It was a generous invitation — free passes to all bloggers who wanted to attend LegalTech 2009. And an offer of reserved seating at the front of the room (with outlets) so we could live blog the sessions. I accepted the invitation, came armed with my netbook, and was looking forward to participating.
Unfortunately, we soon discovered that there was no WiFi in the room. (I was later told that the only room with WiFi initially was the ballroom.) As a result, I took my notes offline and will move them to a blog post when I get the chance. No live blogging for me.
By contrast, some bloggers attended the Twitter session at LegalTech (in a ballroom with WiFi)and decided to tweet the various presentations. What a blast! Although readers around the world were getting multiple 140 character sound bites in duplicate (and triplicate) and were slightly reeling from the impact, I do think the medium somehow conveyed the energy of the session in a way that a blog simply cannot. We were frantic and frenetic, and we were clearly having a great time. A quick look at the feedback received shows that our friends online enjoyed the tweets and participated via Twitter by commenting and posting their questions.
In a single day we got to experience two different ways of communicating information and dealing with technology. Social media tools like blogging and micromessaging via Twitter are wonderful and powerful. Several of my readers said they had so much fun reading our updates that they wished they had been in the room with us. That said, they acknowledged we’d delivered the next best thing. If they can, they’ll find the cash to come to LegalTech next year. I’ve got to believe this is something the conference organizers would like to encourage.
So, about that WiFi…
[Photo Credit: vkdir, Creative Commons license]
Above and Beyond KM 
As someone reading from home, I definitely enjoyed your tweets, Mary! LTNY sounds like a lot of fun and I do indeed wish I had the time to take them up on the free blogger admission offer.
Keep up the great work, and don’t forget to have fun too.
Cheers,
Connie
Thank you, Connie! We’ll definitely have some fun today. Lee Bryant of Headshift in London and I are presenting a session on how to use social media tools in a law practice. I’m looking forward to a lively conversation. Hopefully, we might even convert a few skeptics.
– Mary
Mary, if you’re going to LegalTech tomorrow, make sure to find BlueArc’s booth and say hi to Meriann Muraoka or Cliff Dutton. Tell them Louis sent you. 🙂
Thanks, Louis. I’m definitely going to be at LegalTech today. In fact, I’m presenting a session on how to use social media tools in a law practice. My co-presenter is Lee Bryant of Headshift in London. Should be a great session.
– Mary