Pairing “hard technology” with “soft service” to deliver better outcomes
No-code and low-code platforms have been a focal point of attention in quite some years in the legal profession.
To find out more about no-code and low-code platforms, we had the pleasure to have a conversation with Jackson Liu from Neota Logic, one of the most well known companies in the legal technology sector. As Neota’s new Global Head of Innovation, Jackson shared his insights on:
what is the real value of a no-code platform
what does it mean for a no-code platform to enable “citizen development” (with the help of IT teams)
what are the capabilities of modern no-code platforms
what should buyers think about when considering the spectrum of possible no-code platforms
what is the difference between no-code and low-code platforms
how to improve adoption of technology like no-code platforms
the importance of “soft” experiences, like ideation and design of user journeys
how to overcome the “blank canvas” problem
what is the biggest hurdle to adoption of no-code platforms
Jackson is highly focused on optimizing the “soft” experiences for users, so they are fully supported in utilizing and leveraging technology. For him, success seems to be defined by how much benefit their technology delivers to the customer.
One of our favorite snippets from the conversation was when Jackson shared the following:
“... I think there’s so much focus before of ‘sign a contract’, and that’s the job done. I think that has reduced adoption from customers quite a bit from a customer perspective. I think you need to start talking about the softer side of things [even] during the sales process…”
Take a look at the video of our conversation below, and have a look at Jackson’s insider guide to picking the right no-code platform.
Transcript of conversation
(Note: transcript is automatically generated, and may contain misspellings and typographical errors)
00:00
welcome back to this casual conversation
00:03
blog
00:03
thing that we do today we have a special
00:05
guest with us our friend
00:07
and the head of innovation globally for
00:09
niota logic jackson liu
00:11
jackson welcome to the casual
00:13
conversation
00:14
happy to be here thanks for having me
00:16
hey it's been
00:18
a couple of weeks since i've seen you
00:19
you've just landed back in australia
00:21
and you've picked up this really awesome
00:23
new role at nyota
00:25
i don't know how much is on the wrap
00:26
still but would love to hear a little
00:28
bit about what you do
00:30
yeah absolutely i think um i've taken up
00:33
more of
00:33
a a global innovation role and i know
00:36
that the word innovation
00:37
is is quite broad so in
00:40
in the context of my new role it's more
00:43
looking at the company uh
00:45
positioning messaging in the in the
00:47
market uh
00:48
a little bit of product marketing really
00:51
focusing
00:52
on um the the the content that we create
00:56
that goes out into
00:57
into market and content you know from
01:00
from what's
01:01
on our website to what's done with you
01:03
know
01:04
case studies webinars uh thought
01:07
leadership
01:08
uh materials and really uh
01:11
re-engaging the the market
01:14
on what is neo-logic so i think
01:17
neo-logic
01:18
historically you know we've been around
01:21
for a while i mean i've been at the
01:22
company for over four years already
01:24
um the the company name i think is very
01:27
well
01:28
known in the in the market and among the
01:31
legal
01:32
tech circles i think for us it's about
01:36
um really trying to make the market
01:39
understand what we do so go beyond the
01:42
name of course have having a
01:43
a well-recognized brand is fantastic but
01:46
also
01:47
that the dialogue you know we want to
01:49
create is
01:52
not i know i've heard of your name
01:55
before but i don't quite know
01:57
what you do i want to change that
01:59
dialogue to
02:01
i've heard your name before i know
02:03
exactly
02:05
what you do tell me why
02:09
we should have neurologic being used
02:11
within our organization
02:13
that's fascinating because nyota is one
02:15
of the probably most well-known brands
02:18
for legal technology
02:19
for lawyers and this conversation's all
02:22
about well
02:23
what can technology do to help and also
02:25
how do lawyers become better lawyers
02:27
and so it's it's interesting that you
02:29
say you're trying to advance that sort
02:31
of branding from
02:33
we've heard of you to we've heard of you
02:35
we know what you do
02:37
um so let's kind of drill down on that
02:39
one
02:40
how does a no code low code platform
