Intellectual Resources Management

Fumi: presentation and at work

I have been working as a records/information management (RIM) consultant more than 27 years in Japan. I have visited a lot of my clients in most cities in Japan and many times in The US. Until now, I have consulted, educated and developed RIM programs for more than 40 municipal governments, 10 Central Government Ministries/Agencies, and also about 30 private companies in Japan. The private sectors include famous global corporations, which I worked with my friend consultants, most of them are Americans.

If you are interested more, please visit another Fumi's web site. The URL is: http://www.geocities.jp/fumihoei/
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Through my 27-year consulting experiences, I have published 7 books and more than 50 articles for the various magazines concerning RIM, work productivity and others. I have studied at two national universities. Through my study of industrial design in the faculty of technology at the latter university, I recognized how the logical way of thinking was important for my business. But on the other hand, I really learned that I should "jump" logic for fresh and new ideas. Still this way of thinking occupies some part of my consulting philosophy and I believe that we had better to recognize and perform in the same way. Our professionalism needs newer ideas anytime.

Fumi: with US professional business friends

When I started consulting business more than a quarter century ago, most clients in Japan didn't understand the meaning of "records management". The people thought that "RM" or "RIM" was nothing more than "paper filing system". Frankly speaking, I think still not many people recognize "RM" or "RIM" correctly. Therefore I have been trying to advise, educate and help people to recognize the real effectiveness of "RIM" and to go beyond "RIM" for their better business infrastructures.

Exactly speaking, my specialty as a consultant is not only RM/RIM, but also integrating RM/RIM with other concepts. I have been studying and developing what I call the "Intellectual Resources Management" (IRM). This includes not only records and information, but also Knowledge, Wisdom and Creativity. Of course another new concept of "Content Management (CM)" must be included in this IRM concept. I have been thinking that RIM was one part of IRM. This is my unique concept and there may be few other consultants who are thinking in the same way. Improving the concept of "Intellectual Resources Management" to be more concrete and effective for our business activities is one of my lifework.

In the beginning as a consultant, I have started to advise my clients how they should define and evaluate the quality of records and information for their business activities. Still I recognize that definition and evaluation of records/information is most important to begin with RIM process. When we encourage the people to reduce "paper mountain" out of their offices, we should not talk only about physical volume of records but also recognize what the real value of records/information is for their business activities. This means that we should start RM or RIM process from the beginning to define the value and to evaluate the quality of records/information.

Another point is, I think we should manage not only documents or files, but also the "components" of the document, like "sentence, chart, graph, drawing, image and others". The concept of "component of document" is the very essential in our "electronic age" because these components can be the elements of managing knowledge, wisdom and creativity. They must be vital for our efficient and effective way of thinking in any business activity. The uniqueness of my concept as "IRM" is, we should think about records and information first, but then we must think about knowledge and wisdom. This is because all of them are the basis of our human intellectual way of thinking/activities. More over, how to manage knowledge and wisdom is not the ultimate goal. Beyond them in my idea, "creativity management" must be considered. Because we records/information managers/administrators are trying how our activities can be more efficient and effective. This must be achieved by all kinds of "human way of thinking", and human ability can go farther through knowledge, wisdom and creativity.

Records and information management is very important, but our efforts as records/information professionals in "e-age" should go beyond traditional concept of records/information management. This is what I have been consulting and teaching to a lot of clients in Japan, in The US and other countries.

Mail to Fumi fumi.kobayashi@nifty.com