“The best thing since sliced bread.” What a revolutionary thing in 1928 when the
first effective bread-slicing machine came out!
Wonder Bread used this as their ad slogan shortly thereafter. Where would school lunches, picnics, toast
and grilled cheese sandwiches be if not for this technological advance? True, the technology made life easier,
lunches faster, and more convenient. But
then there’s always the backlash.
Commercially prepared bread will never be as good or as wholesome as
homemade. Despite the more recent push
to source more locally and naturally, there is still no question that the
bread-slicer was a game changer that added a certain efficiency to our lives.
With almost any new technology, we tend to have the same
love-hate relationship. How many times have
we simultaneously cursed the internet for its constant intrusion on our lives
while relishing in the ease at which we can solve a trivia dispute or obtain
validation of a memory? While email clutters our practices, who would ever want
to go back to attempting to communicate with a group of say, 3 or more, without
the ability to simply email a group? Or suffer the delays of mailing letters
for pressing matters? Because technology
changes so rapidly, we often have difficulty identifying just what exactly IS
the best thing since sliced bread, rather than succumbing to imposters, like
the bread-slicer fails between 1860 and 1928.
Because ‘why can’t we just go back to pencil and paper?’ is
never the answer, we are all charged with the responsibility of practicing
efficiently and competently in the present world. VBA’s President Mike Kennedy blogs often in
his Ethical Grounds blog, about the need to be technologically
competent. Not only is it our ethical responsibility,
we also are only able to serve our clients if we respond to their needs and how
they want to be served. As we recently
noted on our Facebook page, quoting an ABA Journal article
by Jack Newton, clients today often prefer an effortless experience over an
exceptional experience. While this may
not always be the case, it is important to recognize that everyone’s client
base demands more user-friendly experiences than ever before. We don’t always have to be utilizing the best
thing since sliced bread, but we better be sure that we are not shunning sliced
bread, or the internet, or email encryption, or online client portals, or document
management software just because we prefer chunks of bread (and pencils).
As most of our members are aware, we’ve launched a new phase
of member communication called VBA Connect.
While we’ve had quite a bit of positive feedback, some members are still
having difficulty starting out as they lament the good old days of conference
calls or listserves. We are here to help
our members enter into this phase of communication. The old listserves, while new and shiny at
some point, had become stale. Many
people were being bounced off periodically, there was no way to find old posts,
there was no way to share documents, videos or large files and there was no
organization or ability to see other sections and discussions. These online communities are easily
searchable, more streamlined, organized, clean and easy to use. You can customize whether you receive emails
daily, in real time or not at all. The embedded
online directory saves time. Just like with
any new thing, it will take a bit of time to become accustomed to the
changes. We urge our members to please
do so. It may just be ONE OF the best
things since sliced bread.
While we are on the subject of discerning the best thing
since sliced bread, the Technology
Community is open and available to all members to join and use. With so many technology aids out there, how
can anyone know what is hot and what is not?
Collective wisdom is an incredibly powerful tool. We encourage you to post to the technology
community to share your wisdom and questions about the latest hardware and
software. Want to know what other
members think of Clio, Worldox, Timeslips, TimeMatters, Amicus, Abacus, Rocket
Lawyer, Dropbox, Goodreader, Logmein, virtu, Zixmail, printers, laptops, apps,
etc.? Got troubleshooting questions? Why
not ask? We can organize responses with
the goal of creating a ‘reviews’ library in the future. Just bite into that perfectly square
sandwich. Happy posting.
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