This column is by our Senior Adviser, Doug Caddell:
A few weeks ago I returned from the 37th annual ILTA education conference, which was held this year at the Gaylord Opryland hotel in Nashville.
The Gaylord in Nashville is not my favorite venue. It was cobbled together from the original Opryland Hotel when the Gaylord company decided to build conference destinations. It’s difficult to easily get from one area of the structure to another, and easy to get lost, The Gaylord hotels in Dallas and Washington are purpose-built and much more “user friendly.”
The Nashville Gaylord reminded me of some of our technology that is forced together from a bunch of disparate IT architectures. While it works, it doesn’t always work well and it’s often difficult to navigate from one technology “structure” to another. Dallas and Washington Gaylords benefited from knowing where they wanted to end up before they started out.
For those of who may not know, ILTA, the International Legal Technology Association, is a member-owned group composed of business and administrative (not just IT) professionals from law firms and law departments. Chances are that you are a member, as long as your law firm or law department is a member. This year 1,600 members attended, and approximately the same number from our supportive vendor community, including 64 CIO’s from the top 100 global firms – ILTA is truly international in membership and in thought. It is one of those few conferences that consistently deliver high value, which is why I make my yearly pilgrimage, as I have been doing for about 25 years.
While at ILTA a number of trends percolated to the top, including Big Data, attorney competency with technology, and cyber security. These are among the topics for future conversations here at Adam Smith Esq. and I will take this opportunity to discuss one: Big Data.
