056 The Information Entrepreneur: Live from the IRMS Conference Floor

 We are LIVE from the IRMS conference floor in sunny (well, rainy!) Wales! 

In this episode, host Jacqueline Stockwell catches up with two absolute superstars who make the magic happen: Paulina Jedwabska (Conference Director) and Deborah Ward-Johnston (Revolution Events).

 If you think information management is just about dusty files, think again! We are breaking down how this year's event completely shook things up. From an incredibly moving performance by a local charity choir to an amazing "Enchanted Forest" gala dinner filled with secret quests and icebreakers, this year was all about building a true community. 

We also talk into the big topics: 🤖 How AI is sneaking into every conversation (and why humans are still in charge!). 

The buzzing "Information Market" where 30+ vendors are collaborating instead of just competing. 🎤 How YOU can take the stage or show off your business at next year's event in Manchester! 

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or brand new to the industry, this chat will leave you pumped up, inspired, and ready to take action! 

What we chat about: 

• The secrets to running a calm, happy event for 400+ people! 

• Singing along with "The Choir with No Name" to support a great cause. 

• Why AI means we need human skills more than ever. 

• Inside the "Vendor Showcase"—where companies get just 1 minute to wow the crowd! 

• Your roadmap to pitching a talk or booking a booth for Manchester next year. 

Links from show chat

IRMS Main Site: irms.org.uk

IRMS Conference Site: irmsconference.org.uk

Our Amazing Charity Choir: The Choir with No Name

The Event Rockstars: Revolution Events

Jacqueline’s Team: Leadership Through Data

Connect with Paulina: LinkedIn Profile

Connect with Debz: LinkedIn Profile

🌱 Ready to take this further? 

If something landed for you in this episode… don’t just leave it here. 

You don’t need to figure it all out on your own — I’ve created a few simple ways to help you take your next step, at your pace. 

🟢 — Start where you are 

If you’re not quite sure how you’re showing up right now, start here: 

👉 Thinking with Jaki Scorecard — your Influence Action Plan
Use this to get clarity on how you currently show up, where you might be getting stuck, and what your next influence move is. Thinking with Jaki 

🟡 Build clarity and direction 

Once you’ve got that awareness, let’s build a clearer picture of where you are overall: 

👉 Leadership Through Data EMPOWER Scorecard
This will show you where you sit across the EMPOWER framework — your strengths, your gaps, and what to focus on next so you can move forward with confidence. The Leadership Through Data EMPOWER Scorecard 

🔵 Grow with me 

If you’re ready to go deeper and build real momentum: 

👉 Join the free EMPOWER Masterclass | Leadership Through Data
I’ll walk you through the full roadmap and help you see exactly how to step into your influence and leadership — in a way that feels like you.  The EMPOWER Masterclass | Leadership Through Data  

🚀 Want to keep building? 

If you’re ready to take action beyond this episode, here are a couple of ways we can work together: 

👉 Book Jaki to speak at your next event
Bring these conversations into your organisation or community with practical, real-world learning. Public Speaker, Write & Podcaster - Jacqueline Stockwell 

👉 Join the 21-Day EMPOWER Sprint
Build momentum, take action daily, and stop overthinking your next move.
https://leadershipthroughdata.com/empower-21/ 

💬 Final thought 

You don’t need to do everything at once.
Just take one next step. 

