Information stakeholders unite!(IN FOCUS: A Message from the Editor) (Editorial)

• Author: Wiler, Vicki

This year's joint ARMA International/Forrester Research technology survey results affirm the direction ARMA has been advocating for the past few years: records and information management (RIM) professionals need to be developing broader information governance (IG) skills if they want to have more influence in and impact on their organizations.

IG skills, which encompass aspects of IT, legal, privacy, and business/audit, would allow survey respondents to meet what they identified as their organizations' second greatest challenge: "lack of IT, legal, compliance, and business stakeholder alignment." Understanding what these other stakeholders' information-related goals and challenges are and being able to work with them to help them meet those goals will result in stronger RIM and IG programs.

For example, working more closely with IT stakeholders would have a major impact on improving what survey respondents said is their organizations' third greatest challenge: 'limited capabilities to integrate with other systems."

Perhaps, developing stronger relationships with IT stakeholders should be a major objective for RIM professionals. Forrester analyst Cheryl McKinnon, IGP, concludes in her cover article, "As IG concepts help propel the RM profession into its next level of maturity, areas of richest opportunity include deepening the relationship with IT to get a strong grasp on storage, technology roadmaps, and software budgets." Reading this issue will pay dividends in this regard.

Authors Karim N. Sidi and Dale A. Hutchinson explain in "The Trusted Information Payoff' how using an information management framework can address the problems that arise from incompatible information systems and data sources. This framework depends on data standards that are enforced through active governance to produce information that is true, has integrity, and can be trusted.

RIM, IT, and legal stakeholders all need to understand the risks of engaging service...