Over the last decade as a lawyer, entrepreneur, and technologist, I’ve witnessed first hand the way mobile and cloud technologies have changed the way lawyers work and communicate with clients. It had to happen. Clients were demanding more immediate responses and access to information, and lawyers were increasingly frustrated by the lack of flexibility, speed and usability of existing corporate email and antiquated extranet technologies.

I personally witnessed the power of Box when LawPivot, the company I founded, was acquired. Mergers and acquisitions are always challenging, both from an emotional and organizational standpoint. During the acquisition, we were asked by the acquiring company to produce virtually all of our documents including, incorporation documents, patents, employee agreements, financial statements, board minutes, etc. There were literally thousands of pages of documentation.

Initially, we had planned to send these sensitive documents via email, as we had done in the past for other VC diligence activities. This would have required sending four separate emails (with as many as 10 documents attached to each email), and then a confirmation with the VC that they had in fact received our documents. However, for our acquisition, we decided to try Box. It was effortless to share documents with the acquiring company. The team was automatically notified when each document was viewed. At one point we had four parties involved (my company, our lawyers, the acquiring company, and its lawyers) sharing highly confidential documents with one another. We were able to see which documents were viewed and also collaborate by adding comments to documents and clarifying any questions along the way. We also used Box on our mobile devices to ensure we were responsive and completely aligned at all times. It was an incredibly seamless process.

There is a huge opportunity to eliminate wasted time, paper and effort on communications for lawyers using Box. Both our law firm and the acquiring company’s firm were able to better serve and collaborate with us in a way that was completely frictionless. When I spoke with my lawyers after the acquisition, they were pleased that Box allowed them to spend more time providing legal guidance rather than wasting time finding and figuring out the right versions of the documents everyone was talking about.

More and more lawyers are realizing the efficiencies and advantages that technologies like Box bring to the table. Law firm leaders are tired of the poor user experience and functionality of outdated software they currently use, and are ready to explore user friendly technologies that fit in today’s “Post-PC” workplace. I believe Box’s user experience and simplicity will be the perfect solution for these law firms. In fact, Box recently announced a major uptick in adoption from the legal services industry with customers like Perkins Coie and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati joining its customer roster. Most importantly, Box has nailed it from a security standpoint (which is extremely important to law firms), as it is HIPAA, HITECH, and SSAE II 16 compliant.

The use of Box during an acquisition is one of many common use cases for law firms and legal departments of all sizes. Lawyers use Box in a variety of ways including, high profile litigations and handling large intellectual property portfolios. Also, through mobile productivity apps that integrate with Box, attorneys are accessing and editing legal documents when they are on the go, and collaborating with other lawyers at their firms, co-counsel, and clients. It is always great connecting with lawyers using Box and learning new ways they are benefitting from the service. I am excited to help lead Box’s expansion into the legal industry. I also look forward to connecting with other legal partners and providing law firms of all sizes a great platform to access, manage, and share their documents securely and easily.

The common thread is that Box helps businesses become more efficient, productive, and cost-effective. To quantify Box’s impact, we decided to survey 320 of our enterprise customers in December of 2012.

We used TechValidate, a third-party research tool, to send out a 10-question survey to 2,000 enterprise customers, 320 of whom completed the survey. All companies had been using Box for at least nine months and had at least 10 managed users on their account. Here’s what we learned:

For more Box customer statistics (and more information on the survey methodology), explore our content library on TechValidate.

Check out the montage below to see why more and more businesses are saying “yes” to innovation with Box – and making their businesses more effective than ever before.

There’s a lot of fantastic information and insights to glean from the article, so I thought it’d be helpful to provide a quick recap of Mark’s key takeaways.

Companies Must Innovate Rapidly – or Get Left Behind

Most of us are already living our personal lives in the digital world. As Mark states, “almost every part of our lives is going digital. It’s all online. It’s mobile. Everything we do, we want to do at our fingertips when we want to do it and where we want to do it.”

In order to remain relevant, large companies have to keep up with the pace of consumers, and that requires reinventing business process from the ground up in order to deliver products as quickly as possible, on the devices consumers use. “Quite frankly, it’s all about time to market,” states Mark.

Being able to innovate rapidly across an organization isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a necessity. Businesses that want to stay ahead of the competition – and keep up with customers – must prioritize speed and agility.

Both Employees and Companies Benefit from the Consumerization of IT

CIOs and IT teams have long worried about the supposed risks of employees bringing their own devices into the workplace. Companies like EA are fully embracing a BYOD policy, and it isn’t just making the company more collaboration and mobile – it’s actually driving down costs. “We’re seeing more employees decide to bring their own computers, their own devices and so it saves on a lot of capital,” says Mark.

Mark’s goal is to create more freedom in the enterprise so employees can collaborate whenever, however and wherever they want to. And saving money in the process certainly isn’t a bad perk.