And if this episode helped you, I’d love you to share it with someone who needs to hear it too 💛 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello and welcome to today's show. I'm Jacqueline Stockwell, CEO and founder at Leadership Through Data. I inspire and motivate information leaders across the world.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Now today I'm almost live in Wales with at the RMS conference in Newport. So it started on Sunday, and today is the last day. And I thought it would be a really good opportunity to introduce you to Paulina. So if you were listening to the show last week, Paulina came on and told us about conference. And I've got Deb from Revolution Events who is absolutely fantastic about delivering the event for today. Paulina, do you want to introduce yourself for the guests and then give me a key highlight of today's conference? Yes, can I start? Love this. Sorry. On that note, fine. I'm Paulina. I'm the conference director for the IRMS, and my role is to ensure that through one program, everyone gets their fair share of content that they can take to their organizations and implement. So we had sessions from Ofcom packed with uh transferable tips. We had sessions from Google explaining what uh AI can do. So it's all about getting those elements, getting those neaty greedy details that you learn, talk about, and practice wherever you're. Yeah, and I think it's sensational how you have such a good mix. Um, so you go for a call for proposals quite quickly after the event for next year. If somebody's listening and they feel like they want to speak at the event, how would they could you describe how they can do that and also what kind of things you might be looking for next year if you had a crystal ball or you don't already know? It's all here. I don't have a crystal ball. The theme isn't decided yet, but I can tell you it's gonna be Manchester. Have a think about what Manchester can bring. We have textile industries, we have tremendous music. Let's face it. Not the biggest fan of football, so I can't comment on that. But I'm sure we can find bits and bobs for everyone. So, how do the process of getting your talk onto our conference work? So, we have call for proposal that usually starts around September. We announce the theme, we announce the strands, we go for promotion, we give people a month to think before they commit. So, October is when we open registration, you send your proposals. We want to make sure that we have good balance between people who are new and never spoke before, always keen on new voices. We have people who have been requested by our audience because they deliver, because they provide actionable tests and good balance of content that is aimed at seasoned pro, been there, done that, have the t-shirt. But here is something new that I've tried that I think you might like as the practitioner elsewhere, plus new people to the profession. And this is where I'm super excited to get us as the wider industry going because we need fresh blood, we need you. So keep an eye on the registration process. We will advertise what we will look for, what this trends will be, and we will try to ensure that it is balanced between content related to products, content related to processes, and crucial to meaning, content related to improving you, your personal skills, your soft skills, how do you get that budget, that business case signed off. So, yes, if I'm talking to you or about you, join us. I love that, I love that. And Debs, I was going to ask you to introduce yourself. So, Debs is one of the most inspirational women that I know. So she heads up Revolution Events that run the event. Now, you are insanely amazing at the event that you run here. So, do you want to tell listeners about revolution events, about the team, and what's all the things that you do that we don't see as attendees at the conference? Well, yeah, uh, we don't ever want you to see anything underneath that level of calm sense. So, Jackie, thanks. I'm one of the directors at Revolution Events. We are a female-led bougie boogie event management company, and we run um a whole series of events and awards ceremonies throughout the year. Don't tell those events, but RMS Conference is my favourite. But I was walking the dog recently, and I was thinking, I'm really looking forward to RMS conference. And I was thinking, why am I looking forward to it? And it's because it's for us, it's the culmination of 12 months' worth of work where we are going out with all these key messaging from the program, etc. We're speaking to vendors, we're speaking to delegates, we're speaking to speakers, and actually we're bringing it all together over the course of three days, and we sit back and we watch this magic happen. There are so many conversations that take place, whether it's on the exhibition floor, whether it's in a corridor, a session room, at the garner dinner, in the bar. It's it's just insane how many relationships are formed at this event. And for us, we go home very, very happy bunnies after this event. Amazing. And what I've really liked about this year is that you come, you talked about the community group, you talked about the relationship. Every year that we've come, I've known a majority of people attendees that have come. And this year I've seen so many new people. Uh, and I think that's um exceptionally amazing, certainly, for our profession. I'm very much a king and advocate of getting younger people into our profession, but also people from different walks of life to actually, you know, information is gold, and we are golden people and often underestimated as well. So, you know, shout out to both the RMS and Revolution to get more and more different people. One of the key things that I wanted to talk about, obviously, we have the Sunday Social. Tell me about what happened at Sunday Social. Well, we decided that this is quite heavy content throughout the conference, so we need to lighten the mood a little bit, and we really are keen on making sure that we support people's mental well-being. And there's nothing better than a good old sing song, particularly in Wales. So we knew that we were going to hire a choir to come and sing um alongside the lawn gangs and the barbecue. But what we actually chose to do was to hire a charity choir, it was a local charity choir that supports people affected by homelessness. So they are called the choir with no day, and it was phenomenal the feedback that we got from the 20-odd singers, um, all affected by homelessness. They were beyond proud to be here at the Celtic Manor Resort singing for all of the RMS attendees, and it was really lovely how well received they were by everybody on the night. Yeah, it was absolutely phenomenal. I really enjoyed it. Everybody had a good time. I think this uh the food has been brilliant here as well. So we had Sunday night, and then last night we had the gala dinner. Who wants to tell me about that? Ryan blessed, the legend, the living legend. Oh my goodness, I did not know that I need the storytelling in my life, that was amazing. The intertwine awards for well-deserved reasons and practitioners. So right, so um, you're always quite um known for the garner dinner, so everybody is invited to get dressed up in their glads and breeches, and it's normally one of the highlights of the evening. We have uh the awards ceremony, as you've just described there, um, but we normally have a sit-down meal, which is really nice. The reason why I get so excited is because it was the whole immersive experience evening, which we've never done before. We usually had the entertainment, we had the dinner, we had conversation, we had dancing in the past, and that was fun. That was great, don't get me wrong. But yesterday was something else. We we've started with how can we incorporate the recognition of the individuals into the storytelling? That's where the C and blown planning came in for the enchanted forest, and from then on, tables of our acons and established oak trees got onto quests and immersive experience, interactive, engaging, building that relationship between people who may or may not know each other. It's almost like a tranctus episode. I was about to say we had some wooded figures walking around the room. But I mean, the I the inspiration came from knowing that we wanted to do something quite immersive, but also the main objective is we know that there are people that come to RMS conference who might be on their own, they might have never been before, and it can be quite a daunting experience. Walking into a venue, there's 400 odd people, and it can be quite overwhelming. So, part of the quest that we did during the dinner were to make sure that the table you were on you had something to talk about. It was icebreakers, but in a very cool way, and people really, really embraced it. I was surprised at how many people were doing it throughout the evening, but um and it was so good. Yeah, it was a night, and my table was the the nights of sass. Love it because we took each around the table and then tried to make a word out of it. So it was a really it was a really good evening. Yeah, thanks. So that's why my throat was a bit froggy. Uh, but you ended the evening with some dancing as usual, um, and it never is an early night at the RMS event, so everybody this morning is feeling tired. There's a bit of caffeine today, but it's an amazing social event. So tell me what's happening today. Today we have a second day of conference, so more educational content, but it's also a more relaxed day, more talking and engaging and connecting, and also making sure that people stay engaged. As you said, it's been a long evening. It's been a long evening.

