January 29, 2021
Dear Everyone:
Once upon a time, in 1955 to be exact, a group
of like-minded business professionals got together and formed a
not-for-profit organization which came to be known as the Association of
Records Managers and Administrators, International (ARMA for short).
It was originally a loose conglomeration of vendors who
manufactured filing products like folders, filing cabinets and boxes,
and the like; and of people who purchased and utilized the products
provided by the vendors.
They also produced educational materials for
fledgling file room supervisors and an annual Conference with
knowledgeable speakers and lots of vendor booths where one could acquire
useful product samples and more free pens than one could ever use.
As the organization grew, local Chapters were
established. Headquarters
could send vital information to the leaders of the local Chapters which
could then be disseminated out to the individual members.
Local Chapters also provided useful information in the form of
Speakers at meetings. Thus
members could connect with helpful representatives of those vendors who
manufactured the filing supplies that members needed.
It also gave them an excuse to get out of the office during the
day, or out of the house in the evenings.
And, of course, there was that annual
Conference. In the case of
my workgroup, attendance at the Conference was rotated through the group
each year so that everyone could have the opportunity to travel to some
other location and spend three nights stuck in a hotel.
I remember that one Supervisor deliberately set up the rotation
so that his own turn came when the Conference occurred in a city which
he particularly wanted to visit.
That’s OK. He was
inside the rules. He just
skipped his turn until the right one came up.
There was the usual competition, encouraged by
Headquarters, between Chapters.
Who could accumulate the most members.
Who could put out the best monthly Newsletter (originally
required by Headquarters).
Whose monthly meetings had the best attendance.
There was also an annual Leadership Conference
especially for the Board of Directors of each Chapter.
Again, these were held in different cities and grouped into
Regions.
When I first joined ARMA, over 30 years ago,
the nearest Chapter was in San Francisco, appropriately nicknamed the
“Golden Gate” Chapter, with a stylized cable car as its logo.
In fact, shortly before I joined part of the Golden Gate Chapter
had broken away and formed a new Chapter in Silicon Valley
Most of my workgroup at that time were members
of the Golden Gate Chapter and we all went to the monthly meetings
together. In time I grew to
loathe “ARMA Nights” because it meant that I didn’t get home from work
until around 11:00 pm. It
made for very long days.
Then someone suggested forming a new Chapter in
the area east of San Francisco Bay, commonly called the “East Bay”.
It turned out that there were a lot of potential members
interested in the prospect.
In fact, at one of our first meetings, a local vendor told me that he
had been a member of the Golden Gate Chapter for years, but never
attended any monthly meetings because they were too far away.
Or, as he put it:
“Why should I go all the way across the Bay to hear something I already
know?” A good point.
In a short while, the East Bay Chapter had
about 50 members. Not bad at
the time. We had the usual
monthly meetings and anywhere from one to two dozen people would show
up. Things were good.
But then, things began to change.
People were using computers more and more.
Records were no longer mostly in paper form.
File cabinets and boxes of folders fell into disuse.
Companies like Kodak, Minolta, Canon and Fuji used to erect
enormous “booths” to show off their microfilming devices at the annual
Exposition. Now they were
nowhere to be found. One
could buy a scanner the size of a shoebox for very little money.
[Sidebar:
When I was a college student, my major was in Anthropology.
As such, we were trained to be “observers”.
In other words, even when contemplating something like an
organization of which one was a part, one should observe it the way an
outsider would see it. I’ve
found this training to come in handy on more than one occasion.]
ARMA didn’t seem to notice the changes that
were going on at first. The
most they did was to bring up the subject of how to “manage” all those
electronic documents that Users were churning out at increasingly
alarming rates. If
Headquarters paid any attention to the drop in membership, it was to
admonish local Chapters.
At the same time, instead of routing
information through the local Chapter leadership, Headquarters happily
used the new medium of email to disseminate directly to all members.
In the meantime, vendors discovered that they could make
connections with their customers and advertise their products on the
Internet without the need for ARMA.
And members could easily discover and download useful information
from ARMA International’s own website without the need for local
meetings or attendance at the annual Conference.
I took a “giant step back” and “observed” what
was happening strictly as an anthropologist would do.
I even made a comment a few years ago to someone that we may well
be witnessing the extinction of local Chapters.
They simply weren’t needed anymore.
Since this person happened to be in charge of retaining and
increasing local memberships, he didn’t take this observation very well.
One could say the same thing of the dinosaurs.
“Ignore all these environmental changes going on!
They can’t replace us!
We’re the biggest thing on the planet!
Heck, we rule the world!”
Last month the three local Chapters around San
Francisco Bay were merged together into a single Chapter.
They’re calling it the “Golden State Greater San Francisco Bay
Area” Chapter, which is quite a mouthful.
Well, I was there when we formed the East Bay
Chapter, and I was there when it vanished beneath the Bay.
I did attend the new Chapter’s latest meeting
for two reasons: It was
virtual, and I didn’t have to travel anywhere; the Speaker was a friend
of mine from when I joined the Golden Gate Chapter all those decades
ago.
And that was the reason I stayed a member after
I retired, because of the people.
Now that the people are all pretty much gone, having largely
retired like I have, there’s no real reason to bother anymore.
Which is why I’m so relaxed about the whole thing.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Love, as always,
Pete
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