In these days of Google Maps and Mapquest, it can be hard to remember that you actually do need to use different kinds of maps for different kinds of journeys. Members of my family have on more than one occasion rescued sailor wannabees who made the mistake of renting a boat for the day and... Continue Reading →
Virtual Water Coolers
In times of high anxiety, people seek ways to get information, commiserate with fellow sufferers, test rumors and gain perspective. Traditionally, this happened in the office around the proverbial water cooler. However, in this new age of BYOBW (i.e., bring your own bottled water), there are fewer water coolers in offices. And, with the recent... Continue Reading →
Web 2.0 Resistance in Law Firms?
Penny Edwards at Headshift characterizes the 2008 AmLaw Tech Survey as a "disappointing read from a social software/organizational change perspective." Alan Cohen, who reported on the survey in Law.com's Legal Technology section, admits that while there's lots of talk within law firms about social media tools, relatively few of those firms have deployed many of... Continue Reading →
7 Principles of Law Firm KM
Dave Snowden's 3 Rules of knowledge management have expanded to 7 Principles, now that he is focusing on law firm knowledge management. (Perhaps there is just something about lawyers that invites the creation of more rules). Here are the 7 Principles: 1. Knowledge can only be volunteered, it cannot be conscripted. 2. We only know... Continue Reading →
Collaboration — All or Nothing?
In my prior post on Culture and Technology, I talked about the need to match carefully the social media tools you are offering in your law firm knowledge management program with the organizational culture of your firm. Now we need to go a little deeper. Many discussions on this topic treat collaboration in a binary... Continue Reading →
Culture and Technology
Knowledge management without cultural awareness rarely is successful. You can be on the verge of deploying the best technology tools in the world, but if those tools aren't in synch with your organizational culture, you might as well distribute quill pens and parchment. Carl Frappaolo (VP Market Intelligence a AIIM International) and Dan Keldsen (Director,... Continue Reading →
Moving at the Speed of Molasses
It doesn't really matter how great your law firm knowledge management team is at creating and planning effective KM projects if the bureaucracy of your law firm doesn't let you get things done in a timely fashion. While all of us have experienced project delays from time to time, one of the most frequent complaints... Continue Reading →
Thought Experiment #2: The Perfect Law Firm KM Program
In yesterday's post I discussed the value of thought experiments (in the right hands) and outlined a thought experiment that could help you break out of a rut in your law firm knowledge management program. Today, I'd like to propose another horizon-expanding thought experiment.What if you could start your KM program from scratch and had... Continue Reading →
Records Mis-Management
Do you know where your records are?Simon Chester, blogging at Slaw, reports on a disturbing trend of missing government records:Countless federal records are being lost to posterity because federal employees, grappling with a staggering growth in electronic records, do not regularly preserve the documents they create on government computers, send by e-mail and post on... Continue Reading →
Constructive Destruction
A commentator on the economy described our current travails as "constructive destruction." Clearly this optimist believes that good will come out of our economic troubles. In some ways, this is not dissimilar to the fertilizing benefits of a forest fire. Short term pain for long term gain.Since law firms are so dependent on market forces,... Continue Reading →
Above and Beyond KM 