LawyerKM

Common Craft‘s new video, Social Media in Plain English, really emphasizes how a lot of this new-fangled social technology (esp. tagging, commenting, and voting) is really nothing new, and nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a twist on the old way (and often better and more effective way) to do things. It’s not appropriate for every aspect of the way lawyers work, but it can be helpful in many respects. (post continued below video)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIOClX1jPE&hl=en]

(See other LawyerKM Common Craft stuff here)

Allowing comments on model documents in your precedent repository (or DMS – see e.g., Interwoven) can add a perspective–and value–that the author or the KM staff or your PSLs did not initially recognize. For example, you may have added a particular sample because it is a good example of a certain kind of brief related to a particular industry. And that’s the way the KM staff described it in the “official” description in your KM system. But a non-KM user (i.e., a practicing lawyer) may think that it’s a good example not because of the industry to which it is related, but because of the nature of the litigants (e.g., limited liability company vs. professional corporation) – a piece of meta data that’s not likely to be part of your official taxonomy.

As we all have come to accept, meta data is important to the ability to locate the information we need. But don’t forget about user-created meta data (tags, comments, votes, etc.). KM folks may think we know what’s important to the lawyers we support (and much of the time, we do), but those lawyers know what’s important to them. So, why not allow them to help us learn? Sort of “Help me help you…” but I suspect that your lawyers won’t be begging you with as much desperation as Tom begs Cuba.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-oHuogx6_Y&hl=en]

So, don’t be afraid. Maybe we should call it “Business Media” instead of “Social Media.”

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

Seeing that social tagging is already considered a web 2.0 thing, I probably should have called this post “Social Tagging 3.0″ – especially because it involves semantic tagging. However, I had to balance the probable accuracy of the title with the probability that my readers would bash me for using the term “3.0.” So forget I even wrote it (even though some people associate Web 3.0 with the Semantic Web).

This is about a new semantic social tagging application called Faviki. It works like this: Add a Faviki toolbar link to your browser’s toolbar; when you are on a web page that you want to tag, click the Faviki link and instead of adding any old tag you want, Faviki will suggest tags instead. The killer feature is that unlike other tagging services (like Del.ici.ous), suggestions don’t just come from the way other users have tagged things. Rather, the suggested tags come from structured information extracted from the Wikipedia database. Of course, if there are no appropriate tags suggested, you can add your own. ReadWriteWeb (one of my favorite web sites) has a nice write up about Faviki. See the screen shot below (the Faviki tagging tool is in the upper right hand corner) – Click to enlarge. Post continued below image…

I like this because it’s sort of “guided tagging” and it promotes consistency. One fear in law firms (or any company for that matter) is that there will be wild and inconsistent tagging of content. This is often cited as a reason to disallow social tagging. Semantic tagging helps overcome this. It is sort of a balance between the “do-whatever-you-want” idea of folksonomies and the “my-way-or-the-highway” constraints of traditional taxonomies. Of course, the burning question of whether lawyers will tag content (whether it’s semantic tagging or not) still lingers. Perhaps the idea that self-interest will drive users to tag (as Ron Friedmann suggests) is correct. One thing is for sure: Attorney 2.0 will be willing to (and will expect to be able to) tag content.

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

It is truly a David versus Goliath story. In this corner, little LawyerKM. In the opposite corner, gargantuan Google. But LawyerKM has won the fight over Google Sites.

Back in March when I learned that Google finally finished Googleizing JotSpot and made it into Google Sites, I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to check it out. But, to my great displeasure, Google made Sites a part of their Google Apps platform, and required that people “Sign up with your school or work email address.” I couldn’t sign up because I didn’t have a school email address and my employer didn’t allow such use of my work email address.

So, I wrote an An Open Letter to Google Sites and published it right here in this very blog. I demanded [read plead] that Google reconsider. I’d like to say that dozens of my loyal readers commented in support of my cause, but that would be a bit of an exaggeration. Only one person, Tim, supported me. (Thank you, Tim!)

Well, the gargantuan Google has finally come to its senses and agreed with little LawyerKM. Yesterday, Google announced that Google Sites is now open to everyone.

