Laurence Hart: ECM, Content Services, Or Just Doing It?

Certifications and continuing education requirements

All certifications have, or should have, a continuing education requirement. The CDIA exam I took in 2002 has almost zero relevance in the technology and process environment of 2017. And in fact this is one of the key benefits of a formal certification as compared to, say, a certificate or even a full degree program - once you complete a degree or certificate, that's it. As soon as you're done it starts getting stale, Certifications are designed to allow candidates to demonstrate their knowledge and expertise in certain areas - but they are also markers of dedication to continuing professional development. Someone who has maintained a certification for 20 years has had to make at least some effort to keep up with changes in the industry and technologies.

The process generally involves earning continuing education units (CEUs) and paying a fee, typically lower than the original exam/assessment fees. Every program determines what types of activities are appropriate for earning CEUs and how many are required; the typical figures are around a 3-5 year recertification cycle and 15-20 CEUs per year of the cycle. Certificants have to report these credits and pay the fees within the time limit in order to maintain the credential. I discuss this process for the CIP in much more length here.

Certifying organizations have to balance the desire to have certificants maintain their credential - and the revenue that comes from them - with the need to ensure certificants really are doing what is expected. If it's too hard, people drop the certification; if it's too easy, it devalues the value of it. So many organizations have a process in place where certificants provide information about a qualifying event along with proof of participation, such as a registration, receipt for payment, brochure, or URL. Certificants should always maintain their own copies of these things - screenshots, the digital (or paper!) brochure, etc. - in case there are questions when it's time to recertify.

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

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

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

• Most non-technical certifications are designed to demonstrate industry-accepted knowledge and expertise, not that of a single organization or product. 
• Individuals won't limit themselves to consuming a single product or service - rather, they will assume that the certification isn't a "real" one since it doesn't accept their otherwise educational activities. 
• Certifying bodies are themselves part of a community. If AIIM only accepted AIIM events for CIP CEUs, it would only be logical for ARMA, the ICRM, etc. to only accept theirs or at least refuse AIIM events for credit. This results in everyone cutting off their own noses to spite their faces. 
• Education should be evaluated based on its value and content, not whose name or logo is on the cover. 
• Frankly, it's also a way for associations to work more closely together. We compete in many ways and on many things - but ultimately we're all in the business of providing value to the members of our communities, and I view all of our various communities as part of the same, larger, information management community. I am an AIIM professional member, and an ICRM member, and an ARMA member, and a member of many other groups.

This is why at AIIM we accept any event for CIP CEUs provided that it meets two requirements: it's educational in nature, and it relates to the CIP body of knowledge. So ARMA events and courses count. So do events produced by other organizations and associations. Vendor events count. Again - it's related to CIP, and it's educational. We provide more examples on our CIP CEU reporting form. 

So. Event producers, associations, vendors. If you have an event or course that aligns to the CIP, reach out to me. Send me the details - date, duration, location, schedule/agenda - and we'll get it reviewed and approved for CIP credits.  If you have a certification that aligns with information management/governance, send me your details and I'll send over our events and training courses to get preapproved for your certification's CEU program. You  can always reach me at jwilkins@aiim.org.

Proctoring and the CIP certification

We just delivered two CIP prep workshops, and each workshop ended with an onsite proctored exam. I wanted to talk a bit about what happened during the proctoring and some impressions I took from it.

Most formal exams are proctored. This just means that there is some supervision mechanism in place, usually a person, to ensure that the exam is completed by the candidate under the conditions established for the exam. For the CIP, we do not allow any reference materials, so the proctor makes sure that the candidate doesn't bring anything into the exam room with them - no papers, no technology. Similarly. students can't collaborate on the exam but must take it silently. The proctor is also there in case something goes wrong - if there's a technology issue for instance.

We offer two proctoring options through our exam provider Kryterion. The first is the very traditional approach wherein a candidate schedules an exam at an exam center, goes to the center on the appointed date/time, and takes the exam. The second is to conduct an onsite proctored exam, which is what we did on Friday, Feb 10, in our office in Silver Spring, MD, and Monday, Feb 13, in Oslo, Norway, for a private course. Both cases are substantially similar so I'll focus on my first-hand experience in Silver Spring.