CIOs Should Prioritize Success Rather Than Cost

IT has long put the company’s bottom line first, rather than ease of use or employee satisfaction. While budget should still be a concern, Mark emphasizes that IT as a whole should start focusing on success first and cost second.

IT’s job should be to deliver results and facilitate innovation by providing tools for employees to be successful. Mark ends the interview with a great final bit of wisdom on how CIOs can drive innovation in the enterprise: “Historically, in a lot of IT organizations, people are command-and-control oriented…if IT can learn to get the heck out of the way and provide the tools for the employees to do what they need to do, great things will happen.”

To read the entire interview, head over to CIO.com. If you’d like to hear more insightful, interesting observations about technology, CIOs and the cloud, join us at BoxWorks next week. On the first day, Mark Tonnesen will take the stage with our Enterprise GM, Whitney Bouck, to discuss innovation in the enterprise. Later that afternoon, we’ll have a CIO panel featuring Equinix, Netflix, MRM and General Electric –  you don’t want to miss it!

We’re coming up on October, which means it’s BoxWorks time once again! I went to Box’s first customer conference last year and had a great time meeting fellow cloud advocates, industry experts and Box employees. It was an incredibly fun event, and I knew when it was over that I’d have to return to the Bay for BoxWorks 2012. If you don’t have a pass yet, register today.

When colleagues and friends ask me why I’m returning this year, I’m hard-pressed to provide just a few reasons. However, here are some that come to mind:

Seing what sneakers Aaron Levie will pair up with his outfits this year

Last year was all about @Levie’s bright orange sneakers. I’m hoping he’ll return this year with similarly ostentatious footwear.

Being around innovators

Hanging out with other people who embrace new technologies as much as you do is fantastic. It’s a great opportunity to network and learn from people who are trying to do big things at their respective companies.

Learning how Box is transforming the way businesses communicate and share data

In addition to learning from experts about how to maximize my Box employment, I heard about all Box’s exciting product developments before anyone else. I can’t wait to see what they reveal this year.

It’s an excuse to get out of the Texas heat for a couple of days

San Francisco is brisk year round. Why not get out of your hometown for a few days to enjoy the cool, autumn weather?

Making connections

BoxWorks isn’t just about networking with peers – it’s about making connections with people that last long after the conference is over.

Of course, the after party

Who wouldn’t want to party with tech experts, fellow Box customers and an amazing band? Last year, I enjoyed the sweet sounds of Third Eye Blind – this year, I have weezer to look forward to, and I can’t wait.

Sharing my Box story

Finally, I’m incredibly excited to share how Box has revolutionized the way Advantix communicates and collaborates. Our CTO, Joshua Lipton (yup, we’re married!) will even be on a panel titled, “Top 5 Ways Box Moves Business Forward,” so be sure to check that out when you head to BoxWorks.

I look forward to seeing you in San Francisco in a few weeks! The Advantix team is counting down the days .

To hear some of their stories, head on over to our YouTube channel, where  you’ll find lots of videos about CIOs and IT leaders moving their companies from old, unintuitive technologies to modern solutions, like Box for iPad. Check out Enterasys’ story below, then head to out customer success stories playlist to see more.

Being part of the InformationWeek 500 is a pretty big deal, and we couldn’t be happier for our customers who managed to snag a spot. If you’re interested in networking with and learning from these IT mavens, be sure to register for our upcoming customer conference, BoxWorks. More than a few of these customers will lead sessions about tech trends and their Box success stories, so check out the speaker lineup and grab passes for you and your team today. We can’t wait to hear what insights they’ll share with attendees.

Congrats all around to our customers! See you at BoxWorks .

We’re not short on adrenaline junkies at Box HQ: When we’re not in the office, one of our favorite ways to have fun is to grab our skis and head to Tahoe for some black diamond runs (or just the bunny slope). We love the snow, and that’s why we were so excited when Liftopia, one of our favorite Bay Area tech companies, joined the Box family.

For the uninitiated, Liftopia aims to provide world-class revenue management software to ski areas and mountain resorts. Their platform allows ski resorts to offer lift tickets and other on-mountain activities and to skiers and snowboarders at compelling prices, all of which are bookable online and in advance. In their own words: “The core mission of Liftopia is twofold: help skiers and snowboarders get out on the slopes more often, and help alpine resorts generate more revenue.”

For an industry that has typically relied on same-day walkup sales and is highly exposed to weather risk, their technology is revolutionizing the way ski resorts operate, all around the world.

So why did they start using Box?

“The reason we love Box is because they’ve had a focus on the enterprise for so long,” says Rob Webb, Chief Product Officer, who joined Liftopia in 2009 to oversee technology and product development.

“Box has the design and usability you would normally find in a customer-facing app, packaged around enterprise functionality.”