You’re welcome.

Watch the video… then go make a Google Site.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD-4FRTzxkI]

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

Ready or not, there is a new generation of lawyers headed your way. Since “two point zero” is all the buzz these days, we can call this group “Attorney 2.0,” if you like. But before the whole “two point zero” craze, there was the “Generation __” craze. It started with Generation X (attribute whatever characteristics you like), the term that increased in popularity in the 1990s.

Then came Generation Y, those born between 1983 and 1997 (some define Gen Y as “current 13 to 30 year-olds”). However you define them, some Gen Y’ers are now young adults and some of those young adults are lawyers – and they are working at your law firm. Right now.

“So what?” you may ask. Here’s the thing: Generation Y is different because they grew up on the Web. In a ReadWriteWeb piece called Why Gen Y is Going to Change the Web, Sarah Perez discusses some of these imminent changes. As Perez puts it, Gen Y is “the most digitally active generation yet, having been born plugged in.” Here is the key take-away for those legal KM folks among us:

Work Tools Need to Mirror Web Tools: Gen Y will drive adoption of “Enterprise 2.0″ products and services. Gen Y in the workplace will not just want, but expect their company to provide them with tools that mirror those they use in their personal lives. If socializing on Facebook helps them get a sale, then they’re not going to understand why they can’t use it at work. For more buckled down companies, if workers aren’t provided with the tools they want, they’re going to be savvy enough to go around I.T.’s back and get their own.

* Check out the SlideShare presentation, The Gen Y Guide to Web 2.0 @ Work, below.

For all of us struggling over the issue of whether knowledge management is about technology or culture, well, when talking about Gen Y lawyers, the answer is “yes.” In other words, for the Attorney 2.0 set, technology is their culture. Sharing, collaboration, social networking, tagging, and voting (and all of that other web 2.0 / enterprise 2.0 stuff) is their culture. [See Doug Cornelius' post about his survey of summer associates' use of social networking websites]. These lawyers grew up on the Web. They are accustomed to changes; rapid changes. They roll with it and look forward to it. They are not “change averse” like the generations before them.

Will Gen Y lawyers tag legal documents in your DMS? You bet. Will they comment on a blog post or contribute to a wiki? Definitely. Will they subscribe to RSS feeds? Absolutely. Will all of this replace the monthly litigation department meeting where people share knowledge and collaborate face-to-face? Of course not.

Generation Y lawyers organize their digital lives with the tools of the web (Delicious, Digg, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Google Reader, Newsvine, Netvibes, etc.). They will want to do the same at work because it will help them be more productive. Isn’t that one of the goals of knowledge management?

For the Attorney 2.0 Generation, this is not innovation: it’s a no brainer.

[slideshare id=396865&doc=genyweb20-1210364558509716-8&w=425]

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

Tweet 2 Tweet solves the problem of Facebook Wall withdrawal. As the SheGeeks* blog points out, if you like Twitter, but miss the “Wall-to-Wall functionality on Facebook…. This feature allows users to see only messages between [two] people. There has been no easy way to access the same functionality on Twitter nor through any of the plethora of third party Twitter conversation trackers, until now.”

*Thanks to Robert Scoble

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

Google Maps has integrated Wikipedia data. It’s a handy addition. In the normal map view, click the “more” button at the top of the map. It offers two selections: Wikipedia and Photos. Photos are nice, but the Wikipedia elements are great. Click Wikipedia and the map populates with several W’s. Click on a W and see a location-based Wikipedia entry. Try the interactive map of Manhattan, below (you can also try out the photos from here). Very handy when you are looking for something to do in a new city or vacation spot.

[googlemaps http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&lci=lmc:wikipedia_en&ll=40.757108,-73.978629&spn=0.024901,0.033603&z=15&iwloc=10502336559700101480&output=embed&s=AARTsJqsB_3JFpq1nGHyx4E_01_y-EyFwQ&w=425&h=350]

Here’s the press release about Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe’s deployment of Recommind’s MindServer(TM) Legal platform.

