Anybody Can Buy a Porsche...
but try driving it!
There was a time when the only way you could buy a Porsche was four-on-the-floor. Not because they couldn't make an automatic. Of course not; the standard-only Porsche has been the unequivocally intentional marketing ploy that preserved the rarefied Porsche Driving Experience for the Driving Elite -- i.e., that proud demographic that can drive a fast standard transmission.
But times change, and with the times, the demands of the marketplace. By the end of the 80's, with a growing constituency of would-be Porsche drivers -- but for the stick shift -- Porsche found valuable new market share in producing the fully automatic 911 Carrera 2. Porsche found plenty of other ways to satisfy its traditional constituency's elitism. Meanwhile, there's now a Porsche on the market that anybody can drive.
The present moment in litigation support is a lot like the Porsche automatic. The legal technology that used to be the special province of IT is now out there, sharing your marketplace, for any old legal department to access freely. Most vendors even hawk their products with bundled how-to packages, which have potential to sideline old-fashioned info-techies.
But like the 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera 2, which allows anybody with a license to get behind the wheel, IT only gets nowhere fast, if the driver doesn't know where he's going. Because it's all about the driver -- the IT guy who knows the machine inside and out. It's all about the navigator -- the lawyer who knows where he needs to go, and how to get there. It's all about your people, working together, to get somewhere fast, in the powerful vehicle of new technology.
The IT staffing objective has, in fact, changed. Judges, lawyers and clients have all changed -- because technology has advanced, and with changing technology, the marketplace has changed. But what the litigation support market phenomenon allows us to see, better than ever before, is what we've always known: it's NOT about the technology. It's about the talent. It's about the people.
It's ALWAYS about the people.
There was a time when the only way you could buy a Porsche was four-on-the-floor. Not because they couldn't make an automatic. Of course not; the standard-only Porsche has been the unequivocally intentional marketing ploy that preserved the rarefied Porsche Driving Experience for the Driving Elite -- i.e., that proud demographic that can drive a fast standard transmission.
But times change, and with the times, the demands of the marketplace. By the end of the 80's, with a growing constituency of would-be Porsche drivers -- but for the stick shift -- Porsche found valuable new market share in producing the fully automatic 911 Carrera 2. Porsche found plenty of other ways to satisfy its traditional constituency's elitism. Meanwhile, there's now a Porsche on the market that anybody can drive.
The present moment in litigation support is a lot like the Porsche automatic. The legal technology that used to be the special province of IT is now out there, sharing your marketplace, for any old legal department to access freely. Most vendors even hawk their products with bundled how-to packages, which have potential to sideline old-fashioned info-techies.
But like the 1989 Porsche 911 Carrera 2, which allows anybody with a license to get behind the wheel, IT only gets nowhere fast, if the driver doesn't know where he's going. Because it's all about the driver -- the IT guy who knows the machine inside and out. It's all about the navigator -- the lawyer who knows where he needs to go, and how to get there. It's all about your people, working together, to get somewhere fast, in the powerful vehicle of new technology.
The IT staffing objective has, in fact, changed. Judges, lawyers and clients have all changed -- because technology has advanced, and with changing technology, the marketplace has changed. But what the litigation support market phenomenon allows us to see, better than ever before, is what we've always known: it's NOT about the technology. It's about the talent. It's about the people.
It's ALWAYS about the people.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home