HUMAN LAW MEDIATION

Wiki book - Key contributors join the fold

I am very pleased to inform you that a number of key people are now helping with the book which I am now editing and co-writing on blogging and social media has expanded and so has their responsibility.

Martin Farley who works at Freshfields is going to take responsibility for the chapter on collaboration. Like most the other contributors he has already made some helpful comments on the wiki.

Andrew Mills and Alex Newson from the award winning IMPACT blog are writing on other social media.(non blogs)

The Mills & Reeve IP team at Naked Law with some additional help from the some other lawyers at their firms are going to deal with the chapter on law.

I am also in contact with Colin Samuels who is the author of the award winning blog, Infamy or Praise and has also kindly agreed to do some more work on the book.

If you would like to contribute in any way to the book, please feel free to contact me. 

All contributors receive a mention in the front of the book.

We are staring at a deadline in the middle/latter part of this year.

Delia's newsletter is on its way to subscribers

Delia Venables, bi-monthly newsletter is coming out later this week and it will cover the following areas:

1. Who needs an IT department? This is the  question asked by Steven Bradley as he discusses the many IT functions which can now be outsourced, including data storage, practice management, web site hosting, telecoms, typing and dictation.

2. Many lawyers have been watching the  development of the "free access to law" movement with great interest; it started with AustLII, continued with BAILII (and several others) and now includes many of the important jurisdictions  of the world. Graham Greenleaf, Andrew Mowbray and Philip Chung were the founders of this movement and they have honoured the newsletter by  providing a "milestone" article on how it all fits together.

3. Many firms have fee-earner profiles on their  web sites but, quite honestly, most of these would fail to make a potential client feel that this is the "right" lawyer for them. Alison Hunt tells us how to get the necessary information  from the fee-earner. It's easy really, if you know how.

4. Matthew Broadbent describes how the internet has changed the way that law firms recruit their trainees.

5. Eduardo Ustaran explores the data protection  challenges faced by businesses operating user generated websites - those commonly known as Web  2.0. What rights do the contributors have? He covers the interpretation of personal data and how the fair processing rules apply. He thinks that the evolving legal framework will be tested by some of those pioneers currently trying out new business models.

6. The topic of wikis is explored by Paul  Robertson, of New Zealand firm Heaney & Co., who describes how they use an internal wiki to gather together the firm's collective wisdom on their specialist area - the liability of local authorities. Then Nick Holmes returns to the theme of "the law wiki dream" as raised by Richard Susskind last year and looks at some of the assets that the UK legal community has, to make it work.

To subscribe, please contact Delia.

We live in interesting times

Consider this post by Leon Benjamin :

"Most Western economies face a wide range of issues related to ageing populations and the retirement costs of baby boombers.   Many blue chip companies cannot replace the talent that will exit their companies in the next 5-10 years, and have not considered the possibility of retaining them on demand, deploying them in a  fractional way that allows the 'ex-employee' to choose their unique work/retirement balance.  How much more pain does everyone have to be in before these new organisational approaches are adopted by organisations of every kind?  Why aren't they doing it now?  One of the perceived 'challenges' is the transparency and openness required to make this mode of work feasible.  Inside the corporation, it would be possible for everyone to see and know what everyone else is working on (or not, as the case may be).  This is difficult to achieve operationally because of rigid command structures and culturally, because the nature of the employer-employee contract does not reward or incentivise in anyway, behaviours that allow people to openly share. 

Perhaps an employment law expert can re-work the ethos of the Open Source General Public Licence and Creative Commons into a new type of employment contract?  In any case, with India, China, Russia and Eastern Europe's low wage economies and highly educated populations providing services of every kind and on every scale (India's Infosys received 1.4 million job applications for employment last year alone), the only way to compete will be to adopt alternative organisational models.  Interestingly, Small & Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) and micro-businesses which are collectively the biggest employers in Western economies are increasingly turning to these models of work to take cost out of their businesses, but also to work more productively.  When the very clear cut case histories start to roll in, companies will find it hard to ignore these new ways of working.

There must now surely be a case for corporations and  government institutions to completely re-think the way they source, manage and contract with their 'human resources'.  Everyone needs to realise that fractional work is not only economically viable for all parties, and that traditional models of employment are not only unproductive, but inhumane and in some cases, barbaric."

The nerds are right

Richard Susskind has come up with a bit of gem in his Times Law column: "As internet users teeter on the edge of another new era, will the legal fraternity, technology-wise, step up to the plate in 2007? The new era is being described as that of mass collaboration and peer production.....Users are becoming providers. Recipients are now participants. We are finding radically new ways to communicate, to produce information and to interact with one another. And once again, lawyers are faced with the task of assessing what a bamboozling array of innovations may mean for the law. The Luddites will say it is all irrelevant. The nerds will claim it is transformational. The nerds are right."

Hat tip - The excellent Lo-fi Librarian

"Traditional old-style information system departments do not stand a cat in cyber-hell’s chance of winning"

Consider this article in Computing Business and look at this extract:

"IT directors have a choice: tap into the energy and ideas coming from this revolution, or stick their heads in the sand and pretend it will not happen. It is a face-off battle, and traditional old-style information system departments do not stand a cat in cyber-hell’s chance of winning.

The underlying cause of the generational mismatch is what analyst Gartner calls the consumerisation of IT, as technologies with origins in the consumer world infiltrate the enterprise. Instant messaging (IM), Skype and free applications – such as desktop search and the internet – are just the tip of a consumer-driven iceberg.

‘I absolutely believe the trend of consumerisation of IT is one of the big change areas in how IT will be delivered over the next 10 years,’ says Reuters CIO David Lister. Reuters is making a huge effort to spot and adopt new ways of working using consumer-led technology.

Consumer applications of technology are succeeding where traditional IT has failed. Peter Cochrane, co-founder of ConceptLabs, and formerly chief technologist at BT says Wiki technology, for example, is now being used for knowledge management. ‘We’ve had people talking about knowledge management in the enterprise for decades and out pops Wikipedia.’"

