It is with regret that Sue Pruliere stepped down as chapter President and resigned from the ARMA SWO Board. President Elect, Helen Kennedy has assumed the president duties for the remainder of the ARMA year. Sue is grateful for the opportunities that serving on the board brought and for all the friendships and networking that grew from them.

ARMA SWO April Workshop
On Wednesday, April 17, ARMA Southwestern Ontario hosted two half-day workshops at the Elmhurst Inn, Ingersoll. Paul Spiridi of the Fraud Unit of Niagara Regional Police Services presented the morning session, “Fraud and Identity Theft”. Paul led us through an informative session on the various types of fraud and victimization, which include identity theft, theft of payment card information (credit or debit cards), fraudulent mortgages, theft through Power of Attorney, counterfeit cash, employee theft and Internet scams. Paul suggested four key things that individuals can do to help protect themselves:
1) maintain awareness (check bank statements, credit histories etc)
2) protect your information and don’t provide it if you don’t have to
3) do “due diligence” before becoming involved in something (research the company)
4) don’t accept “because” statements at face value, e.g. I need access to your server room because I need to check the computers.

The afternoon discussion, “Future Trends in Technology, in Education and Workplace” discussed new technologies and how to ensure that you are using them safely and appropriately. Mark Carbone, the Chief Information Officer for the Waterloo Region District School Board and Ron Millar, a retired technology consultant from the same board, led this session. Workshop participants were introduced to “back channelling”, providing real-time commentary during the presentation. Social media is changing the way we communicate, as Mark stated, “The paradigm in Social Media and Cloud commuting is shifting and the way we store and access information”. We also had the opportunity to use Chrome books, a low-cost device similar to a laptop that does not have a hard drive, but works directly with the Internet through a Wi-Fi connection and various applications. A discussion about an individual’s on-line presence led us to Google our own names to see how big our digital footprint is and led to a discussion about social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter. A short panel discussion rounded out the afternoon.

Thanks to all who were able to attend; a special thank you to Laurie Baines and Michael Molnar for organizing the workshop.


ARMA Canada Region Conference in Saskatoon, June 2-5
ARMA Southwestern Ontario members Helen Kennedy and Clare Cameron will be attending the Leadership training session which occurs immediately before the Conference. If you haven’t already checked out the program, visit the conference website at www.armacanadaconference.org.

Member Profiles
In our ongoing program to “introduce” members to each other, three new profiles have been posted to our members-only Chapter Updates section of our website. Get to know Clare, Paul and Christine. To complete our member survey, please go to www.surveymonkey.com/s/armaprofile.

Social Media Update
ARMA Southwestern Ontario Chapter will soon be using social media as an added communication tool for updates on events, educational opportunities and Chapter business.
Watch for more information in the coming months as we formalize a social media use policy and establish profiles on Facebook and Twitter. Please direct comments and questions to programs2@armaswo.com.


Chapter Session of the Month is Back!
Be sure to take advantage of this free benefit of chapter membership.

In April, it's Cracking the Content Conundrum: A New Way to Apply Content Based Retention Periods to Individual Unstructured e-Records.

Organizations are challenged by the need to apply content based retention periods to individual unstructured records. Given the volume of records generated and the rapid pace of business, the traditional records management approach (requiring users to classify their records) becomes overwhelmed and is not a viable solution. Organizations, therefore, ride the risk of a seesaw: keeping everything and keeping nothing.

This web seminar from the 2010 MER Conference provides participants with a proactive approach to developing a strategy to identify and apply retention to unstructured records. Specifically, this web seminar explores innovative, new approaches - drawing upon lessons learned and tools used in other disciplines - to identify, classify, and manage unstructured content.

Feedback
Do you have comments or questions about any of the information found in this article or on our website? Would you like to contribute to the communication? Share your RIM Month plans and events. Please email publicity@armaswo.com.