Beyond knowledge management to better management
I'm a little startled to report that I begun practicing law nearly 20 years ago. (Since I don't feel that old, perhaps the space-time continuum can explain this fact!) In the intervening time, one of the things that lawyers around the world have mourned is what they perceive as the transition of relationship-based interactions with... Continue Reading →
Am I creating value? That's the key question to start and end every working day. For knowledge management professionals, it can be a tough one to answer honestly. Why? Because many of us struggle with proving the value of knowledge management efforts. We know that we've helped individuals, but we are often hard pressed to... Continue Reading →
A startling blog post entitled reflection on KM and libraries in law firms came over the transom today. In it Morgan Wilson, a law librarian, recounted his experiences of working in a library that was part of a law firm knowledge management department. These experiences led him to the conclusion that it is not a... Continue Reading →
This is not about that solitaire game you play surreptitiously when you should be filling out expense reports. And, it's not about office politics or power struggles. Games at work is serious business and they offer interesting possibilities for law firm knowledge management and lawyer professional development. A press report about the recent acquisition by... Continue Reading →
One of the great challenges of KM 1.0 is that we have to make guesses about the future when populating our document repositories. When considering whether or not to add a particular document to the collection, we have to make a bet as to the likelihood that this particular content item will be useful or... Continue Reading →
"Drinking your own champagne" was how Jo Hoppe, CIO of Pegasystems, described the process that some with a less elegant turn of phrase have called "eating your own dog food." It means using your own products and taking your own advice. It also means moving out of the world of the theoretical into the painfully... Continue Reading →
The Knowledge Management Peer Group of the International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) is once again sponsoring a survey to determine the current state of law firm knowledge management. Given the upheavals in the legal industry of the last few years, it will be interesting to see what if any changes emerge from the survey data.... Continue Reading →
Today is Groundhog Day. I have no idea whether Phil the groundhog will see his shadow, but I try never to forget what happened to Bill. Who's Bill? Bill Murray in the movie, Groundhog Day. Because he resisted growing up and moving forward, he was condemned to repeat Groundhog Day until he did something to... Continue Reading →
After years of sitting quietly listening to the complaints, I've finally had enough. Critics of the legal profession and the billable hour speak of all lawyers as if they are identical, mindless billing machines. While many (but not all) of us do account for our time by the billable hour, that does not necessarily mean... Continue Reading →
We all know that dinosaurs and dodo birds are extinct. What about extranets? I know we've got them, but for how long? With the increasing pressure from clients to have access to the wealth of knowledge generated by law firms, some firms have tried to lance the wound by offering a small collection of their... Continue Reading →
Above and Beyond KM 