ABA TECHSHOW

8 TECHSHOW’s Ago – Tom Mighell Reflects on His Year as Chair in 2008

We’re on a TECHSHOW countdown and with 12 days to go, we’re hopping in the WayBack Machine to hear from past chairs and take a look at What Was at TECHSHOW! Take a look at Tom’s wrap-up post from 2008, it’s a great recap of his great year as chair.

 

mighell_t_ts2015Tom Mighell – ABA TECHSHOW Chair 2008
Twitter: @TomMighell

What were you doing (real life job) when you were the ABA Tech show chair in YEAR? Are you still doing that same thing? If not tell us a little bit about your journey.    

In 2008, I was a lawyer and Legal Technology Support Coordinator working at Cowles & Thompson in Dallas. But I wasn’t there for long – just 5 months later, I left the practice of law to work as a consultant for Fios, the eDiscovery company. Fios stopped doing consulting shortly after that, so I went to work for Contoural providing information governance and litigation readiness services to organizations. I’ve been with Contoural for 6 years now, and am VP of Delivery Services.

What was / were the notable topics/tracks of your year?

TECHSHOW 2008 was a year where some notable topics/tracks were introduced for the first time. 2008 was the first year for the Mac Track, which is now one of the most popular tracks at TECHSHOW. TECHSHOW 2008 also saw the first Large Firm/Corporate Counsel track, and the first Paperless Office track.

 What was the hot technology or must have service, gadget or tool or idea?

TECHSHOW2008 was the first year that Twitter was used as a marketing tool; monitors were set up so people could see what others were tweeting about. It would still be a few years before Twitter would really catch on as a social media tool, but we had a lot of fun using it during the 2008 conference.

If you had a keynote speaker who was it and what was their topic?  

The keynote for TECHSHOW2008 was Marc Rotenberg, the Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. His topic was “Who’s Watching You? A Conversation about Privacy on the Internet.” Just before the conference, Eliot Spitzer resigned as Governor of New York after patronizing a prostitution service, and Mr. Rotenberg used his keynote to discuss how Spitzer’s emails helped to bring him down.

Any final thoughts about your TECHSHOW experience?

TECHSHOW 2008 was a year of firsts – in addition to being a first for the Mac Track and using Twitter, 2008 was the first year TECHSHOW was hosted at the Hilton Chicago, where it has remained to this day. TECHSHOW2008 was also the first year to host the first annual James I. Keane Award for excellence in e-lawyering.