Today is the last day of ILTA. I’ll be covering a couple of sessions later.
There are so many great programs here that it’s impossible to attend all of the ones that you’d like. That’s why I am very happy to see that several people are sharing their notes and thoughts about the sessions. Many people have expressed appreciation for this, so I want to make sure that everyone knows of some of the other live bloggers:
I’ve mentioned coverage by David Hobbie of Caselines and Doug Cornelius of KM Space. I noticed that Amy Witt of Nina Platt Consulting is ILTA blogging at The Law Firm Intranet.
If you know of others, please drop me a line and I’ll revise and / or repost a new list.
Thanks.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
ILTA – August 26, 2008 1:30 pm
These are my notes from the program. [Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog. Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.]
From ILTA:
Title: The Ultimate Legal Technologist
Description: We discuss the value of legal or IT expertise as a foundation for legal technologists, specifically in the field of practice (or litigation) support. The panel discusses their findings and experiences when the pendulum is swung in either direction. Can you find legal technologists who hold in-depth expertise in both areas, and do they make the ultimate technologist?
Speaker(s): Joel Vogel – Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, LLP
Florinda Baldridge – Fulbright & Jaworski L.L.P.
Michelle Mahoney – Mallesons Stephen Jaques
Learning Objectives: Identify the dynamics that lead to a successful service delivered by multi-disciplined professionals.
Learn about the personality types, perceptions and the reality when managing expectations of legal staff and clients.
No LawyerKM notes due to technical problems. I recommend checking out the slides from the presentation.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
ILTA – August 26, 2008 3:30 pm
These are my notes from the program. [Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog. Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.]
From ILTA:
Title: Collaboration Tools and Technologies for Lawyers
Description: Collaboration technologies and tools are the most important current developments in legal technology and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. During this session, the speakers discuss collaboration technologies for law firms, review tools and explore alternative platforms.
Speaker(s):
Tom Mighell – Cowles & Thompson, P.C.
Dennis Kennedy – MasterCard Worldwide
Learning Objectives:
Identify collaboration tools and technologies for law firms.
Analyze their utilization and explore alternative methods.
LawyerKM’s Notes:
- Do you know how your lawyers are collaborating?
- email
- wikis
- meetings
- SharePoint
- etc.
- Collaboration is not new
- history of collaborating
- telegraph is the first form of IM (sort of)
- telephone
- Collaboration today
- mainly email
- document collaboration (redlining, track revisions, etc.)
- conference calls
- Internal & external collaboration
- geography and the parties are factors
- audience is important – e.g. metadata stripping is important when collaborating with third parties, but not necessarily with internal parties
- Internal: everyone on the same team, see metadata above; brainstorming, etc. openness about the documents
- External: the collaborators might be on the same side, but might be adversaries.
- Basics: Documents and Projects
- Documents – take advantage of the fact that documents are in a digital format.
- Project Management – lawyers are very much project managers
- they need to manage the cases and / or deals that they are working on
- Basic Collaboration Toolbox
- choice depends on how you work
- determining what you’re trying to do helps you match tools to the problem
- calendaring, conferencing, document collaboration
- Collaboration Platforms
- SharePoint
- Google Apps (Dennis is surprised at the interest in this from a large law firm perspective – so am I see Web 2.0 in Law Firms)
- Web 2.0 Tools
- key definition – using the internet as a software tool or application platform (web 3.0 is the semantic web, see here)
- Blogs, Wikis, Cloud computing
- they are platform agnostic (PC or Mac – all the same – you just need a web browser)
- Calendaring on the web allows easy collaboration
- web-based large file sharing (e.g. Drop IO, usendit)
- Next Generation Concepts
- user-generated content publishing (see, e.g., Wikipedia, YouTube, SlideShare, Mash-ups)
- social networking (LinkedIn, Facebook) becomes an expertise locator. [what about Twitter?]
- Legal OnRamp, JD Supra
- How to learn about collaboration options
- lots of collaboration blogs: Dennis and Tom’s blog
- RSS feeds (subscribe to collaboration tag in technorati)
- Approaches to develop a collaboration strategy
- is your approach active or passive?
- collaboration audit – don’t assume that you know how your attorneys are collaborating – check it out.
- what is your firm’s collaborative culture? - look at the way people actually work (even from a non-technological way)
- Defining and Implementing your collaboration approach
- try to guide people to accepted products and approaches
- What is your collaboration culture?
- the audit will help
- what are people doing now
- strengthen collaboration culture – establish a collaboration coordinator [sounds like a KM position; an evangelist]
- let people know about successes
- learn from your failures
- Conclusions
- no longer an option
- impact on day to day practice can be huge
- What to do next?
- observe how you are collaborating (notice what tools you use)
- pick one tool and investigate it
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
ILTA is on.
In the spirt of going green, I thought that I would take my notes at ILTA on my laptop instead of on paper. The keynote speaker, Tim Sanders, scared the heck out of everyone about the evils of using paper – and law firms are huge offenders.