SPEAKER_01 10:48

And and part of the conference is you've also got the information market.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

What is the information market? It is full of the top leading vendors in the sector. So it's our job to make sure that all of these attendees have access to the people that are dealing with clients on a day-to-day basis that understand what the challenges are and they probably have the answers. And one of the good things that I see is a lot of a collaboration between all of the vendors. They're all talking to each other. There's some competitive element, but there's a hell of a lot of banner. And there's a lot of cross-referencing as well. Someone might be talking to a delegate and say, Well, actually, I'm I probably can't help you, but actually they can. And that's a really lovely thing to see. So we've got 30 vendors down there. Everyone gets a stand, they get their power. It's all very fully inclusive. You turn up with your marketing collateral, a smile, and you just crack on with it. And we just honestly, we've seen it absolutely buzzing down there today. Amazing. And what type of um, so I'm just thinking many listeners that might want to be on the information market next year. What type of things do you look for if anyone's listening? And how can they um be involved in Manchester next year, Debs? We are looking for anybody that provides service, goods, support to information and record managers. So that could be training, it could be hardware, software. So if you talk to those information record management data privacy professionals, archivists, all of those wonderful people, if your product helps them in their day-to-day job, you're the kind of person that they need to come and see. And actually, one of the interesting conversations I had with one of the vendors, morning coffee on day one, he said, I've just caught up with three of my existing clients, and actually that was worth its weight in gold. So if you supply the industry, give me a call. We can have a chat about the opportunities. And one of the things we're really open to is trying things slightly differently. So we've got a couple of sponsorships this year that are a little bit different than Stan. We've got someone down there who's playing an interactive game. Who knew information management could be so much fun? But yeah, give us a shout. We'll talk to you about the delegates that are here, we'll give you some demographics if it works for you, we'll chat you through the process. Fantastic. And somebody who is normally an exhibitor at the RMS, I would highly recommend it. It's very good. As you can hear, I've spoken a lot and I've also seen a lot of my clients as well. So it's a good opportunity. There's some free spaces as well. You you give away some free gifts, don't you? You have a market store for vendorship. For us, it's about my priority with the vendors is to make sure there's as many touch points as possible with the audience. We try and make it as easy as possible. So if you're giving away anything on your stand, we actually promote it when the delegates come in, they can see straight away, oh, leadership through data. They've got XYZ on their stand and they can talk to them. Absolutely, great book. Um and we facilitate the vendor showcase. So the vendor showcase actually came up, I don't know how many years ago it was, but that came up. Um it was an idea that I had through another event that we did. Um, but it's I'm always trying to drive the quality and the delivering for the vendors. And that has just taken on a whole new level. Every gets really, really involved, which is brilliant. What is the vendor showcase? The vendor showcase is every vendor optional gets one minute in front of the whole audience. So it's a packed keynote room. And we do a slight challenge on it. We say make it fun, make it entertaining. Because for us, people do business with people. We don't want people to see the exhibition stands and logos and go, oh, that's very formal. We want them to see the people. It's great because it starts icebreaker conversations in that first coffee break because people can come and talk about what they've seen that person do in that one minute. We facilitate encouraging our vendors to split up. So people come with three, four, five people. Garda dinner, Sunday socials. We like go and sit on separate tables. There's so much surface area you can have organic conversations. There's so many opportunities to start relationship building. And for us, that's why so many of our vendors come back because they're developing relationships over years and it's just opening doors.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