Human Law readers can have a 20% discount on a top social media conference

On Wednesday 21st & Thursday 22nd February, Unicom are organising a top conference in London on social media .

The speakers attending include Lee Bryant of Headshift, Phil Bradley, Suw Charman, Ruth Ward of Allen & Overy and myself.

It really looks like a great event and you are entitled to a 20% discount if you mention that you are reader of this blog if you want to book.

I am also doing a post conference blog workshop after the event.

To clarify, I have no financial stake if you book or not.   

Memo to CEO - Ignore your 1950s thinking IT Department & listen to the consumer

I read recently in the Economist & Telegraph about  how consumer behaviour is influencing IT Departments and firms in the marketplace.

About time too.

Consider this post on Headshift.

"The enterprise is a lost world full of large, lumbering dinosaurs who evolved during the early dot.com boom of the 1990's and who survive by subjugating humans within their CRM/CMS/DMS/LMS/ERP systems, and also because they are too big and expensive to kill. Even though modern companies see themselves as organic, network-based entities, the systems that people are supposed to use for communication and collaboration are based on an IT-driven command and control model that is grounded in 1950's management thinking.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, where people don't have to use crippled centrally managed IE6 browsers, the dot.com bust swept away a generation of software predators and ordinary people began making tools for themselves. When the 1990's bubble burst, developers went back to basics to create tools like blogger, movable type and the early wiki platforms. They found that if these tools all connected together, they could communicate and share more easily, and they began building a new world based on what has been dubbed an 'architecture of participation.' Now you can download free tools that do 80% of what companies paid millions for in the 90's, and you can make them do whatever you want.

For the past few years, transport mechanisms like RSS and the connected conversations of weblogs have been creating a rudimentary knowledge ecology that has achieved what so-called Knowledge Management failed to do within the enterprise. The spread of open source platforms provides a viable alternative to expensive enterprise systems, and these social tools are infinitely more adaptable. Yet somehow, inside the enterprise, managers continue to buy the arguments about process, workflow, security and control that software vendors use to keep them in the stone age. Some organisations are spending 80% or more of knowledge sharing budgets simply on email and document storage, and yet they know this is just a finger in the dyke. Vendors sell features, not value, and consultants sell fear."

Is there a need for a company to exist?

Consider this on the LawBiz Blog on an issue that I have covered previously namely, business models:

"In today’s USAToday,(27th December) Section B, there is an interesting review of three new books. If you believe the messages, you may have to change your business model.

Kevin Maney, their technology columnist, starts with an arresting comment: “The ‘company,’ as we’ve known it for almost a century, is about to go the way of vinyl albums, floppy disks and perked coffee.”

The economist Ronald Coase asserted in 1937 that companies exist because of transaction costs. Assembling the right people and resources inside an organization is the most efficient way to address tasks. Today, however, technology may challenge that method of organization. And three books address new technological methods of creating commerce. They promise to be the hot, new works of 2007.

See Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams.

“Doing business is becoming no more efficient inside a company vs. doing the same stuff outside a company – or without a company at all. ... So if a core reason companies exist is to lower transaction costs, what happens if that reason goes away? Companies could run into an identity crisis that will hit them like the talkies hit Charlie Chaplain.”

Also see The Starfish and the Spider by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom, and Open Business Models: How to Thrive in the New Innovation Landscape by Henry Chesbrough."

More predictions from Alex Barnett for 2007

I have previously posted about Alex Barnett's summary of predictions for 2007.

He has got some more here based on Richard MacManus and his collegaues publishing their web predictions for 2007 .

Here are 2 of his observations which I think are particularly worthy of attention. The words are Alex's :

"RSS will go mainstream in a big way"

It's funny, but we've been saying this for years now. However, with the integration of RSS in IE7, Vista and Office 2007 and other mass-use consumer products, it might actually happen (even if users don't realize they are using RSS). Arguably, it has already gone mainstream in the online publishing world and web development space - almost every commercial site I've visit these days provides RSS feeds.

"The consumerization of the enterprise trend will start to infiltrate corporate IT"

Dion Hinchcliffe's review of Enterprise 2.0 in 2006 sums up the progress made this year and highlights some of the cultural issues inloved here. I agree with R/WW and Dion that we'll continue to see the technologies and trends of the consumer web bleed into the behind-the-firewall space. Specifically, more lightweight development and web orientated design patterns (such as REST) will rise in popularity amongst the professional developer community in the coming year. Devs are lazy - they really do want to do more with less and do it quicker.

The Time Person of The Year is You

Every year Time nominates its person of the year. This year that person of the year is you.

The Editor of Time writes why that is so "It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes. "

Hat tip - Kevin O'Keefe

The destruction of the newspaper industry continues - Guess where the readers are heading

Read this post by Roy Greenslade on the latest newspaper circulation figures for November which he describes as "horrendous."

He writes:

"Newspapers are suffering for losses of sales and readers. Meanwhile, there is clear evidence (with figures soon, I promise) that website audiences are growing. When are advertisers going to follow the eyeballs?"

The strength of participatory media

Consider these 2 separate stories and notice the linked theme:

Kevin O'Keefe at Lexblog writes  that 6 of top 20 websites are driven by user generated content.

As he says " Should not be lost on anyone that seven of top websites as measured by unique visitors are driven by user generated content. They are not driven by content from the company publishing the website. Adding Amazon, which I think took off because of user reviews, would make for seven.

The six:

• MySpace
• Ebay
• Wikipedia
• About.com
• YouTube
• Geocities"

The net is about empowering people. People love to participate, as opposed to be talked to."

Alternatively go to the Sunday Times and read this story on the dramatic rise of social networking sites amongst teenagers.

"This is the other point about social-networking sites — the degree of engagement by their community of users. Millions of people spend hours working on their profiles: designing the page, describing their interests, writing weblogs and uploading photos. "

Web 2.0 - What is going to happen in the year 2007?

