Collaboration ensures RIM career success and growth.

• Author: Wiler, Vicki
• Position: IN FOCUS: A Message from the Editor - Records and information managemen - Editorial

Wherever you are along the records and information management (RIM) career ladder, good collaboration skills are among the most critical to your being effective in your current role and to climbing to a higher rung. This issue's articles describe the valuable collaborative roles you can play in several business functions, including legal and technology initiatives.

Richard Vestuto, J.D., and Bill Piwonka write in the cover article that because legal holds "intersect with business units across the organization, including legal, IT, records management, HR, and compliance, among others," a steering committee comprising these stakeholders is essential to ensuring that the organization's preservation protocols are applied consistently.

In "RIMS's Role in Harnessing the Power of Big Data," author Kevin L. Dale, CRM, says RIM professionals can help solve the big data problems that come with disorganized, duplicative, poor quality data. "Big data can partner with RIM to reduce the costs of identifying, preparing, and analyzing data," Dale writes. Further, he says, "By creating synergies between RIM and the big data program staff and integrating RIM principles into all processes that 'touch' data, organizations can forge and maintain a sustainable path to the information governance (IG) needed to ensure high-value data."

As the foundation of IG, RIM must be effective to ensure positive outcomes from audits, Julie Gable, CRM, CDIA, FAI, writes in the Principles Series article. "An IG program based on the Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles[R] (Principles) and the Information Governance Maturity Model (IGMM) goes a long way to show that the organization takes its...