So I only attended #iltacon24 for a day and a bit but my impressions were, in no order:
- despite the welcome proliferation of providers and technologies, the industry has been remarkably stable with the same big beasts for a long time. Just look at the Exhibition Hall floor plan (which is like a Monaco harbour yacht competition btw)
- Fulcrum wins the prize for the biggest marketing budget surely. Took me back to that event where a dictation vendor was doing helicopter rides.
- GenAI dominates everyone’s mind at the moment. Every vendor is shouting that they have it, every law firm thinks they should have it, hardly anyone seems to be actually doing very much with it. Maybe the winners are staying quiet but many sessions are plaintive chats about finding the use case. And in the midst of it, everyone seems to be equating AI with gen AI with LLMs.
- the mature products seem to be getting heavier and heavier. I’ve been working with small law recently and the sheer lightness of their product stack is something to wonder at. The industry ought to look at products like Xero and marvel at the consumery ‘get stuff done fast and easy’ feel that they have. In one of my gigs we integrated/consolidated 4 distinct accounting systems across 4 currencies in a project that took about 2 hours with a product that costs about 200 bucks a year. Imagine doing that with you know who. *** update - by coincidence I have today received the invoice from the consultant we engaged to do what we would have called ‘phase 2 refinements’ to the consolidation/dashboard tool. I opened it nervously because we hadn’t really agreed a price. it was £600.***
- about ten years after everyone else, we have almost stopped talking about moving to the cloud like it’s a moonshot
- the Courtyard Marriott seems ok until you walk through the convention hotel. Going home at night is like being a prisoner on day release
- the people in this industry are a remarkably collegiate, kind, lovely group. Maybe it’s the need for group therapy but there’s no industry like it
Great to see many old friends and make a few new ones. People do seem quite young now. Most of them are younger than my kids.
Caroline Hill I’m tagging you as you usually have the best and wittiest take. And what do you think Kerry Westland.
HR-Manager Nederland
6dWelkom Jantine!