Alex Barnett, former professional cricketer and Manager at Microsoft Corp, Redmond has compiled a list of predictions for 2007 in the Web 2.0, Tech and online field made by others.

Here they are together with Alex's analysis and his pick of the excerpts:

Web 2.0 Predictions, by dtelepathy: "You should iterate, not pontificate."

Web 2.0 Summit Predictions, by Ian Kennedy: "My prediction is that next year's Web 2.0 Summit will be much more a deal-making platform for the VCs and tickets will be in the neighborhood of $5k - $10k and will feature a select group of startups and executives invited in by the organizers to talk about the latest trends."

Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2006, by Gartner: "Ajax is also rated as high impact and capable of reaching maturity in less than two years. Mashup is rated as moderate on the Hype Cycle (definition: provides incremental improvements to established processes that will result in increased revenue or cost savings for an enterprise), but is expected to hit mainstream adoption in less than two years. Location-aware technologies should hit maturity in less than two years."

Web Development in 2007, by Read/WriteWeb, Sitepoint and Ektron: "Most web technologies will apparently be used more - in particular Ajax, which next year is predicted to surpass Flash for the first time."

Online media predictions for 2007, by Cory Treffiletti: "Google’s technology will be applied to UGC and we’ll find ways to ensure brands are being shepherded through this type of content. Archive television catalogues will go online with burn-to-order biz models. Social networks will embrace the long tail. Personal start pages will rise in importance again (with behavioral targeting)."

Video Ad Spending in 2007, by Jimmy Lim: "Online video advertising spending in the US will nearly triple to $640 million in 2007, surging way past this year’s $225 million mark, according to a report by market research firm, eMarketer."

Media Predictions in 2007, by enigma_foundry: "the use of DRM will still fail to stop widespread copyright infringement."

Top ten alternative marketing trends for 2007, by Drew Neisser, CEO of Renegade Marketing: "In 2007 marketers will enhance their ability to defend against potentially ruinous blog attacks by dedicating resources to blog monitoring and blog response. The role of Blog Monitor will finally become a full time position in the communications department, as opposed to the occasional activity of a lone blog enthusiast."

Small Business Technology Trends for 2007, by Hoovers: "Beyond maintaining a perfunctory website, the biggest must have for a modern small business is a search engine results maximization strategy."

RSS in 2007, by Elie Ashery: "Toward the end of 2007, traditional batch and blasters will BEGIN to consider RSS on a mass scale for marketing purposes in addition to using email."

More RSS in 2007, by Read/WriteWeb: "Any way you look at it, 2007 is shaping up to be a BIG year for RSS!"

Microformats in 2007, by Alex Barnett :-) : "2006 will be a hot year for microformats, but 2007 will be even hotter."

Web Analytics Spending Trends 2007 by Forrester's Megan Burns: "We expect spending to continue to grow next year, although more modestly than in the past, with A/B testing seeing a bigger lift than other categories and licensed software starting to slow. The most interesting change came in plans to increase analytics headcount."

Memory Trends 2007, by DocMemory: "Looks like the mainstream will be DDR2 and DDR3 memory...Overall, we predict that 2007 will be a good year for memory vendors and consumers."

PC sales in 2007, by Eric Cheshier: I believe that analysts are underestimating the number of customers waiting for the release of Windows Vista, and margins won't be as low as they have been in the recent past thanks to high demand. We should see some huge numbers coming from PC makers in Q1 2007."

Top Enterprise Security Trends for 2007, by Burton Group: "Another tipping point in the industry is application security. SOA heralds a sea-change in software deployment and efforts are underway to secure web services."

Data Storage Predictions in 2007, by 300 storage industry professionals: "De-duplication will be a customer requirement in more than 50% of new deployments sometime between now and the end of 2007."

7 Predictions about Macworld 2007, by Michael at applegazette: "I think Macworld 2007’s “One More Thing” will be the long rumored Apple iPhone."

75% of all internet connections in the UK are broadband

I have read this post on the OPEN blog written by Antony Mayfield which links to the Office of National Statistics report for September 2006 showing that 75% of all internet connections in the UK are now broadband. 

As Anthony writes "It means that when considering the average UK web user we now presume that they have an always-on, fast connection....Amazing"

Here are some PowerPoint slides of the Legal HR Forum

Yesterday I gave a workshop to the Law Management Section Legal HR Forum at the Hilton Hotel, Paddington, London.

Here are the slides that I used which I hope may be of interest.

Download hr_forum.ppt

 

Welcome to Web 3.0

If you are struggling to get your head around what Web 2.0 is, do not worry, you can always try to deal with Web 3.0 instead. Consider this article in the New York Times: 

"Web 2.0, which describes the ability to seamlessly connect applications (like geographic mapping) and services (like photo-sharing) over the Internet, has in recent months become the focus of dot-com-style hype in Silicon Valley. But commercial interest in Web 3.0 — or the “semantic Web,” for the idea of adding meaning — is only now emerging.

The classic example of the Web 2.0 era is the “mash-up” — for example, connecting a rental-housing Web site with Google Maps to create a new, more useful service that automatically shows the location of each rental listing.

In contrast, the Holy Grail for developers of the semantic Web is to build a system that can give a reasonable and complete response to a simple question like: “I’m looking for a warm place to vacation and I have a budget of $3,000. Oh, and I have an 11-year-old child.”

Under today’s system, such a query can lead to hours of sifting — through lists of flights, hotel, car rentals — and the options are often at odds with one another. Under Web 3.0, the same search would ideally call up a complete vacation package that was planned as meticulously as if it had been assembled by a human travel agent."

Online sales to boom

I have previously posted about the rise of the digital advertising market.

Consider this article in the Sunday Telegraph which informs us that online sales in the UK will rise by 40 per cent to £42bn in 2007, up from £30bn this year, according to a leading internet research firm.

The article states "James Roper, the chief executive of IMRG, said that the expected 40 per cent growth in 2007 reflects rocketing broadband penetration and a growing acceptance of the internet as a secure method of shopping. Similar growth levels have been seen this year.