02:43
help lawyers i think two two weeks ago i
02:47
released a
02:47
blog which is my
02:51
insider guide to picking
02:54
the right no code platform and
02:57
in there i i had a section on this
03:00
concept
03:01
of citizen development and um i i've had
03:04
a quite a good
03:06
uh amount of feedback and also debate on
03:10
my view on citizen development and
03:13
it really goes back to this definition
03:16
that um
03:16
gartner gave it so garner gave it
03:20
a definition which it pretty stock
03:22
standard i i
03:23
i would say in terms of you know what
03:26
the the two words mean
03:27
but um they finished it off by saying
03:31
it must be sanctioned by i.t
03:34
my view is that no code platforms and
03:38
even local platforms
03:39
should be business led purchases
03:42
because the value is by the business
03:46
but it should be managed
03:49
and approved and governed by the it team
03:53
so what what i think no code platform
03:55
the real value is
03:57
the real value is in the downstream use
04:00
of no code platforms by the business
04:04
it's not about bypassing it it's about
04:07
having it's support and approval
04:10
to use a platform where you don't have
04:13
to then
04:14
go to it to do certain things
04:17
like creating a a database a sql
04:20
database
04:21
managing it updating it um you don't you
04:24
don't need to go to your your your sql
04:26
administrator if the no code platform
04:27
allows you to do
04:28
that you don't you you can create a
04:31
digital solution without going to your
04:33
your rt team
04:34
you can do it yourself within the
04:36
business um it is often
04:38
a very um resource
04:42
a restrictive team and
04:45
having you know the the ability to do
04:48
the
04:49
the the building the the iterating
04:52
deploying of solutions
04:54
being able to to to really you know even
04:57
create your own database and and do
04:59
things with that
05:00
without getting it involved i think
05:02
saves
05:03
the business and you talk about legal i
05:06
like to talk about
05:07
probably more sort of business i'm
05:08
expanding from legal
05:10
i'm just the business in general being
05:13
able to
05:14
do that themselves i think is is where
05:16
the real value
05:17
of no code loco platforms lie
05:22
i want to pick up on a couple of threads
05:24
there um
05:25
and the first one is the way you
05:28
describe a no code loco
05:30
platform is far broader than what some
05:33
of the legal techs
05:34
have kind of pitched it at right like a
05:36
lot of legal texts go out and say
05:38
hey we can capture your legal expertise
05:40
or we can kind of capture these legal
05:42
processes
05:43
and the way you describe it is almost
05:45
like we are a substitute for programming
05:47
language
05:49
and we enable so much more than just
05:52
routine capture of
05:53
processes um what do you think
05:56
is kind of like the right level
06:00
of complexity for lawyers or for
06:03
professionals and for businesses
06:05
my view on on no code platforms is that
06:09
it exists on a spectrum and it exists on
06:12
a very
06:13
wide spectrum so on one hand
06:16
you have you know very i don't want to
06:18
say simple um
06:20
functionalities but you know
06:22
functionalities where you build a few
06:23
forms you have some very simple logic
06:25
calculations
06:27
and then you build um you know a
06:29
solution from that
06:30
so that that's the one end on the other
06:34
end where you know and and i have to say
06:36
this
06:37
where nyoda sits and obviously one of
06:38
the other other
06:40
uh platforms so it's also said is you
06:42
can do some pretty
06:45
advanced themes through no code
06:48
so now this idea of building you know
06:51
workflow or automating workflow
06:53
automating business processes multi-step
06:56
multi-stage processes that has multiple
07:00
you know functions within that workflow
07:03
um
07:04
you know creating really advanced um
07:07
reasoning so you know for example nyota
07:10
has this concept
07:11
of creating uh instances which is a an
07:14
it
07:15
a language i believe um but also
07:18
applying
07:19
reasoning to individual rows or groups
07:23
of data in an instance
07:25
that's something that you won't find on
07:26
the other end of the spectrum for
07:28
example
07:28
um you know creating updating databases
07:32
natively within uh the the platform is
07:36
also something that's quite unique so
07:38
what what what i you know if i was
07:41
a buyer of no code platforms i did the
07:45
first thing i would
07:47
you know try and think of is well
07:51
