I attended Online on Tuesday morning. I generally go on the Wednesday to tie in with the SLA Europe breakfast but as they moved so did I. Luckily enough for me the Tuesday programme of free seminars looked rather good.
Starting with the breakfast – I was dubious about having to get the AGM in during breakfast but actually it worked rather well and didn’t interfere too much. I had been to the CLSIG 40th birthday party the night before so having to get up early did not go down well but I duly turned up at 8am and drank many, many coffees!
I then went down to the exhibition hall and picked up the free magazines (having thrown out last years ones last week) and went on a tour of the stalls. Online genuinely doesn’t seem to be as good as it once was. I quickly established that I was rather light on actual suppliers who I wished to speak to because I am or want to be a customer and decided to move on to swag hunting. I got: a monkey stuffed toy who is meant to make noise but I was unable to work it so either I got a duff one or I don’t have the strength to pull his arms sufficiently, a hippo, a mug, a pile of beer mats, a coaster, assorted bits and bobs and cars (a blue car and a red car – I intend to get them to have a race).
My first seminar choice was a bit of a bust. It was on How to manage your online reputation but ended up being about your organisation, not you so I (taking inspiration from the US and noting that my feet hurt) ducked out and grabbed a coffee and chat instead, nipping round the few suppliers I did wish to see.
I then went to a seminar on the Legal Services Act which was a follow up to a session that I attended during the 2010 BIALL conference. I am a little surprised about how little has changed in the past eighteen or so months but a few thoughts did occur to me during the session. I was wondering about the potential for law firms to merge with other professional services firms in order to become a one stop shop. I can see this happening eventually although logistically it is probably too difficult with the various conflicts of interest this might pull up. There was some discussion around the problem of access to justice particularly if these changes lead to smaller high street firms going out of business.
I only get a half day at Online so I had to miss the session on New Trends in Corporate Information Centres which looks really interesting so if anyone did manage to attend that, please let me know! If it hadn’t been for the fact I’d been at a training session all day Monday, I might have pushed things and gone but instead I had to get back to my inbox!
All in all, not bad but I rather wonder if in future I might not bother going to the exhibition every year but instead every two unless something significant changes.
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