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:

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