Despite hurricanes, ARMA members celebrate the profession.

Not one, but two, hurricanes fortunately failed to keep attendees away from New Orleans, the site of ARMA International's 2002 Annual Conference and Expo. Isadore and Lili may have dampened the city, but they couldn't dampen spirits at the international event. Despite a wet, windy beginning, more than 2,000 conference attendees and another 2,000 Expo-only attendees made it to the Big Easy to help celebrate the profession with ARMA.

Most attendees agreed that the quality of this year's education sessions was top-notch. In fact, many conference-goers said this year's educational content was the best ever. Preconference sessions, which comprised three tracks--RIM fundamentals, technology trends, and legal--were well received with more than 240 attendees. The full-conference educational sessions were equally popular, especially the timely cutting-edge sessions on topics such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). In some instances, there was standing room only and attendees had to be turned away at the door.

The keynote presentations proved both educational and entertaining. Intellectual capital guru Nick Bontis talked about "Winning in a Knowledge Era." He said it is easy to distribute knowledge today, but most of that knowledge isn't valuable. According to Bontis, we need to learn to control various degrees of knowledge as well as meet the challenges of the not-so-distant future: by 2010, cumulative codified information will double every 11 hours, organizations waste billions each year due to knowledge duplication, and people/employees are treated as expenses when they should be treated as assets.

Privacy Council's Gary Clayton espoused the importance of information management in protecting privacy. In "Privacy: It Is Your Business," he observed that we are becoming a society that never forgets--our records are being kept and maintained forever, and so strategic information management (managing how long information is used; managing data from different jurisdictions; managing compliance with privacy policies) must play a bigger role. Privacy, he said, is an ongoing process, and privacy management must start at the top of organizations. Clayton also warned that HIPAA "will be a challenge like we've never had."

Finally, Carr Hagerman entertained attendees with his presentation of the "Fish!" philosophy. He encouraged attendees to follow four simple rules at work and in life: Play, Be There, Make Their Day, and Choose Your Attitude. He said "Play" is often the scariest for people who think work is not supposed to be fun.

Iron Mountain/ARMA International Award for Excellence Announced

Weck of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, was presented the prestigious Iron Mountain/ARMA International Award for Excellence by Richard Reese, chairman and CEO of Iron Mountain, on September 30, 2002, at the ARMA International Conference and Expo in New Orleans.

The Iron Mountain/ARMA International Award for Excellence in Program Innovation and Improvement recognized Weck's focus on strategic planning, innovative use of technology, and tying records and information management to institutional goals. Weck designs, manufactures, and distributes innovative medical devices and accessories for use in a vast array of surgical applications.