RIM professionals must be involved in the acquisition and development of new IT systems to ensure recordkeeping requirements are built in, not bolted on. Integrating retention and metadata rules during the procurement phase prevents costly compliance failures down the road. 1. Is RIM currently a mandatory sign-off on new software purchases in your organization? 2. How much time do you spend trying to retroactively apply retention to systems that weren't built for it? Action Item: Send an email to procurement requesting a RIM

As organizations begin executing automated "smart contracts" on blockchains, the definition of what constitutes a record is fundamentally changing. Records professionals must ensure these self-executing codes are captured and preserved alongside their human-readable counterparts. 1. Does your current RIM policy define whether a smart contract is an official business record? 2. How would you place a legal hold on a decentralized, automated transaction? Action Item: Add "smart contracts" to the definitions section of your official records policy.

Blockchain technology offers a decentralized, immutable ledger that can provide independent verification and authenticity for digital records. Understanding how distributed ledgers work allows records managers to prepare for this disruptive shift away from centralized storage. 1. How might an immutable blockchain ledger solve your current issues with record authenticity? 2. Are any departments in your organization currently experimenting with distributed ledger technology? Action Item: Read one introductory article today on how blockchain applies to information governance.

Mergers and acquisitions often dump terabytes of unclassified, inherited data onto the RIM team's lap, bringing hidden compliance risks. Establishing a rapid triage process to assess, classify, and migrate this data protects the parent company from inheriting the acquired company's liabilities. 1. Have you ever been blindsided by a data dump after a corporate acquisition? 2. What is your protocol for bringing legacy inherited systems into your retention schedule? Action Item: Outline a 3-step triage checklist for evaluating newly acquired data.

Local PST email files bypass corporate retention policies, create massive eDiscovery bottlenecks, and represent a hidden security risk. Eliminating these isolated data silos forces information back into managed, searchable, and compliant central repositories. 1. Does your IT department still allow users to create local PST archives? 2. What is your current estimate of unmanaged email data sitting on personal drives? Action Item: Ask IT for a report on the volume of PST files currently active on the network.