"More consumers are getting broadband. It is huge. When people have broadband they shop online, it is as simple as that. And the supply side from retailers is really just starting," said Roper. The IMRG expects 20 per cent of all retail purchases to be made over the internet by 2010. Currently the figure is less than 10 per cent."

Wikis to become mainstream collaboration tools in at least 50% of companies by 2009

There is clear evidence that internal blogging tools and wikis are acting as an e-mail killer within projects.

Consider this article from Business Week  which was published in November 2005.

"Though the likeliest scenario is that e-mail will remain the prime tool for notification and one-to-one communication, "a huge percentage of collaboration will occur outside of e-mail, with a continued rise in these other tools," says Clay Shirky, associate teacher in the interactive telecommunications program at New York University. "There's an enormous untapped value to be gotten by getting collaboration right."

Although all these tools are gaining momentum, it's easy-to-use and practically free wikis that proponents say offer the promise of collaboration beyond e-mail, even though big editing kinks remain and other quirks and security flaws are sure to surface. Internet research firm Gartner Group predicts that wikis will become mainstream collaboration tools in at least 50% of companies by 2009."

Human Resource Legal Professionals - See you this Tuesday

Just a brief post to let you know that I will be doing a workshop on blogging and social media on Tuesday(21st) afternoon at the Law Management Section of the Law Society in London.

I am informed that the event has been over-subscribed and that it will be re-run on the 1st February 2007.

The event will feature presentations on the strategic importance of HR as a fundamental element of your business planning and tackle the thorny problems facing the profession today. It will provide delegates with an invaluable insight into the solutions they might adopt and practical guidance as to how to introduce change in the management of staff.

It is designed for practice managers, managing partners, senior partners overseeing the HR strategy and dedicated HR professionals looking to build on their knowledge and expertise. Speakers and sessions include:

• Keynote address: Tina Williams, Senior Partner, Fox Williams
• Employment law update: Jonathan Whittaker, Employment Partner, SAS Daniels
• Staff retention: Rachel Dobson, Director of Support Services and Equity Partner, Pannone LLP
• Appraisal methods: Julia Hayhoe, Vice President, Hildebrandt Institute 
• Mobility in the market: Fiona Westwood, Westwood Associates (February speaker TBC)
• Who runs your firm – managers or solicitors?: Frances Dewhurst, freelance consultant
• Equality and diversity: Manjot Dhanjal, Director of Equality and Diversity, The Law Society (February speaker TBC)
• Panel discussion

To view the programme, please click in the file below:

Download programme.doc

   

What Bill has been saying

Bill Gates of Microsoft is a man who I think we should pay attention to when he speaks and some of his words of wisdom have been picked up in a brief article for the Observer. David Smith of the newspaper caught up with him in Brussels.

As Smith writes "For Gates, the next revolution is not in the content of websites but the way we physically interact with computers, with keyboard and mouse giving way to speech, touch and mobility.

'The pace of innovation over these next 10 years will be much faster than what we have seen in the past,' he said. Innovations on display at the grandly named Brussels Microsoft Executive Briefing Centre include a mirror which can remember and display people who have looked in it, computers capable of examining and telling the difference between objects, and a smart surface on which documents, maps and videos can be manipulated by hand gestures.

'I'm just sitting here, pulling up the information, showing it to people, and there's no paperwork, there's no old information,' enthused Gates. 'I'm able to access all that information just through these hand gestures. Every desk, every meeting room table, will have that technology in it, you'll just take it for granted.' "

Advertising revenues of digital media boom

There is an article in the Sunday Telegraph about companies embracing digital media. Robert Watts writes:

"Welcome to the brave and highly inventive new world of 21st-century advertising. British companies are embracing websites, games, viral emails and a host of other digital media to get their message across.

Meanwhile, they are abandoning what some describe as the "old economy" media: television, newspaper, radio and cinema ads.

According to industry-wide data, TV advertising spending will be down 7 per cent in 2006. National newspaper advertising will fall by 3 per cent; that in regional papers will sink by 6 per cent. ITV's advertising revenues fell by 13 per cent this year and are expected to fall by another 7 per cent next year.

By contrast the advertising revenues of the digital media are booming – 45 per cent higher this year than last."

Recommended blog - Charlene Li of Forrester

A very good blog is Charlene Li's blog.

Charlene works for Forrester Research and according to her biography she "examines the ways new technology will affect how companies deliver information, content, and advertising, as well as how these changes will affect the businesses that provide these services. Charlene's current research agenda focuses on marketing trends, consumer search, social computing (blogs, RSS, podcasting, and social networking), consumer portals, media site design, local media, and online recruitment."

Some posts of note include her take on Google's purchase of YouTube, calculating the return on investment in blogging and guidance on creating a blogging policy.

She is clearly on top of the game.

Memo to marketing managers - How aligned is your brand to reality?

This article is dated May 2006 but in my view is one of the best ever written on why blogging is so important. It is written by Julian Smith who I understand has now left Jupiter Research when he wrote it.

A key point deals with the potential vulnerability of brands.

"With the adoption of content-creation tools democratising the publishing of information and the parallel growth in search engine usage democratising access to this information, consumers are increasingly being exposed to informal, peer-produced content, alongside formal, professionally created content.

For marketers, this has the potential to significantly impact brand communications if consumer content refers to experiences with products or services that are incongruous and misaligned with official marketing messages.

When a company's marketing story differs from the one being told by online consumers, a credibility gap will emerge that could have dire consequences on brand perception and favourability."

Intel enters social media zone

As Matthew from Blogging4Business informs us, Intel has launched SuiteTwo - a blog, wiki, RSS and social networking enterprise platform for large companies.

Interestingly, Intel has developed some partnerships with Six Apart (Movable Type blog software), SocialText (Wikis) and Newsgator (Enterprise quality RSS feeds).

Web browsers - Which is better - Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox 2.0?