Before I do though I should note that onsite proctoring is quite common - it's what every high school and university student goes through for every quiz and exam administered in a classroom. Many certifications offer this as an option as well, and the main reason others don't is because of the logistical burden associated with it, not because of any real security concerns.

We held the course in a conference room from Tuesday morning through Friday morning. We broke for lunch on Friday at 12 and reconvened for the exam at 1. We had six candidates who took the exam. Four of the six brought their own laptops to use as exam stations, and I provided two exam stations using my personal laptops. I logged into each workstation using my proctor ID and code, and then logged each candidate into a workstation. As part of that process I downloaded an HTML Application (.hta) file provided by Kryterion that provided several security features. It opened the browser in full screen mode, and made it so that pressing any of a number of keys such as esc, ctrl, tab, etc. would halt the exam and require the proctor to relog the candidate in.

Each candidate then sat down at the applicable workstation, verified their name was displayed, and clicked the Start Exam button which started the exam and the exam timer. Once a candidate started his or her exam, he or she was allowed no further talking, with the exception that he/she was to raise a hand upon encountering any technical issues. We did have a few of those and resolved them quickly, quietly, and without issue.

When each candidate completed the exam, the overall score was immediately displayed along with a breakdown of how the candidate performed on each of the six domains. An overall score of 60% is required to pass the CIP exam - I discuss how we arrived at that passing score in another post.

I am pleased to announce that all six candidates at my exam session passed and that all criteria were met for a successful proctored exam. At the exam administered today, most, but not all, the candidates passed and the proctor conducted the exam in exactly the same fashion described here.

I think that one of the benefits of doing this onsite proctoring is that, as the settings are a bit more familiar than the typical testing booth at an exam center, candidates feel a bit more relaxed. It's every bit as secure, but test anxiety may be reduced slightly. It does require having a proctor, and one who is trained on how to use the Kryterion system, but it's pretty straightforward and the underlying technology is quite good - we had a candidate whose system froze up (on my laptop so my blame) and when we restarted the exam, the candidate's responses and timer were saved such that he was able to seamlessly continue and complete the exam.

The biggest hurdle is that we require candidates to bring their own computer - Windows 7, 8, or 10 only, Internet Explorer or Chrome only, couple of other requirements. I'll be posting separately about those requirements as we prepare for the next onsite proctored exam, scheduled March 14, 2017 at the AIIM17 Conference in Orlando.

If you're interested in the CIP, we offer preparatory courses from time to time in Silver Spring and other locations. You can always find the list of upcoming AIIM training courses, including CIP Prep workshops, at http://www.aiim.org/training. Our next public CIP workshops are scheduled for March 28-31 in Amsterdam and May 23-26 in Silver Spring.

Future Proof: Tweets, Facebook posts and other social media information are State records

Daily Dot: FBI will revert to using fax machines, snail mail for FOIA requests

H/T: Don Lueders

Microsoft: Track your Office knowledge and skills with Office Training Roadmaps This is ridiculously cool - the PDFs can be printed as posters, but if you save them as PDFs, each bullet point is a link to a relevant training video.

Marko Sillanpää: Companies Still Look for Document Management Solutions not ECM

Alan Pelz-Sharpe: OpenText finalizes the Documentum deal - and weaves a new tapestry in the process

Marko Sillanpää: I'm Supposed to Stop Saying Enterprise Content Management?

NARA's Records Express: Records Management of Social Media and Electronic Records

John Mancini: My 8 Favorite Things from Image Management Circa 1989 Watch the video. :)

John Mancini: Systems of Record and Systems of Engagement - and NOW What?

CGOC press release: Latest CGOC Information Governance Process Maturity Model Details How to Reduce Cost and Risk in the Age of Massive Data Stores

Jim Just: The Headaches with Reorganizing Your Shared Drives

NARA: Moving Out, Moving In: The National Archives' Important Role When the Presidency Changes Hands

H/T: Maarja Krusten

Martyn Christian: What Was Enterprise Content Management, Grandad?

