Skip to content

ILTA online discussion : What a difference two years makes

August 26, 2008

The ILTA (International Legal Technology Association) annual conference this week in Dallas is generating a lot of blog and Twitter discussion. What a difference a couple years makes.

Here’s an excerpt from my August 25, 2006 post on the ILTA 2006 conference.

In what may be the latest sign legal technology innovation is an oxymoron was the total lack of Internet discussion from or about ILTA’s annual conference which took place this last week in Orlando. ILTA (International Legal Technology Association) is a leading networking organization allowing for the exchange of resources to legal professionals.

Virtually all tech conferences these days have a steady stream of blog posts reporting live, or at least daily, from attendees. Laptops are open on desktops with near simultaneous reporting via WIFI hookup……When I heard from colleagues that ILTA was on I set up a keyword and tag feed for ILTA from Technorati. I did pick up a few posts over the week but it paled in comparison to other technology conferences.

Leading legal technology folks need to be using blogs and RSS feeds on a regular basis. One, because this medium of business communication (blogs and RSS) is quickly making web sites and email outmoded means of business communication. You need to be taking your firms to the future. Second, advancement of knowledge via offline networking crawls compared the speed at which ideas advance via blogs and RSS.

My post is not meant to be critical of ILTA or their conference. I have heard their organization is very worthwhile and that their conferences are excellent. But if members of ILTA are going to be innovative in their use of technology, they better get with it.

Sitting in my Seattle office today, I’m getting regular blog and Twitter feeds about the presentations at the conference. Some of the blogged summaries are excellent.

Look at the post on a social networking presentation by Doug Cornelius and the post on Interaction Portals by David Hobbie as examples. Think Goodwin Proctor is ahead of the curve in the use of blogs and innovative technologies with guys like Doug and David?

Here’s a screen shot from just now of blog posts referencing ILTA in my NetNewswire RSS reader.

ILTA blog discussion

Twitter discussion from both ILTA attendees and ILTA observers not in attendance is more rampant than blog discussion. Here’s a screen shot of my TweetDeck panel following a global search of ILTA.

ILTA Twitter Lawyers

I’m no longer buying that lawyers and other professionals in our legal industry are way behind the curve in the use of blogging, social networking and social media. Some may be. But for a growing and influential force, the effective use of technology for communication, collaboration, and networking is very real.