Media headlines are meant to attract attention and this recent one certainly caught mine.
“All firms are vulnerable to IT theft”
business processes
The business impact of the recent earthquake and aftershocks
Some interesting snippets coming out of the aftermath of the recent earthquake and aftershocks.
Forsyth Barr were caught out in Christchurch in 2011 when they couldn’t get back into their building to access paper documents that were not in electronic form. As a Forsyth Barr director said” you have to assume you will never get back in.” Forsyth Barr arranged for computers and a place for their staff to work but couldn’t replace the original documents stuck in their condemned building in Christchurch. They did however put a plan in place that worked for them this time when their Lower Hutt office was closed after the 14 November earthquake.
Some legal firms in Christchurch only had paper copies of wills and lost them in 2011. How embarrassing!
New Information and Records Standard for New Zealand
The new Information and Records Standard from Archives New Zealand sets the scene for lifting records and filing out of the pre-digital age of paper files and filing clerks and into 21st century thinking about what constitutes information and how we think about it.
It gives us the opportunity to consider how the information held in records and archives fits with the other information held or used by your organisation.
Why?
The new standard includes ‘information’ in its title.
Leaving a secure day job
Just over 14 years ago I left my secure day job with a growing consultancy firm and started Terrace Consulting Ltd. Five years before that I left my very secure public sector job as Information Services Manager (now called Chief Information Officer) to go into consultancy. What a ride.
Since 2002 I’ve undertaken a number of roles with a variety of organisations – from large public sector agencies to one person businesses – and a whole lot in between.
My focus has remained the same throughout – making information readily available to those who need it.
Evolution of the Desk
This video was published on YouTube on Nov 18, 2014. It is a lightearted and thought provoking view of technology changes over time.
Paper or paperless?
A recent article from Xero explained the main reasons why paper is still in common use for keeping a record of business matters. These reasons as cited by Xero are:
Geriatric care and business information : commonalities
My mother is 93 and living in a rest home. I’m not terribly happy with her situation and I’ve been reading Atul Gawande’s book “Being Mortal” looking for better options for people like her. I was surprised in the first few chapters to find some similarities with business information systems.
Where is the valuable intelligence in your business
Business information, whether electronic and hard copy, holds valuable intelligence about your business activities.
Losing this valuable information, or being unable to access it quickly when needed, could result in loss of contracts and lower profits.
Your business and the ‘Cloud’
You’ve heard of the ‘Cloud’ and probably wonder what it’s all about. Although at a basic level it’s really only another term for ‘Internet,’ the ‘Cloud’ is a way of storing information resources so that they can be easily accessed and shared when you’re away from the office. Another major benefit is
A structured electronic filing environment or a random Google-type search process
A structured electronic filing environment works better than having a ‘bucket’ of items that you search right through to find the item you want
What does this mean and what is the difference?