Kimberly DeCola, CRM and Information Manager for Austin Energy, joins Access Answers to talk about her experience as a presenter and attendee at the AIIM Conference 2022.

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Episode 23: AIIM Conference 2022 with Kimberly DeCola

Julia:

Welcome to another episode of Access Answers. I’m your host, Julia, along with Angela, and we’re excited to introduce our guest who we’ve spent the past week with.

Angela:

Yes. Thank you, Kim, for spending even more time with us after a lovely three days at the AIIM Conference last week. Kimberly DeCola is the information manager for Austin Energy, and she also oversees the public information requests. So, we’re here today to talk more about the presentations that you presented at AIIM, our conference experience post-COVID, and the wealth of knowledge that you have just from your profession and your experience.

Kimberly:

Thank you very much for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Angela:

So, I guess let’s just jump right into, what was your biggest takeaway or favorite moment of the AIIM Conference last week?

Kimberly:

Oh, let’s see. I really enjoyed actually presenting with the gentleman on Friday, with Mark Patrick. That was the first time I’d met him in person, and it was really a great thing to listen to him talk about his business. He works for the Joint Chief of Staff, and he and his team support the Joint Chief, and so it was really cool to listen to the way that their office is set up between military and civilian, and then getting to present with him.

He made a comment that even though we came from two entirely different worlds in terms of work, we had a common bond through information management and then a lot of the tools that we were using, and we had a lot of shared challenges and problems despite the distance and the type of business and size of our organization. So, I think that was probably my favorite part of the week.

Julia:

And I think it’s worth mentioning that Kim had three sessions over the course of the conference. She was definitely one of the busiest people there.

Angela:

Well, and one of the sessions was a two hour workshop. My goodness, that’s a big undertaking to fill two hours of time.

Kimberly:

It was. I was actually pretty worried about that because that presentation was streamlined to be just about an hour long based on the presentations we did last year, and so when I realized it was two hours long, I added a few more things to it, but I was a little concerned we were going to be done early. And actually, we went to about 10 minutes before the end time. There were a lot of really good comments and questions from the people that were there, and we managed to fill up that time. I think it went really well. I was happy with the outcome.

Angela:

So, the topic of your presentations last week was around the project when you were with the Austin Convention Center, making the migration, I think it was called Journey to the Cloud, was the title-

Kimberly:

Yes.

Angela:

…of the presentation. So that was even a few years ago. Were you surprised at all or not really that this is still a challenge for other folks?

Kimberly:

I’m not surprised at all. I think that there are still, based on my knowledge of the industry and conversation with my peers, especially in the government sector, since a lot of our stuff lags behind other industries and our licensing lag behind, I’m really not surprised to hear that there are still challenges.

I think not only is it technological, but there’s such a vast array of people working together right now and different levels of comfort with software and systems. I know that was very apparent in the convention center. We had people who had never even been in Microsoft 365, even though it had been turned on in the department for a couple of years before this project. People didn’t have to use it. They weren’t trained how to use it and had never used it. And so all of a sudden moving into this new system, we had everyone from that end of the spectrum all the way up to people who could teach classes on SharePoint and everyone in between.

So, I’m not surprised that other places are still having that problem, not only with getting started in the software, but still trying to manage the sprawl and the guidelines and the governance around the 365 platform.

Angela:

One of the things I really appreciated about your presentation was the openness about the lessons learned and things now, looking back, what you could do different or different tools or systems to use. Tell our audience here today on the podcast what some of those takeaways were or lessons learned.

Kimberly:

Well, thanks for that, because I really try to be honest about things that I’ve encountered. I think a lot of people try to pretty it up because they don’t want to admit to having issues or having problems, or that they don’t know all the answers. I heard someone say in one of the presentations last week that it’s okay that we don’t have all the answers and don’t know everything, and I’ve always felt that if I could help somebody else not make the same mistake or take a different path, then I’m more than happy to share those challenges.

