Our Mission

The Information Resource Management Association of Canada is a non-profit, vendor independent association of information management and business professionals.

Our primary objective is to provide a forum for members to exchange information, experiences and promote the understanding, development and practice of managing information and data as a key enterprise asset.

Purpose of the Association

To supply to our members current information in the field of information management.
To encourage and promote a professional attitude among members in their pursuit of the discipline of information management and in their relations to others similarly engaged.
To facilitate a community environment for members to develop and enrich their professional network.
To foster a greater understanding of the vital business role of information management and the enterprise value of well managed information assets among executives, the public, and the members of the Association.
To promote information management education.
To maintain close liaison with the vendors and developers of information management software, equipment and services and to co-operate with all organizations affected directly or indirectly by the Association.

Members

Our membership consists of approximately 100-150 systems professionals working in IRM or associated areas. Most are practitioners - though industry suppliers are also represented.

Amongst our current or recent Corporate Members are:

Arcelor Mittal Dofasco, Canadian Tire Corporation Limited, Chartwell Group Inc, Economical Insurance Group, ExxonMobil, ING Canada, Imperial Oil, Mackenzie Financial Corp, Ontario Ministry of Health, Royal Bank of Canada, Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada, Telus, Toronto Transit Commission, University of Toronto

Associations

We are affiliated with the Data Management Association or DAMA International. Members of IRMAC enjoy full DAMA benefits. Please see http://www.dama.org for details. We encourage the establishment of new chapters in areas which can provide service to new groups of members.

Meetings

IRMAC meets ten times a year from September to June. At each meeting, a presentation or panel discussion is followed by a question and answer period. Prominent past speakers have included Larry English, Ronald Ross, and John Zachman.

Presentations are made frequently by the association membership, who speak from personal experience about their plans, approach to problems, and tools and techniques they have tried.

The annual IRMAC luncheon, included in the yearly membership fee, is held in June and features a special guest speaker.

Topics covered during recent IRMAC meetings include:

Data Governance
Enterprise Modelling & Engineering
Data Mining
The Semantic Web
Object Orientation & IRM
Data Repositories
Making IRM Work in the Real World
Data Modelling Standards

Meetings are normally held on the third Wednesday of each month at an easily accessible location within the City of Toronto. Check our web site listings for details. Registration and continental breakfast are at 8:30 am, with the first speaker starting at 9:00 am. Meetings are adjourned by 11:30 am.

Data Warehouse Special Interest Group

The purpose of a Special Interest Group (or SIG), as its name suggests, is to focus on a topic that is narrower than the interests of the main body to which the SIG is attached. Interest in Data Warehousing has become so intense that closer communication is appropriate - hence the SIG.

The IRMAC Data Warehouse SIG was launched in 1995 and has been highly successful featuring leading local practitioners and major figures like Bill Inmon and Ralph Kimball.