The Enterprise is YOU! | Knowledge Management

With most of my time devoted to knowledge management at a law firm, I often forget about my own needs. I’ve got a lot of digital stuff in various silos that could use the KM treatment. At home, on my iMac, it’s not a problem because I have Spotlight. I can find just about anything on my iMac pretty quickly. But I have a lot of stuff on the web - and it’s not all that easy to find. Off the top of my head, here are some of the web applications that I use frequently:

• Facebook, LinkedIn, Gmail (multiple accounts), iGoogle, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Maps, Google Reader, Upcoming.org, Meetup.com, WordPress, Digg, Delicious, Twitter, Netvibes, Picasa, Mac Web Galleries.

In the Google applications alone, I have a lot of pretty important information. My Gmail contact information is more up-to-date than my Outlook contacts at work.

In some ways — on a smaller scale, of course — I have the same problems as a large enterprise: there’s a lot of information and no easy way to find it. If I am looking for contacts, for example, I can go to Gmail, LinkedIn, or Facebook. But, I have to go to each and search them individually. And with new web applications popping up all the time, it’s only going to get worse.

I need a search engine for the enterprise called “me.” One search box that will tap into all of my online silos. Clearly, Google should be the one to offer such a solution.

Google already has Google Custom Search, which allows you to build a search box that searches specific sites to the exclusion of others. Several KM folks have written about Custom Search. See here, here and here [Doug, I think there's a KM blog missing from your KM Sites Search list ].

So, Google, let’s take Custom Search one step further: maybe call it “Personalized Custom Search” or “iCustom Search” or “Self Search.” Give me the ability to search all of my web apps in a secure, password-protected way. One search that hits all of my web apps. So, when I do a search for my business contact, “Jim Smith,” the results include emails to and from Jim, pictures of Jim that I tagged in Picasa (and in Facebook), a Google Map that shows me where Jim’s office is (based on the information in my Gmail contacts), Jim’s LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, the activities that Jim will be attending from Upcoming.org and Meetup.com (because he is tagged as a friend), his Twitter posts and Delicious tags, etc., etc.

While you’re at it, please make an advanced search page that allows me to select or un-select certain web apps. Now, is that too much to ask?

By the way, I created the image with Gliffy. Check it out.

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

Visual Search Engine >> Searchme.com | Knowledge Management

While researching for a blog post, I came across SearchMe.com (still in beta), which is a pretty cool twist on web search engines. It’s a visual search engine.

From the Searchme web site: “Searchme lets you see what you’re searching for. As you start typing, categories appear that relate to your query. Choose a category, and you’ll see pictures of web pages that answer your search. You can review these pages quickly to find just the information you’re looking for, before you click through.”

Check out this video to get the idea (if you are a Mac or iTunes user, you’ll notice that Searchme resembles Coverflow in iTunes and Finder):

This “coverflow” type of visualization would be fantastic in the enterprise. Speed is the key here. Imagine if you could “flip” through documents in a search result from your DMS the way you can flip through documents in a file. Coverflow is one of the best new features in the new Mac OS X Leopard and it really helps you find documents quickly. Interwoven and Open Text should look into this. 

Update: I hadn’t notice before, but Robert Ambrogi wrote about Searchme in his blog last week.  Check it out here.

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

Wiki Webinar - March 19, 2008 | Knowledge Management

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

Knowledge Management for Law Firms :: In case you missed it… Mar 2 - 8, 2008

Here are some of my favorite legal knowledge management & technology blog posts and other items from the week of - March 2 - 8 , 2008:

• Is Technology Failing to Simplify Life? (Tim Ferriss)
• Legal Issues from Facebook and Related Social Media Technologies: Panel Discussion (Slaw - Connie Crosby)
• Apple Aims to Put iPhone Into the Workplace [I hope they succeed] (NY Times)
• 10 guidelines for building your blog’s credibility (Real Lawyers Have Blogs)
• Web Technology Trends for 2008 and Beyond (Read Write Web)
• Social Networking Moves to the Cellphone (NY Times)
• Padded lampposts for distracted texters being tested in London (Engadget)
• What a feed reader can do for you (Caselines - David Hobbie)
• DLA Piper launches trainee internet portal (”…similar … to the popular social networking sites Facebook and Bebo…” Managing Partner Magazine)
• Document Management Systems (DMS) and Knowledge Management (Eric Blue’s Blog)
• Lifestream - Aggregating Youself (KM Space - Doug Cornelius)
• Federal Court to Put Information in Your Pocket (Law.com - Lynne Marek)
• If you must use PowerPoint, study Steve Jobs, Cory Doctorow, or Larry Lessig’s speeches (Scoble on Twitter)

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

Twitter and Follow | Knowledge Management

Another great Common Craft video (see below). This one is about Twitter.

