Coming to Grips with Your Digital Landfill

Published: July 15, 2008

by Alex Woodie

Chances are good that you're living in a "digital landfill," with no rhyme or reason in the way you classify and store electronic information. According to a survey conducted by the Association for Information and Image Management, (AIIM) most organizations are failing to live up to the responsibilities of collecting information electronically, nor are they taking advantage of solutions that could help them.

AIIM shared some surprising statistics during a recent presentation, titled "What's In Your Digital Landfill?" According to the Maryland organization, more than 40 percent of organizations have no policy for classifying electronic information as business records, and just a hair more than 40 percent of organizations provide any sort of training on how to handle electronic information.

It's no wonder that only 34 percent of end users say their organizations understand how to handle electronic records. More than half of the respondents said they have "little to no confidence" that their organizations can maintain electronic documents accurately or in an accessible or trustworthy fashion.

Representatives with AIIM, which is a 60-year-old non-profit organization dedicated to helping members understand the challenges associated with managing documents, content, records, and business processes, say they were surprised by the success of the "What's In Your Digital Landfill?" presentation--it ranked among the five most popular presentations for the month of June in Slideshare, the online presentation sharing Web site (because you can never get enough of PowerPoint).

"We continue to find a growing awareness across organizations of all sizes of the benefits of developing a strategy for managing electronic information, and the related risks of mismanaging this information,” notes AIIM President John Mancini. "The popularity of this presentation clearly indicates that awareness of this critical issue has reached a tipping point."

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