It’s our favorite time of the year again. ILTACON2016 is here, which means reconnecting with old friends, as well as making many more at this year’s conference. For those of you unfamiliar with ILTACON, the International Legal Technology Association’s (ILTA) annual conference, this epic event is a four-day educational conference that gives the legal community the opportunity to learn from personal and collective strengths of fellow techies within the industry. ILTACON provides new insights about what works, what doesn’t work, as well as the tools necessary to keep up with the ever-changing world of technology. Speaking of ever-changing technology, ILTA’s theme, “Embracing Change” seems fitting, especially as we celebrate 25 years of the world wide web this month!

This year, keynote speakers include Mike Walsh and Dan Katz. Walsh, who is an author and global speaker, will offer original insights to empower business owners to understand and unleash their future potential, in his session titled, “Re-Imagining Legal Technology for the 21st Century.” Dan Katz will help us identify and solve legal issues in, “Measure Twice, Cut Once: Solving the Legal Profession’s Biggest Problems Together.” But wait… ILTACON isn’t all business. There are dozens of activities planned from golf to yoga; however, a good steak with a few of my closest friends and peers usually wins every time.

I was encouraged by the “Embracing Change” theme this year as legal has come a long way with accepting and adopting new technologies. With these changes have come success and efficiencies that have rewritten industry standards and practices. Each year ILTA offers a wide variety of sessions which cater to different roles within a business, in an effort to help us stay on top of new practices that are prevalent within the legal industry. In fact, choosing which sessions to attend may very well be your biggest obstacle at the convention. Sessions that caught my eye capturing the essence of ILTACON this year include: New International Standard for Cloud Due Diligence, Machine Learnings as a Service and the Future of AI and the Law, Embracing Office 2016 Across Different Devices and Platforms, and my favorite, The Evolution of SharePoint 2016 (maybe I’m a little biased).

Co-presenting “The Evolution of SharePoint 2016” with Sean Coleman, BA Insight

So, what’s relevant about all of this?

Embracing change is not just a message that resonates to the legal industry. All industries are adjusting to innovation and technological change. We as consumers, business owners, employees, and suppliers are becoming smarter, more informed and better connected. Together, we are all embracing change and learning how to succeed in this new era. And in no time at all, today’s change will be as if it always existed just as the world wide web has so easily become a part of our everyday lives.

So, let’s talk about that. In just 25 years we’ve embraced the world wide web as if it’s always existed. However, in the midst of such rapid innovation and upgrades, gadgets and trends can come and go in the blink of an eye. Remember the Apple Newton PDA? How about the IBM PCjr? Yeah, I didn’t think so. But while some technologies flop, some emerging tech trends make you wonder, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Here are a few, more recent trends in technology that are rewriting the future:
o Self-driving cars
o Amazon bots
o Cloud computing
o Delivery drones
o Alexa/Siri
o Skype (ever Skype on an airplane?)

With technology advancing so rapidly, it is hard to imagine what is to come in the future. Gartner’s top tech trends for 2016 gives us a sneak peek into up and coming technologies like 3D Printing, Advanced Machine Learning, and Adaptive Security Architecture. Just as technologies that have emerged in the past, these will enable new efficiencies and productivities. Those who are able to embrace these changes will separate themselves from the rest of the pack.

So what does all this change mean for your organization? Well, let’s look at Amazon, who earned the #1 spot on the list of the Top 50 Smartest Companies by MIT Technology Review. Amazon has done as well as the next guy at staying ahead of the technology curve. Not only did they recently introduce voice service, Alexa (the personal assistant we never knew we always needed), but they also have incorporated robots into their fulfillment centers, which has streamlined processes, cutting operating costs by about 20%. Amazon didn’t yield this success with the “wait and see” approach; they embraced change and allowed it to work for them versus against them. In order to follow in their footsteps, ‘smart’ companies will adopt and embrace these changes. The days of waiting to see what everyone else is using are over. Risk management comes with the territory; therefore, it should be managed accordingly in order to compete and succeed.

While we eagerly await ILTACON 2017 with eyes to the future, we at Acrowire, will be embracing new changes in technology as we quicken our pace to stay ahead of the curve. In this age of innovation, idle time must be a thing of the past and should be avoided at all costs in order to prosper in the swiftly moving rip tides of our society.

What barriers are hindering your ability to embrace change? Is it funding? Regulations? Corporate culture?

I hope that you too will embrace the new changes, the efficiencies and insights that come with them. Welcome to the lightning round! Until next year, ILTACON!