Earlier this year, Liftopia was in the middle of one of their largest projects ever: The team had to collect data and collaborate with resort partners, each of which had slightly different products, attributes and guidance. Previously, they relied on combinations of consumer file sharing services, shared drives and unintuitive project management tools. After doing a bit of research, Box quickly became the obvious choice. “The timing was good, and we’d gone through enough other providers to know what we were looking for,” Rob adds. Within one week of deploying Box, the entire Liftopia team was sharing and collaborating in the cloud.

The sky – or, in their case, the summit — is the limit for Liftopia, and we couldn’t be happier to see them join other awesome companies who’ve adopted Box.

As someone who’s seen the integration of Box, Google Apps, Salesforce and Echosign save us hundreds of staff hours and many thousands of dollars, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to showcase just how Timeraiser’s move to the cloud has revolutionized our small team. We’ve scaled to 12 Canadian cities this year (up from 8 last year), with the same number of staff and a regular turnover in volunteer leadership positions. Last year’s conference rocked my world, and at this year’s BoxWorks, I’ll have the opportunity to participate in a chat about the Top 5 Ways Box Moves Business Forward.

As a non-profit, it’s a given that technology choices should be affordable and lead to greater efficiency, but I’ve see many examples of the opposite in the sector – big custom developments and tools that slow or inhibit workflow. As you can imagine, I have much to say on the topic, but my thoughts for BoxWorks will be focused on maximizing user adoption, with some case studies on exactly how our core team has succeeded with our approach to an open cloud sharing model. While I’m on the “why I love Box” train, did I mention we were recently featured in a customer success story? Check out the video below.

As for BoxWorks 2012, I’m particularly looking forward to the Wonder Women session by Karen Appleton. I can’t wait to hear about the journey of amazing females rocking the Valley and the keys to success that accompany their stories. I’ll report back with live tweets from the conference (#BoxWorks) and maybe a video summary after. See you there!

Here are the 3 ways the City of Columbia, MO and countless other organizations are using the cloud to boost efficiency and better serve citizens:

Eliminating Paper

Sadly, many people still rely on paper to get their work done, and in large government organizations, finding the correct information often requires looking through hundreds of pages to find the right the document. Every day, countless hours are spent simply looking for information, resulting in frustrated workers and citizens.

“We had several reference manuals we had to carry out with us when we went to the field. We had to reference our schematics through large books and filter that information.” – Scott Lutz, Communications Tech Advisor

With Box, government workers can upload all their important documents to the cloud – and ditch paper-filled notebooks and binders for good. Even better, features like full-text search let City of Columbia employees find the information they need in a matter of seconds.

Empowering Mobile Workers

Half of City of Columbia’s 1,300 employees are already mobile, making them an untapped resource for productivity in the field. After employees upload content to Box, they can easily access it from anywhere – whether they’re using an iPhone, Android Tablet, Windows Phone or other device.

“What Box allowed us to do was put one document out in the field. If one department updated, it was reflected immediately for all the other departments to use.” – Robert Simms, Director of IT

Workers are already using smart phones and tablets while on the go, so smart organizations are taking advantage of this by making it easy for them access content outside the office. All employees have to do is download the Box app (or navigate to m.box.com) to view and edit their important files from anywhere.

Decreasing Response Times

Above all, government workers are tasked with providing their community with crucial – and sometimes, life-saving – services. Whether they’re police officers or firefighters, having anytime, anywhere access to information means employees can focus on helping citizens – not on looking through binders or heading back to the office to find critical information.

“With one click of the mouse, our instant commander can immediately find information at a fire, such as the location of a gas shutoff.” – Tim Bach, Fire Lieutenant

Bottom line: The cloud makes it easy for government organizations to do more with less. Check out our video below for more on how the City of Columbia is transforming their community with the cloud.

To see how educators and students are using the cloud, I went on a trip last week to the San Domenico School in San Anselmo, Marin County. In addition to providing a top-notch education, this school prides itself in embracing new technologies. They’re a participant in Apple’s K-12 Education program, with every student in middle school and high school using iPad for their schoolwork. They’ve also been a very active Box customer for about a year. I asked some of the students about their experiences using Box, and here’s what they had to say:

San Domenico also organized the “iTeach 2012” conference, which was attended by around a hundred professionals in the education sector from all across the country. Teachers and IT folks alike attended sessions about how to incorporate new technologies (like apps, iBooks, Box and the iPad) in the classroom. At the conference, there was even a workshop called “Box in Digital Workflow,” in which Domenico instructors showcased on how they use Box for effective, paperless collaboration. Even cooler, they showed off how using Box OneCloud apps makes it easy for them to share information and collaborate with students from anywhere.

We think the classroom of the future will exist entirely in the cloud, which is why we’re so excited to see more schools move to a faster, paperless world. This is just the beginning.