2003 Team RB Conference report

Using the web and other technologies to improve your business

Around 80 court reporting firm owners and managers attended the first Team RB Conference in Houston, TX, October 4, 2003.

They listened to presentations and saw live demonstrations of new and future RB products and services. They also got tips on how to use their current systems better and how to use the new RB User Community to communicate with RB staff and each other.

Each session ended with a question and answer session where everyone had the chance to raise important issues, get help and add items to RB product wish lists.

Thanks to everyone who came for making our first conference such a success!

Yong Lee, OMTI President & CEO, takes attendees’ questions about future RB products.

After registration and breakfast, Yong Lee, RB’s President and CEO, kicked off the conference by welcoming the attendees, introducing RB staff and encouraging everyone to make the most of the day.

Conference attendees were able to meet the faces behind the voices of RB customer support, Jason and Anh.

Mike Feldman of David Feldman & Associates, New York, talks with Stella, RB’s VP of Marketing and Sales, while other RB staffers wait to sign in conference goers.

Conference sessions

The four sessions in the 2003 Team RB Conference were aimed at court reporting firm owners and managers. They were also of interest to anyone thinking of investing in a court reporting business or starting their own firm, and who wants to know what the state-of-the-art currently is in office management systems for court reporting firms and what the future may hold.

Session 1

The E-Office: Web Technology Integration

Automate your office using web technology

At the first session of the day, Nancy Martin, OMTI’s content development director, discussed current uses of the web and presented OMTI’s vision of how court reporting firms can use the web to benefit their clients, reporters and business.

OMTI’s vision included smart forms, automatic email acknowledgements, and the elimination of redundant data entry.

With Stella Chang, RB’s VP of Marketing and Sales, she unveiled the latest version of RB Web: RB Web 3. She showed a “day in the life” walk-through of how RB Web 3 makes everyone’s — paralegals, attorneys, reporters and in-house staff — life easier and more productive.

Attendees got to see the product in action and ask questions &A session afterwards.

CEUs awarded: .15

Session 2

The Synergistic Office: In-house Automation

Automate your office with RB7 and problem-solving technology

After a break for refreshments, networking and side discussions, Nancy and Stella presented a series of common business-problem scenarios and their ReporterBase solutions ranging from RB7 features to plug-ins to third-party products.

Some of the solutions discussed and demo-ed: holiday gift lists, custom labels, PDF invoices and email reports.

And Stella demo-ed our brand-new tracking plug-in, which aims to answer the eternal question: “Where is that transcript/exhibit/document/tape?”

CEUs awarded: .15

 Session 3

The Connected Office: Collaboration and Exchange

Create community and work together effectively online

After lunch, Ronnie Sampson, RB’s creative director, showed an animated presentation on communities from his personal perspective. Starting from his first community – his family – his animation demonstrated how he benefited from the different communities he’s been involved in, including online communities.

Then he demo-ed the new RB User Community and encouraged everyone to get their user IDs and passwords so they can build a community with their RB peers, where they can participate in targeted discussions with their peers about business topics, plus find qualified firms and special services across the country, research a potential referral client’s financial history and rate each other’s performance on referral jobs.

All without opening satellite offices or joining a network or selling their business to a nationwide firm.

After Ronnie’s presentation, Yong came to the podium to encourage everyone to use the community as a forum for their ideas for improving RB products. Ideas that draw the strongest responses from the community are the ones most likely to be included in future upgrades and new products.

CEUs awarded: .15

Session 4

The Future Office: Paperless is Possible

Use the past and present to chart a course for the future

We were pleased to have presentations by the two initiators and long-time supporters of ReporterBase: Ken Combs and Bill Greenley.

 

Ken, RB’s founding father, took everyone back to the beginning of RB: What the state-of-the-art in court reporting management was like in the early 1980s, his vision of how it could be better, and the total serendipity of how he met Yong. RB was born as a collaboration between an experienced court reporter and a gifted programmer.

And he continued in his role as visionary by wrapping up his talk with some items on his RB wish list.

Bill, RB’s leading evangelist, also talked about the early collaboration with Yong, and then extrapolated to how new technologies are going to impact the court reporting industry, and how he’d like to see RB develop in this new world.

(He also thanked Yong for getting him to eat healthier than he ever has before.)

Yong spent the better part of the afternoon, along with Ikbum Kim, RB’s Director of Software Development, showing attendees the future, with prototypes of new and improved RB products and services.

One tool he showed will enable court reporting firms who use RB7 to exchange information through RB, eliminating re-keying. With this tool, RB7 firms that contract other RB7 firms to handle out-of-town depos will no longer have to re-enter billing information from their contractors’ invoices. It will flow into their RB7 automatically.

Attendees got the chance to add their valuable input to these future projects and the direction of RB in a free-flowing give-and-take with Yong before he adjoined the conference, and everyone headed up the hall for a wrap-up cocktail party and a last chance to network.

CEUs awarded: .15

Breakfast, lunch and refreshments during breaks were all included, so everyone could focus on the conference itself, plus meet and mingle with their peers during meals and breaks.

The event ended with an open-bar cocktail party where everyone enjoyed one last chance to socialize and network with their peers from around the country.

Attendees were well fed during the conference, starting with the continental breakfast buffet being sampled by Jason Perez of LegaLink.