Live Blogging at LegalTech 2008
Referencing the O'Keefe - Ambrogi live blogging debate of last year, Brian Ritchey reports at More Partner Income that he'll be live blogging from LegalTech in New York next week.
Though he'll be spending a lot of time in a booth conversing with attendees and other vendors, Brian equates blogging to be one in the same - 'just conversation via an online medium.'
Kudos to Brian for leading the way. I hope with a year's passage and more legal tech people grasping the power of blogging, we'll have quite a few other folks live blogging from LegalTech.
One way to find out. Set up a RSS feed frm Google Blog Search for LegalTech. You'll then pick up a feed from any posts referencing LegalTech. In addition, bloggers should tag relevant posts with the LegalTech tag so that both attendees and others can easily follow the happenings and conversation in New York.
Haven't heard anything from ALM, LegalTech's sponsor and host, promoting blogging from the event. If another year goes by without ALM taking the lead in empowering bloggers and promoting what they are doing (and I mean non ALM employees) from the LegalTech show, I think that's further evidence technology in the legal profession is always going to lag behind other industries.
Kevin, I'm very puzzled about your comments about ALM not supporting blogging from LegalTech New York. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We have been a pioneer in the legal community's blogging efforts. I launched my first blog, The Common Scold, in 2004, and then organized at LegalTech NY 2005 a bloggers' get together during the show.
We have encouraged blogging -- and podcasts -- and have NEVER restricted anyone from blogging from our sessions or the show floor.
ALM also launched in 2004 the premier Law.com Blog Network, which started with a handful of bloggers, and now showcases 30 exceptional blogs.
Personally, I have had complete and enthusiastic support from ALM for not just one blog -- The Common Scold -- but in September, I launched a second, with my colleague Sean Doherty of Law.com -- the EDD Update Blog - which is already drawing more than 6,000 visitors a month.
Other members of ALM have launched blogs, including Legal Times and The Recorder.
At LTNY, we are hosting a breakfast on Wednesday from 9-10 at the Pettite Trianon room, for our Law.com bloggers, which is open to everyone at LTNY, and we encourage any blogger to stop by and visit.
I'm not sure what else you think ALM should be doing to support blogging from the show - but as always, I -- and the entire ALM team -- welcome any concrete suggestions.
Jill Windwer, David Snow, Sean Doherty, and I -- and the entire Law.com team -- are keenly committed to the development of first-class blogs throughout the legal community itself. And we have always hoped that our efforts would help others to develop blogs. Blogging is and has been a constant topic on LTN and on Law.com's sites.
I will be at LTNY and welcome anyone's comments --and I will post information about the breakfast on my blogs and welcome any comments there as well. Monica Bay -- commonscold@alm.com. www.thecommonscold. www.eddupdate.com
Thanks for the comment Monica.
What I am referring to is encouraging and empowering bloggers to report from LegalTech and create an environment of online communication and collaboration, as opposed to law blog networks and blogger meetups, both worthwhile of course.
Things to consider:
* Letting bloggers know that there is free wifi throughout all conference rooms and common areas (something that at least in '06 was absent) and encourage them to blog live. That way bloggers, like at other tech conferences, take their notes right into their blogs so as to promote collaboration and communication with other attendees and people across the country not in attendance. Lawyers and legal tech people may not have experienced the advantages of this. As a leader in legal technology, LegalTech should be out evangelizing on this so that the legal profession keeps up with other industries. If I have missed this in promotional materials or in blogs, I apologize.
* Promoting attendees to tag their blog content LegalTech 2008 so that users across the net can easily pick up and track content/communication.
* Setting up a common feed and display of blog posts from LegalTech. Make akin to a 'river of news' as is regularly done for blogs referencing a single topic. Perhaps like at other tech conferences display that feed on a screen.
* Setting up a Twitter alias so that all attendees using twitter can subscribe to a feed of all items relating to LegalTech.
These things are done regularly at tech and social media conferences today. If the legal profession wants to keep pace with other industries, leaders in the field like ALM need to at least be challenged by people like me.
When I post criticism it is meant to promote discussion and possibly action on innovative items. Generating such discussion improves services, to the benefit of customers and the vendor, which in this case is the ALM.