Robert J. Ambrogi has written an article on the battle of the web browsers with both IE and Firefox receiving upgrades. Which one does he think is better?

Technorati is now tracking 57 million blogs

Dave Sifry's state of the blogosphere is out.

As he writes "As you can see, growth in the numbers of blogs tracked by Technorati continues to grow briskly. While the doubling of the blogosphere has slowed a bit (every 236 days or so, here's the historical data) , interest in blogging remains considerable. About 55% of all blogs are active, which means that they have been updated at least once in the last 3 months."

Other key points picked up include:

• Technorati is now tracking more than 57 Million blogs.
• Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size approximately every 230 days.
• The globalization of the blogosphere continues. The data appears to show both English and Spanish languages are a more universal blog language than the other two most dominant language, Japanese and Chinese, which seem to be more regionally localized.

It will be interesting to see if with Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 now offering RSS feeds whether that will see the rate of blogs rising even more. It was my view that it would but as we all know predicting future technology trends can lead to you looking a little silly sometimes.

Recommended article on blogging

A cracking article on blogging appears on law.com - Can law firms keep the blogosphere at bay? by Philip Gordon & Katherine Cooper Franklin of Littler Mendelson, P.C.

As they write "You may not know about it, but it is happening: At least one, and probably more, of your business' employees has entered the "blogosphere." The world of blogs, or interactive diaries posted on the Internet, has expanded exponentially over the past 3 years, and "bloggers" cannot seem to resist the urge to talk about their jobs. These sometimes quasi-journalistic postings raise a host of concerns for employers, such as protecting a hard-won public image, safeguarding confidential information and preventing defamation of managers and co-workers."

I agree with the concern about the image of the firm. 

I particularly liked the exploration of the potential liability for employers which are selective prosecution and inconsistent enforcement. For example, a female employee may be able to make a claim for gender discrimination based upon the employer's failure to discipline or to impose equivalent discipline on a male employee who posted a blog containing similar content.

I think the authors home on the biggest issue related to blogging and employee legal fall out namely the PR damage.

"Putting aside the potential legal consequences of terminating an employee based upon blogging activity, employers should also be prepared for the possible public relations fallout of such terminations. Many of the employees who have been "dooced," fired for their blogging activity, have become celebrities -- at least among the millions of adults in the U.S. who create and read blogs. Moreover, a recent court decision indicates that employers will not be able to easily shut the spigot once an employee who is terminated starts to blog about the termination. In the first case of its kind, the federal district court in Manhattan refused to enjoin a terminated concierge for a Park Avenue apartment building from blogging about the events leading up to her termination, and testimonials from the building's tenants. See, Bynog v. SL Green Realty Corp."

Now that is the nightmare scenario - You not only an fire an employee, then he or she starts blogging about the whole charming story. Not very nice and something Google would chew over in the search engine ranking for permanent consumption.

Why blogging matters

Please consider this post by Eric Kintz at the HP executive blog. Look at these 6 different perspectives of blogging.

Some excerpts include:

"The blogosphere has disrupted the economics of publishing, dramatically lowering the costs of content creation (most bloggers are not paid), content production (free blogging platforms) and circulation development (free links by other bloggers). This has allowed in turn a micro-segmentation of customer markets that was not economically viable in traditional publishing business models and the rise of new influencers, who are closer to those markets and are in the best position to appeal to their specific needs."

and

"The utilization of blogs is critical, particularly in a growing world where social currency is more and more important. They are powerful communication and business tools which can connect with a variety of audiences for your brands/products/services. These audiences range from core customers to prospects to influencers to investors."

Source of post - The Greatest American Lawyer

Happy Birthday Human Law blog

Just a brief message to let you know that the Human Law blog is now 1 year old.

I have been happy with the development of the blog which has really raised my profile from nowhere and has enabled me to develop a useful dialogue with many people.

In particular I would like to thank the following for their support:

Within the UK, Peter Wainman and his team at Naked Law, Andrew Mills & Alex Newson at IMPACT, Nick Holmes from Binary Law, Mike Semple Piggott, Jeremy Phillips,  the ubiquitous Delia Venables and finally the rest of the small but growing legal blogging community within the UK.

Elsewhere I am grateful for the support that I have received from Kevin O'Keefe, Diane Levin, Dan Hull and Jennifer Collins, Managing Director of ALM's Law.com whose team allowed me to join their network of bloggers. 

As some of you may have gathered, this blog has taken more emphasis on social media recently. If you have any feedback on this emphasis or anything else about this blog, please let me know.    

Recommended RSS Reader

There are 2 ways to updates yourself on what is going on the blogosphere.

You can do it manually or you can do it via RSS.

A great RSS reader is called GreatNews.

Thank you to Andrew Mills of IMPACT for the tip.

What people want to know about social computing

Forrester have recently been holiding a Consumer Forum on Humanizing the Digital Experience in Chicago.

In this post, they point out that they received 38  questions from the audience during the "Social Computing and the Consumer-Generated Experience" panel with Stephen Kaufer of TripAdvisor, Ben Nelson of Snapfish, and Michael Wiley of Edelman, moderated by Forrester's Charlene Li.

Some of them included:

• If SC is presently defined by content "sharing" (e.g., music, photos, referrals) -- what is the next phase of SC behavior and how will it be monetized?
• What technology provider can we use to enable social networking that provides a complete solution?
• Can reviews on a branded site be as credible as reviews on a 3rd party site?
• Have you observed a "successful" attempt at re-positioning a brand via social computing -- if so, how?
• What controls do consumer review sites put in place to ensure "flaming" posts are authentic?  Is this a long-term risk for SC?
• What's one big "DON'T DO THIS"?
• What are the top 3 best practices for moderating user-generated content?
• What's the worst that could happen if we let consumers comment on our brand without our control?
• In plain language, what can a product developer/manager do to induce a purchase decision in these new interactive channels?
• How do you encourage the CEO of a Fortune 500 to blog?
• As Internet-based services focus more on "local", how will that impact corporate social media strategies?  Should we focus on the Internet as a global channel or focus on local? 
• How do you measure the ROI on social networking?

