New Information Governance Consortium and Think Tank Launched
New York, New York (PRWEB) February 03, 2014 -- The Information Governance Initiative (IGI), a cross-disciplinary consortium and think tank focused on advancing information governance, launched today. The IGI will publish research, benchmarking surveys, and guidance for practitioners on its website at http://www.IGInitiative.com. The research will be freely available, and the group will also be providing an online community designed to foster discussion and networking among practitioners.
“We believe there is a need for like-minded people to come together and find a better way to use and manage information – a forum for ideas, facts and techniques,” said Barclay T. Blair, founder and executive director of the IGI. “That is why we are launching the Information Governance Initiative.”
Barclay T. Blair and Bennett B. Borden founded the IGI. Blair is the group's executive director, Borden is the organization’s chair, and Jason R. Baron is co-chair. Jay Brudz is the general counsel.
“We launched the IGI because we believe there is a real lack of clarity in the market regarding information governance,” said Bennett B. Borden, founder and chair of the IGI. “We want to provide a home for a cross-disciplinary discussion around information governance so that organizations can harvest the value of their information. The IGI is a bridging organization to bring all the facets of information governance together.”
The IGI is launching with broad support from leading providers of information governance products and services, including Active Navigation, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, Equivio, Fontis International, HP Autonomy, Iron Mountain, kCura, Nuix, OpenText, Recall, Recommind, RSD, Tritura, ViaLumina, Xerox, and ZyLAB.
“I see the IGI’s mission as sounding a call to arms that current information practices are unsustainable in our increasingly big data world, and that IG solutions exist that better leverage new technology and smart practices,” said Jason R. Baron, co-chair of the IGI. “Unless corporations and government agencies take more concerted actions, information overload and mismanagement may pose a serious threat to the economy and even to the justice system itself.”
The IGI is partnering with a variety of organizations to bring IG stakeholders from different disciplines together to work on the information governance problem. For example, the IGI has partnered with The CFO Alliance, a community of over 4,000 senior finance professionals, to bring the IG conversation to the finance community. ARMA International has appointed a representative to the IGI Advisory Board, and the two organizations plan on working together to advance the adoption of information governance. In addition, the IGI will be presenting several sessions on information governance at the Managing Electronic Records Conference in Chicago, May 19-21, 2014.
“For years we’ve been treating the symptoms of bad information governance, but not the underlying disease,” said Jay Brudz, general counsel of the IGI. “The time has come to advance the state of the art to the point where we are no longer prisoners of our own information.”
The IGI has also formed an Advisory Board of members drawn from the disciplines that own the facets of information governance, such as information security, data science and analytics, privacy, finance, compliance, records management, eDiscovery, risk management and big data. The group also is developing a Corporate Council comprised of practitioners working in IG.
At launch, IGI Advisory Board members include Courtney Ingraffia Barton, senior counsel, global privacy at Hilton Worldwide, Inc.; Julie Colgan, president of ARMA International; Leigh Isaacs, VP of the information governance Peer Group at ILTA; and Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst at IT-Harvest and well-known cybersecurity expert. Additional board members are being added on an ongoing basis.
“Information governance increasingly is being recognized as critical to leveraging the value of information while simultaneously reducing the costs and risks that surround it, particularly as it relates to records management, eDiscovery and litigation readiness,” said Leigh Isaacs, VP of the information governance Peer Group at ILTA and IGI Advisory Board member. “The IGI is going to be a transformational force to increase awareness, shape industry standards, and offer practical advice that information governance practitioners can use daily.”
“ARMA International is thrilled to be a part of the IGI,” said Julie J. Colgan, CRM, IGP, president of ARMA International and IGI Advisory Board member. “ARMA International has been at the forefront of shaping the IG profession through its education, publications and the development of the Generally Accepted Recordkeeping Principles®. By bringing together a critical mass of IG stakeholders and thought leaders in a collaborative setting, we believe the IGI will be an important vehicle for helping practitioners turn thinking into action.”
“Information Governance is closely coupled to the ideas and practices of IT security,” said Richard Stiennon, chief research analyst for IT-Harvest and IGI Advisory Board member. “In a world of rising threats against data of all types, it is important that an organization's information governance plan is integrated with its security practices.”
