Forms Talk

CANCGSB-6.2-2009 - What It Is and Why You Want to Know

By Bet Morash
Chair of CGSB on Standardization of Forms Management (Canada)

“The Standardization of Forms Management” (officially known as CANCGSB-6.2-2009) is officially launched! Why all the excitement? The document is the first to offer a national standard on forms management anywhere in the world.

The document “sets out best practices for the establishment and operation of a forms management program in either public or private-sector organizations. It deals with recommended requirements for policy, and provides guidance on program implementation, training, resource utilization and the promotion of the Forms Management Program.”  Although the original goal was to “develop a national standard on the development and operation of a Forms Management Program and to assist in regular maintenance of the standard once completed,” the completed document has gone far beyond that.

The standards document offers expert guidance in forms terminology, elements of forms management (development, analysis, design, inventory, edition control, discontinuation, and administration), elements of a forms management program (governance, program mandate, policy, procedures, edition identifier elements, records, accessibility, inventory, data standards, e-authorization and e-signatures, and performance measurements).  It includes appendices that provide templates for client guide, program performance measurements, training and development of forms management staff, job descriptions, promoting forms management and rationalization, outsourcing, calculation of available productive time, cost recovery and even how to write your own Forms Procedures Manual.

How did we do it? It started with an e-mail in January 2002 from long-standing BFMA member, Ron Moorhead of the Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB, a branch of the Canadian Government).  This initial contact began a 7-year development cycle.

Ron conducted the first meeting of the Inter-jurisdictional Sharing Session on the Management of Forms (as it was first called), which was held in Toronto, Ontario on February 19 and 20, 2002. The meeting was made up of many Canadian forms professionals with diverse backgrounds representing Federal, Provincial/Territorial, and Municipal governments, Municipal police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Department of National Defence, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), Hospitals, Victorian Order of Nurses, Pharmaceutical companies, Canadian Imperial Bank of Canada, ScotiaBank, and Manitoba Hydro. And if that isn’t diverse enough, we also had national and international independent consultants as well.

Since that initial meeting, we’ve had 8 face-to-face meetings, hundreds of e-mails and dozens of long-distance telephone conversations, all adding up to hundreds of hours of expert input to build this document.

Ron Moorhead, retired but still a vocal supporter of Forms Management, recently stated “Our intention was to provide something significant for the Forms Management Community to base their program on. The adoption of the CANCGSB-6.2-2009 by any Forms Management program would put them on solid footing within their organization, i.e. they are following a national standard. How much better does it get than that?”

You can purchase the document online at CGSB’s webstore -- http://www.techstreet.com/cgi-bin/browsePublisher?publisher_id=58&subgroup_id=32200! This is an essential document for any forms department that strives for professionalism and management recognition.

Eyetracking Studies and Form Design

By: Jessica Enders
Region 8 Coordinator

In recent years, a number of form design related eyetracking studies seem to have captured popular attention amongst the web community. These include a study by Matteo Penzo on label placement and another more recent study by cxPartners.

Not only have these studies been widely circulated on the Internet but, in the case of Penzo's study, they have formed the basis of some parts of Luke Wroblewski's popular book “Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks”.

It's great that the unique design challenges that forms represent are getting more attention from the web and user experience community. However, there are some fairly significant methodological issues that lead to concern about the use of these articles as the basis for best practice.These issues can be summarized as:

1. Confusing seeing with attention; and
2. Using an inappropriate sample.

To learn more about these issues and what can be done to address them, read the full article "Eyetracking research and forms design" on the Formulate Information Design website.

Invitation to Language Translation Forum Oct. 23

By: Justiss Boyer-Cowland
Marketing Council

Sajan, a language service provider, has extended an offer to BFMA members to attend an Executive Forum to be held in the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday, October 23, 2008.

Language translation is about more than just literal content translation. It is rapidly becoming more and more strategic to senior company executives. At a time when the technology and service landscape is changing, this can present significant challenges for your business. It is imperative to have the benchmark data to support the appropriate resourcing, business models and critical information to make certain your company is managing translation and not allowing translation to manage you.

