But I've always figured that the right e-book could change all that. The fact that they haven't become mainstream among lawyers and law firms only means their development hasn't advanced to the point where they are desirable as hard copy substitutes. As soon as the right e-book solution is reached, something with the combined convenience of hard copy and the power of electronic access, things could change rapidly.
The Amazon Kindle and Sony E-Book are starting to make inroads. I've been intrigued by the Kindle for a while because of its ability to automatically download newspapers, magazines and books. Now West has released 30 books for the Kindle. That's a start.
What's the first thing that comes to my mind in terms of uses in a law firm environment? How about loading cases to the Kindle or E-Book. An attorney could take 100's of cases on a plane or to a court room without lugging paper copies. Let's take that a step further. Your attorney is on the road, maybe sitting at the airport. He/she needs to read a case that hasn't been pre-loaded on the Kindle. You could download the case and send it to his/her Kindle email address. The attorney would have it in minutes, and wouldn't have to pull out his laptop or try to read a PDF on the small screen of his Blackberry.
Thousands of books could be loaded onto a Kindle, a veritable law library. The technology is no longer an obstacle to this scenario, but publisher's licenses? That may be another matter.
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Law firms at the forefront? Really? I'm not sure I'm buying that as a blanket statements, but it does seem to apply to Bracewell. According to the article, they started out 20 years ago with Open Text, then moved to Autonomy, and are now happily searching using Recommind. That's an impressive history of search engine implementation and evolution.
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The Wonderful World of Wikis with Cindy Chick
Wikis are easily the fastest way to create mini-web sites on the Intranet or Internet, making them a good tool of choice for many knowledge applications. Wikis can be used to track the status of a project, compile deal documents with commentary, build a small intranet, or collaborate on a procedures manual.
We'll discuss the variety of wiki tools available and identify wiki pitfalls and limitations.
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If you missed the Thinking Outside of the Blog webinar, you can still register to see the recording. Click here to register.
]]>It's important to regularly check the site statistics for the sources that you diligently maintain. If you've promoted your content well, organized it in a meaningful way, and update it regularly, you'll want to know if all your effort is paying off.
The WSS site statistics are quite basic. Here's an example, from my SharePoint site, which runs on WSS:
Here's one, complete with graphs, from MOSS SharePoint. Much prettier.
For more information see:
I hope this helps.
]]>The idea is to use post-its and a file folder to organize your thoughts when preparing a presentation. I've been using it for years, and whenever I think perhaps I could forgo it, and just open up PowerPoint and start there instead, I've been sorry. PowerPoint encourages a very linear chain of thought, and without figuring out in advance the points you want to make, and organizing them outside of PowerPoint, you can end up with a disorganized mish-mash.
But it is decidedly low-tech. And if someone walks into my office and sees my file folder covered in post-its, I look far from organized. I can live with that, but the truth be told, I would like a neater, cleaner way to accomplish the same thing.
This time I'm trying something different, and using Microsoft OneNote to brainstorm and organize. And I must say, I'm liking it! I've set up one page with the same elements that Marie recommends for organizing; I have other pages within the group with screenshots and URLs. After all of this is compiled, and I know what I want to say, THEN I'll go to PowerPoint to put it all together.
I don't hear much about OneNote, but it really is a great product for keeping notes and otherwise organizing those little bits of information you're not sure what to do with.
The power of post-Its without the post-its is working for me!
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Are you hoping to follow hot topics,supplement training, market your department, or create a knowledgebase? Using a blog for these types of initiatives and more. For the most part, Blog applications are only limited by your imagination.Why? Because blogs are simple but powerful tools for organizing and sharing information that are often underestimated and underutilized.
We'll discuss the variety of ways you can use these mini-content management applications in your firm, review some of the more popular blog tools, including. You'll learn how to setup a blog, and organize your content.
I've been connecting with my professional network via LinkedIn for some time, and then there's Twitter, but I wouldn't dream of subjecting other librarians to the details and video of my latest dog agility run. So I'd been thinking a personal social network for sharing information about my dog-related activities would be fun. But what good is a social network, if none of your friends are there? Then, a couple of months ago, my friend Sally said she'd joined Facebook and suggested I'd be surprised at who I might find there. She was right. I found friends, relatives, and an easy way to keep up with them all.