do i want a platform or do i want a
07:53
point solution
07:56
and if i want a platform do i want a
07:59
platform to solve
08:01
one specific area one specific
08:05
problem that i have what do i want a
08:07
platform
08:08
that can be used our other stack of
08:12
technologies
08:13
and almost use it as an enterprise grade
08:17
software and those are the questions i
08:19
think
08:20
um you know whether you're in legal
08:22
whether you're in procurement whether
08:24
you are
08:24
looking at an enterprise grade um you
08:27
know
08:28
software those are the questions i think
08:30
you need to start looking at
08:31
first and then going into well
08:35
and and how you answer those questions
08:38
will dictate
08:39
where on that spectrum you're looking at
08:42
in terms of
08:42
the no code platform that's super
08:45
fascinating let's explore this one
08:47
what is your definition of the
08:49
difference between
08:50
no code and low code so i guess that uh
08:54
i i suggested a
08:55
um an interview with one of um now one
08:58
of my really good friends and
08:59
um so his view was you either go or win
09:04
or you don't and noco is going all in
09:08
loco is you're going kind of halfway in
09:12
um but you're not going all the way in
09:14
because when you buy a low code
09:17
platform or software you still kind of
09:19
need to know a few technical
09:22
things to be able to really utilize it
09:24
properly
09:25
whereas if you buy a no code software or
09:28
platform
09:29
you're going all in as a business so
09:32
that
09:32
you are empowered as the business to use
09:36
it
09:36
without support from your it team now
09:40
this leads on to a very interesting
09:42
point in my opinion
09:43
which is what is the level of support
09:46
given
09:47
to also no code loco platforms on that
09:51
spectrum
09:51
and i think that's an area which
09:54
you know you platforms
09:58
you know vendors in this space don't
09:59
really talk about a lot
10:01
and that's an area which i'm pretty
10:02
passionate about because i started
10:05
at neotologic in melbourne way back
10:08
when um in the
10:11
sort of customer experience customer
10:12
success role and
10:14
and um my view is that
10:17
when you have a platform but especially
10:20
a no code platform where you're
10:22
empowering
10:24
users to come in and build it without
10:27
that background
10:28
you need to have a really really good
10:31
success customer success team and
10:33
support team
10:35
to be able to take the users through
10:38
that user journey
10:39
and i think user journeys are really
10:41
important when it comes to noco
10:43
platforms
10:43
so it's about you know it's not just
10:45
it's not just about the tech how easy it
10:47
is
10:47
to use but it's about guiding them
10:50
through
10:51
the you know the the the build process
10:54
you know the the
10:55
the you know we we at nyoda like
10:58
the iterative process
11:01
this mvp approach and taking them
11:04
through that
11:04
and you know we've invested quite
11:06
heavily on yoda university
11:08
and those are the soft areas
11:11
which i think you know this
11:14
market is not focusing a lot of energy
11:19
on and it's always focused on the tech
11:20
side but i think the soft side is also
11:23
almost as important as the the tech side
11:26
as well i totally agree i think adoption
11:29
is becoming more of an issue and more
11:31
talked about
11:32
and so i like to kind of pick your brain
11:34
um i actually have two completely
11:36
different questions
11:37
um and one is about creativity which
11:40
i'll save for a little bit later
11:42
and the other one is about what are some
11:45
of the most
11:46
interesting and fascinating use cases
11:48
you've seen
11:49
using a no code platform i probably want
11:52
to approach that question
11:54
more so use case definitely but the
11:58
the the different ways organizations
12:01
have deployed no code platforms
12:05
both from a corporate sense so a
12:07
corporate organization
12:09
and also a professional service uh firm
12:11
sense legal
12:12
or otherwise so we've really seen
12:16
people who have adopted no code
12:18
platforms very very well
12:20
especially in a very large organization
12:23
is
12:24
this concept of creating a coe
12:27
a center of excellence so what they what
12:30
they do
12:31
is they when they onboard the platform
12:33
they have a special
12:35
team or a you know whether you if you're
12:38
in a professional service firm like a
12:40
like a support team or a um
12:44
even a a profit center um who
12:47
who has been trained and
12:51
