving Content Management to the Cloud

7/12/2023 - Zasio, Paper: Scan It or Store It?

7/12/2023 - OneTrust, Now in effect: Colorado and Connecticut privacy laws

7/12/2023 - GeneralCounsel.com and Exterro, The Art of Data Retention: Navigating the Compliance Trifecta

7/13/2023 - MER Sapient and Gimmal, Information Governance and SAP: 3 Reasons to Modernize Your Business Process Content Management

7/13/2023 - ACMP Colorado Chapter, Strategies to Build Resilience in Your Organization

7/13/2023 - Access, The 4 Cs of Information Management: From Increased Control to Business Outcomes

7/13/2023 - AIIM+, Records Management Coffee & Conversation, Does AI Belong in RIM Policies? (members only)

7/17-19/2023 - ARMA Canada 2023, Toronto, ON

7/18/2023 - ARMA Central Missouri, Planning Meeting. Contact Lori Grothoff at lgrothoff@orscheln.com to RSVP.

7/18/2023 - Contoural, Part 3 - Executing Privacy Summer School - Data Retention Policies

7/18/2023 - ACMP, The Power of Both: ACMP & ICF Insights Series: Driving Change Through A Coach Approach (members only)

7/18-21/2023 - NAGARA 2023, Cincinnati, OH

7/19/2023 - ARMA SCIE, Litigation Hold Policies for Public Agencies

7/20/2023 - Iron Mountain, Generative AI and Information Governance: Friends or Foes?

7/20-21/2023 - RIMPA Global, Geelong | Symposium

7/24/2023 - ARMA Southwestern Ontario, Annual General Meeting

7/25/2023 - LegalRM, ILTA Masterclass: How teamwork makes the information governance dream work!

7/25/2023 - ARMA and Access, The Yin and Yang of Information Management: Unleashing the Power of Records Management and Information Governance

7/25/2023 - AIIM+ and Square 9, 3 Ways to Streamline Your Accounts Receivable Customer Onboarding (members only) 

7/26/2023 - AIIM, Mega Webinar: Information Management in the Age of AI

7/26/2023 - Contoural, Part 4 – Executing Privacy Summer School – Privacy Enabled Incident Response

7/27/2023 - ARMA and LegalRM, Hello Goodbye, Goodbye Hello (members only)

7/27/2023 - ACMP, Including Al Ethics in OCM Now a Necessity (members only)

7/27/2023 - RIMPA Global, Adelaide | Roadshow

7/28/2023 - ARMA California Summer Conference, Irvine, CA

8/7-9/2023 - NIRMA 2023, Las Vegas, NV

8/7-9/2023 - Ai4 2023, Las Vegas, NV

8/20-24/2023 - ILTA, ILTACON 2023, Orlando, FL

8/21-25/2023 - Microsoft 365 Conference & Power Platform Conference, Seattle, WA

9/6-7/2023 - Capture & IDP Conference, Chicago, IL

9/18/2023 - ARMA New England, 2nd Annual Golf Benefit and Education Day

9/21/2023 - InfoAdvocates, Records Management, neXt

9/21/2023 - InfoAdvocates, eDiscovery, neXt

10/2-4/2023 - InfoGovWorld 2023, San Diego, CA

10/3-4/2023 - AIIM International and AIIM Florida, Solutions Showcase and Strategy Summit

10/3-6/2023 - RIMPA Global, RIMPA Live 2023, The Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia

10/5-6/2023 - IAPP Privacy.Security.Risk 2023, San Diego, CA

10/9-11/2023 - ARMA InfoCon 2023, Detroit, MI

10/11/2023 - BoxWorks, virtual 

10/11-12/2023 - OpenText World 2023, Las Vegas, NV

10/25-27/2023 - (ISC)2 Security Congress 2023, Nashville, TN

If you know of a webinar or 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. Vendors, other associations, consultants, etc. all welcome as long as the event is educational and not completely self-serving, e.g., no demos. No charge to list or to access the list. 

If you're looking for a speaker, I'm available to speak at your chapter or event. For more details, see https://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 https://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/finding-speakers-for-your-event-part-1.html.

Certifications in the Information Management Industry Part 1 - Introduction

Other parts in this series: 

• Certifications in the Information Management Industry Part 2 - The Certified Records Manager and Certified Records Analyst
• Certifications in the Information Management Industry Part 3 - The Information Governance Professional
• Certifications in the Information Management Industry Part 4 - The Certified Information Professional

In the interests of full disclosure, I was the technical architect for the AIIM CIP in 2011 and the program and exam architect in 2016 and 2019. I also served on the scoring committee for the 2022 update to the ARMA IGP. For the others listed, my only involvement is as a certified holder of their credential, and, as required, a member of ICRM. 

