The opening moment of the keynote at this week's LegalTech New York was a testament to collaboration and use of new media. Speaker Fred Borchardt, Partner with KPMG LLP was a last minute pinch hitter for the scheduled speaker Christopher J. Olsen of Lockheed Martin (retired Chief of Records, CIA) who had bowed out due to a medical issue. But thanks to creative use of rich media and audio, Fred was introduced virtually by Christopher, setting the tone for the day. An excitement about the use of social computing, web technology and a resurgence of knowledge management principles inspired by the Web 2.0 phenomenon was constant in many of the Day 1 sessions.

Fred Borchardt's presentation, titled Think Left: Think Left with Respect to the Electronic Discovery Reference Model reinforced the message that a proactive and informed approach to an organization's electronic records and information is critical to minimizing the costs, time and pain of an electronic discovery order. Borchardt still sees many organizations struggling. Records and information management often viewed only from a departmental or media based approach, too much information is kept on legal hold "just in case", inconsistent classification and identification practices result in intensive burden of discovery, and companies are failing to educate employees on retention and disposition obligations.

-photo from www.edrm.net

The "Left" is the first stage of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model. Information management is the essential starting point for reducing the risk and cost of the discovery process. Organizations that have adopted an information governance strategy that supports requirements driven by both regulatory obligations as well as the needs of the business managers inherently will have an advantage because content has been created, shared and categorized according to its purpose in a business process.

The five core activities needed to support an enterprise records and information management strategy are: classification and identification, search, retention and disposition, preservation and discovery, and governance and monitoring. Borchardt calls out specific categories of content - not all of which are appropriately considered and understood when reviewing e-discovery risks. Structured content (such as that found in ERP systems like SAP and Oracle), semi-structured content (email, text messages), siloed unstructured content (such as that managed in an ECM Suite such as Open Text) and unmanaged, unstructured content (office documents on local disks, thumb drives, shared drives) all need to be considered and identified during the course of a discovery order. Looking at organizational content through the lens of a "heat map" can help Legal, IT and RM administrators understand the risks incurred and information produced by different types of business decisions and activities. Where's the risk?

Borchardt's call to action was to alter typical views of records management: think enterprise, not departmental; think strategic, not tactical; become proactive not reactive. Successful organizations today have common characteristics: sustained executive level support, frequent and consistent communication across the organization, collaboration among business units, legal, IT and compliance managers, and understanding the need for change management planning in order to change behaviours.

Day 2 is well on its way. If you are at the conference, come see us at Booth #2306. We have our Legal and E-Discovery gurus ready to chat about your current challenges. We're also hosting a Super Session in the Concourse D room from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Follow us on Twitter or search for the Twitter hashtag #LTNY.