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The Risk
of Not Understanding the Importance of an Organization-wide Taxonomy Anyone
watching the monumental advances in storage technology and cost per gigabyte
going down, down, down should begin to realize that "information" storage is
becoming so cheap as to mesmerize users into thinking that no one need worry about running
out of space. What is even more clear is that conforming to
Sarbanes\Oxley will become more and
more difficult as the volumes continue to grow. Finding what is
important when it is needed can be expected to become very expensive.
The second indication that others are recognizing the difficulty of
finding the right information when it is needed is the emphasis in "data
mining". A variety of new search engines are emerging with algorithms that help
identify what the user needs. As important . . . is the merging of these individual
engines into mammoth engines that are intended to do everything needed to organize
information.
Where the information function doesn't have the understanding nor the
motivation to provide support that maintains control of recorded information, we see miles
of paper and terra bytes stored away forever both electronically and inside cartons, and
within file cabinets.
This is more than the costs associated with storage (which can be in the
hundreds of thousands of dollars), but the millions of dollars in labor searching through
these huge repositories of data to extract knowledge out of information.
One school of cynics argues that all you have to do is acquire the
"Discovery" software the opposing attorneys used to find the damaging files that
resided on file servers and cartons in storage. You know, . . . those files that a good
retention management program would have destroyed . . . had you known where they were
and what they contained!
There are legal issues that require a company to understand the
liabilities that can occur from the misuse of electronic records, such as email. In
litigation, the potential exposure from a discovery process can be devastating, if not
prepared.
According to California Senate Bill 1034, Section
1. The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following: ... (c) that computers
have become so commonplace that most lawsuits involve discovery of some type of
computer-stored information..~. (f) that the principle embodied in California's discovery
statutes is that information which is stored, used, or transmitted in new forms, including
computer data, should be available through discovery with the same openness as traditional
forms.
By integrating electronic data through USCS, an enterprise can be prepared
as to Sarbanes\Oxley but, in addition, to potentially damaging legal
charges.
In the world of Electronic Commerce using Electronic Data Interchange
(EDI), the protocols provided by each transaction set generate a clear and recognizable
set of records that provide an environment for easily automated retention management.
However, automated retention management is the one missing element in the integration of
Electronic Commerce systems. How can a system be complete without knowing how long it is
necessary to maintain records before purging? The answer is, it can't.
USCS taxonomy integrates document and records management
functions,
and, contains a built-in life-cycle schedules that are directly linked
to the Code of Federal Regulations.
Treating records as both an asset and a liability,
USCS taxonomy does the task
of controlling and tracking all information through to the end of its life cycle. |