Introduction

The information management industry - whether defined pretty narrowly as records management, or more expansively to include most or all of the "IG pinwheel" - has seen a number of certifications introduced, many of them quite recently. I regularly present on the certifications in our industry and get asked about "which one is right" all the time. So I thought I might write about certifications broadly, and then get into the weeds of the various certifications in the industry, before concluding with some thoughts on how to pick the right one for you. 

I thought it might be helpful to start this series of posts with some definitions. 

According to the Institute for Credentialing Excellence (ICE), 

A certification program is designed to test the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to perform a particular job, and, upon successfully passing a certification exam, to represent a declaration of a particular individual’s professional competence.  In some professions, certification is a requirement for employment or practice. 

Certifications reflect the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities required to effectively practice a particular job. This means that the process starts with an understanding of the nature of the job - what tasks are required, to what standards are they performed, and then what successful candidates need to be able to do to prove that they can perform those tasks to that standard. This means that the tasks and standards need to be somewhat standardized as well - so that a candidate from one state or industry with the identical knowledge, skills, and abilities as one from another state will score equally well on the exam. 

Most certifications require that the exam be formalized through a proctoring process, wherein the candidate's identity is confirmed and the candidate is observed during the exam to ensure there is no cheating or compromise of exam materials. Certifications also require regular renewal, whether through reexamination or the completion of continuing education units. Many, though not all, require acceptance of, and adherence to, a code of ethics. 

I have a more detailed list of the characteristics of certifications below. 

Certificates vs. Certifications

In contrast to a certification, a certificate is generally part of a specific learning program. As ICE notes, it is directly linked to a specific course of learning and learning objectives. When AIIM wrote the Modern Records Management Practitioner course, AIIM decided what the learning objectives were for the course, and wrote a certificate exam that tested students' understanding of the materials presented. 

Many certificate programs are based on industry best practices; for example, AIIM's Modern Records Management Specialist course was based on ISO 15489, guidance from the U.S., UK, and Australian national archives, and a number of records management industry books and references. But the course content still reflects AIIM's point of view, which may not align perfectly with ARMA's or the ICRM's for example. 

When is a Certification a Certification? 

But not all certifications are equal. At least in the U.S. and in our industry, anyone can call anything they want a certification. That means, to evaluate whether something is a certification or not, I look at several factors. Many of these are documented in ISO/IEC 17024:2012, Conformity assessment — General requirements for bodies operating certification of persons, while others represent practices more or less prevalent in the certification industry. 

• A proctored exam. This ensures that the candidate who signed up is the one taking the exam, and is not cheating, stealing questions, etc. Proctored exams are generally also timed, and if a candidate doesn't pass the exam, there is often a mandatory delay before the candidate can retake the exam. There are a few certifications that use something more akin to an interview or jury process, but it's still a synchronous, in person or live online process. 
• A valid and reliable exam. In a nutshell, psychometric validation is used to demonstrate that the exam measures what it is intended to through the use of a number of techniques. Psychometric validation is one way to set the passing score for the exam in a way that is defensible, rather than simply saying, e.g., "70% is a good passing score." A reliable exam produces consistent results across exam locations, delivery mechanisms, etc. 
• A documented recertification process, whether through retaking the exam, completing continuing education requirements, or through some other mechanism. 
• Acceptance of a code of ethics. 
• Formal training prerequisites. For example, the Project Management Professional (PMP) exam requires 35 hours of formal project management training. 
• Experiential prerequisites. The PMP also requires documenting and submitting 60 months of full-time experience leading projects, though it is reduced to 36 months if the candidate also has a bachelor's degree. 
• Application fees. The Institute for Certified Records Managers (ICRM) charges a non-refundable $100 application fee to candidates for the Certified Records Manager exam. 

There are also a couple of elements that certification programs should not offer or require, at least under ISO 17024. 

• Restricting certification access or maintenance through limiting them to only paid members of an association or group.
• Requiring the certifying body's training, or implying that certification is simpler, easier, or less expensive if such training is used.

As I think about certifications, I believe they come in seven different levels of rigor, and only the last three are "real" certifications in my mind. 

