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I L T A N E T . O R G
J
an Brady 'would' have said it best, "Well all I hear
all day long at work is how great Marcia data
is at this and how wonderful Marcia data did
that. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia. Data, Data, Data."
(taken from The Brady Bunch: Her Sister's Shadow)
I stand with Jan Brady. Data is getting a
disproportionate amount of our attention today.
Years ago, data was scarce. You had to dig for it. Today
we have so much data, we have difficulty handling it. This
wealth of information is creating,
as the economist and artificial
intelligence pioneer Herbert A.
Simon coined it, "a poverty of
attention." As the volume of data
grows, our attention, or ability
to focus on what is important, is
strained and challenged.
This lack of attention makes
us susceptible to a failure to
generate the very insights we seek
and need to focus on actionable
intelligence. For actionable
intelligence, we must turn to
technology, albeit thoughtfully.
Brian Solis recently wrote,
"Technology won't solve (all)
your problems." (Generative AI won't automate your way
to business model innovation | CIO). He went on to tell this
story, "When avant-garde artist, composer, musician, and
film director Laurie Anderson was named artist-in-residence
at Australian Institute for Machine Learning (AIML), she
mused about the role of AI in creative problem-solving.
She recalled one of her favorite quotes by, of all people, her
meditation teacher: 'If you think technology will solve your
problems, you don't understand technology — and you don't
understand your problems.'"
Amen to that.
Today, generative AI and predictive models, while
not new, are front-and-center and actively discussed
throughout the legal industry. And for good reason. There
is a data goldmine within law firms. Law firms inherently
gather vast amounts of data, ranging from case files and
client interactions to market trends and industry insights.
Yet, this data remains confined within traditional systems,
hardly ever being used to its full potential.
While many firms are now
actively pursuing an overall
AI strategy, where they decide
to place their investments in
AI and predictive models,
how they are used needs to be
selective and targeted to have
a real impact. In the end, it is
what you do with the massive
amounts of data that counts.
Otherwise, the risk of becoming
data-rich and insight-poor will
continue to increase. And data
will just beget data.
David Durlacher, chief
executive officer of Julius Baer
International, a global wealth
management firm, was recently asked how technology
can help wealth managers and advisors. His answer has
relevance not just for wealth managers but, yes, lawyers as
well: "I think you can do it in three ways, one of which is
to free up client-facing people to be able to face clients more
rather than being consumed by administrative tasks. The
second is to gather deeper and richer insights into clients,
and the third is to help you to communicate smarter." (Why
A Purpose-Driven Approach Is Crucial To Your Wealth
Management Business (forbes.com)).
"In the end, it
is what you do
with the massive
amounts of data
that counts."