one of the things about noco platforms
12:52
is um
12:55
the upskilling but also the maintenance
12:59
of that skill because we can take you
13:01
through the upscaling the education
13:02
through the onboarding process
13:04
but if you don't use it for a while
13:07
you're gonna you
13:08
you're gonna lose that knowledge as as
13:10
with anything right
13:11
so um what we find really works well
13:15
in terms of a success story is when they
13:18
have a team
13:19
that is using it day in day out
13:23
and they're using it not just for their
13:26
team
13:27
but everywhere within the business that
13:29
wants a use case
13:31
built they come to that team and that
13:34
team
13:35
is the the the builders and they would
13:38
then
13:39
not just build it for you but take you
13:40
through that design
13:43
concept ideation process to take you
13:46
through
13:46
the build and and you know apply a
13:49
certain methodology
13:51
whether it's sprints or whatever it is
13:53
to help you build out your solution so
13:56
uh i think that's you know really cool
13:59
from a success story
14:00
perspective fascinating
14:04
i'm going to ponder that one because
14:06
there's a there's a lot to unpack
14:10
so i'm going to instead while i think
14:12
about that jump to my question about
14:14
creativity
14:16
and this question came to me as you were
14:18
talking earlier
14:19
of the difference of different tools in
14:22
the spectrum
14:23
right and there is this idea in in art
14:27
that constraints foster creativity
14:31
by limiting the options that a person
14:34
has you actually
14:35
force them to be more creative in order
14:37
to solve the problem that's presented to
14:39
them
14:40
so having a super powerful platform that
14:43
can do everything it's like giving them
14:44
a blank canvas they don't know what to
14:46
do with it
14:47
instead if you gave them i don't know a
14:50
few lines on the page they can do a mr
14:52
squiggles and do something a little bit
14:53
more interesting
14:55
what's your view on that what's the kind
14:57
of like
14:59
right level to to offer to people what
15:02
what do you expose
15:04
i'm actually really glad you you asked
15:06
me that and it's funny because we
15:08
we didn't prep before so i wasn't
15:11
sort of leading you into this direction
15:13
so i'm very happy you you you asked
15:16
about that and that's something that we
15:17
think
15:18
that's what we do here it's it's one of
15:21
the things we've been pondering for a
15:22
while
15:23
it's it's what i call the blank canvas
15:25
problem
15:26
um and it applies to neologic because
15:30
uh we're a platform and when you open up
15:32
the platform
15:34
you're greeted with an empty uh empty
15:36
page it's
15:37
it's it's up to you to start building um
15:40
and we we have that problem and um
15:43
one of the the best analogy that i can
15:47
make
15:48
to how we solve that problem or trying
15:52
to solve that problem
15:53
is the building industry so the building
15:56
industry i'm not sure if you
15:57
if you or your listeners viewers
16:00
know um it has this concept
16:04
of what they call modular building
16:06
blocks
16:07
so it's this concept of building certain
16:10
portions of whatever structure you want
16:14
to build offsite
16:16
taking it on site and just piecing it
16:19
together on site and then you have your
16:21
final structure
16:22
that's what we're trying to do with this
16:24
concept of products
16:27
so products are pre-built
16:30
fully functioning solutions
16:34
that our customers can use to
16:37
leverage and they can leverage it in a
16:40
few different ways
16:41
they can leverage it to just use it
16:43
straight out of the box and we have
16:45
content built into it it's our content
16:47
but they
16:47
they can use it or they can swap out the
16:50
content for
16:52
their own content so change the logic
16:54
around the suit
16:55
their internal processes and change a
16:58
few you know
16:58
if it's an nda solution use their nda
17:00
instead of analysis
17:02
or take that build
17:06
product and then customize it so build
17:08
on
17:09
build build on top of it um you know
17:12
build it out more
17:13
or cut some cut some of the stuff down
17:16
the point of it is you don't have to
17:18
start from ground zero
17:20
um and then on top of that on top of
17:22
products and we also have product
17:24
templates which is the product but with
17:26
all the content stripped down
17:28
so you can start utilizing the template
17:30
and then we also have this idea
17:32
of modular building blocks so modular
17:35
building blocks