• Level 7: "Certifications" that are not proctored, offer unlimited time or attempts, and are generally conducted online.
• Level 6: "Certifications" that are proctored, but through a very ad hoc process that doesn't prevent candidates from nefarious activities like recording the screen.
• Level 5: "Certifications" that align to a very narrow set of references and subject matter experts. These tend to be reflective of the participants rather than aligning to industry standard tasks and requirements, and are really more of a certificate program in most cases. 
• Level 4: "Certifications" that are not valid or reliable - that is, they have not gone through a psychometric validation process. 
• Level 3: Certifications that are proctored, and valid, but that don't meet the other requirements, such as renewal requirements or adherence to a code of ethics. While these are certifications, they can lose their value quickly. 
• Level 2: Certifications that are proctored, valid, require maintenance, and have a code of ethics. 
• Level 1: Certifications that have been assessed and accredited by/through ICE, ISO 17024, etc. Note that this doesn't mean, e.g., "Our exam was developed in conformance with ISO 17024" - it means you paid the money and got the assessment. 

In subsequent posts, I'm going to look at the main IG/IM/RM certifications in depth. At the moment this includes: 

• AIIM's Certified Information Professional
• ARMA's Information Governance Professional
• ICRM's Certified Records Manager. The Certified Records Analyst is substantially the same in most respects so I'll cover it briefly in that post. I'll also review their specialty designations. 

I had planned to include CIGOA's Certified Information Governance Professional and InfoAdvocates' Strategic Information Professional Certification, but I haven't been able to get definitive information for some aspects of them. 

For each of them I'll review the basics = what they cover, qualifying, costs, maintenance, etc. If you are aware of another certification focused on IG/IM/RM, anywhere in the world, let me know and I'll take a look. 

Upcoming Industry Meetings and Webinars - June 16 - July 15, 2023

Here are the industry webinars and events I'm aware of for June 16 - July 15, 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. Larger industry events are listed 90 days in advance to give attendees time to get approval. 

6/20/2023 - Atlanta ARMA, State of the Chapter

6/20/2023 - ARMA Central Missouri, Swearing in New Officers

6/20/2023 - ARMA Florida Gulf Coast, Gamifying Governance: Putting the “FUN” in FUNctional for your IM Compliance Program with Ryan Zilm

6/20/2023 - ARMA San Antonio, Secure Storage and Retention Policies

6/20/2023 - Tidewater ARMA, Installation of Officers

6/20/2023 - OneTrust, New states, new dates: Preparing for Indiana, Montana, Tennessee and Florida state privacy laws

6/20/2023 - AIIM True North, How the new IG ISO will aid strategic digital transformation

6/20/2023 - AIIM, AIIM Forum Europe, London, UK

6/20/2023 - Zasio, Virtual Coffee with Consulting: Practical Strategies for Managing Electronic Records

6/20/2023 - Shinydocs, The Information Supremacy Panel

6/20/2023 - ARMA Legal Industry Group, From Paper to paperless: How to digitally transform a 100 year old company

6/20/2023 - MER Immerse Live, The Impact of GDPR on US Companies

6/21/2023 - MER Immerse Live, Federal Government Digitization Challenges and Solutions

6/21/2023 - ARMA Detroit, Time for a Change

6/21/2023 - ARMA Nebraska, International Woman of Mystery - ARMA International Updates and Chapter Awards

6/21/2023 - ARMA SCIE, Planning Your IG Compliance Roadmap

6/21/2023, ARMA Northern Virginia and ARMA Greater Washington DC, Joint Chapter Mixer

6/21/2023 - AIIM+, Part 1: Microsoft 365 Best Practices for Information Governance and Records Management 

6/21/2023 - IRMS Public Sector Group, Post Pandemic Problems

6/21/2023 - Zasio, Doing Good by Doing RIM: Partnering Records and Information Management (RIM) Graduate Students with Community Organizations

6/21-22/2023, ISACA, Digital Trust World, virtual

6/22/2023 - ARMA Toronto, 2023 Annual General Meeting

6/22/2023 - RIMPA Global, It's Time to Stop Surviving and Start Thriving

6/22/2023 - RIMPA Global, Perth | Loudmouth: Ideation Roundtable & Breakfast

6/27/2023 - ARMA Calgary, Come Meet the Board!