For us it was not only the technology part, because that required a lot of hand holding, a lot of additional training, some, for some people more than others, which was fine. That’s part of our job. We also realized that we didn’t ask some questions in the beginning that we should have, and because of a lack of understanding about some of the subjects, you don’t know what you don’t know, so there were some things we didn’t know to ask that sort of caused some issues down the line, and had we known to ask in the first place, we could have avoided that, but that’s part of doing a project like this too.

And we also realized, as we started the actual migration, that we had put too tight of a timeframe on all of the divisions, and we had to loosen that a little bit. Some of them needed three or four weeks when the original timeline was two for each group. So it took a little bit longer, but that was the only way it was going to work, and we had to really go into this being flexible with the units, not only because of the business demands, but you know, you can only get so much sometimes out of people. They just can only do so much at a time, and you have to be willing to go with that.

Julia:

When it came to the change management piece of it, what were some of the top concerns that people had that made them not so comfortable with the change?

Kimberly:

I would say the thing I heard the most, other than people not knowing how to use SharePoint, the thing I heard the most were questions about, “What happens after all my stuff is moved? How am I going to find it?” There was a lot of concern about how they were going to locate their documents, because when you look in a shared drive, you normally see lists of yellow folders, and you click through your yellow folders until you find the document you’re looking for. Well, we went with the flat approach in the SharePoint library, so there was no more folder structure, no folder hierarchy, and that really concerned some people. That was an absolute change of life for some of them and the way they had been working, and they really had a legitimate concern about how they were going to be able to search for and find their documents when there were no more folders there for them to look through.

So that was probably the biggest thing, and again, that circled right back to a lot of hand holding, a lot of conversations, a lot of meetings about it and demos about how the product worked, and that was part of the job of the records management team and myself and our administrator, to keep relaying that message until we got everybody where they needed to be.

Angela:

Yeah, I think in the session that I sat in, we talked about the blockers, and Renu mentioned, “Don’t underestimate the blockers, because if you can tackle the opposition first, sometimes they’re the biggest supporters throughout the rest of the project.” Did you encounter any blockers, or did you quickly identify who those champions were?

Kimberly:

Both. We did have some blockers. There were a couple of people who were very vocal about not wanting to do this and not understanding why we had to do it and why we couldn’t continue on the way we were. There was one or two people I think that really fit what Renu was talking about. Once they got the hang of it and they started working in the system, they really turned around and became supporters of it.

I think one of the biggest things that won them over was the ability to collaborate on a single document together. Once we started doing some demonstrations and walking through that process together, where they could actually see five or six or seven of them on the same document making changes, that really made a lot of them happy because there went all the multiple copies through email that they were working with. And so I totally saw that happen, and we had some champions too that really kind of led the way as well. They were the early adopters. They were happy to get in there and start working, and then they were able to help some of the others along the way too.

Angela:

It was a little surprising to me being at the conference, and many of the vendors there were software vendors selling the different ECM, enterprise content management, systems. And I didn’t see a lot about change management on the agenda for the sessions, or at least not to the degree that I would’ve expected. Maybe that’s an opportunity for us next year.

Kimberly:

I think so, and I noticed that too. I’ve been to all of the major information management conferences, and you do find some about that in there. It’s particularly why I like to hear about case studies, because I like to hear how other companies did projects that are similar to what we’re doing and how they managed it. And really, I don’t think people give enough credit to change management because if you don’t bring your people along and ensure that they’re comfortable with whatever solution or technology that you’re using, they’re not going to adopt it. And I’ve seen that happen before in my own company.

I’ve been through more than one job at different places where there’s been a major software change or a software upgrade. The Convention Center went through that, not only with SharePoint, but their sales and event system changed over a couple of years ago, and it was a huge project. And if you don’t help those people along and bring them along, you’re going to have problems. Either they’re not going to use it right, they’re not going to put the right information in it, or they’re just not going to use it at all if they have another choice.

Angela:

Can we just take a second to talk about the restaurant that we had dinner at in Denver, Jovanina’s Broken Italian? And the basement was so cool.

Kimberly:

Yes, it was. Yes, it was. It looked like it was a hundred years old.

Angela:

Yeah. It was a little romantic for ladies’ night, but we made the most of it, and it was great.