This full day forum is broken into a series of sessions, starting with guest speaker, Don DePalma, Chief Research Officer & Partner, Common Sense Advisory, Inc. The focus is on: Multilingual Data Management, Global Content Lifecycle, and Language Translation Quality. A Case Study is also presented wrapping these components together.

As an attendee at this forum you will learn about:
• Industry awareness from Common Sense Advisory Analyst, Don DePalma
• New models for language translation quality assurance
• How enterprise multilingual data management will help to drive cost out of your translation spend
• The Global Content Lifecycle; cradle to the grave analysis and open discussion around the lifecycle from content creation through translation to publication

Unlike most industry events, Sajan does not charge a fee to attend this forum, although space is limited.  Register to secure your spot. Please contact Alison Horne with any questions.

PDF Central Conference Held

By: Mike Ash
Western & Southern Financial Group Member

The PDF Central Conference was held in Minneapolis in September and provided attendees with a wealth of information. On the heels of BFMA’s Fall Forms Institute at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, several members made the trek to Minneapolis to hear experts speak on a variety of topics. The event was attended by forms professionals, graphic designers, IT members, and general business users. This was my first time attending the PDF Conference and I would recommend that if you haven’t attended one in the past, you should put next year’s conference on your calendar.

There were approximately 200 attendees at the conference and an additional 150 online who heard presentations from experts such as Ali Hanyaloglu of Adobe, Angie Okamoto, and Ted Padova. Ali was the keynote speaker on Day One and provided attendees with a glimpse of the interactive workflow features of Acrobat 9 and Acrobat.com. The presentation was an excellent opportunity to view the newest version of Acrobat and it showcased many of the “bells and whistles” associated with the software. Day Two’s keynote was presented by Angie and Ted who discussed the differences between and when to use Acrobat Forms and LiveCycle Forms. The two personalities provided for lively discussion and the information was great. I highly recommend that you visit the PDF Central Conference website (http://www.pdfcentralconference.com) to review each of the presentations which are presented in a webcast format. Additionally, all of the presentation PowerPoint displays are available for download from the agenda page of the website.

Ted Padova also presented a class on Acrobat Tips and Tricks which provided tips and workarounds to save hours of unnecessary work. Ted’s class was by far the most attended session with the exception of the keynote presentations. Everyone was eager to hear one of the gurus of Acrobat share his knowledge.

The combination of BFMA’s Fall Forms Institute at Mayo Clinic and the PDF Central Conference provided a great week of learning and an opportunity to network with other BFMA professionals. The chance to hear so many experts speak about the aforementioned topics as well as many others related to Form Design, Creative and Print solutions, and the Technical/Programming was simply great. I found myself encountering the same dilemma that I had when I attended my first Symposium in May: so many great sessions how do you choose which to attend? Not a bad problem to have. Fortunately, the learning opportunities will be available again next year and again it will be in Minneapolis which was a wonderful city. If you haven’t attended a PDF Central Conference before try to work it into your budget for next year, it is well worth it. I hope everyone has a great Fall season and I look forward to seeing you all at Symposium in April.

Inaugural Document Strategy Forum Receives High Marks and Announces 2009 Dates

By: Ray Killam, CFSP, CFC
President

I recently attended the inaugural Document Strategy Forum in Chicago and was pleased with the results. This is important to BFMA because we will co-locate the 2009 Fall Forms Institute at this event. That will mark a significant milestone for BFMA, as we extend our programs to reach many members, prospective members and sponsors.

The Document Strategy Forum is sponsored by DOCUMENT magazine and managed by Event Evolution Management, Inc. It attracted participants from a wide range of industries and from all over the US. More than 25 exhibitors provided attendees with an in-depth view of technology and solutions. Five tracks of educational sessions provided information on a variety of topics, including forms management and forms development.

BFMA will offer five tracks devoted to form and forms systems education at next year’s event and will offer BFMA sponsors discounts on exhibit space and other benefits. We anticipate more than 300 attendees next year and continued growth in the years to come.

