The Cowen Blog
Vendors Need to Lead
Posted on August 13, 2009 by David Cowen
New technologies and process have made, and are making great strides/improvements in reducing the volumes of data that must be reviewed by someone somewhere. Whether you’re in-house, onshore, farmshore or offshore – the quantity of documents to review is finally beginning to drop.
Unfortunately, the ability to fully utilize these new technologies & processes – Clearwell, EnCase, Recommind and others – is a different story. There simply are not enough people that have a deep and meaningful experience with these tools/technologies to satisfy the industry’s needs. The talent is scattered – some Corporate, some Vendor and a fair amount within Law Firms.
Why don’t we have more deep talent? The industry has simply grown too much too fast – there just hasn’t been time for the appropriate amount of talent to be trained and developed.
And to be truthful… I do not see much real training going on.
We’ve been here before. During the late 1990’s, when Microsoft and Cisco were taking over the world - corporations were installing new versions of software every 6-12 months and demanded employees with Microsoft and Cisco certifications. Understandably, when corporations (or anyone) spend millions/billions on new technologies and business process improvements, they want more than the local copy shop boys.
Back then most/many corporations paid for their employees to get those certifications. It was in their best interest and significantly cheaper than paying recruiter fees. Certification, $6,000 vs. recruiting fee, $25,000… it’s a no brainer. And many tech gurus paid for their own training because it represented a clear career path up.
Yet here we are 5 years into this E-Discovery explosion (2004 – 2009), in a reportedly $4B industry (growing/shrinking?) and there is no organized /recognized training. If we do not address this issue/opportunity, we will return to the War for Talent we just witnessed from 2004 – 2008.
There is something terribly short sighted going on here.
What’s the solution? Ask me what I think vendors need to be doing in order to lead this industry.
I will be at ILTA from Sunday, August 23rd to Thursday, August 27th and am speaking with Joanne Lane , Ellen Polhamus and Ruth Hauswirth on Tuesday at 1:30 PM on “The Future of Our Litigation Support Profession: What Lies Ahead?”
The answer is easier then you think.
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