Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Lightning round on Information Governance. We will discuss how do you would you did we should you. Over a variety of interesting topics, over a series of episodes.
Hello, and welcome to what Counts. Every organization has a story in their data. This is a podcast that digs into the governance problems people inherit, ignore, and discover too late. I'm Lee, and as always, this is my co host, Maura Dunn.
Maura, let's begin this lightning round with what is a record? And more useful, what is not a record.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: How's that?
That was great, except for I want to go back to should you. Should we do any of these things?
Yes, we're an information governance podcast and we're saying, yes, you should do these things.
So I threw it out there as we were planning this. This series of lightning round questions, because sometimes we might get to a question that actually the answer is, no, you should not do that. But today, what is a record?
So this used to be an easy question to answer because everything was in paper and there were formal processes to get to a document that captured a piece of information.
But the actual definition of a record does not depend on it being a document. In fact, it explicitly, explicitly does not depend on that. So formal record of. Formal definition of a record. A record is any data set in any format that is recorded or capable of being recorded and that provides evidence of a transaction, a decision, a policy, a process, an obligation, a contract, an agreement of a legal right or ownership interest.
Basically anything that has to do with the reason you're running a business or running an organization, because it doesn't have to be for profit. It can be a nonprofit, it can be a public entity, a government or something else. But you're trying to demonstrate what happened.
Providing evidence is important because you need to be able to prove it to someone else.
Why, what happened when it happened, why it happened in case of dispute, and also for history's sake.
So those are the key elements.
[00:02:29] Speaker A: The only thing I would add. Sorry, but the only thing I would add is the piece that you commit the business to doing something or something like that. The commit piece.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Okay, that's all.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: I was, I was.
The reason I said it like that is because I thought that that was probably concluded in obligation.
But they are two sides, and especially depending on the organization, that might be two separate records that you committed to it and that you have accepted an obligation and that you carried it out. Then you got three records.
So, yeah, I think the critical components to what is a record are it's a. It's some kind of data could be structured data, could be unstructured data, could be a document, could be a photograph, could be a recording of some other kind.
It is recorded or capable of being recorded because it's a, if it's a conversation and there's no recording, then that's not a record.
That's a, that's a, could be a meeting of the minds, could be an agreement, but it's not a record.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Thus the saying, did you get that in writing?
[00:03:42] Speaker B: Did you get it in. Right. Yes. Because without the recording, when you, when you look back, all you have is a person's memory, possibly two people. If it was a conversation, hopefully two people, it was a conversation.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: He said, she said, yeah.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: So that able to be recorded. And then the last piece is the providing evidence part because you asked also, what is not a record?
[00:04:07] Speaker A: Right?
[00:04:08] Speaker B: So what is not a record is a whole lot of other stuff that is capable of being recorded and is recorded and doesn't provide evidence of anything.
So it's background information, it's draft documents that were discarded before the final was done.
It's sort of decision making research. We're going to think about this, think about that. But it's not where we landed. It's not evidence of a transaction or a decision or a commitment or an obligation.
There's no legal right to it.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah, okay, thank you. Because a cited piece of research that you use to create a report in your own organization, Right. I would still feel like that's a record. I'm using a record to produce something. And actually you're using research.
You're doing research, you're finding subject matter out there that supports the report that you're creating.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Right? So if you're citing something that's public, something that has been published, then your record is the citation. It's here's my, here's my decision and here's my citation that references the public thing, but that public thing is not a record for your organization, it's a record for somebody else's organization and you've cited it. And we have conventions for how that happens for many different styles of information.
Those have evolved over time as the way information is recorded and shared has evolved over time.
But the piece of research that you cite that is maintained by someone else, that is not a record for your organization.
So publicly available information, not a record for anybody who isn't the originator.
The contracts between you and a counterparty, those are records for both of you because you both need to demonstrate and have the commitment and the obligations to hold yourselves accountable and to hold the counterparty accountable.
Internal documentation, internal policies and process, those are records for your organization because you might have to demonstrate how you did something and that you did something. Especially in regulated industries, when a regulator comes to do a routine review or audit and says, okay, here's your policy on, let's talk about a publicly traded company. There's Sarbanes Oxley requirements. Here's your policy on how you are able to, how you set up a new vendor and how you know that that vendor is real and that somebody isn't just diverting money over to a, to a Swiss bank account.
And so you have a policy and you have a process.
The auditor doesn't want to just see the policy and the process. They want to see the documentation that you followed that process every time and that you can prove that every one of your vendors is a real vendor because that's how you prevent fraud. And because you're a publicly traded organization, you have an obligation to your stockholders, your shareholders to prevent fraud in your organization.
So all of those transactions that demonstrate, this is how we got the vendor information. This is how we verified it, which wasn't just by asking the vendor the second same question again, but actually going to a third source, an authoritative source like a Secretary of State or the IRS to check on tax ID numbers or state registration numbers.
And all of those are records for your organization.
Not the state ID number, not the, the federal tax ID number. But the fact that you've checked it is the record.
So what do you think?
[00:08:10] Speaker A: I think we're good. I think that was seven minutes long and it should be a wrap for our first lightning round.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: All right, well, we're ready to move on to the next one and hope you'll join us for that. Thanks.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: If you have any questions, please send us an email at info trailblazer.us.com or find us on the web at www dot.
Check us out on the Learning Academy as well@trailblazer learningacademy.com thank you for listening. Please tune in to our next episode. If you like this one, please be a champion and share it with people in your social media network.
Like or subscribe. Those are important, too. We appreciate you, the listeners. Special thanks.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Wait, one more thing. Look for us on the Microsoft Store and the Apple Store because we have some apps out there that you might find useful.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Absolutely. Special thanks goes to Jason Blake, who created our music.
