Lessons from the First Day of TIG
Today was the first day of the TIG Conference, and as with all of the previous conferences, I learned a lot. A few of those lessons:
- Members of the legal aid community don't brag enough. Amazing, innovative projects are happening all over, and unless you know the right questions to ask, you don't always get to hear about them. For example, Arkansas has a budding corporate pro bono program that they are supporting with a special website and document assembly.
- It's no longer questioned within the legal aid technology community: legal aid clients are using the Internet. Instead of asking if, people are now asking where and how to find them to let them know that legal resources exist.
- Programs are interested in social networking, but they don't yet know what to do in order to make it work. (I think that this puts them in the same category as the rest of the nonprofit world.)
- And my favorite, from Alison Paul in reaction to the security session, "We have trouble, right here in River City . . ." (I'm not surprised at the reaction, but I'm now definitely watching the webcast from this session.)
Perhaps the most important lesson that I learned was that I can't be in two places at once nor can I do twelve things at once. (And it's a lesson that I seem to have to keep learning over and over.) But the good news is that I don't have to. There is a whole crew of people who are also documenting what is going at this conference for you. Live-tweets are available here. Webcasts are available here. And others are blogging about sessions as well. - K
