LawyerKM

On Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 2:00 p.m., I’ll be moderating a panel called “How to Increase the Use of Knowledge Management Tools” at the 2010 International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) conference in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Aria Hotel & Casino.

The panel is made up of three fantastic speakers:

• Kathleen Hogan, (@jkhogan) Practice Support Lawyer, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
• Steven Lastres, (@lastrst) Director of Library and Knowledge Management, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP
• Tanisha Little, (@tmlittle) Senior Manager Knowledge Management, Morrison & Foerster

Attend this informative and practical presentation and you’ll learn how some of the top legal KM professionals ensure the successful use of KM tools at their firms.  Tips include: effective communication, training, branding & marketing, and measuring & feedback.

Here is the description of the program from the ILTA web site:

What does your firm do to ensure that KM tools are fully adopted and used properly? A firm-wide e-mail announcing your new “KM solution” is not enough. This session is targeted to firms with established KM programs, but where there is an ongoing struggle to ensure the KM department is visible and understood. You’ll learn to market, sell and make the business case for your KM tools.

You can download the presentation materials and get more information about the session on the ILTA website.

If you have questions for the panel prior to the session, you can contact them via the links above, or via Twitter.  Please use the hashtags #ILTA10 and #KMtools in your tweets.

Knowledge Management, Technology & Social Media for Lawyers and Law Firms

See my review of the Power Support Crystal Film iPad screen protector over at iPad4Legal.   Here’s a preview:

I have been a fan of Power Support products ever since I got my first iPhone on Day One (that’s June 29, 2007, in case you were wondering).  To protect my precious First Generation iPhone, I picked up the Power Support Clear Air Jacket Set, which included a thin case and two screen film protectors (one crystal (i.e.,  clear) and one anti-glare).  When I upgraded my iPhone to the 3GS, I did not hesitate to buy a Clear Air Jacket Set for it, as well.  And I am a believer: the case protected my phone from the impact of a few drops, and the film protected the screen from a very nasty potential scratch that would have made you weep.  The scratch marred the film, but did not penetrate the film. When it came time to protect my iPad’s gorgeous screen, my first instinct was to go straight to Power Support…

Read the rest at iPad4Legal…

Everyone knows FYI — short for “For Your Information.”  People have a habit of sending emails with FYI as the subject, or forwarding emails with FYI as the only thing they contribute.

I dislike FYI — and try to avoid using it myself — because it is ambiguous.  This blogger really hates it.  Most of the time people use it, they actually want you to do something or take some action – they don’t just want you to have the information.  Maybe they want to speak with you about the content of the email.  Maybe it’s information about an upcoming meeting — a time change, perhaps — that you need to know to alter your behavior.

Another problem with FYI is that it implies low priority, or unimportance.  If I have 30 new email messages in my inbox, and one simply has FYI as the subject line, you can be sure I’m reading it last.

As much as I dislike it, I know that it’s here to stay.  So, as they say, “if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em.”  I’m not sure that I’ll completely adopt the FYI practice, but I’ll join in the concept by proposing a counter acronym: YAR.

YAR is short for “your action required.”  Unlike FYI, the meaning is clear.  And unlike FYI, it’s not to be used as the only thing in an email subject line or the only thing that you contribute to an email forward.

YAR is an indicator.  It’s like the “urgent” flag that you can add to emails in Microsoft Outlook.  But it’s right there in the email itself.  If you see YAR in an email, you should read it first, because you have something to do.

How do you get people to respond to your emails?

Have any other tips to help promote clear communication?  Please share.

Knowledge Management, Technology & Social Media for Lawyers and Law Firms

I’m a “social media evangelist.”  I encourage responsible use of social media.  I think that having a good LinkedIn profile, for example,  is important.  Since I often spread the good word, I often get questions about how to use various social media sites.

One question I get a lot is: “How do I get my picture from one website (e.g., my firm’s web page) to appear on my LinkedIn profile?”   Not rocket science.  I can practically do it in my sleep.

The first time someone asked me, I called them and walked them through the steps involved.  It took a few minutes.  No big deal.  I didn’t mind doing it once.

But when someone else asked me the same question, I kicked myself for not taking a few extra minutes to write it down and send it to them in an email.  So, I did.  Now, if a third person asked, I’d be ready and forward that email – so as to not reinvent the wheel.

