OK this is an update on Tuesday, the conference is so busy that I’m losing track of what sessions came when and when I spoke to various people. But lots on good information gained both from the sessions, the vendors and the people at the conference.

The first session on Tuesday was on email management (#INFO5). The satisfying part was that all the presenters’ firms were having the same difficulties with email as we’re having. A few key points stuck out:

First the firms had success when they had engaged with the business and got commitment to filing emails, in fact mandating the filing of email to the electronic file (one firm had put in place a 30day file it or lose it rule on the inbox!).

Second, and this was one of those moments where the value of a conference can be pinpointed to one discovery, was about email management being a “long haul” process. The need to see this as a long change that will happen long after the technology has been put in place. One firm had a good idea of “Email Fitness Program” akin to fitness in health whereby it is a long battle to get rid of the fat and then stay lean and healthy!

The next session was on universal search (not specifically Autonomy Universal Search but the general concept) (#INFO6). Interesting that a lot of the firms (and in particular Cassels Brock) kept the interface very simple to ensure the lawyers concentrate on learning search. They also had a neat customisation to highlight “good documents” or precedents that they had encouraged their lawyers to identify (by asking lawyers to pick out a Top 5 of their documents).

After lunch was a session on one of the hot topics of the conference, whether SharePoint can be used as a legal DMS? “SharePoint as a DMS: From Heresy to Orthodoxy” (#MIC5). The real interesting part of this was a talk for me was from Clifford Chance on their move to SharePoint to be their DMS.

I managed to fit in some demos and a trip to the vendor hall. Got a demo from Prosperoware on their Milan product. Particularly looking at the help desk functions for iManage WorkSite, one cool new feature is remote check in. So if a user has gone home you can check in the document from their PC!

Also of interest was DocAuto’s new tool for WorkSite. Their “Distributed System Connector” where you can create shortcuts to files in another iManage DMS without having that DMS permanently attached to FileSite. Perfect for firms with multiple global databases!

Then in the evening I caught up with a couple of suppliers over a few beers at their evening events, BigHand and Tikit. End of another day at ILTA suitably exhausted!

The first full day at ILTA started with a keynote speech from Jason Jennings who shared his “5 Secrets to Put Strategic Unity on the Fast Track”, you can search for soundbites from the keynote as well as the "5 secrets on twitter as the #ilta10 hashtag has been in full use this week (I expect on Tuesday the hashtag will be busier as the WiFi problems that dogged most on Monday seem to be sorted!). But to save you searching the 5 were:

1. Everyone in the company shares a common noble purpose – this is not a mission statement or a vision.
2. Letting go – don’t hold onto things that once served you well.
3. Everybody (inside the company and out) knows the strategy – if people don’t know the strategy they won’t know why they work.
4. Everybody thinks and acts like an owner.
5. Leaders are not leaders at all. They are stewards of the organization.

After the keynote it was off to the many sessions. The first two I attended were run by the Payne Group and were hands on sessions with Office 2010 (#iltau1 and #iltau2 on twitter). In it we ran through a number of the new features in Office 2010, which was less a structured run through and more a quick dip in to each application and focus on a few features.

I’m not going to go into all the features that were highlighted, but what did stick out though is that this is a big shift (especially if you’re on 2003), it’s akin to the shift from WordPerfect to Word rather than Word 2000 to 2003! Throw in the challenge of one stat I heard, that in the former shift from WP a firm had their secretaries for 4 days training and yet now they are only allowed to be freed for 2 hours, and you can see the difficulties firms will have this time round.

Then it was onto a virtual desktop session. The one thing that stuck for me working in a large law firm was the stat from the firm with just 100 employees. There requirements were a 4 server setup to serve virtual desktops to their employees. Big firms are going to need one big server farm for full virtualisation and thin clients!

Then finally finished the day with another Office 2010 session. “Alignment Is Your Strategy for a Successful Office 2010 Implementation”. There was some real good information from firms who had gone Windows7 with Office 2007 an Windows XP and Office 2010. But I noted some interesting bullets:

• Out of 469 respondees of a survey to law firms 349 said they’d be moving to Office 2010
• Top influencers for driving a shift – 1. DMS upgrades, 2.Windows 7 testing, 3. Integration challenges
• One of the most important drivers for success : Building Support Competency

Later in the evening I went to a dinner with Microsystems where I spoke to the Nixon Peabody employee who had been a presenter at the earlier session and chatted a bit more about their Office 2010 implementation. In particular about their use of comparison and meta data cleaning.