Source of post - Simon Rogers of Market Sentinel   

Reminder on Blogging Consultancy services

Just a post to remind you of the blogging consultancy that I am offering.

It is a fixed fee service focused on providing you with the tools so that you can be confident enough to blog effectively on the web.  A satisfaction guarantee is provided - If you are not happy with the service, you are entitled to a full refund.

Level A – Professional input with self help for setting up your blog

• 30 minute telephone consultancy on blogging
• Physically set up on a TypePad/WordPress Account
• Set up of categories, profile and about page
• Guide to blogging pdf booklet
• 14 days E-mail with 1 hours additional telephone consultancy

Price - £495 plus Vat

Level B – Professional and personal service for setting up your blog

• 60 minute in-person meeting at London or your offices(which are within a 40 mile radius of  City London) to assess your blogging needs
• Set up on a TypePad/WordPress Account
• Set up of categories, profile, links and e-mail updates & RSS feed
• 3 month E-Mail coaching and up to 3 hours telephone consultancy
• Guide to blogging pdf booklet

Price - £995 plus Vat

Level C - Full professional and personal service from start to finish

• 90 minute in-person meeting at London( as above etc)including presentation which sets out the parameters of blogging and podcasting
• Set up on a TypePad/WordPress Account
• How to keep the blog legal
• Guidance given  to creating podcasts & other extras such as polls, e-mail updates, RSS, Skypecasts & other multimedia widgets
• Guide to blogging pdf booklet
• Coaching on content and on blogging convention
• How to deal with online criticism
• Up to 6 hours telephone consultancy and unlimited e-mail support
• In person 60 minute meetings given at 3 and 6 month increments
• How to optimise search engine ranking and to make your blog popular by linking
• Final 500 word confidential written report summarising blogging performance   

£1995 plus Vat -Payments made over 3 instalments. 

Please note-

• Disbursements fees can be added if you want a TypePad account and if you wish to directly integrate the blog into your website
• Levels A & B are entitled to purchase the legal advice relating to blogging for an extra £150 plus Vat fee
• For US Dollar prices, multiply the sterling figure by 1.9
• WordPress and TypePad are blogging hosting companies

Please e-mail Justin Patten at justin@human-law.co.uk or call 44 (0)1920 462202 to discuss more.

The Open way to communication

A very good blog worth checking out is Open written by Antony Mayfield.

In this post, he picks up some words of wisdom from Euan Semple who gives some views on social computing and change in the ways large companies communicate with themselves.

In particular...."people are people and share the need to communicate with each other to get things done and the desire to belong to something bigger than themselves that is worthwhile. Even if social computing is not universally appropriate it does tend to be almost universally attractive....."and ......"The number of people for whom blogs, wikis and forums are anathema is reducing rapidly and given that most of my corporate audiences, unlike conference attendees, are not self-selecting this represents a considerable shift over the years I have been doing this."

It is worth a look. It shows the way things are changing.

Six great blog articles

Top United States bloggger and recent graduate of Ohio State University, Ian Best of 3L Epiphany has got a great post picking up on 6 Great Blog Articles and then linking to them.

The journals include The Financial Times, The Economist and the ABA Journal.

This is worthy of consideration as it illustrates the way that blogging is changing politics, business, law and society.

The shift in power from the big to the small firm

Kevin O'Keefe has a good post regarding the issue of power shifting to the smaller firm and niches.

He writes about a talk he had with business blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett regarding what has been termed a legal power shift from large to smaller firms.

The particular example given is Dan Harris, and his China Law Blog and the fact that he does not "spend much (if anything) on traditional PR or marketing, yet he is now known as one of the leading experts on China and is quoted frequently by the mainstream media."

This is worth a look.

P.S (16/10)As well as Dan Hull making comment, (see trackback), Carolyn Elefant of My Shingle has given some thoughts as well on this discussion.

DivorceSolicitor enters the blogosphere

Many thanks to Delia Venables who has informed me that an interesting weblog has emerged called DivorceSolicitor. In fact it has been going for about 3 months now.

It looks a very welcome addition to the blogosphere and as Delia notes it uses lots of photos!

It is written by Lynne Bastow, of Bastows Divorce Solicitors and she poses questions like "Can one lawyer represent both of us?"

What Richard has been reading

Richard Susskind is in my view one of the greatest IT/legal experts of his generation and he always has some useful information to provide.

This is a little dated but he revealed over the summer period two books one should read.

As Richard writes "The first is A Whole New Mind, by Daniel Pink (www.cyanbooks.com), who argues that the power base in society is shifting from the lawyers, computer programmers and number crunchers of the information age, whose work will be automated or outsourced to more empathetic, big-picture individuals who will dominate the impending “conceptual age”."

And then Richard goes on..."Much weightier (in bulk and substance) is The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil (www.penguin.com). This explores the future of humanity, prompted by staggering advances in computation, genetics, nanotechnology and robotics. The main lesson is about the pace of technology change — those who assert that BlackBerry machines and Google are the last word in IT should know that far more powerful technologies are on the way."

I am reading both books. Both could change your perception of life. The books are very important.

Fancy giving your staff a BlackBerry?

According to the Independent "British employers are being warned they could face multi-million-pound legal actions from BlackBerry-addicted staff on a similar scale as class law-suits taken against tobacco companies. Research by the University of Northampton has revealed that one-third of BlackBerry users showed signs of addictive behaviour similar to an alcoholic being unable to pass a pub without a drink."

To read the article, click here.

Blawg Review

Blawg Review is a blog carnival, a travelling post about a topic or theme, for everyone interested in law. As the Blawg Review weblog states, there's Carnival of the Capitalists, concerning business and economics, while Grand Rounds is about medicine and healthcare, and Blawg Review has topics discussed by lawyers, law students and law professors.

