Embracing anything anywhere
Post by Nigel Williams |
I’ve just taken a delivery of a new laptop – brilliant! But my joy is quickly followed by the pain of having to reconcile my locally held information and data, and syncing diaries across multiple digital devices – why doesn’t this happen simply and automatically? Life was so much simpler with just a networked PC and Filofax!
Nowadays with the plethora of personal and business electronic devices, our digital work/life separation is becoming increasingly blurred and the volumes and locations of data are growing. Managing all this is an ever demanding activity, both for user and IT department!
So how does this all relate to legal technology? Well, much has been written about the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) headache, but it’s no longer constrained to the basics of diary or email sharing. Increasingly, ‘power users’ are on the move and they want to have access to ‘their’ data which might be sourced from multiple systems, having to be delivered to multiple devices, and all handled concurrently! From the user’s perspective this information needs to be ‘seamless’ – accurate, timely and available, whilst from the firm’s perspective it must also be totally secure.
It’s essential that the operational needs of any business are fully served by the right operational systems. But any operational system then needs to embrace the ‘anything/anywhere’ needs of the peripatetic operator by providing secure open doors and seamless backend integration to other systems; but not at the cost of having to rely on expensive supplier intervention or complex black-box technology.
All of this is something that I have to tackle in my role as product manager for Lexis® Visualfiles™. It’s a fantastic product (case management and workflow solution), and I see a much wider future than the traditional ‘Visualfiles-centric’ world. At the recent Tech Ed I gave a brief insight into our ‘built on Visualfiles’ vision which includes the provision of components and interfaces to support the delivery of any ‘great bits’ of Visualfiles that an organisation needs. This is a world where Visualfiles technology contributes to each part of the business in a format that supports the specific need. Watch this space!
For more information on Lexis® Visualfiles™ please visit here >>
About the Author: Nigel Williams
Nigel has led the product function since 2013 and has worked with Visualfiles since it was first released. With wide experience the legal sector, including Head of IT in 2 separate law firms, before joining Solicitec in 2004, he has also worked in the NHS and served for 9 years in the RAF, in the UK and overseas. Outside of work, Nigel lives in Gloucestershire and is married with 3 grown up daughters. He is a long-suffering Gloucester Rugby season ticket holder, hoping rather than expecting! Aside from the rugby, Nigel is a qualified hockey umpire and a keen photographer.
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