The Cowen Blog
What's Your Challenge?
Posted on September 1, 2009 by David Cowen
Last week’s ILTA conference was better than ever. Although attendance was down considerably, I believe that less is more this year.
Fewer people means increased intimacy, more meaningful discussions and enhanced opportunities to create relationships and engage in a long, uninterrupted exchange of ideas.
This year, the people who were able to attend ILTA were clearly decision-makers and influencers, not lieutenants and junior professionals. Everyone came with specific purpose – to learn and engage in a meaningful senior-level exchange of ideas. Attendees and vendors alike could spend more time with key decision makers than in past conferences.
We attend ILTA to explore new technologies, work flows, processes, vendors and systems but at the end of the day, it’s about the people. The technology doesn’t create itself, sell itself or run itself. Workflow and process improvement can’t be canned, packaged or replicated without talented people involved in the technology’s inception, implementation and execution.
While at ILTA, I polled 100+ people on their greatest challenge entering the fourth quarter of 2009. Of these attendees, 20% said their greatest challenge is technology, 60% said it is process workflow and 20% said it is people. If 60% of the challenge is process workflow, isn’t that truly a challenge about people? Without the right people, you can’t originate, implement or execute the process or make informed technology decisions.
People come to ILTA for a variety of reasons. They want to learn about technology improvements, workflow and process improvements and new vendors. But, at the end of the day, it’s really about the people.
Permalink:
http://www.cowengroup.com/blog/display.php?blogpost=20090901-What-Challenge