Marko Sillanpää: Predicting the Future of Documentum and EMC's ECD

SAA Joins with Archivist Groups to Submit Recommendations to Trump Transition Team

SAA has joined with the Council of State Archivists, the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, and the Regional Archival Associations Consortium to submit “Recommendations on Federal Archives and Records Management Issues” to the Trump presidential transition team. Read the entire document at http://files.archivists.org/advocacy/Archives-and-Records-Management-Issues_2016%20Presidential-Transition-Team.pdf.

I read the full statement and agree with just about all of it. And it should be a non-partisan thing; I'd expect the SAA et al would make the same sorts of requests to a President-Elect Clinton.

Via Don Lueders and Peter A. Shulman.

Lee Smith: Evolving ECM. Resuscitation not Required. 

Don Lueders: The Presidential Records Management Directive, M-12-18, and the DoD 5015.2 Standard

Collabware: Why achieve the DoD 5015.2 certification? Not sure I buy it - I tend to agree that a) DoD 5015.2 is poorly thought-out and b) completely beside the point for anyone not working at the U.S. Department of Defense - therefore c) it ends up being a useless checklist on an RFP while at the same time d) making no claims as to usability, fit for purpose, etc. Nevertheless I will watch to see the outcome and again this is a great example of a vendor blog post that contributes meaningfully to the conversation.

AIIM Names Peggy Winton President

Press release: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/01/prweb13953095.htm. As noted therein Peggy has been serving as interim President since early 2016.

i-Scoop: Information management and strategy - an executive guide

NARA Records Express: Agency Records Management Training Requirements

John Mancini: Why do associations seem to be losing their community mojo?

NARA Records Express: Records Management Guidance for the Presidential Transition

Chris Zoladz: Why Attending Conferences and Networking Matters

Kevin Parker: Reflections on the 2016 InfoGovCon

Fast Company: New Research Points the Finger at Employers for the Widespread Talent Shortage (H/T: Steve Weissman)

Marko Sillanpaa: Why Employers Should Support Continuing Education

Activity 10/26: Treadmill, 8.5% incline, 2.4mph, 1:30, 3.6 miles

eLearning Industry: 10 Best Practices For Writing Multiple Choice Questions In eLearning. Note that almost all of these apply to any sort of multiple choice questions such as certifications.

Box: Introducing Security Classification: A Smart New Addition to Box Governance (H/T: Alan Lepofsky)

GRM press release: Staples Launches Licensing Program Expanding Its Footprint in Services (H/T: Bud Porter-Roth)

The care and feeding of solution provider professionals

TL; DR: Solution provider staff need to attend industry events, conferences, and training or they will fall behind.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the role of solution providers in the information management industry, specifically as applied to education and professional development. I define solution providers as providers of hardware, software, or professional services to end user organizations who consume those goods and services.

Full disclosure: I've spent much of my career as a solution provider, mostly on the technical side but with some responsibility for marketing, sales, and business development. And I currently work at AIIM, with more than a little interest in increasing the number attendees at our conference and our training programs. But I started in the industry as a solution provider and saw the same dynamic then and have been thinking about it off & on for more than 20 years now.

So for all the solution providers out there, a gentle question: Why don't you develop your people?

Let me take a step back and explain. I speak at a lot of information management industry conferences and events. And yet I rarely see solution providers' staff at these events and courses. Sure, I see them manning the booth. Sometimes they participate in the networking activities, though often "the team" has to go to a team dinner to meet with partners or clients, review the day's events, and strategize for the next day's events. But they don't attend any educational sessions, with the exception of the occasional session that's available on the show floor from another solution provider.

I also teach a lot of courses on various information management-related topics. It is still very rare to see a solution provider send people to our public courses. I don't think it's the course content, because end users still seem to get substantial value from them. The solution provider staff members that have attended generally seem to get value from the courses as well. This value is not just from the educational content, but also from the interactions, and discussions, and sharing of lessons learned and good practices by people who have "been there, done that." But we don't see very many of them, and in private discussions I've had with many of them, they don't often get to go to things like that unless they pay for it themselves.

In both cases, where solution providers are in attendance, they are generally either the significant exception - and possibly doing it on their own dime - or they are somewhat on the outside looking in. Either way, they aren't getting any individual professional growth or development out of the experience. Why?