Julia:

And it was my first time having olive oil cake. That was great.

Angela:

Yes.

Julia:

So good.

Kimberly:

It was, the food was really good too, and I thought the service was nice. It was certainly an experience.

Angela:

Did you ever find a good recipe for the olive oil cake, Julia?

Julia:

No. That’s on my to-do list for sure though.

Angela:

Yeah. When you find that, you have to share it. I think that’s an… It’s a nice summer dessert. It kind of tasted like strawberry shortcake, I thought.

Julia:

Yeah, very light, and then it had the berries around it, and I think it was served with some sort of sorbet, right?

Kimberly:

Yes. It had their lemon. I think she said it was. It was pretty good.

Julia:

Mm, yum. Yeah, that was a good time. Too bad we never made it on one of those scooters.

Angela:

Yeah, next time we’re all in Denver, we’ll be scootering around. So, Kim, what was… Julia and I have gone to a couple of conferences now post-COVID, but I think this was your second conference.

Kimberly:

It was.

Angela:

How would you describe the experience going back now kind of into the real world?

Kimberly:

Really, this one here felt like it did before COVID. Everybody was pretty relaxed and it seemed a lot like it was before. The conference I attended in December was still under a lot of the CDC guidelines. Everybody was masked up the entire time and it was uncomfortable. It was hard to be in that kind of setting. There was a lot of walking and stuff, and wearing a mask all the time is difficult, but this one seemed a lot more at ease, and I don’t want to say laid back. I think people were careful, but you know, they took precautions and I think we did fine.

Angela:

Yeah. It made me very hopeful that we can still kind of get back to these robust conferences and talking to people. It’s just completely different than the virtual conference. I really appreciated that.

Kimberly:

Yeah. I liked the virtual ones too, but you lose something along the way in a virtual setting that you don’t get when you’re together.

Angela:

Yeah. So where are you going to be presenting next? What’s next on your list?

Kimberly:

I don’t have any plans for another one.

Julia:

I guess we’ll get working on that.

Angela:

Yup, okay, write that on our to-do list, Julia. Put it in our calendar. Get Kim more speaking engagements.

Kimberly:

Yeah, I don’t have any media plans. I would really like to entertain going to NAGARA next year. That’s the only one of the conferences I have not attended. I can’t go to this year’s because it’s too close to this one, but I would love to go next summer since theirs is specifically related to government records, and maybe we’ll submit the presentation for them too, but I’d like to go to their conference. I don’t know how big it is compared to some of the others since I’ve never been, but I’d like to check it out sometime and see what it’s like.

Julia:

Were you surprised this time that you were doing three different sessions?

Kimberly:

Yes. I guess I didn’t realize when she asked me about it. I knew I was doing the two hour one, although I didn’t know it was two hours at first. She asked me on the phone about a session, the Ask Me Anything session, which is what we did Friday, but I thought it was going to be in a small room with maybe a round table type setting. And I didn’t know about the campfire session with Renu until Renu told me about that. I don’t remember that being discussed on the call. It’s possible I missed it when we were talking, but I didn’t realize it was going to be to the extent it was, and I certainly wasn’t expecting to be on stage there at the end presenting to a whole room full of people under stage lights.

Angela:

Yeah. Well, I have to say, you’re a phenomenal speaker, and I really admire how laid back you are, even in preparation for the event and during the event.

Kimberly:

Oh gosh, then I did a good job of covering it up because I was a wreck the week before the presentation. I haven’t done a live presentation … I mean, we did the virtual ones, but I haven’t done a live one in person since 2018, and that was on disaster planning, which is my specialty. I’m comfortable with that.

I mean, this presentation was supposed to be for three people. I had to retool it to do it myself and learn two other parts, and I was a disaster. The week before I was so nervous, I was not looking forward to going. My husband was just, “You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.” And I’m like, I was just a mess.

Angela:

Well, you hid that very well because the entire time that I saw you, you were cool as a cucumber.

Kimberly:

Well, I’m glad. I’ve gotten good at covering it up then.

Angela:

Yes. Public speaking is definitely a natural gift that you have.

