Dave Packer's Blog

As Senior Director, iManage Marketing at Autonomy iManage, Dave specializes in the set of solutions that addresses the complex information management needs of professional services firms worldwide. Dave’s blog offers advice, viewpoints, and insight for any organization charged with providing a comprehensive set of solutions to organize, find, and govern their business information. Dave is an avid outdoors person and has a special passion for keeping abreast of the latest emerging technologies and physics research. Connect with Dave on LinkedIn

ILTA – If your focus is Legal IT, it IS the place to be

I’ve been fortunate over the many years of doing both product marketing and product management to attend a broad range of different industry shows and conferences.   All the way back to the early days of doing hardware and going to the big big shows like Comdex that were the everything all bundled into one big mega-show, to educational conferences that focus on a very thin area of specialties, to standards committee hearings, the latter of which I’ve decided requires a very special personality type - not mine.    The net of all this was my personal conclusion that about 99% of shows and conferences were a branding exercise and futile for any attending vendor, unless you can really MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN, and I started avoiding them like the plague unless somehow the sales team cornered me with the famous ‘We HAVE to be there’ line.

Coming to Interwoven I got a breath of fresh air around conferences and shows, and really that came from my first attending year at ILTA (Then Lawnet) www.iltanet.org .   My first indicator that ILTA was THE conference was actually weeks before the conference itself.   After meeting with many of our clients in the legal profession the conversation would end something like this: ME: “Well XXX it was great meeting you glad we were able to have this conversation….” CLIENT: “Likewise, I guess I’ll see you next at ILTA?” - This was said akin to the way a family member might say “Of course, I’ll see you at your brothers wedding”, that is, more rhetorical than actual questioning my attendance - Of course you’ll be there.   Just missing the secret hand-shake (is there one?)

This years conference info: ILTA 2008

When attending the ILTA educational conference it becomes obvious why it has such a following - It’s driven by folks in a peer community coming together to ensure the right things happen to maximize knowledge transfer and give everyone in the legal IT community the chance to walk away with information that will ultimately help them be more effective at their firms.  The issues of corporate oriented competitive walls that occlude many conferences are not there - that in itself makes it very unique and open to sharing information.  It would be remiss to say that it is a trade show, it’s not, sure it has some of the constructs of one but very minimally, the focus is much deeper and the community really is protective to keep it that way and I’m a true believer they should.   Every year, since that first year I attended it has been the #1 conference on my list of ‘have to be there’.   The sessions are great, the community is really involved, and the people that attend have a sincere interest in making it the best, worthwhile conference - I always walk away thinking “Now, that is a great conference!” - I wish all were similar, but also realize each one has its own unique approach and needs that change the overall chemistry of the event.   

From Interwoven’s perspective it is one of the single best venues to connect with our clients, understand where the industry is going, how we can be more involved, as well as identify the big challenges around information management, whether its identifying product line extensions - like the recent acquisition of Discovery Mining, or trying to understand the implications of how Web 2.0 technologies might open new avenues for collaboration.  That said, I’ve also made it one of our top priorities here at Interwoven for our PSIS (Professional Services Industry Solutions) team. ILTA has become the venue to really MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN.   We do a wide range of activities to really engage folks, it takes a lot of time and effort on our side but it’s well worth it and it all culminates into our BIG PARTY EVENT — This year we’ve gone all out at the Glass Cactus (On the Gaylord property), will even have a mechanical bull, it’ll have a similar flavor to what we’ve done at the House of Blues in previous years, but then again will be really different as well and definitely fun for everyone.  A big thanks to all of our co-sponsors of the event that come together to make it happen.

So, I could go on and rave more about ILTA as an organization; they do a top notch job and fill a vital role in the legal community and they have made me a convert - I’ve had the renewed faith and realization that conferences can exist that bring mutual value to everyone that attends, IT practitioner and vendor alike - so here’s looking forward to another great conference!

I’d be curious to hear others experiences, thoughts:

• What other conferences have had the same impact, draw you in?
• What was it about them that made them unique/appealing?
• What’s your favorite thing about ILTA?
• What’s the hot topic that nobody’s really talking about / discussing?

See you all at ILTA!

Dave

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