Kevin O'Keefe has been all over ABA TECHSHOW like white on rice this weekend. First he posts ABA TECHSHOW takes big step backward in marketing help for lawyers. Then today he posted Independent experts not selling to lawyers?. Kevin raises some good points, which obviously apply to all legal technology programs. However, I don't agree with all of his assumptions/conclusions. As an ABA TECHSHOW planning board member, I felt some of them needed to be addressed.
I have only been attending TECHSHOW for the past 3 years, but one thing I have noticed is that even with three days of over 60 educational programs, there is no way to address every single issue of legal technology that may be of interest to lawyers. Now that I'm on the planning board, I know that it's true. As a result, some topics don't get all the exposure they deserve.
Kevin's post laments the lack of marketing sessions directed at solo and small firm lawyers. ABA TECHSHOW is geared toward lawyers of all-sized firms, and that's why you'll find tracks of interest to the broader demographic: Litigation Technology, Malpractice Prevention, Security, Applications, e-Discovery, and more. You'd be right to say that not all of these tracks will appeal to solo/small firm lawyers; that's why ABA TECHSHOW offers, every year, a separate track designed primarily for the General Practice/Solo lawyer.
We rely heavily on the feedback of our attendees. The sessions included on the GP/Solo Track (all tracks, really) are sessions that our attendees have indicated are the topics they find to be most relevant to their practice -- including marketing.
There are many, many more speakers than we have the capacity to accomodate. After only one year of observing the process, I can testify that the speaker selection process is very difficult, and involves variables I never even thought about before joining the board. We work very hard at making good speaker choices. It's hard enough when we have to decide not to include people, but it especially hurts when someone is disappointed by our selections. All I can say is that we really try to do our best.
I disagree that the result of non-vendor speakers is a "less informational presentation" -- true, a non-vendor is not going to be as intimately acquainted with the features of a specific product than that vendor, but that's not really what I'm looking for at ABA TECHSHOW -- if I want that specificity, I'll contact the vendor myself for a demonstration after the conference. I want speakers who can tell me the range of choices I have, so I can go make my own decision later. I happen to believe that a consultant or other expert is a more unbiased source than a vendor -- maybe we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.
Kevin suggests some excellent topics and I wanted to point out that even thought the topics he mentions may not be mentioned specifically in session titles, many of them will be covered in various sessions at ABA TECHSHOW. Our "Marketing with Technology" will discuss selecting web site providers for marketing, e-mail marketing problems with spam filters, and cyber-publicity, among other things.
In addition, we are introducing some roundtable sessions this year to cover topics that we think are important but were not able to fit into the main sessions. Three roundtable discussions will cover marketing topics. "Meet the Bloggers" will show lawyers how they can use blogs and RSS feeds to market their practice. "RSS Feeds and Aggregators" will give additional information on the technology, and show lawyers how to use RSS feeds to their advantage, both in marketing and in doing legal research. Finally, "Search Engine Optimization" will cover most of the other issues Kevin mentions.
It appears that Kevin is not planning to attend ABA TECHSHOW. If so, that's a shame because his insights and expertise are well-known and admired -- his comments on weblogs, RSS, and search engine optimization would certainly be welcome at our various roundtable discussions.
I think the coverage of marketing at TECHSHOW is good, but not perfect, in part because the name TECHSHOW creates expectations that we will have a heavy technology emphasis. We are always working to align TECHSHOW sessions with the interests of our audience. While I wish Kevin would have chosen a less critical title for his post, I appreciate his comments and assure him that we will take his feedback into account when we begin planning for TECHSHOW 2006.
You can find more information about ABA TECHSHOW 2005, including online registration forms, at the ABA TECHSHOW 2005 web site.