February 23, 2019
Dear Everyone:
Thirty-some years ago, shortly after I joined the Corporate Records
Management Group, I was walking down a hallway at work.
As I passed a particular office, the occupant looked up, saw me,
raced to the doorway, poked his head out into the hallway and shouted:
“Hey! Are you one of
the Box People?” He had some
kind of records question to ask.
Yes, I was one of the “Box People”, which is what most employees thought
of Records Management. In
those days, nearly all records were paper and usually ended up in a box
at some time, said box being sent to the Company Records Center when the
Retention Schedule said it should go, or when it got to be too much in
the way at the office, whichever came first.
Back then, when I attended the annual
ARMA International Conference, the
Expo Center was dominated by very large “booths” erected by the
behemoths of microfilming:
Canon,
Kodak,
Minolta and a few others.
More booths were occupied by companies selling filing equipment:
Folders, cabinets,
microfilm and
microfiche
readers.
All big stuff.
Today, nearly all those companies, while still in business, don’t waste
their time at ARMA. Now
nearly all records are “born digital” and it’s really a question of when
they should be deleted and how.
And companies like Cor-O-Van, which started out with box storage, are
now offering digital storage and software systems designed to root out
“old” electronic records for disposal.
And renaming themselves things like
Corodata.
You might ask yourself what a moving-and-storage company, with boxes on
the side, knows about designing software products.
Good question.
Nevertheless, all those companies are now in the business of doing
something with computerized information.
Several of these companies attended a Spring Seminar, which I attended
on Thursday, presented by the Golden Gate Chapter of ARMA.
Each did a presentation on their software product, with lots of
mentions of “AI-enabled”.
AI, of course, stands for
Artificial Intelligence.
Myriads of companies are now claiming that their product has the
capacity to “learn” whatever you need it to do with your records.
But Golden Gate didn’t rely solely on that to get people to attend.
They also decided to employ a
Motivational Speaker to fill out
about one-third of the day.
Since one can only absorb so much about software products before falling
asleep, the Motivational Speaker spoke eloquently, and loudly, about
Leadership!
It did help to keep us all awake.
Also, there were plenty of must-be-present-to-win raffle drawings.
I even won a prize: A
copy of the Motivational Speaker’s latest book on
Leadership!
In other news…
Yesterday, “Jeannie” and I went to the annual
Stitches West Expo at the
Santa Clara Convention Center.
This is where people who enjoy
knitting,
crocheting,
spinning,
sewing, etc., convene to buy and sell legions of things related to the
vast universe of fiber arts in all its flavors.
Usually, we attend on a Saturday, but this time “Jeannie” suggested
going on Friday to avoid the weekend crowds.
This was a Good Idea in that there were definitely fewer people
meandering through all the exhibits.
We got there before noon and immediately walked over to the
adjoining hotel for some sustenance.
In past years, just getting into the coffee shop meant a wait of nearly
an hour. This time we were
seated immediately at a light buffet.
Helped ourselves to salad, pasta, baked potatoes and a very well
supplied dessert bar. So
much better than a large, greasy slice of lukewarm pizza, or a
made-some-time-last-week sandwich or “wrap”, and a room-temperature can
of soda, with no place to sit and eat it.
Once fortified, we attacked the Exhibit Hall, cruising up and down
aisles, past beautiful hand-crafted wooden
spinning wheels, handheld
spindles (for those people who turn their noses up on “newfangled” ideas
like spinning wheels), knitting needles and crochet hooks made of the
most unlikely of materials, and plenty of hand-dyed yarn.
Merino wool is considered one of the finest in the Western World, going
back to 12th Century
Spain where the sheep were first bred.
It can be blended with many other fibers, like
silk,
cotton,
bamboo, and of course, man-made threads like
acrylic.
And they all come in a plethora of vibrant colors.
“Jeannie” bought skeins and skeins of lovely wools and blends, to add to
her collection in “The Really Big Closet” , also known as the garage.
She got some great bargains.
For myself, I prefer to decide on a project, then look for yarn
to go with it. “Jeannie”
buys yarn, then looks for something to make with it.
Otherwise, it goes into The Really Big Closet
And we both got multitudes of vendors’ website addresses.
So we can each buy more yarn whenever inspiration strikes.
Love, as always,
Pete
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