17:36
are pre-built fully functioning
17:41
solutions that does a specific
17:45
functionality and the idea is you can
17:49
take the building block with and
17:51
products which are all stored in our
17:53
library
17:54
in in the other logic download it and
17:56
then you can essentially
17:58
plug and play so if you wanted an
18:00
integration in the box
18:02
and you don't want to build that out
18:04
yourself that
18:05
is one of our building blocks download
18:08
it
18:09
you literally plug it in and yeah i
18:13
have a sales background so i i i i treat
18:16
you
18:16
yeah one of my developers will probably
18:18
you know uh
18:20
give me some stern words after this but
18:22
and i've seen this
18:23
it's really as easy as plugging it into
18:25
your solution
18:26
and through the neologic authoring
18:28
platform and you have an integration
18:30
with the box
18:31
uh docusign as well you know you need to
18:34
do a few things like putting in
18:35
you know putting your own you know off
18:38
tokens and stuff like that
18:40
but the functionality is both helpful
18:43
what do you think is the biggest hurdle
18:46
to adoption
18:47
question without warning
18:51
let me have a think about that if i look
18:53
at when i started when i came into this
18:55
industry
18:58
more than a little bit more than four
18:59
years ago i came from a professional
19:01
service background
19:02
and this was the first sort of this is
19:05
my first foray into no code
19:07
back then you know when people used to
19:10
describe
19:11
no code um it was
19:14
you know things around the more for less
19:16
challenge and uh
19:18
do more for less creating efficiency
19:20
automation and
19:21
all that sort of stuff those are true
19:25
but if you look at you know some of
19:26
these conferences that you attend and
19:28
and and things like that now
19:30
those are still the phrases that's been
19:32
talked about
19:34
more for less cost centers profit
19:36
centers automation creating efficiency
19:39
reducing time roi and those are really
19:41
important things
19:42
to talk about but if you're talking
19:44
about the same thing
19:46
for the same industry the same
19:48
technology
19:49
four years long down the track
19:52
what do you think someone from a buyer's
19:55
side is going to think about that
19:56
technology
19:57
and how do you think that's going to
19:59
influence their adoption
20:01
kind of the loss of faith
20:04
right like like people in the industry
20:07
having heard the same message over and
20:09
over again and i think it's more than
20:11
four years it's it's
20:12
probably over a decade or two
20:15
and losing faith that well if it still
20:18
hasn't worked
20:19
why is it going to work in the future
20:23
and i think it goes back to the soft
20:24
skills that you were talking about
20:25
earlier
20:26
like i think i think that softer side
20:29
has had a lack of attention and the lack
20:31
of sort of
20:32
tender loving care um and maybe that's
20:36
what we need for the next couple of
20:37
years
20:38
i think there's so much focus before
20:41
you know you of signing a contract
20:45
that's the job done and i i think that
20:48
has reduced
20:49
adoption from the customer perspective
20:52
quite a bit i think you need to
20:53
start talking about the software side of
20:57
things
20:57
during the sales process so that either
21:01
the mindset is reinforced if they
21:03
already have that mindset
21:05
or you're changing that mindset so when
21:06
the contract is ultimately signed
21:09
they are poised to become a
21:12
long-term customer and
21:15
that is you know one of the things that
21:17
i focused on
21:18
as a as a sales manager at niota
21:22
is really adopt that thinking into
21:26
the sales process and don't treat it as
21:28
just the sign contract
21:31
and your job is done and i think you
21:34
know i'm i'm not saying we're the only
21:35
ones who are doing this
21:36
but i think the drive adoption um
21:40
you know that it needs to start at the
21:42
beginning of that entire onboarding
21:45
buying process as well fascinating well
21:48
jackson
21:49
i've learned so much i i feel like i've
21:52
just followed hansel and gretel through
21:54
the forest following those breadcrumbs
21:56
and found a gingerbread house
21:57
but there's no story and and i
22:00
just felt like yeah it's a little
22:02
treasure trove of
22:04
nuggets of gold and gingerbread so thank
22:07
you so much for your time in your chat
22:09
today i had a lot of fun
22:11
and i hope you did as well absolutely
22:13
thank you very much for having me