Since I am taking paper-free notes and because there is free Wi-Fi here, I thought that I’d add the notes to the blog. Disclaimer: my notes are rough, so forgive the typos.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
See Ron Friedmann’s post describing the upcoming KM track at ILTA’s annual conference in Texas next week. Will YOU be there?
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
Ark Group & Managing Partner Magazine have announced the 4th Annual program for “Knowledge Management In The Modern Law Firm: Creating Value for Your Firm by Integrating, Optimizing and Leveraging Your Knowledge Assets, Tools and Techniques in Support Of Explicit Business Goals.” It is scheduled for October 27-28, 2008 in Chicago, IL.
If history repeats, this will be a good conference.
Here’s the line up:
What Do Practicing Lawyers Expect from the KM Function?
- Mark Young, Managing Partner, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
- John S. Gillies, Director of Practice Support, Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP
Can IT and KM Both Be Strategic and Operational?
- Peter K. Kaomea, Chief Information Officer, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP
- Tom Baldwin, [blog] Chief Knowledge Officer, Reed Smith, LLP
- Stuart Kay, Director, Global Information Systems Projects, Baker & McKenzie
The Convergence of Litigation Support, Practice Support, Risk Management and Client Services
Can Transactional-Based KM Practices be Extended to Support Litigation?
- Amy Halverson, Litigation Knowledge Manager, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
- David B. Hobbie, [blog] Litigation Knowledge Manager, Goodwin Procter LLP
- Mary Panetta, Director of Knowledge Management, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld
Fostering and Nurturing the Research & Development Function at Your Firm
Words by the Numbers: Using Multi-Faceted Analytics to Drive KM in an International Law Firm
A Retrospective Look at KM Initiatives Across Law Firms (Has DM peaked? The evolution of practice-based web services and the consignment of DM to the back-end, Portals – one solution or a myriad of opportunities?)
- Joel Alleyne, CMC, former Chief Information and Knowledge Officer, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Chairman and CEO, Alleyne Inc.
- Joshua Fireman, Vice-President Market Development and General Counsel, ii3
Enterprise Search: Holy Grail, Panacea or a Failed Opportunity? (From content and collection to context and collaboration, Web 2.0 and its impact on longstanding KM problems, KM opportunities that KM professionals never seem to exploit)
- Joel Alleyne, CMC, former Chief Information and Knowledge Officer, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Chairman and CEO, Alleyne Inc.
- Joshua Fireman, Vice-President Market Development and General Counsel, ii3
- Terrie J. Rollins, CEO, RMR Technology Group and former CKO, Federal Systems, Unisys corp.
Contact Peter Franken for more info:
773 281 4275
pfranken@ark-group.com
usa.ark-group.com
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
This is a PBWiki Webinar called “Getting the most out of PBwiki 2.0 for your business” on Wednesday, March 19, 2008. Register.
From the invite: “Join us and explore how PBwiki 2.0 can help your business get more from your wiki. Explore examples of using folders and access controls, as well as how you can customize your wiki’s look in seconds, just based on your company logo. Plus, ask the PBwiki team your questions.”
I’m looking forward to this because I am not crazy about PBWiki 1.0.
See other LawyerKM wiki posts.
See a page with all of my favorite blogs (many of which also discuss wikis).
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
Google’s Universal Search for Law Firms & Interwoven
Presentation on March 12, 2008, Vijay Koduri, Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise and Gautam Malkamekar of Persistent Systems.
My notes from the presentation:
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Google Enterprise overview:
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600 Google employees dedicated to G Enterprise.
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15,000 customers.
-
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2000 new Apps customers every day!
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“Search is the starting point to the world’s information.”
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Knowledge workers (“KWs”) spend 25% of time looking for information.
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KWs search about 5 repositories looking for information.
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Expertise location is important
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Impact on business is loss of productivity, not optimizing billable hours.
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What is Universal Search?
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one search searches multiple repositories
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the results are delivered without categorizing
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the results are ranked by relevancy
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an example of Universal search is Google’s
Moma internal knowledge base
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Universal search allows client access via extranets (security is observed to only give access to allowed material).
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ROI: increase of billable hours – eliminate some time searching so that billers can spend some of that time doing billable activities (time is money).
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The Google Search Appliance (GSA) searches pretty much all repositories in the enterprise (file shares, intranets, databases, enterprise apps, content management).
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“OneBox” – Can make real time queries into various apps (ex. see a snapshot of a regional sales report in the search results – not just a link to the report).
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Case Study: Akin Gump (not many details).
Second part of webinar - Persistent Systems & Live demo
The info here is spare because there were some technical problems)
How Universal Search is “extended” to interwoven
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Persistent Systems overview
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Connector Deployment – there is Persistent Systems connector between the Interwoven databases and the GSA (fed via XML)
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Quick – easy install, simple configuration.
Live demo of Connector
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an apparently simple “walk through” set up – it took 5 minutes.
