From CIO.com, here a quick rundown of 9 wikis (surprisingly absent is the popular PBwiki).
And WikiMatrix is a handy way to compare the dozens of wikis available.
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
Dear Google Sites,
Many people have said many things about the Googleized JotSpot. I’d like to say some things, too. But I can’t because you packaged Google Sites with the Google Apps product suite. That means that I can’t register to use Sites with my beloved Gmail address. You require that people “Sign up with your school or work email address.” I don’t have a school email address. And I can’t use my work address for such things. But I do want to collaborate with people and use this really exciting new application. I read about Sites in Scott Johnston’s blog post and I watched his YouTube video.
Please reconsider allowing your loyal Gmail users to register to use Google Sites with their Gmail addresses.
Thanks in advance…
LawyerKM
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
Collaborative book writing is nothing new. Wikinomics authors Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams have an “unwritten chapter” of their book in a wiki.
One of my recent favorite books — The 4-Hour Workweek — by Tim Ferriss,
is heading into its expanded and updated version [read his blog entry about it here] and he is asking his readers to help him edit it on a PBWiki wiki. The wiki password is in the blog entry.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
Here are some of my favorite legal knowledge management blog posts and other items from the week of February 10 - 16, 2008:
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
Update: the Wired link below is apparently dead. Here is another link to the same study on ABC News and another on MSNBC.
Great article [dead link] on Wired. Best take-away: “Resist the urge to immediately follow up an e-mail with an instant message or phone call. Make sure the subject line clearly reflects the topic and urgency of an e-mail. And use ‘reply all’ sparingly.”
We in KM have a special hatred of email. Let’s hope that 2008 brings RSS, internal blogs, and wikis to reduce the amount of unnecessary email we have to battle. We’ll deal with RSS overload at another time.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
Legal KM folks are innovators. They’re always looking for new ways to get the right information to the right people at the right time. Always trying to make the practice of law more efficient.
Innovation, by definition, is about newness. “The introduction of something new” or “a new idea, method, or device,” according to dictionary.com. New can be good or it can be bad. Either way, it will meet resistance. Most people tend to dislike change - the more drastic, the more resistance. Lawyers, and those others who work in the legal field, are not shy about expressing their aversion to change.
Remember when your firm announced that it was switching from DOS-based WordPerfect 5.1 to the new-fangled Windows-based WYSIWYG Microsoft Word? Remember “reveal codes?” Some legal secretaries still want to go back to those good old days, but most are now pretty happy with the change.
My mother didn’t need a microwave oven in the late 1970s, — or more accurately, she didn’t know she needed one. Today, estimates claim that 95% of households have one. There’s a reason for it. It’s not the only way to cook food and boil water and pop popcorn, but it’s pretty efficient.
The same goes for my iPod. Aside from being super cool, it is a great device that makes it easy to listen to music. I could carry around my old Sony Walkman and a bunch of cassette tapes, but, well you get the picture.
So, why do lawyers, in particular, hate change? I’ve experienced this, but I’m not alone. There are several reasons, and this article mentions some. A lot has to do with focus and familiarity.
Lawyers work long, hard hours. They write briefs, try cases, do deals, etc. Few, however, focus on the business of law or ways to make the practice of law better. If they work at firms, then they assume that there are others that deal with that.
Lawyers, like most people, also tend to do what’s familiar. We like what we like. We fear things that are different. Even if something is better and more efficient, we find ways to avoid it.
That’s where the KM folks come in. We don’t focus on what lawyers focus on. We focus on making it easier for them to focus on what they need to focus on. We are also more comfortable with change, so we need to make it as painless as possible for them. Say what you will about lawyers, but they tend to be a reasonable bunch. Once you get them past the focus and familiarity challenges, they are usually receptive (and sometimes even appreciative). In the end, most of the time they’ll ask you, “Why haven’t we been doing it this way all along?” And that’s just what you want.
So, why innovate?
Or should I avoid the “i word” and say, “Why introduce some new method or idea?”? Well, it’s not for innovation’s sake. It’s not for the sake of being cutting (or bleeding) edge. It’s to help make things better, easier, and more efficient.
My mom never asked for a microwave oven, but she did plead for more time to do things other than slave over a hot stove. Your lawyers may never ask you for a work product retrieval system, an enterprise search engine, blogs, or wikis. But they will ask you for a better and faster way to find the firm’s documents and other information. They will ask for a better way to communicate with members of their practice groups and clients. In short, they’ll ask you to innovate — just not in so many words.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management & Technology for Lawyers and Law Firms
Great article on Wired. Best take-away: “Resist the urge to immediately follow up an e-mail with an instant message or phone call. Make sure the subject line clearly reflects the topic and urgency of an e-mail. And use ‘reply all’ sparingly.”
We in KM have a special hatred of email. Let’s hope that 2008 brings RSS, internal blogs, and wikis to reduce the amount of unnecessary email we have to battle. We’ll deal with RSS overload at another time.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management for Lawyers and Law Firms
Neil Richards and Matthew Parsons launched a new KM site that is pretty interesting. Part wiki, part blog, and part something else, perhaps to be determined. It’s called Knowledge Thoughts and is billed as a “KM and Law Firm KM encyclopedia.” This definitely has potential. Tom Baldwin has a good write up about it here - he calls Knowledge Thoughts a bliki.
LawyerKM :: Knowledge Management for Lawyers and Law Firms
The good people over at Common Craft have published another great video about wikis. This one is about a particular free wiki from Wetpaint and it is called Wetpaint Wikis in Plain English. See the other Plain English wiki video by Common Craft here.
LawyerKM likes Wetpaint wikis - they are pretty easy to use and have a nice interface. Very web 2.0-ish. IOHO Wetpaint is a better alternative than, for example, pbwiki - which is just confusing.
We know that there are many, many other free wikis. Which wiki do you use?
Let’s be honest… aren’t we all waiting for Google to make JotSpot public and itegrate it with the rest of their online suite?
LawyerKM:: Knowledge Management for Lawyers and Law Firms