I like Twitter (see the link to follow LawyerKM on Twitter on the right –>>). But I’m getting a little inundated with information these days, and Twitter isn’t helping. Neither is following people like Robert Scoble, the self-proclaimed “tech geek videoblogger” and prolific twitterer (or is it tweeter?). More than 11,000 people follow Scoble on Twitter.

I like following him as a Google Reader friend because he essentially vets content for me. Well, not directly, but you get the idea: I read the stuff that he has shared because if he thinks it’s interesting enough to share, then it probably is interesting enough for me to read. (See RSS Overload is the New Black to see how Scoble rips through 600 RSS feeds in a flash with Google Reader).

And for me, “following” is the killer app of Twitter. Socially, it may be interesting to learn that a friend is shopping for a new sweater or is exhausted from a six-mile run, but in a law firm - we can take the “following” concept to a business level. Whether it’s blogs, micro-blogs, instant messages, or tagged / favorite documents, if my boss thinks it’s important, I should too. If certain information flows to (or from) smart, important people (like the senior partners in my law firm), I want to catch that flow, too.

Give young attorneys a way (other than email blasts) to capture information flows and follow senior attorneys so that they can benefit from what these smart, important people are consuming (or generating).

And by the way - if you, too, feel inundated, check out one way to get a lot of content in one space: the LawyerKM Netvibes Universe.

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

Social Network Aggregation (Pull yourself together with Netvibes) | Knowledge Management

“What is Ginger?” you may ask. It’s the new and improved release of Netvibes (the last release was called Coriander - there’s a spice theme going on here).

What is Netvibes? It’s an “ajax-based personalized [internet] start page much like Pageflakes, My Yahoo!, iGoogle, and Microsoft Live.” (see Wikipedia) It lets you bring in customized widgets and all types of other feeds or streams of information - everything from RSS news feeds to various web applications. The new release embraces social media sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. Last night, I tweeted from Ginger. I know that doesn’t sound good.

The Netvibes folks probably say it best: it’s a

“dashboard that’s updated live directly from all your favorite Web services (email, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, widgets) and media content (blogs, podcasts, video). Everything you enjoy on the Web, available at a glance, all in one place — spend less time surfing and logging in from site to site and more time enjoying your web, your way.”

As Doug at KM Space noted, this is about aggregating yourself (or your stuff) - and this type of thing can be used inside the enterprise. Ginger is yet another way to help you aggregate your stuff - to bring all of these streams into one place to access (and use) the various web applications via widgets.

The killer thing is that Ginger gives you a personal space and a public space - the public space is called your “universe” - and it’s there for all of your Facebook friends, LinkedIn contacts, Twitter followers (and anyone else you want) to see. There are also universes by companies and news providers, like Slate, USA Today, and others.

In addition to the private and public aspects of Ginger, you can see and “follow” friends’ activities.

I could go on and on, but your best bet: check it out here. Or see what Ars Technica had to say about it.

Here’s a link to the LawyerKM Netvibes Universe. It’s still in its infancy, but includes a feed of the LawyerKM blog, a KM blog search feed, the LawyerKM Twitter feed, and a wall on which you can write. I’m not crazy about the color, which I’ll likely change.

Please add LawyerKM as a friend. Use the Contacts tab at the top of the screen, search for “LawyerKM” and click the icon. On the following screen, click the “Add Friend” button.

Will I replace my iGoogle home page with Netvibes’ new Ginger? Not sure yet. But iGoogle, you’d better get in this game. You’ve been warned.

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

Social Bookmarking for the Law Firm | Knowledge Management

In “Can you Digg It?…” We asked (but nobody answered) whether social bookmarking is right for law firms. We also wondered whether it was worth the investment. Well, the good people over at

Connectbeam are of the opinion that it is. They even went so far as to create an enterprise social bookmarking and tagging system that does the trick.

As they state in their nice online screencast demo, “time to action is fundamental.” The whole idea behind enterprise social bookmarking is to get to information quickly so people can act and get their jobs done.

Connectbeam creates an environment where members of a company can “tag” content (like websites). Those content items can also be grouped into topics.

Users can also search for keyword and get a list of all of the content items that are tagged to the keyword. In addition, the same search lists related tags (i.e. other tags that users have used for content related to the keyword) and related users (i.e. users who also have tagged content related to the keyword). This has an expertise location function. Clicking on a related user shows their bio, contact information, displays their “tag cloud” (i.e. the terms that they have used to tag other items), and the topics that they have chosen to share within the company. Tags in the tag cloud are of various font sizes. A larger font indicates that more items are tagged with that term. Tag cuds are used in many public social bookmarking applications, like Delicious and photo sharing sites, like Flickr

Users can create private topics, group topics, and company topics. So, a key member of the firm’s antitrust practice group might locate and tag a website that provides good antitrust resources. She can save it as group topic. Others can search for it, or simply see what things she has tagged.

We still wonder if lawyers will take the time to tag stuff.

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management for Lawyers and Law Firms

Can You Digg It? I Knew That You Could.