The blogger that puts together the Blawg Review carnival each week is called the "host" and this coming Monday, I will be the host.

As I believe this is the first occasion that the Blawg Review will be hosted by a British blogger, I will try to give this review a British theme but I will be covering material from all over the world as well.

Blawg Review Submission Guidelines

The deadline for submitting posts is 11.59 GMT on Saturday 7th October

You are welcome and encouraged to submit blog posts by other people which you’d like to recommend as well as your own writing.

Click on this Blawg Review submission link to submit your article

See you Monday.

Business - welcome to a volatile world

Fortune Magazine(which I subscribe to) has an article written by Geoffrey Colvin highlighting how much of a competitive and chaotic world we live in

As he writes: "How often does a model have to change in today's world? "Until recently, very few companies have had to change ... every three to four years, but now many of them do," says Adrian Slywotzky of Mercer Management Consulting, co-author of business bestsellers The Profit Zone and How to Grow When Markets Don't. "Every eight to ten years--that's heaven today."

From inside a company, today's world is a maelstrom of changing markets, technologies, customers, and products that are whirling so fast they just can't be ordered in a manager's mind. Look at Standard & Poor's ratings of equity risks, which range from A+ for the least risky companies to D for bankrupt ones. In 1985 about 41% of companies earned the least risky ratings, while 35% were in the high-risk grouping. By 2006 only 13% were highly rated, and 73% were high-risk. That's what economists call a secular shift--a big, broad increase in uncertainty and volatility. "

Recommended pdf- The executive blogger's guide to building a nest of blogs, wikis & RSS

A very good introductory guide to social media appears in this file below. It was prepared by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide.

To download it, click below:

Download Insidewpp_Insights_OPR_OgilvyPRBlogs_05_05.pdf

I am speaking at two events connected with the Law Society in November

I am just letting you know that I will be speaking at the main Law Society building on IT issues on Thursday 2nd November from 11 a.m at Chancery Lane. The invitation came from Rupert White of Law Society Gazette .

Later in the month on Tuesday 21st November I will be doing a workshop at The Law Management Section HR Section on blogging and social media.

Overall, this annual HR Forum event will feature presentations on the strategic importance of HR as a fundamental element of business planning and tackle the thorny problems facing the profession today such as age discrimination, stress, retention and data protection.

The event is designed for practice managers, managing partners, senior partners overseeing HR and dedicated HR professionals. It will be chaired by Alison Downie, LMS Executive Committee Chair and is a partner specialising in employment and contract law and joint head of the employment department at Bindman and Partners. To view  a link to this latter event, please click here.

Web 2.0 Tools

Robert J. Ambrogi of law.com has a useful article regarding some web 2.0 products.

This section below particularly got my attention regarding project management.

"Projects fail not from a lack of charts or reports, but from a lack of communication and collaboration. This is the premise of Basecamp.

It provides key project-management tools such as task lists, scheduling, time tracking, whiteboards, file sharing and messaging. A basic version is free. From there, prices range from $12 to $149 a month, depending on numbers of projects, storage space and features. Higher-end plans include data encryption.

A similar tool is Central Desktop, which describes itself as a place to "create online workspaces for business teams." Use it to share documents and files, track and search "conversations," coordinate and schedule tasks, and plan milestones. Stored documents are searchable and protected through encryption. A free version allows two workspaces with up to five members each and storage up to 25 megabytes. Advanced versions range from $25 to $249 a month and allow for up to 50 workspaces with as many as 100 members. "

Has anyone used any of these tools? It appears the significance to me is that these tools can mean people using blogging rather than e-mail as communication tools but will lawyers resist due to privacy fears?

Two new e-books on the legal web

Nick Holmes & Delia Venables have just released two new e-book on issues relating to the legal web. More details can be found here.

As Nick points out on his blog, Changing Practice for Barristers has five chapters on Changing Technologies, Changing Practice Management, Marketing Online, Providing Legal Resources Online and Changing Libraries. Each chapter includes two articles by experts in their fields.

Web Tools for Lawyers is authored by him and provides guidance on web services that will help lawyers promote their practices and get the most from the web. Although these services are of general application, specific examples and guidance are given for the legal sector wherever appropriate.

Blogs are an increasingly important web publishing medium. Chapter 1 explains what they are and how they are used and gives examples of the many law blogs that are now emerging. Chapter 2 explains why you should seriously consider blogging for business purposes and gives guidance both on the mechanics of publishing and developing a blog and how to blog more effectively.

Chapter 3 explains the concept of website syndication, the essentials of the RSS syndication format and why it is set to become ubiquitous and it also points you to the many RSS feeds now available for lawyers.

Most people now use search engines to find what they want on the web. Chapter 4 guides you through the basics of search engine optimisation — achieving a high rank in the search engines. Chapter 5 gives guidance on the complementary topic of search engine advertising.

I provided  guidance on blogging with TypePad and John Bolch of Family Lore helped on the features of the new release of Blogger.

Human Law launches fixed fee blogging and social media consultancy service

I am pleased to inform you that Human Law has launched a blogging and social media consultancy service.

It is a fixed fee service focused on providing you with the tools so that you can be confident enough to blog effectively on the web.  A satisfaction guarantee is provided - If you are not happy with the service, you are entitled to a full refund.

Level A – Professional input with self help for setting up your blog

• 30 minute telephone consultancy on blogging
• Physically set up on a TypePad/WordPress Account
• Set up of categories, profile and about page
• Guide to blogging pdf booklet
• 14 days E-mail with 1 hours additional telephone consultancy

Price - £495 plus Vat

Level B – Professional and personal service for setting up your blog

• 60 minute in-person meeting at London or your offices(which are within a 40 mile radius of  City London) to assess your blogging needs
• Set up on a TypePad/WordPress Account
• Set up of categories, profile, links and e-mail updates & RSS feed
• 3 month E-Mail coaching and up to 3 hours telephone consultancy
• Guide to blogging pdf booklet

Price - £995 plus Vat

Level C - Full professional and personal service from start to finish

• 90 minute in-person meeting at London( as above etc)including presentation which sets out the parameters of blogging and podcasting
• Set up on a TypePad/WordPress Account
• How to keep the blog legal
• Guidance given  to creating podcasts & other extras such as polls, e-mail updates, RSS, Skypecasts & other multimedia widgets
• Guide to blogging pdf booklet
• Coaching on content and on blogging convention
• How to deal with online criticism
• Up to 6 hours telephone consultancy and unlimited e-mail support
• In person 60 minute meetings given at 3 and 6 month increments
• How to optimise search engine ranking and to make your blog popular by linking
• Final 500 word confidential written report summarising blogging performance   

£1995 plus Vat -Payments made over 3 instalments. 