And Pitch Perfect is normally quite highly competitive from the vendor showcase perspective. So lead shift riders this year. We dressed up in tutus and shook pompons and empowered everybody, and that was quite exciting. But we didn't win. So eight years I've been eight years leadship riding, we've been trying to do it. But you're doing it next year because Jackie, you've given us an idea of how we're going to shake it up a little bit next year. So that's fantastic, and that's what we want. We work with our community to make sure everything gets better and better every year. That makes it. So Peter Paulina from an attendees perspective, what it has you been your favorite um content that you've attended throughout the last two days? I was amazed at the level of AI sneaking in into every single conversation. It's been withered into um anything from your standard, because we're information professional. Yes, our records management. How can we innovate and how can we um automate to while you're drafting messages? We want your editorial skill improved. So it's no longer AI to AI communication. We want human to human with AI assisted and checked communication. So I think the acknowledgement of how quickly it is changing and how it is making us think what we as a profession have to do where we can support businesses, where we can add value to our organizations. I felt that that was inspiring. Fantastic, fantastic. Now, we talked about a lot on today's show. What's the one Kintackwind thing you would want to leave listeners to remember? Only one. Okay. Just one. Be empowered, inspired, and take action. Love that. Devs. Be part of our family. It really is like. I feel that dip. Amazing. So if listeners want to reach out anymore, Paulina, how can they access the conference and attend next year? We have a conference website, we have IRMS website, so irms.org.uk. Also, find me on LinkedIn. There is only one, Paulina, and surname is in Fumsa. So J E D W A B S K A, you'll find it. I love Strale. I love that. We did the podcast last week. And uh I couldn't say I so name. I could never say I surname. So thank you for spending that for this. Um, and Debs, uh, for any vendors or any companies that want to exhibition next year, how can we be checking? Yeah, same. Linkin's me, Deborah Ward Johnston, ww.rmsconference.org, Google RMS Conference. It's been a long few days. But yeah, reach out to us and uh either myself and my colleague Claire, we'll have a good chat with you about what your objectives are, what your strategy is, and do we think this is the right place for you to achieve it? Amazing. Thank you so much both for your time.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Thank you for listening to the journals of the Information Entrepreneur with me, Jacqueline Stockwell. I hope you found this episode inspiring and helpful and have some takeaway tips that can be useful to you. If you liked this episode, please like, review, and share it with your friends. Your support helps us reach more information leaders to stay inspired and listen to great content. Want to test out your strengths and weaknesses and measure it against our Empower framework? Please complete the scorecard. It's a great way to improve and evaluate your skills. You can find the scorecard at the end of the description of this podcast. Stay tuned for new podcasts every Thursday and remember to be bold, be brave, and be beautiful.