The third time was déjà vu all over again.  I knew I had answered the question before.  I knew I was ready to answer it again.  But now I just had to find it.  It was somewhere in my rat’s nest of Outlook folders.  It took several minutes, but I found it and forwarded the answer along. Not horrible, but there had to be a better way.

That better way was a wiki.  I had learned my lesson.  The next time I would be ready.  I saved the instructions into a wiki page.  No more email folder hunting.   I knew it was in the wiki.  A quick search for “LinkedIn” would bring it up.

That next time was today.  The whole transaction took me about 20 seconds.

The goal is to do things once, then re-use what you’ve done.  It saves time and frustration, and allows you to provide faster and more consistent customer service.

How do you use wikis to make your life — and the lives of others — easier?

Knowledge Management, Technology & Social Media for Lawyers and Law Firms

On Friday, March 12 at 12:15 p.m. I’ll be speaking about Knowledge Management at the Legal Marketing  Association Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado.

There is a ton of buzz about this conference on Twitter (and I thought legal tech people loved Twitter).  The conference goers are using the #LMA10 hashtag on Twitter to converse.  Check it out here.

Here is the description of my session, from the conference materials:

Title: Leveraging Knowledge Management to Increase Efficiency and Improve Your Firm’s Bottom Line

Topics for this session include:

• Best practices for completely aligning your knowledge management processes with the business processes and goals of the entire firm
• Collaborating with marketing and business development groups to use knowledge management to impact your industry and practices teams, and clients
• Examining ways in which knowledge management can improve profitability and impact the bottom line
• Different technologies firms are using and how information-sharing improves internally as a result

_

Presenters:

_
Knowledge Management, Technology & Social Media for Lawyers and Law Firms

The Knowledge Management Peer Group of the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) is conducting its biennial knowledge management survey to probe the trends, hot topics and development of KM in the legal industry. Results of the survey will be published in the KM White Paper scheduled for publication in June of 2010.

Please take five to ten minutes to complete the survey or forward it to the appropriate KM person in your organization (we only want one response per organization). The person responsible for KM at your law firm or law department should respond.

As an incentive to participate, ILTA will draw three names from the pool of respondents –– two winners will receive $500, and a third will receive his/her choice of $500 or a waived registration fee for ILTA 2010, the annual conference (a $1,025 value).

Take the Survey Now

It will remain open through March 26, 2010.

And don’t forget the the annual ILTA Conference, which will be held August 22-26, 2010 in Nashville, TN.

Knowledge Management, Technology & Social Media for Lawyers and Law Firms

The take away: Location-based social networking is about “assisted serendipity” – using technology to turn an otherwise chance encounter into a real business opportunity.

Location-based social networking (LBSN) applications are becoming quite popular.  They are not entirely new, however.  Here’s a nice list of LBSN sites – some of which have been discontinued, including the Google-owned Dodgeball (replaced by Google Latitude).  The most hyped LBSN app is Foursquare.  If you follow me on Twitter or are a Facebook friend, then you know that I’ve been experimenting with Foursquare for several weeks now.

What is a LBSN?

We’ve barely wrapped our heads around Twitter, and now we’re expected to adopt yet another new-fangled social media phenomenon.  To help explain why you might want to do this, I’ll use Foursquare as an example. Here’s how it works:

Much like any social network, Foursquare members start by creating profiles and adding friends or contacts.  But unlike most SN sites, Foursquare is meant to be used on the go – from a mobile device (I use Foursquare’s iPhone App, but there are apps for BlackBerry and Android too).  Using a mobile device’s GPS or cell tower triangulation technology, Foursquare suggests nearby locations — perhaps a bar or museum or sporting event venue — where a user can “check-in.”

Users can view details about nearby places, including tips left by previous Foursquare users (e.g., “Try the bacon cheeseburger…”).  Users can also see who else has checked-in recently.  Local businesses take advantage of location-based data to help lure customers with special offers.

For example, on a recent trip to The Shops at Columbus Circle in New York, the nearby Tasti D-Lite shop “noticed” I was there and offered a discount on an ice cream cone if I stopped by.

There is also a “game” aspect to Foursquare.  Users collect “badges” and points for various activities like checking in to ten or more locations in a week, or for checking in to different types on places.  My favorite is the “Jobs” badge (awarded for checking in to three or more Apple Stores), which entitles you to a free “iHoverboard” if you show the badge to an Apple Genius at the store.

