Claude, Jamie, Joe, other team members, and many CPS clients recently attended Laserfiche’s Empower Conference in Long Beach. We were so happy to be back in person and meeting with all of you! We thought doing a quick Q&A about the conference, Laserfiche plans, and client trends would be fun.
What was your overall impression of the conference? This is the first time they have done regional events.
Claude: It was great! It was good to be back among so many users. There were about 1100 attendees. Unfortunately, two days were too short. I wonder if that hurt attendance. I heard that Florida got 400 and Texas was in the 600s. Next year they are discussing possibly holding Empower in Las Vegas and having only one event.
Jamie: However, I can’t help but add we like the everyone-at-one conference approach. And many attendees talked about how they preferred Empower to be a more significant event. I think the luck of running into a Laserfiche client from the Northeast once a year and chatting is really valuable.
Any exciting updates?
Claude: They have a new product manager who will be involved in interviewing the PPP members.
Were the majority of the attendees local agencies?
Jamie: It seemed to me that the majority were from local governments. We also encountered attendees from the Midwest. This SoCal event was the most popular of the events, and everyone wanted to attend this one. Long Beach is the home of Laserfiche, so attendees saw that event as a chance to have the most interfacing with Laserfiche.
Were there any international clients or LF International attendees?
Claude: Yes, we talked to Hong Kong staff and clients from Latin America. Our clients need to hear about the sophistication of deployments worldwide and compare it to the US. My education is based in international business, so this is very interesting.
Did you notice any trends among all the end-users?
Jamie: Well, I’m seeing clients investing in immediate backfile. They plan to build a Trusted System (and WORM storage) and complete their digital transformation. There’s some regret not going digital before COVID, and now they are rushing to catch up.
Claude: We see interest in LF Forms. Other than LF Cloud, that’s the product we get asked about the most.
The agencies are updating their retention schedules. Also, as Jamie said, there are lots of backfile projects coming. Agencies want to eliminate the paper and free up that real estate. They are quite earnest about making their records available; transparency is constantly in the news. Their management and councils are really pushing digital. Now is the time. Then they’ll move to Trusted Systems.
Anything else?
Claude: This conference was definitely the highlight of the year—lots of love from our clients.
Jamie: We (and everyone else) look forward to a multiday, single event. Labs fill too quickly. That’s where the magic is.