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A Google browser is used, allowing to search just public content or public & secure content.
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only content to which the user has access appears – demonstrated this feature by signing in as different users with different access credentials.
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demonstrated Google OneBox – shows relevant real time information in the search results.
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They can also connect into other DMS products, like Hummingbird
Q&A:
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The GSA is a closed box and Google does not share the info with anyone outside of the enterprise
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GSA can search MS Exchange databases, too.
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It can search across multiple Worksite servers in different geographical locations.
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Security is checked
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The search must originate from the web page, but can be embedded in FileSite, with some custom work.
- Pricing: based on number of documents in organization. Starting $30,000 (for two-year license, hardware, software, support) for 500,000 documents. Can index up to 30 million documents with stacked GSAs.
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There is a small business version of product “Google Mini” 50,000 documents – $3,000.
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Application can search Word Perfect, as well as Word and many, many other file types.
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Information can be compartmentalized so that only certain people can see it.
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Works with single sign on mechanisms.
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OneBox works by doing a real-time query.
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Google does not keep your search statistics, but you can keep track of your own search statistics within the enterprise with Google Analytics.
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They skipped my question: how many Am Law 100 firms have deployed GSA and how many have deployed the Persistent Systems connector?
Webinar is archived here.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
This was a fantastic webinar from KMWorld and Google:
Innovation @ Google: A Day In The Life
On March 11, 2008, Naveen Viswanatha, Sales Engineer at Google Enterprise gave a really great presentation.
My notes from the presentation:
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Broad background of Google and Google Enterprise, touting customer base, etc.
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Internet Evolution – from information to distribution & communitaction to network & platform.
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Chronology of how Google evolved with the internet – timeline with their many online products.
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“Innovation is at the core of Google’s competiveness.”
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70-20-10 Rule – i.e. Google splits its business focus: 70% focus on core business (Search, Ads, Apps); 20% on things with strong potential (blogger, Picassa, News, Pack); 10% Wild and Crazy (offline adds, wifi, transit).
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How Google hires people – the hiring process is “painfull.” (See
Fast Company article: “Our hiring process is legendary”
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Google has a relatively flat management structure.
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Internal tool called “Snippets” (a nag email: what did you work on last week? – what are you working on this week?) – so you can track your work. AND it is a knowledge-base tool because everyone else can search all other snippets and get information on what they may be working on.
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Google Ideas database – post and review ideas within Google – people can comment on and vet out the ideas. The ideas might turn into an actual project. [plus, it records the things that are Google's intellectual property] – it uses the “wisdom of the crowds” philosophy.
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Innovation is a collaborative process at Google - ”Innovation = Discovery + Collaboration (+ Fun)”
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First day at Google is “like drinking from a firehose”
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Any questions – go to “Moma” – Google’s internal knowledge base - search of their key knowledge areas.
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Can look for experts within the company – Google expert search within Moma - lots of an individual’s information is searchable (including resumes, which they encourage people to keep up to date).
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Search results within Moma – you can take notes in the search results (of the things that you are searching) – uses Google Docs [I used Google Docs to take notes for this blog post] – and you can publish the notes — it publishes it out to the people you want (they use gMail, chat, Goolge Calendar – can overlay colleague’s calendars on top of your own so that you can schedule meetings, etc.).
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Regarding the notes – others can make changes to your notes (which you created in Google Docs) in real time – you can see the changes on your screen.
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It’s all about the “…ability to find and leverage collective wisdom of the organization…”
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How are experts are established? Expert databases are hard to keep upto date. So they leverage the things that people do already: resumes, blogs, wikis, Snippets, Moma, etc.
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Are these tools avaiable to the public? Yes and no. Search is the key enabler to tap into the repositories that are already in use at your organization (touting Google Search Appliance).
The event is archived: here
I really encourage people to check this out. Especially those who are new to KM. This presentation gave a glimpse into Google as a company and it shows off some great ways that any organization can approach KM.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
Enterprise search in law firms is hot. Ron at Strategic Legal Technology and Doug at KM Space both reported that it was identified it as one of the top priorities for law firm knowledge management in 2008.
What better reason to go to the Enterprise Search Summit this May in New York?
I am especially looking forward to:
- Enterprise Search 101 (pre-conference workshop)
- Enterprise Search Technology Intensive (pre-conference workshop)
- Social Work: Is Social Search Right for Enterprise (Ross Mayfield of Socialtext is a speaker)
- The Enterprise Search Engine Landscape
- The Nuts & Bolts of Selecting an Enterprise Search Engine
- Search Connections in Context (Oz Benamram of Morrison & Foerster is a speaker)
- Search as a Gateway to Enterprise Info
- Enterprise Search Clinic: Vivisimo
- Build a case for an Enterprise Search Platform
- Mining Additional Value from Enterprise Search
- Keynote Panel: Take a 30,000-Foot View of Enterprise Search Implementation
- Evaluating the ROI of Search
- The Future of Search
Will you be there?
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
