I gave a presentation at the 2006 Florida Association of Museums Conference (FAM) in July. I gave the same talk at Denison University in October.

Summary:
Avoid vendor lock-in. Preserve your ability to access your own data into perpetuity. Adopt open standards.

The slides are posted on the web:

UPDATE 10.17.2012 - The original links fell victim to Internet Information Decay. I mirrored a copy of the presentation here:

Introduction to Open Standards and Open Source Software (PDF)


These original links to the presentation are (sadly) no longer active:

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/omt/presenta...ndards.odp (Open Document)
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/omt/presenta...ndards.ppt (Microsoft PowerPoint)
http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/omt/presenta...ndards.pdf (PDF)