Information Management Journal articles from November 2007

Information Management Journal archives from November 2007

The triumphs and travails of everyday e-mail.(IN FOCUS: A Message from the Editors)
November 1, 2007... This issue of IMJ starts out with the very same admonition proffered at the top of the last issue: Get serious about e-discovery! The message bears regular repeating because e-discovery is becoming a more important issue every day--and is...

Firms unprepared for e-discovery.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)(Survey)
November 1, 2007... More than 69 percent of companies responding to a new Contoural Inc./Osterman Research survey said they are not ready to respond to litigation. Only 6 percent said they could immediately and confidently handle e-discovery requests. More than...

Discovery strains businesses.(UP FRONT: News, Trends & Analysis)(Survey)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... According to a September survey conducted by Osterman Research for e-mail archiving provider Fortiva, organizations with more than 1,000 employees now average 37 legal discovery requests a year, 37 business requests, 25 audit requests, and more...

P2P: new national security risk?(UP FRONT)(Peer to peer networking)
November 1, 2007... Experts say peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, which facilitate file sharing between computers, are now a major threat to personal and national security. While testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform...

Judge strikes down FBI use of NSLs.(UP FRONT)(Federal Bureau of Investigation)(national security letters)
November 1, 2007... In September, a federal judge struck down controversial parts of the USA PATRIOT Act (Patriot Act) that had allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to use national security letters (NSLs) to secretly demand individuals' and companies'...

NY public library to house NYT archives.(UP FRONT)(New York Times Co.)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The New York Times Co. has announced its intentions to donate its extensive archives, dating back to 1851, the year The New York Times was first published, to the New York Public Library. The collection--which includes more than 700,000...

U.S. government secrecy on the rise.(CONFIDENTIAL)
November 1, 2007... Government secrecy expanded again last year despite growing public concern, according to a report released by a coalition of open government advocates. The Secrecy Report Card, produced annually by Open TheGovernment.org to identify trends...

CIA: no FOIA fee for bloggers.(UP FRONT)
November 1, 2007... Bloggers seeking information from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) most likely won't have to pay for it. Per new CIA rules that define them as part of the news media, bloggers making Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the agency...

How to reform Australia's privacy law.(UP FRONT)
November 1, 2007... Australian Privacy Commissioner Karen Curtis has released a list of recommendations on how to reform Australia's privacy law. The list was also submitted to the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) review of privacy. "The ALRC will...

Canadian privacy czar makes data plan.(UP FRONT)
November 1, 2007... As a result of major data breaches suffered by Canadians this year, the Canadian Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) has released voluntary guidelines urging businesses to notify those affected. According to a statement by Privacy...

Better data belies success.(UP FRONT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Australian managers spend 67 minutes a day searching for corporate information to support their decision-making, according to a new survey. But that's nothing: marketing managers down under spend almost 90 minutes each day looking for data. ...

UK stores phone data for one year.(UP FRONT)
November 1, 2007... In late July, Parliament passed a law that requires UK telecommunications companies to retain call data--fixed and mobile--for one year. The Data Retention Regulations, which became effective October 1, stipulate that communications...

Lithuania posts secret KGB files online.(UP FRONT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Thanks to Lithuanian historians, once-secret KGB files are open to anyone with an Internet connection at www.kgbdocuments.eu. The files--which include secret directives sent from Moscow to KGB headquarters in Lithuania, Latvia, and...

SNIA warns of long-term data crisis.(UP FRONT)(Storage Networking Industry Association )
November 1, 2007... According to the "100 Year Archive Requirements" survey report from the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), digital information is in big trouble. "Driven by compliance, security, and legal risk, organizations of all types are...

SEC approves PCAOB Audit Standard No. 5.(UP FRONT)(Public Company Accounting Oversight Board)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has approved the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board's (PCAOB) Auditing Standard (AS) No. 5, "An Audit of Internal Control Over Financial Reporting That Is Integrated with An Audit of Financial...

NARA, Amazon digitize historic films.(UP FRONT)(National Archives and Records Administration )
November 1, 2007... The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has partnered with Amazon.com and subsidiary CreateSpace to digitize copies of thousands of the Archives' historic films and videotapes and make them available in DVD format for...

D.C. to delete e-mails after six months.(UP FRONT)
November 1, 2007... Before early January 2008, District of Columbia government employees have been instructed to review their e-mails and save the messages that they believe should be retained. All others will then be destroyed. And every six months after that,...

FTC reveals whole foods' secrets.(UP FRONT)(Federal Trade Commission )(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Premium organic foods retailer Whole Foods Market Inc. recently wrapped up its $565-million acquisition of competitor Wild Oats Markets Inc. after a five-month antitrust investigation and court battle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)....

Survey: e-mail violators may get the boot.(UP FRONT)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Employees who aren't careful what they put in e-mails may lose their jobs over it. A recent report from e-mail security provider ProofPoint revealed that almost 28 percent of U.S. companies had fired an employee during the past year for...

Ask.com won't retain user data.(UP FRONT)
November 1, 2007... Search engine Ask.com will stop retaining search data if users activate a new feature that prohibits it, according to an Associated Press (AP) report. That decision makes Ask the first major search engine to promise users it won't store...

CIOs need holistic view of e-records.(UP FRONT)(chief information officer)
November 1, 2007... The National Association of State CIOs (NASCIO) is calling on state chief information officers (CIOs) to better prepare for electronic discovery as they take on more responsibility for managing their states' information assets. According...

Putting retention management on the right track: forrester suggests ways to get an organization on track and prepared to meet today's e-discovery challenges.(ON THE EDGE: The Use & Misuse of Information)
November 1, 2007... One year ago, new Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) amendments went into effect, requiring organizations large and small to be able to demonstrate, if necessary, that their electronic information is accurate, accessible, and trustworthy....

Taking ECM from concept to reality: here are five elements that can help organizations establish well-defined and robust management of all content.(enterprise content management )
November 1, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Enterprise content management (ECM) combines hardware, software, and infrastructure to enable an organization to store, manage, and access information generated throughout the organization, without regard to its form...

Eight steps to successful taxonomy design: when users are not involved in classification system design, their deployments frequently fail.
November 1, 2007... The least flexible part of any system is the user.--Lowell lay Arthur The word 'user' is the word used by computer professionals when they mean 'idiot'.--Dave Barry The goal of implementing an enterprise content management (ECM)...

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act: five years later: corporate America still finds SOX compliance requirements to be burdensome, vague, and frustrating.
November 1, 2007... In 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) with the aim of preventing an assortment of ills related to corporate finance and reporting. The legislation's vehicles for accomplishing its goals were to be a series of steps...

How to create and facilitate meetings that matter: learn how to plan and run a successful meeting using crucial checklists.(Management Wise)
November 1, 2007... We're having too many %$*# meetings!" is a familiar cry that echoes through the corridors of many workplaces--particularly when meetings are held by default and treated as events rather than a process. Records and information management (RIM)...

Solving the unmanaged content conundrum: dealing with the exploding volume of e-mail and other unmanaged electronic documents can cost a bundle unless the proper steps are taken.(Tech Trends)
November 1, 2007... Recent federal rules, significant fines from regulatory agencies, and the threat of electronic discovery are driving organizations to better identify and manage the information they create and store. Companies need to ensure that their...