Every so often, the rate at which things happen outstrips my ability to keep up with writing about it. At such times I can either leave the to-do list stretching off into the far distance or, as I am about to do, knock out a series of short posts wiping the slate more or less clean, leaving me free to do the longer and more analytical posts which I like doing instead of scrabbling to keep up.

The killers, in time terms at least, are the conferences. I love doing them, and can think of few which I haven’t enjoyed in the last decade: I enjoy the performance element; I get to talk to people who inform my own understanding of the eDiscovery / eDisclosure world; as a bonus I meet a lot of very agreeable people – one of the distinguishing features of this market. The events are also an opportunity to film the videos which now constitute a large part of my output, and that in turn gives me the excuse to travel with one of my sons, William or Charlie, who deal with the technical side of video production. This is all good.

On the other hand, they take away great chunks of life. Organising the logistics of travel, the preparatory calls and session preparation, the numbing tedium of packing, sitting around in airport lounges and flying, are all immensely tiresome and time-consuming. I was barely off the plane from the last trip before someone was on to me demanding a list of my sources for a panel, apparently assumimg that if I was not on a stage I was lounging around waiting for the next one.

The best part of a conference – passing the City en route for Heathrow and home

There is the dull minutiae of recording expenses to deal with. Not least is the middle stage of video interviews – I love the interview itself and I love publishing the results, but in between comes a tiresome stage of editing (though the technical side of that is done by my son Will), seeking approvals and writing up summaries.

All the while, interesting articles are stacking up which it is both a duty and a pleasure to cover in some form, even if only by tweeting out the a link to them.

All this is a precursor to a series of short posts, largely devoid of commentary, which pick out some of the things which have been going on since early October, when I last had an uninterrupted period at my desk.

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