Can Digg help lawyers?

Digg is social networking / social bookmarking / collaboration website that displays content submitted by its users.  Once content (in the form of a news story, website, video, etc. — anything with a URL, really) is submitted, other users can “digg it” or “bury” it by clicking on the appropriate link. Digging content elevates it and when “a submission has earned a critical mass of Diggs, it becomes ‘popular’ and jumps to the homepage in its category.” (See, Digg.com/how). Basically, it’s a popularity contest for stuff on the web. The site started out with categories such as gaming, music, technology, and Apple — to appeal to the young techie crowd.  It has since expanded to include six main topics: technology, science, world & business, sports, entertainment, and gaming; and several sub-categories. 

What’s in it for me? In addition to the proud feeling of peer validation that comes when you see people digg stuff that you submitted (there is a digg counter that shows the number of diggs),

you can keep up with what is popular in categories of interest by clicking on links that show you the most popular content in the last day, week, month, or year (believe it or not, the announcement of Apple’s iPhone ranks only second in the last year - check out Digg to see number one).  This could be a real time-saver if you don’t have time to read all the good stuff that’s out there.  Let the power of the crowd work for you to vet the stories.
 

But, Can Lawyers Digg It? So how can these social bookmarking concepts help lawyers? In the microcosm of a law firm there is a lot of content — some good, some not so good.  On your document management system (DMS) alone, there are probably millions of documents.  Some of those (thousands?) may have made it to your collection of models, samples, forms, “best practices,” etc. — if you have such a collection.  If you’re lucky, then your firm has a work product retrieval system, like RealPractice, Lexis Total Search, or West km (and maybe an enterprise search system like Recommind).  So, you can find what you need, but is it a good piece of work product? 

Unless you have a small army of KM staffers, Practice Support Lawyers (PSLs), or attorneys with too much time on their hands, it’s unlikely that anyone will manually vet the firm’s work product to give it the thumbs up or down. 

RealPractice has employs a feature that approaches what Digg does, but it only allows a single tag that designates “best practices” documents.  There is no voting to elevate the popularity of the document — more like a monarchy than Digg-style democracy.  One issue that the RealPractice model raises is: Who determines whether a document is worthy of “best practice” status?  The author?  Practice group leaders?  Anyone?  

A Digg-style voting system would allow lawyers to passively tell other lawyers that certain documents are valuable. Would this pose the risk of hurt feelings (”Why doesn’t anyone like my model document?”) or worse yet, stuffing the ballot box, bribes, or campaigning to gain document popularity?  We KM people only wish lawyers would be so enthusiastic about participating in KM activities. 

The bigger challenge is to get lawyers to click on the Digg button.  One incentive is that doing so remembers the documents that you Digg.  The result is social and personal: You have cast your vote (helping others), and you get a handy list of documents that you have voted for — sort of a personal KM system — that you can reference later. 

Even better would be an “auto-Digg” feature; a system that elevates the popularity of documents based on the number of attorneys who access them, the amount of time it is open in a word processor, or the number of times it is copied. What about: who accesses the document?  Should a two votes be cast if a partner (or her secretary) opens or copies the document? 

Social tagging may have a place in law firms, but how much value will it really add?  Is developing a such a feature worth the effort?  And is it even necessary? 

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management for Lawyers and Law Firms. 

Google acquires GrandCentral

Google announced today that it has acquired GrandCentral.  GrandCentral is a great service that gives you one phone number that will ring all of your other phones.  and it does a lot more … see our previous post about it. 

 LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management for Lawyers

Personal KM - one phone number rings all of your phones

Technology is supposed to make life easier.  Why, then, do I have so many devices?  A cell phone, a BlackBerry, iPod, laptop and desktop PCs.  Well, one thing that should help — at least with the phone part — is GrandCentral.  The most basic feature of this service is that it gives you a phone number and then offers to connect that new phone number to all of the other phones in your life.  One phone number rings all of your phones (right now - up to six phones while the service is in beta).  The service is free while in beta and GrandCentral says that while there will be a pay service in the future, it will “always offer a free version of GrandCentral, even after beta.” 

There are many, many more features of this truely revolutionary service.  As GrandCentral puts it:

GrandCentral gives you “One Number…for Life” - a phone number that is not tied to a device or a location, but is tied to you. Use GrandCentral to centralize your communication, customize how your callers are treated, and make sure you never miss a call you want to take (or take a call you want to miss).

GrandCentral will let you define which phones ring, based on who’s calling, and even let you ListenIn^TM on voicemail before answering the call.

You can also block calls from certain numbers, route different groups of callers to ring different phones (Friends, Family, Work or Others), switch calls between phones on the fly, record your calls, customize voicemail greetings for different callers, upload any MP3 to play as a ringback tone, and save all of your voicemail messages for life.

Just the thing for the lawyer who needs to be available whenever the client calls.   

LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management for Lawyers