The longer I’ve worked with electronic records issues (and admittedly, it has only been ten months), the more convinced I’ve become of one essential fact: it pays to wait.

This may seem like contrarian advice, since most of the received wisdom regarding electronic records management holds that we must be involved with records creators early in the life cycle.  One typical argument: that early involvement helps ensure that records producers store and describe records using a logical file structure and descriptive standards.  However,  many efforts to affect user’s records creating habits are doomed to failure, because everyone has a different work style, uses different tools, and simply needs to get on with living their lives, and working with users one to one is not—to use the buzzword—scalable.  Anything that requires more work out of them will be rejected, and I have yet to see many live examples of electronic records management projects that actually make people’s lives easier.  (If you think I am being provocative, please send me examples and I am MORE than willing to highlight them.)

Anyway, I became even more convinced that there is power in patience after being confronted with a personal email migration three days after returning to the University of Illinois.

Read the rest of this entry »