March 14, 2014
Dear Everyone:
We had our Spring Seminar last week.
By “we”, of course, I mean the Northern California chapters of
ARMA, International. There
are four such chapters actually.
First, of course, is the Golden Gate Chapter of San Francisco.
This was the one I joined in 1987 when I first became involved in
the Records Management group at work.
Prior to that I was working in Records Management; I just didn’t
know it.
Next is the Silicon Valley Chapter in Santa Clara.
This chapter “broke away” from the Golden Gate Chapter and formed
a new one in the South Bay right around the time that I joined ARMA.
In fact, a co-worker joked that they should rename the Golden
Gate Chapter to “the Company Chapter” since most of the people who
remained were working there.
Ten years later a group of people “broke away” from Golden Gate again,
this time to form an
East Bay chapter.
But calling it the East Bay Chapter really wouldn’t mean much to
the folks in Arizona. And by
this time ARMA, International had passed a rule proclaiming that
chapters had to be named after a geographic location, like a city, which
is why the Silicon Valley Chapter is “officially” the Santa Clara
chapter.
But which “city” in the East Bay?
Call it the “Richmond-Concord-Walnut Creek-San
Ramon-Dublin-Pleasanton-Livermore-and-everything-in-between” Chapter?
Try fitting that on a name tag!
How about the “Interstate-680 Corridor” Chapter?
(I was biting my tongue not to suggest we call it “the Company Chapter”
since half the people who signed the New Chapter Charter were working
there. Are we seeing a
pattern here?)
Then someone suggested naming it the “Mount Diablo” Chapter.
This was perfect. It
actually IS a geographic location, used by none other than the
United
States Geologic Survey (USGS) when they mapped out the California
Territory. It’s also the
highest point in the East Bay, known by pretty much everyone.
So that’s the third Bay Area Chapter.
And the fourth?
That would be the Greater Sacramento Capitol Chapter.
Technically, driving to Sacramento takes about the same amount of
time as does driving to
Santa Clara, depending on where you start.
And we didn’t want them to feel left out, so we added Sacramento
to the Bay Area and changed the region to Northern California.
In the past these Spring Seminars have largely been held in
Oakland or
Walnut Creek, both being fairly “central”, near
BART, and boasting large
law firms willing to let us invade their biggest conference room for a
day. But the “outlying”
regions started hinting that they would like to host a seminar in their
location. So we went with
Silicon Valley this time.
Someone who works for a major technology manufacturer talked their
company into letting us use their “training facility” in
Milpitas.
(The actual manufacturing takes place in
China, of course.)
And since the seminar was taking place in the “heart of
technology”, they chose a technology-oriented theme:
“Computer Technology Exposed for RIM”.
Maybe next year will be hosted by Sacramento and we can have a
“political” orientation. As
for the actual Seminar, the only thing I really remember, meaning
someone actually said something I haven’t heard a hundred times before,
was when a speaker said that Records Management isn’t what it used to
be.
And here I disagree. Records
Management hasn’t changed.
The eight
Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles (don’t call them
“GARP”) haven’t changed.
What has changed is the technology.
Back in the Good Old Days, you had to have access to a
typewriter, or
someone who used a typewriter, to create a
Record.
Today, everyone and his pet squirrel is creating Records every
time they send a text message or email.
And therein lies the Challenge.
Fun times ahead.
Love, as always,
Pete
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