It isn't because they are world-class experts with nothing left to learn - though that may be a perception particularly among senior staff and management. And of course it costs money. But I'm reminded of the apocryphal exchange:

"What happens if we train our people and they leave?"
"What happens if we don't - and they stay?"

What, indeed?

Think about it another way, solution providers. You hired that person with a specific set of skills, knowledge, and experience. You're paying for that expertise. Every white paper and conference has as an underlying theme how quickly the industry changes: the tools, the processes, the ways in which information moves and is used, and acceptable practices for how things get done. It's imperative that your people stay up to date with relevant changes. Yet how does your staff do that if they aren't getting training and if they aren't attending conference sessions? As good as your white papers and webinars undoubtedly are, they simply aren't sufficient. Even if they are the best coverage of that topic in the world, they still reflect only one point of view - your organization's.

You charge annual maintenance to your customers, so they have access to your upgrades, your technical support, your other resources, and sometimes even your training. You want them to stay up to speed on the latest and greatest. Your staff need to do that as well - and it's more than just keeping up with your new release and the features and functions therein. But they also need to understand the bigger picture. What are the trends in the industry? How have customers, or prospects, or just other organizations, addressed particular issues? How have your competitors done so, and to what extent have they succeeded?

I understand that your business is in the business of the business - just like every other business. But according to the Association for Talent Development, the average company provides the average employee more than 53 hours of training per year. That's almost 9 full days of training per year (the typical training day is around 6-6.5 hours because of breaks, lunch, administrative tasks, etc.). How close are you to that for your sales staff? Your support staff? Your implementation/professional services staff? Your customer service staff?

I know many, many exceptional people in the industry. Some of them have the great fortune to work for organizations that do support professional development, and there are a few of those out there. Others understand that they have to take responsibility for their own growth and development, and they go to training and conferences on their own dime, and they get out there to other events on their own time and dime. But if they aren't getting support from you, you run the very real risk of losing them to an organization that does recognize the real value of their developing and maintaining those skills.

Sharon Fisher, Laserfiche: What Does PDF 2.0, Due Next Year, Do?

This is also another great example of how solution providers can provide highly educational, highly relevant content. Laserfiche has always been good at this dating back to their imaging guide from the late '90s.

Laurence Hart: All About Design at the 2016 Information Governance Conference

Emily Overton (RMGirl): Records Management and Compliance: The bigger picture & the risk mitigation

Updated speaking schedule

Latest in an irregular series.

Oct 2016
18 Info Summit Denver
29-Nov 4 Private BPM class, Cayman Islands

Nov 2016
9-10 Private class, Regina, Saskatchewan
28-Dec 3 ECM Master Class, Silver Spring, MD (TBC)

Dec 2016
12-17 ERM Master Class, Silver Spring, MD (TBC)

Feb 2017
6-10 CIP Prep Workshop, Silver Spring, MD (TBC)
13-17 ECMM, Silver Spring, MD (TBC)

Mar 2017
13-16 AIIM17, Orlando, FL

Apr 2017
3-7 ERMM, Silver Spring, MD (TBC)
24-28 ECMM, Chicago, IL (TBC)

May 2017
7-10 MER 2017 (TBC)
22-26 CIP Prep Workshop, Silver Spring, MD (TBC)

AIIM Private Courses

In this post I'll explore one of the hidden gems AIIM offers, at least in my mind. Full disclosure: I run all the training at AIIM and, at least for classes in the U.S., I'm generally the instructor as well.

We periodically schedule public classes in the U.S., mostly at AIIM HQ in Silver Spring, MD. Most of these classes are for our ECM, ERM, BPM, and CIP Prep "deep dive" classes: 2-4 days of instructor-led, "butts-in-seats" discussion, lecture, and exercises. We also offer public courses in Canada (Toronto), the UK (London), and Europe (Amsterdam).

What you may not know is that we are also available to teach private courses. Basically the process is that you have a group of people you want to get some training. We work with you to schedule dates/times and location - most frequently in a training or conference room in your organization's building, though sometimes we use a nearby hotel or facility. We work to ensure that schedule, location, and content all meet your particular needs. We teach these courses all over the world and are happy to come to your location, region, or country!

