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PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | WINTER 2016
Advances in information technology should be like gis from heaven — things
that make our work easier, faster and, most of all, higher-quality. (More profitable
wouldn't be bad either, come to think of it.) If that describes how everyone feels about
things at your workplace, then congratulations — you have reached the Promised Land.
On the other hand, if the technology in your organization sometimes seems like a
rigid and inflexible theology to which you have never really converted, you're not alone.
The schism, if you will, between the high priests of technology and the laity of users, is
a divide that a lot of us feel needs to be bridged.
What's bothering us? At least from the perspective of this practitioner, this brief
manifesto should be nailed to the virtual wooden door of information technology's
grand cathedral:
It's heresy these days to question the prevailing theology of technology, which, as everyone
knows, is supposed to make our lives better. But at least for some of us in the legal
profession, it often feels more like we're on an episode of "The IT Guy" on Saturday Night Live
— there's someone who knows how it all works, it's just not any of us.
Bridging the Great
Technology Schism:
A Brief Manifesto
by Kevin Harrang , Esq.