We had a very successful event in Eugene where we had approximately 12 people attend an event where we talked about the ILTA website, the ILTA Conference and how ILTA can benefit it’s members.  There were a number of questions in regards to ILTA and how it could help firms in the Eugene area.  Then we gloated over our Regional Competition Trophy and we were able to see the flag that was made for our region…although it’s a little tattered, torn and beat up.  But it still has sentimental value.  David was there for the Utah Oregon game and brought a guest to the meeting with him.  Both Chris and David attended the Utah Oregon game and Chris came out of that the happier man.  It rained a little during the game, but it was a great game.  I’ll include some pictures in my post!

Kick Off....From a Utah standpoint the highlight of the game.

Restaurant in Florence on the coast where we had dinner.

Sunset over the ocean

Multnomah Falls on the way home.

Spawning salmon at the Fish Hatchery on the Columbia

The Columbia

Enjoy!

Anchorage, Alaska was the host to a Bighand webinar/demo presented by Michael Dunn. This is a great application for timekeepers who dictate letters, pleadings, and time entries. The software leverages existing smart phones (including, but not limited to, devices such as the Blackberry and Iphone)  without the need to purchase additional “dictating” equipment. One of the great features is the ability to see the work-in-process to completion,  including the names of the staff persons assigned to the project. It also includes several report templates designed to monitor productivity with relation to project efficiency.

Calgary recently held a very successful ILTA event that took place at a posh venue and left the the participants excited, informed and revitalized.  Nuance Communications came to town to host a seminar on their PDF Convertor and Dragon Naturally Speaking application.  Although this was a product demonstration it was very well done with brief periods of demonstration followed by opportunities to digest both the content of what was shown and our dinner (which was fabulous!) 

We had 25 attendees which is a very impressive number for our city.  Not only that, they were fully engaged and asked lots of great questions.  The post session feedback was very positive with comments on the ease of use and functionality of the product as well as appreciation on setting up the event.  Very timely too that the e-groups were discussing Nuance vs. Nitro PDF the same day  

All in all, a very successful event for both the vendor and ILTA!!

I’m travelling today but will update this with pictures and more verbiage later in the day.

Safe travels to all!  And have a great weekend.  More to come. 

PS.  If you have any pictures from last night, please forward them to me at your convenience and I’ll post them here.

I was able to score a number of things, while more importantly learning a lot from the vendors and getting some great ideas to help improve our firm.  I looked at docketing products, and some case management software that gave me a number of ideas.

At 1:15, Tim Hooks and I were televised in a “Software as a service, SaaS” conversation with Shy Alter.  That was a lot of fun.  I’ve never done that before and it was a new and great experience. 

One thing that ILTA has done for me is get me outside my comfort zone.  I have really enjoyed learning from these experiences, and highly recommend them.  You will be pleasantly surprised.

Wednesday was sort of a drag as there were no social events planned from an ILTA standpoint.  But the vendors had plenty of opportunities.  I spent an hour with my Shoretel friends at an onsite restaurant.

Finally at 8:30 I called it an ILTA night and went back to my room and worked on our regional flag.  It turned out pretty good I must say.  I got some new photos that I’ll put on the flag in the morning.  I can’t believe tomorrow is Thursday and the last day of the conference!  Are you kidding me?

Tracy and Maury Burke, along with Tracy’s mom and dad made a trip into the city and went to the White House.  Very interesting.  We saw the East Room, the Blue room, the Red Room, the China room and Bill Clinton’s favorite room, the Green room.  It was a self guided tour, and the furniture is really interesting, most of it being from the early 1800′s.  Afterward we went to the National Museum of Natural History.  That’s a great place to visit.

I should have gone to the Super Session that they had this morning.  The speaker talked about the Gen Y generation.  I’m hoping they recorded it, because apparently it was way cool.

I also went to 3 sessions today.  One was Aderant which was quite dry and boring, but the information was good.  I met with a number of vendors both in the vendor hall and in some demo rooms.  A lot of good information out there. 

Then last but not least we had the Tut at Night party.  This is the normal Tuesday night Social party.  A good time is had for all.  It’s meant as an opportunity to talk to your peers, and talk we did.  I sat next to Tonya Gere of Seattle, Asima Macci of Calgary, Dan Piggot of Boise, David Hill of Vancouver, Tracy and Maury Burke and a vendor who I don’t know his name, but know he’s from Sydney Australia.  We all talked a lot about our projects for the next year and some of the things we’ve done the last year and some of the issues we have going on in our firms. 

Then casino night hit.  I was sitting at one of the poker tables for probably 3 hours.  I was sitting by one of my friends, Andrew Steele and both of us just struggled the entire night.  It  was a struggle.  So then I went out to one of the Blackjack table and won like 30 straight times…..with a little itty bitty help from the dealer.  But it was fun.  They had a raffle of about 15 items and I was the next to last one to be drawn (I ended up with about 50 tickets from the friendly dealer) and won some cool headphones. 

After that we danced the rest of the night away.  It was a lot of fun. 

Well, Wedneday morning comes quickly.  Have a great day!

The Schwag was in my opinion few and far between, but the economy being what it is, I can understand that.

At 9:00 many of us joined Client Profiles and some of their other sponsors for the annual Client Profiles Poker Tournament.  Again, I literally got no good hands and was out about half way through the tournament.  But 9 of us got a cash game going on after the tournament where we put $20 in each.  I walked away with 2nd place and $60.  So, not bad.  It’s 1:00 and I’m going to bed.

See you tomorrow!

We quickly introduced ourselves, and talked about the Regional Competition this year at conference.  This includes:

The Regional Flag

Attendance at the Regional Meeting

ILTA’s version of Family Feud on Thursday night

A jump rope competition on Thursday night

And another as of yet unannounced competition on Thursday night.

We then had a competition on Dumb laws in our states and provinces.  I have included the powerpoint which we showed.  It was hilarious!  And no, not all of these dumb laws are Utah laws!  Although a lot of funny ones are.  There was a list of Utah laws 2 pages long.

We had many great giveaways and a lot of fun.

ILTA09 Regional meeting

Enjoy!

Then I spent the rest of the day shopping at CVS and getting ready for our Regional Meeting.

My sessions that I chose this morning are Office 2003, 2007 and 2010:  The jumping point.  We talked about reasons to go to Office 2007, and some of the new features in Office 2010.  I’m shocked at how many firms have NOT migrated to Office 2007.  There are a number of firms in Utah that I know of that have already migrated.  But when hands were raised, maybe a quarter of the room had fully migrated to Office 2007 and maybe another 10 % were in the process.  We were then shown the new features of Office 2010.  I’m not sure I like it, but oh well.  I didn’t like Office 2007 that much but we still migrated.  Funny thing is, I’m not sure I like it still.  But I’m getting used to it.

Then I went to the Open Source Windows A-list session.  Now, interestingly there was only 1 session in the morning, but my ADD kicked in after about an hour in the Microsoft session and I hopped over to the A-list session.  Some interesting ideas on using Open Source products for a number of processes in a law firm.  I’ll share some of them later with you.

Have a great Monday morning!