I'm not the only one. The number of Americans over 35, 45, and 55 on Facebook is growing fast. In the last 60 days alone, the number of people over 35 has nearly doubled. (Inside Facebook:Number of US Facebook Users Over 35 Nearly Doubles in Last 60 Days) Women over 55 are the fastest growing demographic. Yes, this is the same Facebook that started as an online haven for college students. As I told my nephew when I found him in Facebook, it's the invasion of the baby boomers.
So how long before the kids run screaming from the virtual room because their aunts, uncles, parents and others are now watching their every move on Facebook?
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In know, I know, there aren't very many firms that suport the use of Firefox. And that's a real shame, because Jureeka is a very handy little utility, and you can only get this kind of functionality in Firefox. In this time of cost-cutting, what could be better than an easy way to retrieve case law at no charge?
One reason Firefox may not be acceptable in your firm is because the Intranet is likely optimized for Internet Explorer. But Firefox can channel Internet Explorer, so it's not impossible to get by with Firefox in a Microsoft shop.....if you can stay under the IT radar...
]]>So I've been watching for possible training opportunities and there are many to choose from. Just type "SharePoint training" into Google, and you'll find literally hundreds of companies that would love to provide you with training. But let's get real....in this economy thousands of dollars for a class and/or webinar just isn't going to happen. Though I have to admit, this one just about had me salivating.
The topic of SharePoint training came up recently on SLA's KM mailing list; the answers are listed on their KM Wiki. (Membership required.) Nina Platt recommended Sharepoint Solutions, but there's that pesky money issue. She also pointed out a webinar done by Factiva called "Taxonomy & Sharepoint: A Powerful Combination." Anything on the subject of SharePoint and taxonomies is going on my to-do list!
Microsoft offers some online training as well as webcasts and podcasts, and the price is right. (free)
I don't have to remind you that there are always tons books out there related to any major software program. Quite naturally, I'm a big fan of books, and I've been poring over a borrowed copy (thanks, Lisa!) of Microsoft® Windows® SharePoint® Services 3.0 Step by Step (Step By Step (Microsoft) and it's not bad. But there's a Murphy's Law of software-related handbooks. They tend to include a lot of good information, but never have the answer to YOUR particular question. Google often does a better job on the question answering front.
The other problem with books for these kinds of topics is that many of them concentrate more on technical aspects such as server configuration, something many of us have nothing to do with, so it's important to find one that's geared towards your particular use of the product.
Below is a quick poll on SharePoint Training. If you've found a good book, website or seminar, please share by clicking on the "comments" link above.
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The biggest downside to moving LawLIbTech is the fact that all the URLs for articles/entries have changed. So if you've linked directly to any content, you'll need to update your links. Just know that everything is still here, and it's readily accessisble by browsing the categories or simply searching.
Oh, and also, if you spot any little oddities with the site, be sure to let me know. Moves of any kind rarely happen without a few glitches here and there.
]]>In blogging's early days, blogs weren't recognized as a valuable information source but as time went on, researchers acknowledged that there was some good content out there. Now, perhaps it's Twitter that's underestimated, especially if you're looking for what's being said about a company or product.
That didn't occur to me until I ready this LawyerKM entry, Twitter as a Knowledge Base and Expertise Resources, and I started searching Twitter.
You could be excused for not realizing you can search Twitter. There is no link to the Twitter search that I could find on my Twitter home page. But go to http://search.twitter.com and give it a whirl. I searched for a fairly unique company name, which is how I found out that Bloomberg has a Twitter, as does Singapore News. Since I'm researching rumors about said company, I added an RSS feed to Google Reader so I could continue to monitor new tweets on the subject.
Here's another example for you. I'm was quite enamored with the Roomba I purchased last year. However, after months of diligently cleaning up after my dogs, the little guy just couldn't take it any more and Roomba was retired to the trash bin. I'm in the market for another one, but am hesitating because I don't want to pay $300 for a cleaning device that is just going to choke on dog fur. I searched Twitter to see how others like the cleaning robot and cool, someone mentions a new version of irobot's Pet Series Roomba has just been introduced. Life is good.
There's an advanced Twitter search in addition to the basic if you need more specificity.
If you want to know what web pages Twitterers are talking about, try Twit(URL)y, as recommended by Stephen Cohen in Top Tools for the Twittersphere, (Information Today, June 2008). I'm adding this one to my RSS reader. When I visited, a video of a couple of Repulican pundits talking on MSNBC about Sarah Palin when they thought the mic was off was at the top of the list. Now I'm watching Jon Stewart's take on Sarah Palin. Okay, I could do this all day.
Everybody's talking...
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