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

After only four days without Internet access, I am considering declaring RSS Bankruptcy. There are just too many RSS feed items in my Google Reader account, and I can’t keep up.

By now, most people have heard of e-mail bankruptcy: the act of starting over by deleting most (if not all) of the e-mail messages in your in-box and requesting that people resend messages if they are really important. It’s becoming pretty popular. Maybe the next version of Microsoft Outlook should have an e-mail bankruptcy button. Here’s an article about how venture capitalist Fred Wilson declared e-mail bankruptcy last month. His message was, “I am so far behind on e-mail that I am declaring bankruptcy,” he wrote. “If you’ve sent me an e-mail (and you aren’t my wife, partner, or colleague), you might want to send it again. I am starting over.”

I sympathize with Wilson. I know that I’ll spend most of the day playing the “e-mail catch-up game” when I return to the office after vacation. It’s stressful. But I feel an almost equivalent level of stress when I see that I have several thousand unread RSS items in my Google Reader account. There are close to a thousand items in my KM folder alone. Part of me wants to at least skim the items, but the other part wants to simply pretend they never existed. This is nothing new, really. I wrote about it last year in RSS Overload is the New Black. So, I should have seen it coming.

For now, I’m not ready for RSS bankruptcy. I’m just going to allow the items to accumulate, read some at my leisure, and really do nothing. (I know, it’s all very Zen.) If I miss something, it’s OK. I’m sure someone will re-blog it and I’ll see it eventually. Or maybe I’ll see it on Twitter, or maybe in my FriendFeed wrap-up email. Or maybe I should follow Tim Ferriss’ lead and outsource my RSS reading, the way he outsources his e-mail. Or maybe… it just doesn’t matter.

How do you deal with RSS overload?

Update: One thing that will help is Google’s new Google Reader application for the iPhone, which is still in beta. Read about it on Lifehacker. The previous version was pretty good, but it was clearly a “light” version of the full web-based RSS reader. The new version more accurately resembles the full version. Very handy.

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

I mentioned my Zero-Percent Rule* in a previous post, Knowledge Harvest. There I stated the rule as: you should try to make any KM initiative require zero percent of an attorney’s time. This is not a rule because it is desirable to have zero input from attorneys on KM initiatives. To the contrary, I think that most legal knowledge management folks would love to have more attorney input. This is a rule because it is uncommon to get more than zero percent of an attorney’s time on KM initiatives. As I’ve said, for most attorneys, when one case or deal is done, it’s usually on to the next.

Therefore, I am revising the ZPR to state: legal KM folks should not expect more than zero percent of an attorney’s time on KM initiatives.** If we live by this rule we will not be disappointed.  And if we get some input from the lawyers, then it’s like icing on the KM cake. 

Now that we have that squared away, the Zero-Percent Rule should not be seen as an insurmountable problem. Technology is here to help. No, I am not trying to incite the age-old dispute about whether knowledge management is about technology or people or culture or whatever. Let’s agree that all of them are important. But, technology is important when you can’t get the ”knowledge seekers” to participate. 

One example of how technology helps overcome the problems of the ZPR is MoFo’s AnswerBase, which is powered by Recommind.  Part of that tool enables lawyers to identify experts within the firm.  The great thing is that it is a passive system that requires no active participation by attorneys.  The idea is that expertise is determined by data from various systems.  For example, the fact that attorney Jones billed 1,500 hours last year on area of law Y (data from time and billing system) and was the author of 14 briefs on that same area of law (data from the DMS) and is the responsible attorney for several other similar matters (data from the accounting system) helps make the determination that attorney Jones probably is an expert in that area of law.  

Another example is a system like Contact Networks, which I wrote about in the Who Do We Know? post.  Such applications passively determine relationships among your lawyers, clients, potential clients, and others by mining e-mail traffic and other contact information.  Again, zero-percent attorney input.  I really like this because it helps eliminate internal spam e-mail, otherwise known as “PTI” e-mail.  You know about PTI e-mail: “Pardon the interruption, but does anyone know Mike Smith or any other senior executive at Big Corp?”  With a system like Contact Networks, or the like, those questions can be answered without spamming every single lawyer in the firm. 

