February 2006 Archives

The meta-data in a Word document can tell others more than you really want them to know. Tracked changes are a perfect example; especially in a legal environment, you may not want to tip your hand by letting others see edited or deleted text. Microsoft offers new tools in Word 2003 to help remove metadata, but according to a Cnet article, they don't go far enough.

You might think that converting a Word document to PDF would automatically remove all such things, but some information may still be passed along, depending upon your settings, so while such a conversion might help, it only does part of the job. Even the government has had difficulties with this concept, releasing PDF documents with easily viewed confidential data. As a result, the National Security Agency has provided step by step instructions designed to avoid such gaffes in their Document on Redaction.

There's one thing most of us have in common, that is, we spend a great deal of time using email. Whether for good or bad, the predominant application for enterprise email is MS Outlook. So there's a tendency to want to deliver more and more information, whether email related or not, into the application that's already open on everyone's desktop. Remember when that's what a portal was for?

Lisa Kellar discusses the inclination that many have to incorporate KM applications into Outlook in her article, MS Outlook: KM Friend or Foe? (Practice Innovations: Managing Change in a Legal Environment, October 2005)

I just have one question. Can Outlook really handle all the application plug-ins that connect it to the document management system, Interaction, and KM applications? Or will it collapse under the load? Will adding all this stuff make Outlook inoperable for the purpose for which it was designed? Just wondering...

[Spotted on Excited Utterances]

Just one more reason to join ILTA, the formation of a new KM Peer Group was announced today by Peggy Wechsler. The group plans to offer educational programs, networking opportunities, and meetings at the ILTA Annual Confrence. If you're interested, there is also an existing KM listserv, which will not doubt become more active as this group progresses.

The weak link in most KM systems is the need for attorneys to take the time to contribute. Sure, they have good intentions, but it just doesn't happen. If the content isn't there, users won't come back. If they don't come back they won't think to contribute. The potential of another good application goes unrealized.That's why I'm always particularly intrigued by applications that don't require any thought or effort on the part of the contributors.

CRM (Client Relations Managements) software can suffer from the same difficulties. Enter ContactNet, an "enterprise relationship search" technology that automatic analyszes e-mail traffic to determine who knows who, and how well.

According to a recent article in Law Technology News, Nurturing Relationships, "algorithms analyze the frequency and pattern of e-mail communication, and assess how recent it is, and then search results are ranked, much like a Google search, to put the strongest relationships at the top.

What better way to determine who knows who than to monitor who is sending email to whom?

Several times I've forgotten how to do some basic, but well-hidden task, for example, turning off the notification feature in Outlook, or editing my signature, or some such thing. Sometimes a co-worker will ask a similar question about a basic application. Lately, I have often been able to find answers quickly and easily by searching the application's Help option, which provides me with information that makes me sound fairly smart and well-informed. But between you and me, it's not really me, it's Help that's gotten smarter.

We can easily forget that almost all applications come with a help option on the drop-down menu, offering instructions that some technical writer has slaved over. Perhaps it's our overall aversion to reading documentation, or it could be Help's reputation in the past for answering every question but the one you happen to need an answer to. Maybe it's the memory of Clippy, automatically popping up on your screen and providing well-meaning, but often useless assistance. At any rate, if you haven't visited the help section of your favorite application recently, you might not realize how much Help has improved in the last few years and how much time you can save by giving it a try.

Of course, the kind of questions that Help can answer are usually those geared to basic functionality. When things go awry and error messages start to populate your screen, you'll probably need more.

The newest marketing strategy is the oldest marketing strategy. It's a sign of the times that we have have to be reminded, prodded and encouraged to maximize face time with our clients/patrons. (Face Time: The Power of Person-to-Person Marketing, Information Outlook, December 2005). It's become too easy and comfortable to sit at our desks and work, taking and responding to questions via email, rather than "waste time" hand delivering documents or otherwise walking the halls of our organization. But if we don't get that face-to-face contact that's so important, we could just as easily be outsourced to some remote and distant location.

Library Week festivities are great, but it's also important to remember that year-round face time "fosters a sense of familiarity and eliminates the barriers that prevent both clients and information professionals from seeking each other out when needed."