Peer to Peer Magazine

Getting a Seat at the Table P E E R T O P E E R : I L T A ' S Q U A R T E R L Y M A G A Z I N E | F A L L 2 0 1 9 47 A Women Who Lead Profile: Sue Keno ILTA is thrilled to profile members, partners, and volunteers who continue to give back and mentor other women and other technologists. You can check out the new ILTA WWL program at iltanet.org/ women-who-lead. For our first full-length print WWL interview, Susan Keno, a long-time ILTA volunteer and speaker, and, in her copious spare time, is the co-owner of Keno Kozie Associates, and Information Technolo and Services provider based out of Chicago, Illinois. All Women are Women Who Lead. ILTA: Thanks for joining me Sue! I'm glad we had a chance to connect again at ILTACON; you've been an extraordinary mentor and an involved ILTAn for years. Moreover, you've been involved in legal tech and the information systems arena for so long. Can you tell us a little about yourself as a technologist? SK: (Laughs) I'm still a little bit hands on, but my day-to-day has evolved. I see myself more as someone to engage in diversity — It's a little challenging, there are many silos — and what I do now is a work in progress, it will always be in progress. And I like what I do; I get to talk to all these people with amazing ideas. Some days are better than others, but overall, talking with the people, it makes my day. ILTA: What do you see, today, as a greatest tech evolution? SK: There's so much going on in technolo. I see the path that Miscroscoft is taking to become more streamlined and am impressed. We have to look at the whole picture: we have to empower the user to have a more efficient workplace, to be effective, and have a streamlined opportunity. ILTA: How can we leverage the third party products or platforms to make workflows more effective? SK: We can use tech off label; platforms evolve. As our business (Keno Kozie) has evolved, we know that we need to remain active and change to accomodate our team. As we advance the services we want to provide, we have to ask this question: 'Does the platform evolve with us?' It has to be streamlined-- from the onset and from the helpdesk, our customers can call and email us. We can make things more mobile friendly and we have to build to accommodate and include. Tech will evolve to teach the older generations. My daughter teachers her grandparents to use their iPad (Laughs)... it's really a Windows tablet. ILTA: Talk to me a little about mentoring: how you do it, how you've seen it in action. SK: You have to bring someone else up with you. It can start at home or at work and we can play a part and at Keno Kozie, we have a program to help people continue to grow: WIT (Women in Tech). It fosters early engagement . And we do the same thing with diversity; we have to do a better job of getting all perspectives; it will only better the strate our firm and for our clients. ILTA: Yes, we can all get that seat at the table. (Listen further, here, to Sue Keno speak on her seat at the table) ILTA: What else have you made time for lately? SK: I was recently in Zimbabwe, volunteering at a wildlife orphanage. It was very hands on, very culturally different. I brought my daughter with me and I found myself being educated as soon as I walked off the plane. The things that we take for granted, even something just as simple as toilet paper...a daily staple… both eye-opening for my daughter and an education for myself. ILTA: I can only imagine! Thank you Sue for sitting down with us today and thank you for being an innovator, a leader, and a Woman Who Leads. At ILTACON 2018 and at ILTACON 2019, Sue sat down with ILTA Senior Content Manager Beth Anne Stuebe and talked about what chair she would bring to the table, who else is at that table, and so much more. Check out their podcast and read on to learn more about Sue and her endeavors to make technology approachable and inclusive. L I S T E N T O T H E F U L L P O D C A S T AT : I L TA N E T. O R G / F A L L - 2 0 1 9

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