Archive for April, 2008

I’m down in Orlando this week for the Windows Connection Event. It’s great to be talking with lots of Exchange administrators and IT folks that leverage Microsoft technologies and need strong Microsoft partners to extend those investments.

I was reading through the electronic version of AIIM’s eDoc Magazine earlier this week – it’s a valuable source of information with great articles and contributors. The latest issue has a lot of articles dealing with the issue of records management and, more broadly, retention management. The one thing missing, though, is a tutorial on how to create and implement a truly workable retention policy.

I often hear organizations ask: should eDiscovery be outsourced or handled internally? Well, unfortunately, the answer to that question depends on various factors – it’s not a simple insource/outsource decision. One thing is for sure – every organization should “own” eDiscovery. That means decision-making belongs with the organization, not its law firm (though the law firm should be a strategic adviser). The way to think of it is that the organization owns the process of eDiscovery, and is ultimately responsible for process performance.

Much has been made of my decision to leave Forrester Research for a content archiving vendor. It’s been interesting for me to follow the news, if only because it’s part of the natural lifecycle for an industry analyst to join the ranks of a software vendor (and vice-versa). The analyst world is both interesting and rewarding, and Forrester was a great place to work. I learned much about the records management, content archiving, and eDiscovery solutions in the marketplace; I was able to interface with hundreds of organizations to learn the very real challenges associated with information retention and access; and I was able to develop a good sense for the chasm that exists between where we are now in terms of litigation readiness and where we need to be.