Broad Industry Support for the Information Governance Initiative
“Marvelous news! Well done Barclay and team for launching this long-needed IG think tank and forum,” said Peter Baumann, CEO of Active Navigation Inc. “Not a day too soon and the Active Navigation team looks forward to working with the other IGI charter supporters to develop this critical business capability.”
“Data has become very big, with costs and risks close in tow,” said Amir Milo, CEO of Equivio. “Organizations just have to regain control over their data, and the sooner the better. Recently, some great work has started to emerge, the joint product of technologists and lawyers, working in close cooperation with corporations, which has the potential to re-define the space. The IGI is perfectly timed because it can help us all share and foster the development of this emerging knowledge base and work together to take information governance to the next stage.”
“As a provider of the industry's first subscription-based international records retention research product, we see the challenges of information governance first hand, every day," said Steve Formica, CEO of Fontis International. "We are proud to support this important new Initiative, which will play a critical role in bringing the stakeholders of information governance together.”
“We’re happy to support initiatives like these that can help advance the industry,” said Andrew Sieja, president and CEO of kCura. “We’re looking forward to working with the IGI team in their efforts to educate the community.”
“The launch of the IGI marks a tipping point as the combined forces of mobile, big data and the cloud offer immense opportunity that cripples traditional data protection and governance principles and practices,” said Deborah Baron, CEO at Nuix NA. “The IGI is uniting some of the best and brightest in the industry to tackle these challenges for the benefit of organizations globally. Nuix is proud to step up as a charter supporter, contributing our resources and expertise to help drive the industry forward.”
“Recommind is excited to be a charter supporter of the IGI as we collectively drive the information governance market forward, helping the members leverage advanced technologies to solve historically difficult business challenges (Privacy, RIM, eDiscovery) – all of which are rapidly accelerating,” said Dean Gonsowski, Esq., VP business development and associate general counsel at Recommind.
“For the last five years, RSD has been on the forefront of understanding the challenges around information governance and developing a purpose-built information governance platform,” said Tamir Sigal, vice president of marketing at RSD. “We are thrilled to be part of the IGI community so we can continue learning from our peers and share how our strategy is helping address information governance issues for our customers.”
“Information overload has serious implications for organizations,” said Sheila Mackay, VP of eDiscovery consulting at Xerox Litigation Services. “They increasingly need to find value in their data to be more competitive; meet the myriad regulatory, compliance, and legal requirements; and more efficiently address the costs and risks of storing, managing, and retrieving ever-increasing volumes of data. We are excited to be at the forefront of this strategic initiative to help facilitate dialogue among industry stakeholders and develop an effective and actionable information governance framework.”
“This initiative will help our clients, who, along with reducing eDiscovery costs, face the information risk management challenges of long term sustainable archiving, the dark side of big data, international privacy, security and ever changing compliance and regulatory requirements,” said Mary Mack, enterprise technology counsel at ZyLAB. “ZyLAB is proud to participate as a charter supporter of the Information Governance Initiative to contribute to the growth of this global, cross-organizational, cross-functional community.”
“As the digital age redefined the media for storing records, information governance will result in a comparable sea change in the processes by which records and information are retained, preserved, and made available,” said Robert F. Williams, president of Cohasset Associates, Inc., and founder of the Managing Electronic Records Conference. “No entity better understands this transformation than IGI.”
“It's impossible to develop a defensible eDiscovery and digital evidence framework without strong information governance in place, particularly as information extends into mobile devices, cloud and virtualized repositories,” said Steve Teppler, chair of the eDiscovery and Digital Evidence Committee of the ABA. “All too often, organizations find themselves subject to sanctions because they have neglected information governance until it is too late. Seeing a thought leadership organization like the IGI take charge and offer best practices and awareness is critical to preventing problems well in advance of eDiscovery requirements and digital evidence pitfalls.”
About the Information Governance Initiative
The Information Governance Initiative (IGI) is a cross-disciplinary consortium and think tank dedicated to advancing the adoption of Information Governance practices and technologies through research, publishing, advocacy and peer-to-peer networking. We invite practitioners and organizations who wish to participate in or support the IGI to visit our website at http://www.IGInitiative.com.
Barclay T. Blair, Information Governance Initiative, http://www.iginitiative.com, +1 (646) 450-4468, [email protected]
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