6/27/2023 - Boise Valley ARMA, Elections

6/27/2023 - ARMA Chicago, Networking & Recognition Event

6/27/2023 - AIIM+, WIIM - A Conversation on DEI (members only)

6/27/2023 - IRMS London, From Chaos to Control: Best Practices for Dynamic Unstructured Data Governance

6/27-28, MER Immerse Live and Perfect Policies, IG Policies Workshop

6/28/2023 - ARMA Southwest Ontario and IMCanadaConnect, Document Disposition: large-scale clean-up

6/28/2023 - Austin ARMA, June Appreciation

6/28/2023 - AIIM and Ripcord, ChatGPT Unleashed: Transforming the Information Management Landscape

6/28/2023 - CILIP K&IM, Scoping a knowledge audit to support KM planning needs

7/4/2023 - IRMS Legal, "I Love My Organization's IG Policies", said no one

7/6/2023 - NAGARA and CivicPlus, Quick Wins: Technology for Making Records More Accessible

7/11/2023 - AIIM+, Meeting the Challenge - M365 - Purview Insider Risk Management (members only)

7/11/2023 - IRMS Schools Group: Most common data breaches in schools and how to avoid them

7/11/2023 - AIIM+ and Colligo, How to Rock Email Retention in Exchange Online and Microsoft 365 (members only)

7/11/2023 - Mer Sapient and Contoural, How to Finally Get Your Company to Care About Over Retention

7/12/2023 - AIIM, Moving Content Management to the Cloud

7/12/2023 - Zasio, Paper: Scan It or Store It?

7/12/2023 - OneTrust, Now in effect: Colorado and Connecticut privacy laws

7/12/2023 - GeneralCounsel.com and Exterro, The Art of Data Retention: Navigating the Compliance Trifecta

7/17-19/2023, ARMA Canada 2023, Toronto, ON

7/18-21/2023, NAGARA 2023, Cincinnati, OH

7/28/2023 - ARMA California, Summer Conference on Records and Information Management, Irvine, CA

8/7-9/2023, NIRMA 2023, Las Vegas, NV

8/7-9/2023, Ai4 2023, Las Vegas, NV

8/20-24/2023, ILTA, ILTACON 2023, Orlando, FL

9/6-7/2023, Capture & IDP Conference, Chicago, IL

9/21/2023 - InfoAdvocates, Records Management, neXt

9/21/2023 - InfoAdvocates, eDiscovery, neXt

If you know of a webinar or other 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. Vendors, other associations, consultants, etc. all welcome as long as the event is educational and not completely self-serving, e.g., no demos. No charge to list or to access the list. 

If you're looking for a speaker, I'm available to speak at your chapter or event. For more details, see https://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 https://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/finding-speakers-for-your-event-part-1.html. 

Upcoming Industry Meetings and Webinars - June 1 - 30, 2023

Here are the industry webinars and events I'm aware of for June 1 - 30, 2023. With my newsletter on hiatus, I'm also covering longer-form/regional/national/international events of relevance, and will cover those 90 days out. 

I don't have anything to do with any of these events 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.  

6/1/2023 - ARMA Western Michigan, RIM Escape Room

6/1 - 7/13/2023 - MER, Immerse Live!, ICRM Virtual Exam Prep Workshops

6/1/2023 - NAGARA and Backstage Library Works, Moving Skeletons: A Network Drive Cleanup...

6/1/2023 - RIMPA Global and AvePoint, Making the case for information management: how you can prove value, remove risk and save money

6/1/2023 - Digital Government Institute, Hybrid Cloud Best Practices

6/5-9/2023, Data Governance & Information Quality 2023, San Diego, CA

6/6/2023 - ARMA New Jersey, INFORM 2023

6/6/2023 - ARMA Vancouver, Annual General Meeting

6/6/2023 - RIMPA Global, Navigating Microsoft 365 Records Management in Government: Exploring Purview and Meeting Regulatory Obligations

6/6/2023 - IRMS London, Incorporating Email into an Information Management Strategy

6/6/2023 - AIIM+, RM Coffee & Conversation: Conference Season Recap (members only)

6/6/2023 - MER Sapient and Contoural, Ask the M365 Expert: A Full Hour of Questions and Answers 

6/7/2023 - ARMA Golden State, Networking and More

6/7/2023 - IAPP and Tealium, Data as a competitive advantage: Investing in privacy to drive CX and revenue (members only)

6/8/2023 - ARMA Metro NYC-LI, Standard Records Classifications: A Tool for Success

6/8/2023 - ARMA Upstate New York, National Abolition Hall of Fame and Museum Tour and Records Discussion