Please note-

• Disbursements fees can be added if you want a TypePad account and if you wish to directly integrate the blog into your website
• Levels A & B are entitled to purchase the legal advice relating to blogging for an extra £150 plus Vat fee
• For US Dollar prices, multiply the sterling figure by 1.9

Please e-mail Justin Patten at justin@human-law.co.uk or call 44 (0)1920 462202 to discuss more.

The internet has spawned the leadership philosophy of "co-operatition"

An interesting article appeared yesterday in the Jobs section of the Telegraph which unfortunately I cannot link to.

It is written by Stefan Stern and includes an interview with Glen Drury, who is the vice president of Yahoo for northern europe.

Drury is a big believer in what is known as "co-operatition." He explains this "The truth of the internet is that people who you compete with in one channel could be your partners in another channel. We do MSN's search, for example. But we compete as a portal. Therefore it's co-operatition."

Drury is right.

From my perspective, I am already linking up with other people in the blogging, legal and management consultancy world - In certain occasions, we may be competitors but on other occasions we may look to collaborate and pool our resources together.               

When blogs explode in numbers

There is a danger in predicting the future, not least of which with technology issues but sometimes you need to do it.

My prediction is that blogs will explode in numbers when Internet Explorer 7 is released.

As PC Pro writes " Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 will be distributed as a 'high priority update via Automatic Updates' (AU), according to an announcement made in the IE7 developers' blog.

It says that IE7 will ship in Windows XP in Q4 of this year, shortly followed by AU distribution to all 'genuine Windows customers'."

I have previously posted about why IE7 will lead to mass RSS adoption.

Therefore what I believe you will see is the following unfolding once IE7 can be downloaded:

1 Existing (popular/quality)blogs will have a huge boost to their viewers/subscribers as users of IE7 start subscribing or viewing blogs.

2 The masses will adopt blogging in even bigger numbers than before as they seek to join the blogging party and/or start being concerned about what some blogger is saying about them or their company and accordingly, they want to respond.

More on business models

I have previously posted about the importance of business models and within the Telegraph today you have two different stories which support this point of view.

First, read this story about the rise of YouTube which is now one of the web's leading sites.  As the Telegraph writes  "YouTube has sprung from almost nowhere a year ago to become one of the web's hottest properties, mostly by posting user generated clips such as viral internet ads and personal home videos that owe much to You've Been Framed.....YouTube hopes to differentiate itself from pay-to-view or download services like Apple's iTunes by offering the videos free, with revenue provided by advertising. However, the record labels and the company are still working on a business model that will satisfy both parties, and YouTube has had problems with copyright issues."

Please note my emphasis in bold.

Now, consider this other story in the Telegraph by Damian Reece in the Comment Section about digital radio. 

"Not only is digital reception better but there's a wider choice of listening, which is a good thing for consumers, but has proved problematic for the broadcasters. More stations means fragmented audiences, which means less advertising revenue. It's one reason why the share prices of radio broadcasters are under pressure. ....However, digital is also a big opportunity. In a fragmenting market strong brands can carve out lucrative niches. Further advances will open other opportunities. It will soon be possible, for instance, to download music from the radio to another music player.....There are revenue opportunities from digital radio but they require a lot more imagination from management than simply collecting those fast disappearing advertising pounds."

And there you have it, if broadcasters wish to make it big in the digital era, they have to re-think their business model just as YouTube is doing.   

Human Law to launch blogging consultancy service - Please can you give me some feedback

I am pleased to inform you that Human Law is going to launch a consultancy service related to blogging. I would be very grateful if you could give any comment on the draft service offering below and just to give me some honest feedback. Please note that all advice is being given by an English solicitor.

Level A – Professional input with self help for setting up your blog

• 30 minute telephone consultancy on blogging
• Physically set up on a TypePad/WordPress Account
• Set up of categories, profile and about page
• Guide to blogging pdf booklet
• 14 days E-mail with 1 hours additional telephone consultancy

Price - £495 plus Vat

Level B – Professional and personal service for setting up your blog

• 60 minute in-person meeting at London or your offices(which are within a 40 mile radius of  City London) to assess your blogging needs
• Set up on a TypePad/WordPress Account
• Set up of categories, profile, links and e-mail updates & RSS feed
• 3 month E-Mail coaching and up to 3 hours telephone consultancy
• Guide to blogging pdf booklet

Price - £995 plus Vat

Level C - Full professional and personal service from start to finish

• 90 minute in-person meeting at London( as above etc)including presentation which sets out the parameters of blogging and podcasting
• Set up on a TypePad/WordPress Account
• How to keep the blog legal
• Guidance given  to creating podcasts & other extras such as polls, e-mail updates, RSS, Skypecasts & other multimedia widgets
• Guide to blogging pdf booklet
• Coaching on content and on blogging convention
• How to deal with online criticism
• Up to 6 hours telephone consultancy and unlimited e-mail support
• In person 60 minute meetings given at 3 and 6 month increments
• How to optimise search engine ranking and to make your blog popular by linking
• Final 500 word confidential written report summarising blogging performance   

£1995 plus Vat -Payments made over 3 instalments. 

Please note-

• Disbursements fees can be added if you want a TypePad account and if you wish to directly integrate the blog into your website
• