Above and Beyond KM

LegalTech 2009 is over and we’re exhausted.  There’s something absolutely draining about all those inputs, all those people talking at you, and all those little plastic toys.  It’s enough to make even extroverts like me run screaming from the conference hotel.

It will, undoubtedly, take us a few days to process what we saw and what we learned.  We have the quick notes we tweeted from the various sessions to remind us, but we don’t yet know if they will prove to be  invaluable or completely ephemeral.  In addition, some hardier souls (like David Hobbie and Kelly Talcott) have already published their blogs on various sessions.  I’m in awe of their ability to synthesize information so quickly and grateful that we have the benefit of their views.

For me there is something about the learning process that requires a period of quiet reflection in order to consolidate the disparate bits of information I’ve picked up.  And when I’ve been drinking from an information firehose as I was at LegalTech, it takes even longer.  Starting tomorrow, I’m going to indulge in a little quiet reflection and when I emerge, I hope I’ll have something sensible to say about what I learned at LegalTech.

Before I hibernate, I would like to thank the good folks on the LegalTech Advisory Board and at Incisive Media for organizing a conference rich in possibilities and opportunities.  I was glad to have a chance to participate both as a speaker and a blogger.   Best of all, LegalTech provided a wonderful lab for demonstrating how we interact with and learn from each other.  The multi-layered interchanges that bounced between the conference rooms, the Twittersphere, the Blogosphere and the hallways  made for a very rich learning environment. Thank you to everyone in New York and online who made this possible.

[Photo Credit:  cobalt123, Creative Commons license]

You can’t make this stuff up!  We arrived at LegalTech 2009 yesterday ready for a full day of sessions on using Web 2.0 tools in a legal practice only to discover that WiFi was not available in the Web 2.0 conference room.  The irony of that situation did not escape participants, and the live bloggers were vocal on the subject.  Thankfully, the irony did not escape the conference organizers and Judy Kelly of Incisive Media quickly got WiFi access for the live bloggers in the room.  Unfortunately, the first session was already well underway by the time the WiFi was finally made available.  As a result, that first session was not fully reported on Twitter. Thankfully, the other two sessions were and you’ll be able to see the stream of Tweets by searching Twitter using the hashtag #LTNY.

The organizers of LegalTech did go out of their way to invite bloggers to “Live Blog” the sessions.  In fact, they treated us to breakfast on Tuesday morning and gave us an opportunity to introduce ourselves and our blogs.  Very nice.  It will be interesting to see what gets written in the daily blogs and once folks return to their own lives and have had chance to think further about what they saw and heard.

For me, the big surprise was Twitter.  I had gone to LegalTech fully expecting to write 3-4 paragraph blog posts at each session.  Instead, I discovered the power of tweeting the conference.  There was an immediacy and energy about Live Microblogging that was irresistible and effective.  We were getting the information out as quickly as we could cram it into 140 character packages.  And, we were getting responses back from other bloggers in the room, as well as tweeple around the world.  In fact, tweeple outside the conference tweeted their questions to us and we put them to the panelists.  Suddenly the sessions were relevant to far more than the hardy few who braved the bad weather in NYC to attend.

Over the next few days, I will do some blogging on the sessions I attended.  Above all, Lee Bryant and I will be posting notes and slides from our session yesterday (which, unfortunately, was the one for which we did not have full WiFi access).  Until then, do take a look at the Twitter stream.  It gave a remarkably accurate snapshot of the flow of conversation and key quotes from the sessions.  For my money, Live Microblogging via Twitter was definitely the way to go.

[Photo Credit:  kopp0041, Creative Commons license]

It was a generous invitation — free passes to all bloggers who wanted to attend LegalTech 2009.  And an offer of reserved seating at the front of the room (with outlets) so we could live blog the sessions.  I accepted the invitation, came armed with my netbook, and was looking forward to participating.

Unfortunately, we soon discovered that there was no WiFi in the room.  (I was later told that the only room with WiFi initially was the ballroom.)  As a result,  I took my notes offline and will move them to a blog post when I get the chance.  No live blogging for me.

By contrast, some bloggers attended the Twitter session at LegalTech (in a ballroom with WiFi)and decided to tweet the various presentations.  What a blast!  Although readers around the world were getting multiple 140 character sound bites in duplicate (and triplicate) and were slightly reeling from the impact, I do think the medium somehow conveyed the energy of the session in a way that a blog simply cannot.  We were frantic and frenetic, and we were clearly having a great time.  A quick look at the feedback received shows that our friends online enjoyed the tweets and participated via Twitter by commenting and posting their questions.

In a single day we got to experience two different ways of communicating information and dealing with technology.   Social media tools like blogging and micromessaging via Twitter are wonderful and powerful.   Several of my readers said they had so much fun reading our updates that they wished they had been in the room with us.  That said, they acknowledged we’d delivered the next best thing.  If they can, they’ll find the cash to come to LegalTech next year.  I’ve got to believe this is something the conference organizers would like to encourage.

So, about that WiFi…

[Photo Credit:  vkdir, Creative Commons license]

The tire jack is a great symbol for knowledge management.  With the right amount of leverage, you can lift and support something much bigger than your KM effort.  In the context of law firm knowledge management, one way of testing your KM leverage is to ask:  for every hour I spend on KM, how many lawyer hours are saved?  If you can’t answer that question, you need to check your metrics.  Are you measuring the right things?  If you are, are your results commensurate with the effort expended?

Asking questions like these help you understand part of the value proposition for your KM effort.  It also helps you understand what your priorities should be.  Presumably, you need to focus on the activities that provide the greatest leverage.

The next question to ask is this:  is my current level of KM leverage sustainable without additions to headcount?  The answer to that better be yes since additions to headcount in this economy are likely to be close to impossible this year in most law firms.  If the answer is no, what are you going to do about it?

At LegalTech 2009, Lee Bryant and I will be leading a discussion on using Web 2.0 tools to create and sustain meaningful leverage for your KM program.  The session is on Tuesday at 10:30am in the Sutton Parlor South.  I do hope you’ll join us.

[Photo Credit:  Tamaki, Creative Commons license]