6/8/2023 - ARMA Greater Seattle, Microsoft 365 basics: Using a proof-of-concept to plan your approach

6/8/2023 - ARMA and ACEDS, ChatGPT: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

6/8/2023 - ShareGate, A fireside chat with Karuana Gatimu

6/8/2023 - Contoural, Executing Privacy Summer School - 7 Phases of Getting Started

6/11-13/2023, PegaWorld Inspire, Las Vegas, CA

6/12-16/2023 - 365 Educon DC, Washington, DC

6/13/2023 - ARMA Dallas, What’s Your Journey? An interactive discussion on the past & future of RIM & IG careers

6/13/2023 - ARMA Edmonton, Annual General Meeting

6/13/2023 - ARMA Winnipeg, Managing Records in Microsoft 365

6/13/2023 - ACMP, TLDR: Tell Me What to Do When it Needs to Get Done (members only)

6/13/2023 - Meru Data, Children and Teen Privacy: Tips for Navigating Legal and Regulatory Landscape

6/14/2023 - ARMA Puget Sound, June Chapter Meeting

6/14/2023 - ARMA San Diego, How to develop an ILM (Information Lifecycle Management) Playbook

6/14/2023 - ARMA Metro Maryland, Virtual Social

6/14/2023 - MER, Immerse Live!, IG Playbook Workshop

6/14/2023 - ACMP, Bringing Your People with You During Transformation, Presented by ACMP UK 

6/14/2023 - Contoural, Part 2 - Executing Privacy Summer School - Personal Information Inventories

6/14/2023 - AIIM and Access, Beyond Compliance: How Information Governance Drives Business Success

6/14/2023 - TeachPrivacy, Is AI Policy a Privacy Issue?

6/15/2023 - ARMA St. Louis, Member Recognition Celebration

6/15/2023 - AIIM+, AMA: Digital Ethics 2023 (members only)

6/15/2023 - Digital Government Institute, AI & ML in Records Management

6/16/2023 - Leadership Through Data, Microsoft 365 eDiscovery Overview

6/20/2023 - ARMA Central Missouri, Swearing in New Officers

6/20/2023, ARMA Legal Industry Group - From Paper to paperless: How to digitally transform a 100 year old company (members only)

6/20/2023 - OneTrust, New states, new dates: Preparing for Indiana, Montana, Tennessee and Florida state privacy laws

6/20/2023 - AIIM Forum Europe, London, UK

6/20/2023 - Zasio, Virtual Coffee with Consulting: Practical Strategies for Managing Electronic Records

6/20/2023 - MER, Immerse Live!, The Impact of GDPR on US Companies

6/20/2023 - Shinydocs, The Information Supremacy

6/21/2023 - ARMA Detroit, Time for a Change

6/21/2023 - ARMA Nebraska, International Woman of Mystery - ARMA International Updates and Chapter Awards

6/21/2023 - AIIM+, Part 1: Microsoft 365 Best Practices for Information Governance and Records Management

6/21/2023 - IRMS Public Sector Group, Post Pandemic Problems

6/21/2023 - MER, Immerse Live!, Federal Government Digitization and Records Management Challenges and Solutions

6/21-22/2023, ISACA Digital Trust World, virtual

6/22/2023 - ARMA Toronto, 2023 Annual General Meeting

6/22/2023 - RIMPA Global, It's Time to Stop Surviving and Start Thriving

6/22/2023 - RIMPA Global, Perth | Loudmouth: Ideation Roundtable & Breakfast

6/27/2023 - IRMS London, From Chaos to Control: Best Practices for Dynamic Unstructured Data Governance

6/27-28 - MER, Immerse Live!, Drafting Effective Policies 2-Day Workshop

6/28/2023 - AIIM and Ripcord, ChatGPT Unleashed: Transforming the Information Management Landscape

7/17-19/2023, ARMA Canada 2023, Toronto, ON

7/18-21/2023, NAGARA 2023, Cincinnati, OH

8/7-9/2023, NIRMA 2023, Las Vegas, NV

8/7-9/2023, Ai4 2023, Las Vegas, NV

8/20-24/2023, ILTACON 2023, Orlando, FL

If you know of a webinar or other 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. Vendors, other associations, consultants, etc. all welcome as long as the event is educational and not completely self-serving, e.g., no demos. No charge to list or to access the list. 

If you're looking for a speaker, I'm available to speak at your chapter or event. For more details, see https://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 https://informata.blogspot.com/2022/06/finding-speakers-for-your-event-part-1.html