Foursquare also lists the times and locations where your friends check in.  If you’re really in to it, you can get an alert every time someone checks in to any location (I don’t recommend this because it will drive you crazy – especially if your Foursquare friends are active users).

Finally, you can opt link your Foursquare account with your other social networks so that your Foursquare updates appear on your Facebook wall or in your Twitter stream.  Fair warning: this might irritate your Twitter followers and Facebook friends – especially if you’re an active user – because they will be inundated with messages like “Patrick just checked in at the Apple Store…” all day long.  Rather than setting Foursquare to automatically update your other networks, set it to prompt you to choose whether to do so on a case-by-case basis.

OK….so why would I want do that?

This is the same question that we asked about LinkedIn, then Facebook, then Twitter before millions of people signed up.  There are lots of theories about why we do this social networking stuff.  But do we need yet another social network; one that lets everyone know where we are – all the time?  Well, this may fall under the Steve Jobs category of “a lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

Do you want to let everyone know where you are all the time?  Probably not.  But that’s not the question.  The question is: Would you like a unique opportunity to connect with your contacts — in real life?

Location-based social networking is not about restaurant recommendations, or discounted ice cream, or badges.  It’s about “assisted serendipity.“  Never before have we been able to help along a chance encounter, or to take advantage of an opportunity that we didn’t even know existed.

For example, let’s say you’re traveling and have some time to kill while you wait for your flight at the airport.  Little did you know, one of your contacts–a business prospect–is there too.  You might happen to run into your contact, but given the conditions (the size of the airport, the number of people, etc.) the chances are slim.  More than a mere catalyst that simply hastens an inevitable chemical reaction, a LBSN, like Foursquare can create an opportunity — turning a potential chance meeting into a sure thing.

So, will you use a LBSN application, or is it just too much too soon?

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

“Location” Photo Credit: http://www.vegsource.com/talk/humor/messages/99895680.html

There are many reasons to love Twitter.  One reason is that we love to share, and we love to help others.  And we love to get credit for sharing and helping. After all, there are no “anonymous donors” on Twitter.

Finding that great article, YouTube video, or funny picture is exciting enough, but when you get credit for sharing it and starting the viral spread of such amazing stuff in the Twitterverse, well it just feels good.

It’s the Jukebox Hero Theory of Social Media: I didn’t write the song that I just selected on the jukebox, but I’m damn proud when it comes on and people are singing along and thinking “Oh! I love that song!”

Well Twitter People, that song was my selection.  Of all the other songs I could have played, I chose that one. It’s awesome. I found it.  And I shared it with you.  You’re welcome.

By the way, there is no such thing as the Jukebox Hero Theory of Social Media – I just made it up.  But as it turns out, there is some research behind the concept of how helping people makes you feel good.  According to Allan Luks and Peggy Payne it’s called the Helper’s High, “a feeling of exhilaration and a burst of energy similar to that experienced after intense exercise, followed by a period of calmness and serenity.”  They discuss it in their book, The Healing Power of Doing Good.

So, why else do you Tweet?

You can buy that really cool t-shirt on Zazzle.  It’s not mine and I have no financial interest in it.  I just think it’s cool.  Plus I wanted to get credit for letting you all know about it.  Because it makes me feel good.

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

Since I’ll be discussing External Knowledge Management: Using Internet Resources to Your Advantage at LegalTech next week (see my post about it), I thought I’d share a new Google tool that can help.

Google Reader is not new, but Google just announced a new feature that allows you to follow changes to any website — even those that do not offer RSS feeds.

It’s simple: find the website you’d like to track, copy the URL into the “Add a subscription” field in Google Reader, then click “create a feed.”  I did it for my firm’s website’s articles page:

According to Google: “Reader will periodically visit the page and publish any significant changes it finds as items in a custom feed created just for that page.”

Obviously, this is a great tool for keeping up with clients’ websites that don’t offer RSS feeds.  But even if a website has RSS feeds, you may want to set up the Google Reader tracker for parts of websites that the RSS feeds do not cover.  For example, if a company has a web page listing employees, it might not publish changes to that page with an RSS feed.  You can keep tabs on who joins or leaves the company by using this new Google Reader feature.

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