Recently, InsideLegal had a chance to catch up with Anne Flippin, Managing Editor of ILTA’s Peer to Peer magazine and whitepaper series, and get the inside scoop about her first 3+ months on the job. Here’s a roundup of our conversation:

Background: Pre-ILTA, Anne worked as a journalist for 15 years with her last job serving as the tourism edition editor for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Describe a day in the life: While Anne admits there’s been a steep learning curve for all things legal IT, she is very much encouraged by the open line of communications she’s encountered, not only from ILTA members but from vendors as well. Most of her day is spent working on various editing projects, talking with members about future content and fielding calls from vendors about editorial guidelines and pitch opportunities. In her spare time, she does a lot of self-educating by reading popular tech reads such as CIO Digest and Computer World.

Biggest eye-opener: Her biggest ‘wow’ moment has been realizing how intelligent, trend setting and innovative many of her ILTA colleagues and members are.

Advice for vendors/authors/content contributors: Have a clear vision of the issue(s) you are writing about, and have an organized way of presenting your argument or article. Based on their line of work (e.g., exposure to sales), vendors are better at talking about the issues, while ILTA members are motivated to write, but don't know necessarily what to write about. This is where Anne can help guide a certain train of thought or help organize ideas to provide a content blueprint.

What’s next with ILTA publications? Based on the success of the digital versions of Peer to Peer magazine and especially the whitepaper series (which is now exclusively provided in PDF format and online), the publication group is working on creative ways of incorporating rich media (video and audio) into these. Anne mentioned a few examples of this already, but is very open to hearing about more innovative ways to make the member publications more interactive and engaging.

You can reach Anne at anne@iltanet.org or (512) 795-4675.