More than 30 years after the last Apollo mission, NASA became interested in the moon again with the objective of using the moon as a base for missions to Mars.
In the early seventies, NASA had accumulated masses of data and records documenting the challenges, engineering efforts, tools, processes, the people and pretty much everything else.
It came as no surprise in the new millennium that there was some pretty re-usable information out there that could be vital in revisiting the challenges of conquering the moon.
However, when it came to finding the information, there were problems. Fairly big problems like "we should have that but where is it", "we have it but can`t read the stuff on these funny disks and formats", "it`s somewhere in boxes", "we think it went to another agency", "we really don`t know what we are looking for", "sorry we can`t find the original footage of the moon landing". The effort to gain access to relevant information in the case of NASA was substantial.
Information overload?
There are some valuable lessons in the NASA story. Documents, records, scanned images, drawings, e-mails, Web pages, instant messaging and other unstructured information represent the memory of an organisation and are critical to the success of any business.
We all use the clich'e of information overload, the reference to the information revolution and quoting Moore`s law on the radical advances in information and communication technology but when it comes to documents, records and other stuff, we really don`t do much about it. Organisations need to know what information they have, what they should have to ensure compliance and how to actively manage it over time - it is not optional, it is survival in our digital age.
Managing information
E-mail has become the de facto repository of organisational knowledge and brings about severe problems in terms of duplication and retrieval.
Bennie Kotze is manager of the ECM strategy development unit at Nokusa Engineering Informatics.
Information needs to be managed in the same way (and with the same commitment) as managing an organisation`s financial resources. Imagine a company approaching financial administration without a plan, a policy framework, defined responsibilities, documented processes and specific enabling technology.
In today`s world it is not about holding information, it is about actively managing information with the necessary frameworks, processes and technologies in place. Information impacts on all business processes and all members of the organisation.
In the good old days, it was easier; a records manager with a good filing system for paper records were all that was needed. Today every member of the organisation is a records manager so it is pretty much about behaviours and values as well. Managing information as an asset means improved processes, efficiency and risk reduction.
Electronic information
E-mail has become the de facto repository of organisational knowledge and brings about severe problems in terms of duplication and retrieval.
Electronic information is stored on shared network drives haphazardly without basic functionality of version management, the means to assign indexing data and in the absence of a proper organisational business classification scheme.
The bottom line is that we can do much more with the information assets we hold if we apply basic principles, processes and applicable technologies.
Social networking is the new "thing"; blogs, wikis and social interaction technology tools are much more exciting than records management.
There is nothing "sexy" about records management but it is a discipline that impacts on the bottom line - we need to go back to basics and address the way we manage our information assets since we never know when we will be going to the moon again.
* Bennie Kotze is manager of the ECM strategy development unit at Nokusa Engineering Informatics.
Share