How are you working to overcome the problems of the Zero-Percent Rule? 

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms

* I have a feeling that this “rule” may have been met with some objection, but since LawyerKM has been–and still is–on vacation, I have no idea.  (Thanks to the magic of WordPress technology, this post, and all posts since, and including, Knowledge Harvest, were pre-written and published on a schedule.)

** I reserve the right to further revise this rule at any time.

Blogging is not easy. It takes thought, time, and effort.

What does blogging say about bloggers? At the very least, it says that they are interested in the blog subject. Interested enough to spend time thinking, researching, writing, and editing. This is time that could otherwise be spent doing any number of things (relaxing, exercising, socializing, etc.). One might argue that blogging demonstrates more than just interest – it demonstrates a passion for the blog topic. If one’s blog is related to what they do for a living, that means passion for one’s profession. And a passionate employee is a good employee.

Should employers encourage employees to blog? Should they prohibit blogging? Should they pretend that it’s not happening? I’m not talking about whether employees should be permitted to blog on company time. While most employers would say no, Michel Anteby, in his Harvard Business Review article, Working in the Gray Zone, suggests that it may be OK, and even beneficial. Anteby says that this has to do with employees’ need to “enact their ‘occupational identities,’” (i.e. “the self-image that a person trained in a specific vocation develops as a member of that profession.”). Much the way blogging indicates a passion for the subject, “gray zones signal a higher aspiration among employees that immediate supervisors deem worthy of pursuit.”

Blogging (on your own time) is good. I know that I personally–and professionally–benefit from blogging. It makes me a better KM guy. I learn from my blog buddies, some of whom are listed in my blog roll (and on the LawyerKM Netvibes Universe). But a blog, like any medium, should not be abused. A good blogger’s guide is The Golden Rule. Another word to the wise is “don’t [write] anything you wouldn’t want published on the front page of the New York Times” (aka The New York Times Rule). (I know, I know, some bloggers would love to have their stuff published in the New York Times – anywhere in the New York Times.)

In my opinion [see opinion disclaimer], a reasonable approach is best. Lawyers love the word “reasonable.”  What does this mean? Todd Alan Ewan and Carolyn M. Plump put forth some pretty reasonable blog policy ideas in their article, To Blog or Not to Blog: An Employer’s Dilemma (although I think that they may have borrowed the title from another blog post. I’m kidding.). Perhaps another piece of guidance comes from our friends at Thomson Reuters, which recently released its Code of Business Conduct and Ethics.

Part of that code states:

It’s OK to mention Thomson Reuters in a personal blog. However, if you maintain a personal blog, it should not contain or discuss any confidential or nonpublic information about Thomson Reuters, our customers or other people or companies that we do business with. You should not cite or reference customers, employees or business associates without their approval. If your blog mentions Thomson Reuters, it should be clear that any opinions that you express are your own, and not those of Thomson Reuters. Even then, you should be mindful of the Trust Principles in discussing Thomson Reuters or any of its competitors. Further, personal blogs should never be used for internal communications among fellow employees and you should not use a personal blog to air any differences with co-workers, Thomson Reuters or people or companies that we do business with. Some Thomson Reuters businesses may have their own supplemental policies and guidelines on blogging.

That seems reasonable. And it seems that some law firms subscribe to such reasonable ideas. David Hobbie (Caselines) and Doug Cornelius (KM Space), of Goodwin Procter, write about KM topics and are pretty open about things they do at the firm. Tom Baldwin, of Reed Smith, also shares some of his KM experiences with the world via his blog, Knowledgeline. The KM community benefits from their ideas and experiences.

In the end, whether employers love it, hate it, allow it, prohibit it, or tolerate it; they shouldn’t ignore it. They need to be aware that people blog. And some of those people may be their employees. Reasonableness may be / probably is / definitely is–in my opinion–better than ignorance.

And for you bloggers out there, The Golden Rule and The New York Times Rule are good guidance, but perhaps the best way to put it is: Don’t Be Stupid.

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms