I Heart Tech

TECHSHOW is here!

Good Morning, Chicago! I'm excited to be here for TECHSHOW. It's been a long time coming for those of us on the board and after a year of planning and meeting and all the other fun <GRIN> that comes with being on a board - the curtains are rising and the show starts tomorrow.

We have some really great speakers and sessions lined up so if you are planning to be here you're going to have a great time. Be sure to stop by the "Conference Concierge"  as I'll be spending a lot of time there and you should definitely sign up to go to dinner with one of the speakers who are hosting a Taste of TECHSHOW dinner. There's a lot going on, but these two elements of the show mean a lot to me. The Concierge is a place for attendees to come and ask questions, get pointed to experts and vendors and also get tech support. The "Concierges" will be various members of the board and speakers who volunteered their time to help out. As for the dinners, they are being hosted by our legal tech celebs and are an opportunity for attendees to get up close and personal with experts on topics they are most passionate about. Here's a list of who and what:

Thursday Night Dinners

• Jim Calloway & Tom Mighell - Lawyers That Blog and Why
• Andy Adkins & Natalie Kelly - All About Case Management
• Sheila Blackford & Ellen Freedman - New Practice? Talk with the Experts About Doing it Right
• Allan Mackenzie & LeAnn Davidson - Everything Microsoft Office
• Lincoln Mead & Toby Brown - Talk the Talk:  VoIP, Wireless, Cell and other Communications Tools
• John Simek & Sharon Nelson - Conducting Electronic Discovery Without Going Broke
• Browning Marean & Tom O'Connor - The Future of Litigation Support
• Steve Nipper & Matt Buchanan - There's Just Something about IP
• Dan Pinnington & Reid Trautz - Google for Lawyers
• Laura Calloway & Dave Bilinsky - The Profitable Law Firm: Lets Talk Finance
• Ross Kodner - Practice Management Systems

Friday Night Dinners

• Barron Henley  and Blair Janis : Document Assembly
• Paul Unger - Trial Presentations: What How and Why
• Adriana Linares - Road Warriors Unite
• Ben Schorr - Everything Email
• Catherine Reach & David Masters - The Paper Free Law Office
• Matt Homann - Building the Innovative Practice
• Rick Ferguson - Solo/Small Firm Focus
• Brett Burney - Get There from Here: Remote Access and Collaboration

Matt Homann is organizing a TECHSHOW Blogger Bar Crawl on Thursday night. I'm all over that. Hope to see you around the show!

ABA - TECSHOW Update and CLE Session on VoIP on Thursday

I'm back from the deep south of South America. I spent a few days on the beach, the family ranch (yes, Gaucho's!) and in the big city of Montevideo.  It was a great trip - but man am I glad to have 24/7 access to the Internet! Although I'm not home for long as I'm off today to do some Word training in Houston for a research group associated with Baylor U.   Anway, on with it.

As a member of the ABA TECHSHOW Planning Board I'm pretty excited about the Keynote Speaker we have for 2007, The Honorable Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Can you say Zubulake? Get details here.

Also, be sure to check out the program grid detailing sessions for the conference. I'm the track leader for the MS Office and Going Mobile tracks.

Seems to be the hottest thing going these days - VoIP. The ABA is hosting what looks to be a great Teleconference and Live Audio Webcast tomorrow (Thursday Nov 29th). Get details here.

ABA TECHSHOW Planning Board

What do you do when stuck in a foreign board room for three solid days with a group of near strangers? Well you plan TECHSHOW 2007, of course.

We met in Toronto last week and officially started the process of organizing the event. Being new to the board, the group, the process, I didn't know what to expect - but I had a feeling I would have a great time. And THANK THE LORD everyone is so cool. We have some really great tracks and sessions planned. I'm excited  to be leading the development of two tracks - Office applications and mobility. Be sure to send me any ideas or suggestions you have for the show and definitely plan to attend. You can always learn more about what's going on at the TECHSHOW website and blog. I've posted some pics from our tech-love-fest below.

Countdown to Techshow 2007

Only 330 days left until Techshow 2007 so start planning now!Next year is destined to be the best show yet. I'm confident of this because I was asked to participate as a member of the the 2007 Planning Board. I'm really excited about the whole thing and especially about working with the other members of the board (thank god I like everyone). The other board members are Dan Pinnington (Chair), Tom Mighell (Vice Chair), Debbie Foster, David Masters, Laura Calloway, Catherine Sanders Reach, David Ries, John Simek and Blair Janis.  I hope you'll take the time to shoot me an email with any comments about this years show and ideas or suggestions for next year. Lemme hear it!

As far as this past year goes, I had a great second session with Paul Unger of HMU Consulting on advanced Word functions, we covered automation tips, styles, TOC's and EVEN generated (with ease) a tables of authorities. We had several attendees approach us after we were done with comments like  "wow, I cant believe how easy that is".  Training, my friends. Simple, simple training. I've uploaded the materials from both sessions at my Word for Lawyers resource page. Pictures I took throughout the show are loaded in the right column of this web log.