January 23, 2015
Dear Everyone:
Last night’s ARMA Dinner Meeting boasted a whopping 20 people, or so, in
attendance. When you
consider the fact that the Mt Diablo Chapter has all of around 35
members, that’s about 58% of the total membership, although not all of
the people who came are currently Mt Diablo members.
Some belonged to the Golden Gate (San Francisco) chapter.
Some weren’t even ARMA members, yet.
Still, it’s almost a record.
The actual record is held by a meeting that took place some years ago
when the guest speaker was the Official
Statistician for the
Oakland
Athletics Baseball Team. The
venue was also a little different from usual as the meeting took place
in a popular alehouse. To be
perfectly honest, more than half the people who showed up couldn’t have
cared less about
Records Management; but they were perfectly happy to
drink beer and listen to amusing anecdotes about their favorite team.
Hence, a record turnout.
Last night’s almost-a-record might be attributed to the Speaker, who is
very well-known in the Records and Information Management (RIM) field.
She is a Certified Records Manager (CRM), as am I, as well as
being inducted into the Fellowship of
ARMA International (FAI), which I
am definitely not. Think of
it as a RIM Hall of Fame.
And her subject, Vital Records, is one that is near and dear to RIM
hearts. And it is a subject
that executives frequently ignore, until it’s too late.
Ask your typical office worker if he/she has any “vital records”
and the answer, usually, is:
“Of course! All
my records are vital (to
me)!!!”
Actually, the definition of a “vital record” is what you absolutely have
to have to stay in business.
Like Articles of Incorporation.
Accounts Receivable.
(If you don’t know who owes you money, how will you bill them?)
Some people consider
Accounts Payable to be Vital, or how can you
prove you don’t owe somebody else money?
Others disagree. It
leads to lively conversations in the RIM world, especially if alcoholic
beverages are available.
Another possible reason for last night’s bumper crop of attendees might
be because nearly half of them work for the same company:
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E).
Why the plethora of PG&E people?
A little over four years ago, in September, 2010, to be exact, an
explosion took place in the city of
San Bruno, California.
Because it happened almost “right across the street” from
San
Francisco International Airport, there was some speculation that a plane
had crashed, or terrorists tried to blow up the airport and missed.
Until the actual cause was revealed to be a blown
natural gas
pipeline, owned and operated by PG&E.
People were killed. Homes
and businesses were damaged.
Face it: Some were just
plain vaporized. PG&E has
been in court for the last four years.
Think knowing exactly where your natural gas pipelines are, and how
recently they were inspected, constitutes “Vital Records”?
Evidently some executives at PG&E are newly of the opinion that
spending a little money on Records Management now might save the Company
lots more in the future.
Hence a lot of PG&E interest in Records Management and how to join ARMA
International.
There’s nothing like a good lawsuit to make executives suddenly love
RIM. For a little while at
least.
Love, as always,
Pete
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