It’s taken me over a week to write about the Vis-a-Vis legal tech conference in mid-June, which is in part a testament to how long it has taken me to recover from the socialising involved in a two-day residential conference, after years of pandemic-enforced abstinence.
Hosted in the De Vere Beaumont Estate in Windsor, England, Vis-a-Vis brings together technology leaders to discuss some of the technological and cultural changes impacting on the legal industry, and the opportunities that presents.
It is deliberately (and welcomingly) heavy on networking, although the content was thought provoking and the focus of this article is to share some of the points raised by the keynote speaker, in particular.
‘Reluctant futurist’ Mark Stevenson is a strategic advisor to governments, NGOs and corporates. I get very nervous about the title futurist, which is often accompanied by an hour of time that you will never get back, listening to predictions based on a futurist’s own agenda, that may or may not come true.
Stevenson immediately won my attention by saying: “Nearly all predictions about the future are wrong.”
After a couple of often-cited quotes (Henry Ford’s lawyer Horace Rackam saying, “The horse is here to stay, but the automobile is only a novelty,” and Henry Warner observing, “Who wants to hear actors talk?”) Stevenson made an interesting observation.
“Preparing for a pre-ordained future makes you passive,” he said. “We need to create the future.”
Stevenson’s fast-paced and energetic talk was peppered with references to politics and particularly to climate change, where we were continually reminded that each of us must take ownership of the damage we are causing to the planet and stop, in effect, writing it a ‘suicide note.’
“The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the environment,” Stevenson said, borrowing a quote from US politician and environmentalist Gaylord Nelson. And he observed: “Any investment of your time, money or talent that doesn’t consider human health, or the environment is not an investment, it’s theft.”
Back to innovation, and Stevenson asked: “Why is it that we don’t innovate? It’s because culture eats strategy for breakfast. If you keep the same people, in the same power, with the same KPIs, you will end up where you have always been. You have to have different people asking different questions.”
Once again Stevenson borrowed a quote to illustrate his point, this time from US writer Upton Sinclair, whose 1906 novel The Jungle, exposed the appalling working conditions in the meatpacking industry that led to 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. Sinclair said: “It’s difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.”
Innovation is the culture of asking the right questions, Stevenson observed, commenting: “We have all been asking the wrong questions and coming up with answers that we shouldn’t have to answer.”
He looked at an example from the health sector, where the NHS spends $14bn a year on obesity. “We should spend that on kids sports and workplace activities,” he said. “We are asking the wrong question and coming up with the wrong answer.”
All business strategies should be a set of questions, not KPIs, according to Stevenson, who said: “Post-Covid, you are all different people, and if you aren’t going to push for change now, then when?” adding, “The long emergency is a big opportunity.”
Stevenson finished by quoting American composer John Cage, who said: “I can’t understand why businesses are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.”
As we continue planning for a dramatically different post-Covid world, it was thought provoking stuff. And it was certainly great to be back at a residential conference, although next time when someone asks if I want tequila, perhaps the futurologist in me will say no.