Before that meal there was a regional ILTA meeting for Europe. And discussions on the challenges of getting more people to attend ILTA. I’ve only been here one day and the benefits are easily apparent. The sessions that are run and the people you can talk to are invaluable (take for example an adhoc session that has cropped up tomorrow to discuss iManage 8.5). The difficulty though for most people is the cost and the travel time.

Well finally here for ILTA 2010 at the Aria Hotel in Las Vegas!

The journey from the UK had a bit of a John Candy “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” feel to it and started at just before 5:00am on Saturday. Taxi, Train, Tube, Train and Flight! We touched down in Las Vegas on Saturday at 2:15pm local time.

So the rest of Saturday was spent experiencing the extreme Nevada heat and the Las Vegas sights. Whilst at the same time trying to stay awake after being on the go for over 24 hours in an attempt to switch to the correct time zone.

On Sunday the plan was to try and attend the ILTA “tweetup”. Well it didn’t quite happen, in fact I’m learning to set my ambitions for the week a little lower. There is so much you could cram in, but I want to leave myself enough time to switch things around as I go along.

Anyway I did get registered and then tonight it was off to the opening reception. Bumped into a few old faces from UK Legal, a few twitter friends (good to meet up in the real world and put faces to names) and also chatted to a few new people.

Update: you’ll end up getting this post on Monday though as the WiFi at the Aria wasn’t authenticating the ILTA account at the weekend and my HD2 wifi router (MiFi) was playing up!

Well tomorrow I’m leaving the family at home in the UK and heading off to ILTA 2010 (International Legal Technology Association) in Las Vegas. I was one of the 5 winners of the Workshare ILTA conference scholarship competition and thus was lucky enough to have my conference costs paid for.

This is my first ever visit to ILTA and so I have decided to try and blog about the experience. I have been warned though that the conference can be exhausting, so don’t be totally surprised it this fails completely!

For the “day before post” I’ve highlighted some of the sessions that I’m looking forward to:

Sunday

There is the ILTA tweetup at 4:00pm, which I aim to attend. There are a number of Legal IT twitter folk I follow from the US (and elsewhere) that I’ve never met in person, so this is a good opportunity to meet in the real world.

Monday – aka “the Office day”

First up, for me, after the keynotes are the “Features and Functionality of Office 2010” sessions. Two sessions at 10:30am and 2:30pm (ILTAU1 and ILTAU2).

Then at 4:00pm I intend to get to the “Alignment is your strategy for a successful Office 2010 implementation” session (MIC2).

Tuesday

“Dreams can come true – email management success stories”. A session at 10:30am that is well aligned with my current work projects! One of this sessions speakers is someone I follow on twitter @KMHobbie. (INFO5).

At 11:00pm “Successful Universal Search Implementations” (INFO6). Again another speaker I follow on twitter @lawyerkm.

And then looking at a session with a very apt title “Sharepoint as a DMS: From heresy to orthodoxy” (MIC5). I’m wondering though whether there should be a ‘!’ or a ‘?’ at the end of that title?

Also on Tuesday I intend to meet up with Keith Lipman of Prosperoware to see how there Milan product is getting on.

Wednesday – aka “the Autonomy day”

On Wednesday it’ll be pretty much following the Autonomy iManage Peer Group track.

The Search is Over with iManage IDOL: Frontend and Backend Perspectives (AUT1)

Autonomy iManage Corporate Update (AUT2)

Taming the E-Mail Filing Monster with iManage WorkSite 8.5 (AUT3)

The Reinvention of Matter Centricity Through Autonomy (AUT4)

Thursday

The only session I’ve really go pencilled in for Thursday is “Next Generation Law Firm Economics” (ORG15).

I’m sure things will change and there are a number of other vendors that I’ve lined up to meet with, but details of those I’m sure will come out in subsequent days posts.

So if you’re heading to ILTA then maybe I will see you there.