In honor of Halloween, I thought we might take this opportunity to scare our information technology colleagues, as well as those knowledge management folks who have been unable to rise above and beyond technology. Let's start with an interesting piece by Susan Cramm entitled IT Project Funding: Less is More. In it she confronts the... Continue Reading →
Trust But Verify
In one of the articles that accompanied the AmLaw Tech Survey 2008, Alan Cohen reports on a conversation he had with Bob Craig, chief information officer at Baker & Hostetler. According to Craig, the next big challenge is to change the way the IT department relates to the lawyers of his firm. He likened the... Continue Reading →
The Pantyhose Fallacy and the Reality of Pants
In my earlier post today, KM and the Pantyhose Fallacy, I begged the indulgence of my male readers with the following words: "Stick with me, gentlemen. I'm sure there's a male equivalent to this that I haven't thought of yet." Well there is an equivalent (or near equivalent) that is instructive: pants.Traditionally, better quality men's... Continue Reading →
KM and the Pantyhose Fallacy
The Pantyhose* Fallacy may not yet be a term of art in knowledge management and information technology, but I can guarantee that you already understand its underlying principle. [Stick with me, gentlemen. I'm sure there's a male equivalent to this that I haven't thought of yet.] Here's the Pantyhose Fallacy: for years retailers have sold... Continue Reading →
Do You Have What It Takes?
Knowledge management folks have to interact with technology daily. In fact, all knowledge workers have to interact with technology daily. There's no other way to do your job well in the 21st century. The problem is that those of us who are 40 years old or more learned to be knowledge workers at a time... 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 →
Microblogging: Private Conversations at a Live Mike
In ReadWriteWeb's report on microblogging at BestBuy, Laura Fitton (of Pistachio Consulting) writes about her conversation with Gary Koelling and Steve Bendt regarding their implementation of Mix. Mix (built on HeadMix) is described as an "enterprise microsharing application," which is intended to faciliate networking, problem solving and idea sharing among Best Buy's 160,000 employees. According... 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 →
Information Overload is a Cop-Out
Clay Shirky has fired a shot across the bow of every person who ever complained that they couldn't get things done because of information overload. He suggests that our current approach to the Internet has infantalized users. As he points out, there have always been more books in any given bookstore than you can read... Continue Reading →
Overcoming Hurdles to Web 2.0
There are some bright shining examples of web 2.0 implementations in law firms and then there are the vast majority of the web 1.0 firms. While it may be natural for law firm knowledge management personnel in web 1.0 firms to envy their counterparts in that relatively small group of web 2.0 firms, it's not... Continue Reading →
Above and Beyond KM 