So why would you schedule a private course? There are a number of benefits to this approach over our traditional public courses.

• Better control over the content. If your organization doesn't need X module, or wants to spend additional time on Y module, we can do that. We may also be able to tailor the discussions, etc. to your type of organization and location - I routinely teach at U.S. Federal Government agencies and can tailor the discussions to Federal IM and recordkeeping concerns such as FOIA. 
• Custom content. We can also "mix & match" among our courses to create exactly the learning experience you want. I did a 4-day private class last year that included modules from ERM, Information Governance, ECM, Implementation, Taxonomy, and SharePoint. We can also incorporate your training/trainers or develop custom training - for example, we can build content on email management, social media governance, the Managing Government Records Directive in the U.S.,  or other topics of interest. 
• Flexibility in scheduling. We had a course last year where a major holiday fell in the middle of the week. We made it work such that students were in class 2 days, took the holiday, and were back in class 2 more days.
• Cross-functional team training. Having us in-house makes it much easier for you to include staff that might not ordinarily be able to get away for 4-5 days or who have less personal interest but for whom the class is particularly important, such as IT, legal, or project managers.
• Flexibility in location. We go where the interest is; unfortunately, that means that unless you're in the DC area, Chicago, Houston, San Francisco, London, or Amsterdam, your offerings are limited or require travel. With a private class we come to you. 
• Reduce or eliminate the travel cost. This is particularly true today, when travel budgets seem to be the first thing to be frozen or eliminated, and is more compelling the more people you have. If I come out to your site, you don't have to pay air, and hotel, and ground transport, and food, and everything else associated with a public class for each of your attendees.
• Significant cost savings for the actual training cost. We generally charge a per-day fee, either including travel or with travel billed extra, which can be significantly cheaper with higher numbers of attendees. If you have 10-15 people you want trained on a topic, it's definitely cheaper to do as a private course. 

If you're interested in more information on a private training course, please contact AIIM at training@aiim.org and we'll have Michelle (North America) or Angela (EMEA) follow up with you. You can also contact me directly at jwilkins@aiim.org for additional information. 

Jeff Potts: Activiti founders fork the project to create Flowable, an open source BPM engine

Activity 10/12: Treadmill, 8.5% incline, 2.4mph, 1:30, 3.6 miles

Activity 10/10: Treadmill, 8.5% incline, 2.4mph, 3:00, 7.2 miles

Stefan Waldhauser: A response to the Big Men on Content: Why Alfresco is set to lead as ECM and BPM converge

Note: this post is in response to Marko Sillanpaa's post, Why OpenText Will Not Lead ECM

John Newton: OpenText Swallows the Documentum Pill

eWeek: Why Co-Founder Believes Documentum is Doomed Under OpenText

Marko Sillanpaa, BMOC: Why OpenText Will Not Lead ECM

Activity 10/7:Treadmill, 8.5% incline, 2.4 mph, 1:30, 3.6 miles

ARMA International Calls for Nominations for Board of Directors

The ARMA International Election Management Task Force announces the call for nominations and candidates for the board of directors. View the candidate submission requirements and qualifications here: http://www.arma.org/r1/myarma/election-information/qualifications

For this election cycle, the Election Management Task Force will be filling the following positions beginning July 1, 2017:

- President elect - The president elect serves a one-year term, moves to president for a one-year term, and serves the final one-year term as immediate past president/chair of the board.

- 1 director – The director will serve a three-year term from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2020.

Do you know someone who meets the qualifications and would make a great addition to the board?Send your nominations, or your self-nomination, to Board.Affairs@armaintl.org. Please include the

e-mail address and phone number of the nominee. ARMA International will contact the nominee directly to confirm interest.

Nominations are due by October 19. All candidate-required materials are due by November 4. Watch for the announcement of the slate of candidates in early December and then plan to vote in the online election beginning January 9, 2016.

Candidates take note:

Newly elected candidates are invited to attend the board’s in-person strategic planning meeting in Kansas City on March 15-17, 2017. Participation is not required but is highly encouraged. A candidate forum via LinkedIn will take place in early January of 2017.

Activity 10/4: Treadmill, 8.0% incline, 2.4 mph, 1:11, 2.8 miles.