Apologies for a dearth of columns this week, but I was at ILTA/2008 at
the Gaylord Texan outside
Dallas. Two comments about the Gaylord, Dallas, and August. First,
the Gaylord comes as close as any place I’ve ever been to meriting the word
"indescribable." If you start by envisioning what is essentially
a circular hotel built around an enormous, enclosed atrium roughly
the size of a domed football stadium, you begin to get the idea. Now
furnish that atrium with lifesize replicas of part of The Alamo, fountains,
streams, and brooks, model trains running hither and yon, facsimiles of Conestoga
wagons, an oil derrick, and other totemic Texas artifacts, put it adjacent
to the largest conference center in Texas (which is actually saying something,
unlike perhaps "the largest conference center in Rhode Island"), and you begin
to have a prayer of envisioning this place. Don’t you love America?
Comment #2: Dallas in August is an extremely hostile environment if
you’re a runner, or, indeed, if you like to spend any part of your day outside
hermetically sealed environments.
Be that as it may, on Wednesday I presented on "Web 2.0 & Law Firms," and
on Thursday, with my friend John Alber, Strategic Technology Partner at Bryan
Cave, on "Law Firm Economics 103." (If you don’t know John,
he is perhaps the single most insightful and creative thinker in our industry
about how to measure performance internally at law firms. He comes up with stuff you’ve never dreamed of, and passes it off as all in a day’s work.)
Here are the presentations (click each to view):
This particular presentation concludes with Information R/evolution by Michael Wesch:
And just to add some interactivity to your visit, I was also
videotaped by Thomson West who posted
it on YouTube.
See you at ILTA next year! (But please, dear organizers, not Dallas.)
