On the Sydney records management convention – Day 1

I attended the first day of the Records Management Association of Australia (RMAA) Convention at Darling Harbour in Sydney. It’s the only day I could have attended out of a three day program. I also took advantage of the extensive trade exhibition to talk with a number of vendors and records managment service providers.

I took a stack of notes in my usual hurried writing scrawl. And I am hopeful of getting access to all the presentations from today via the RMAA web site to ensure my notes are complete. I will provide more detail about the presentations I saw today, plus comments, in my next blog post. But some brief notes from today…

The keynote speaker was Dr Julie McLeod from Northumbria University in the United Kingdom. Dr McLeod spoke about three projects she and her research team were working on looking at records management standards and methodologies. The talk was particularly relevant to the convention theme – adopting and adapting – a theme that has been, and remains, of critical importance to me in my working experiences.

The next speaker I heard was the seminar presentation from Jo Stephenson from the Victorian State Department of Transport. Jo told us about the EDRMS implementation at the Department. Jo said the implementation was “all about the people” and how the people-focused approach took shape throughout the project. For me, that pretty much goes without saying – the people are certainly high on my list of considerations when implementing any information and knowledge management systems or processes.

After Jo, back in the auditorium, was the presentation by New Zealander Matt O’Mara. I have seen and heard Matt present before (at IIM in Canberra last year) so I was pleased to hear again about his EDRMS experiences at Wellington City Council. Matt spoke on implementing an information management strategy and this was naturally of real relevance to me in my current workplace context.

After lunch I went to the presentation from Jo Golding from Eraring Energy. I worked with Jo in the mid-1990’s at Parliament House in Canberra so it was great to catch up with her later. Jo spoke about implementing an information and change management strategy, based on her experiences at Eraring Energy. Once again, I had some more relevant content.

The last presentation I attended for the day was from Trevor and Adele from Sutherland Shire Council. They spoke about their EDRMS experiences within a local government context.

During the remainder of the afternoon I chatted to vendors and records management service providers. Whether it’s records management, knowledge management or content management, I really love keeping up to date with what’s on offer in the broad information industry and this afternoon at the trade exhibition was no different. I also caught up with the people from InfoXpert, a company I have had some positive dealings with in the past.

I still have plenty of brochureware and web sites to chase up, not to mention people whom I met with today. My notes are a scrawl, as usual, but I won’t have any trouble rewriting them and adding my notations. My next blog post will have more detail, so if that sounds of interest, check back in to my blog tomorrow.

I do have an endnote from today’s convention: to the EDRMS vendor who thinks promoting it’s exhibitor stand with hard rock virtual guitar-playing animated computer simulation. It’s probably not a good idea to have the thrashing guitar music up so loud when you’re trying to give a product demonstration less than a metre away. Not the greatest customer experience I had today…perhaps some headphones for the Angus Young wannabes might help solve the problem!