The first annual DOCUMENT Strategy Forum attracted 183 verified attendees (conference and exhibit hall) as well as 128 exhibitor and speaker personnel. The conference featured three pre-conference workshops that covered Business Process Management, IMB Strategies, Document Production and a five-track program geared towards: Technology Applications, E-Discovery, Disaster & Security, Color Factor, Electronic Effect, and Mailing Systems Technology. Overall, the conference received a high rating (3.8 out of 4) in terms of speaker content and knowledge. Preliminary attendee demographic information shows that 45% of attendees were C-Level while representing a wide cross-section of the transactional document industry such as; 26% Printing/Publishing, 13% Financials, 12% Communications, 9% Healthcare/Medical/Pharmaceutical, 9% Insurance, 8% Government/Military and 8% Manufacturing. In addition, attendees indicated they had responsibility for the following areas; 49% Production/Delivery, 37% Content/Form, 36% Management/Strategy, 33% Archiving/Imaging and 23% Transaction/Remittance. The average attendee represented an organization that generated between 3 – 6.9 million transactional documents a month.

BFMA is pleased to announce that the DOCUMENT Strategy Forum 2009 will be held on October 5-7 at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare, Chicago. To request information about attending or exhibiting, please visit our website at www.bfma.org or call 503-227-3393.

USPS Issues New Intelligent Mail Barcodes Standards

By: Lisa Lee, CEBS, FLMI
VP, Administration

You can review and comment on proposed new standards for Intelligent Mail Barcodes.

An advanced copy of the Federal Register notice proposing the use of Intelligent Mail Barcodes on automation mailings of letters and flats is now available on Postal Explorer at pe.usps.com. This notice includes revised mailing standards for the use of Intelligent Mail Barcodes effective May 2009 concurrent with the date that the USPS will implement the mailing services price change.

The comment period will extend 30 days from the date the notice appears in the Federal Register. Mailers are encouraged to review and comment on the USPS proposal as soon as possible. Mailers may submit additional comments any time within the comment period.

Source: Document magazine

Paper Ballots Hit the Voting Trail

By: Margaret Tassin, CFSP, CDC
Program Council, Director of Education

Have we come a long way since the butterfly ballot debacle in 2000?  Maybe.  Two men are advocating using paper ballots and a web site in combination as a way to combat voter fraud.  The New York Times recently published an op-ed column on the idea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/07/opinion/07poundstone.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Forms Make Front Page News

By: Margaret Tassin, CFSP, CDC

Program Council, Director of Education

"New form to combat job fraud across US", front page headline from Houston Chronicle, Wednesday December 26, 2007.

What is one of the tools the US government is using to fight document fraud? It is a paper form. According to the Chronicle, the US Federal government implemented a revised I-9 form that "drops five documents from the list that employers could use to verify employees' identities and work eligibility. And, "every employer in America must use a new employment verification form that immigration officials say will help reduce document fraud." Click to read the Chronicle article.

Like the butterfly ballot in the 2000 US presidential election, forms are once again in the headlines. The change to the I-9 represents one of the first defenses in the battle against document fraud used for employee identity and work eligibility. And, all it takes is a paper form.

Have you seen forms in the headlines? Do tell! Add a comment below to share it with us.

The Baby Goes Out with the Bath Water

By: Margaret Tassin, CFSP, CDC
Program Council, Director of Education

Forms capture and organize information; they help implement policies and procedures; and, sometimes, they can even help to save lives.

The NY Times recently published an opinion describing how a simple checklist form used with a particular type of step-by-step care reduced I.V. line infections by two-thirds, cut the infection rate from 4 percent to zero and saved more than 1,500 lives and nearly $200 million over an 18-month period. The five step checklist included procedures such as hand washing and donning sterile gloves. But the checklist had to be withdrawn because "by introducing a checklist and tracking the results without written, informed consent from each patient and health-care provider, they had violated scientific ethics regulations." Bureaucracy trumps logic. The importance of form tools cannot be overstated. While the checklist form represented only the face of the procedure to reduce infections in that hospital setting, removing it from use sabotaged the workflow beyond repair and obliterated an otherwise effective and valuable process that saved lives.

Read the full article here.