Kimberly:

I never wanted to do it, let me tell you. When I first found out a few years back that I had to start teaching classes at the clerk’s office, I was totally against it. I never like being in front of a crowd, and I still get nervous every time I do it, but I enjoy it. I enjoy doing it now, despite how nervous I get. I do like doing it for the most part.

Angela:

Yes. Well, we are serious about writing that action item down to get you some more lined up.

Kimberly:

That’s fine. It’s a good experience for me too. You know, we push ourselves out of our comfort zone, which is never a bad thing. So, it’s good for me too. I’m kind of an introvert and it’s good for me to push myself and challenge myself on those things.

Angela:

That comfort zone is a dangerous place to be.

Kimberly:

It is, it is. It’s good to get out of it and try new things because, you know, I may never have met … like I said, I met Mark Patrick, and I probably would never have had that opportunity had we not been put together to speak, and so I made a new friend and a colleague, and so there’s a reason why we do all these things. Sometimes it’s hard to see, but there’s a reason for it.

Angela:

Absolutely.

Julia:

So, I think you mentioned you went to the AIIM Conference right before everything shut down in 2019, right?

Kimberly:

Yes, ma’am.

Julia:

How was that one compared to the one we just went to? Because this was Angela and I’s first AIIM Conference.

Angela:

Was it 2019 or 2020? Wasn’t it the week before COVID?

Kimberly:

Yes, it was the week before COVID. I think I had been back, I might have been back a week when we got the orders to go home the first time, the very first time, for two weeks that turned into two years.

Angela:

Remember those days when we thought, “Oh, we’re just going to go home for a little two-week fun time?”

Kimberly:

Yeah. I think it was in, “Yeah, two weeks and it’ll be gone and we’ll come back,” and yeah, that didn’t happen. It was in Dallas, and it was pretty good. It was a little bit different format, and I think there were more people there than there were to this one.

I remember the format was a little different because they had, I think, a lot more round table sessions, if I remember correctly. They had vendors that would facilitate these round table discussions. And I remember the speed dating. I can’t remember if they had the campfire sessions, but a lot of it was very similar. The atmosphere and the keynotes and stuff were all very similar.

Julia:

When Angela and I were putting together speaker descriptions, it was hard to remember what session was what, like what is a campfire session? What is … Because they call it different things, which it’s unique to the AIIM Conference, as far as I know.

Angela:

I like the variety.

Kimberly:

It is.

Julia:

Definitely.

Kimberly:

Yeah. I had to do the same thing because, like I said, I don’t remember … I remember the round tables last time, and I remember that they had a couple of focus, like the Women in Information Management I think met, and I think they had one maybe specific to energy or something. I can’t remember for sure, but there were some different ones here, but I had to keep going back in a few times to look at the different titles too, because I wasn’t sure what they all were.

Julia:

Yeah.

Angela:

Okay, Kim. So I know during your presentation you talked about the work you’ve done at the Convention Center and the migration. Tell us, to wrap up the podcast, what’s something on the forefront of your mind, what’s an objective or a goal that you have, 2022 and beyond? What’s your new challenge?

Kimberly:

Well, I’m in a new department, Austin Energy, which is much larger than the Convention Center. I went from a staff of 275 to about 2,000 and twice the business units. There’s 30 business units I think here, and there were 16 at the Convention Center, so a much larger staff. So my challenge right now is to get my arms around their program. They have made a lot of good progress, but there’s still a lot of progress to be made, and I have a brand new team that I’m new to them, they’re new to me, and so we are forming right now and laying out our goals and our plans for the next year, and I’m getting to know the business unit.

So that’s really my goal for this year is to get through the plan. I came in a quarter into the ’22 plan, so my goal is to meet the deliverables they had already set for this year, and then to really get to know my department and our staff because, at the bottom line, the employees are what is most important to me. My job is protecting our information, but doing that means also the care and feeding of all of our employees and taking care of them, so that’s really at the top of my mind, is forging those relationships with them.

Angela:

Very exciting. Well, more to come on those initiatives and future presentations.

Kimberly:

Okay. I look forward to it.