I hope I never tire of the wonders of all this technology or cease to be amazed by what one can do with it. It is more than 100 years since the Wright Brothers flew at Kittyhawk, and I travel more than most, but I still marvel at the idea that a large box with wings can bring me to Las Vegas, itself only founded as a city in 1905, two years after Orville Wright left the ground.
If the foreground in the view from my 19th floor hotel room suggests that progress is not uniformly for the better, the upside is the further view of the hills beyond. To mourn the fact that Las Vegas is no longer “The Meadows” which gave it its name is like regretting that disclosure / discovery no longer involves tactile intimacy with paper. The city has doubtless lost something now that no-one brings cattle down to the river, just as some lawyers regret that “documents” are now electronic and come in volumes matching the population growth here since 1905, but life moves on. There is a new instant motto for you – “manual discovery is like herding steers down the Strip”.
The best part, though, is that there is no sense of disconnection by being here – and if you value disconnection, you probably don’t work for yourself on your own. Information is my stock-in-trade and I am no less on top of it here than I would be at home. I see, for example, that Joanna Goodman has written up the Chilli IQ Legal IT Leaders Think Tank held in London last week, including an account of the session involving Master Whitaker and Browning Marean’s electronic presence. Dominic Regan has done another Implementing Jackson article for the New Law Journal, with observations on the role of active case management in controlling costs. And Craig Ball has written about the venue which ILTA has found here in Las Vegas for ILTA 2010. As it happens, three of those mentioned above – Steven Whitaker, Browning Marean and Craig Ball – are downstairs somewhere, so the electronic connectivity is an add-on, not a substitute, for personal contact.
Meanwhile, I notice that my delegate badge for CEIC carries the label Speaker. I had better go and find out what I am supposed to be speaking about, and when.
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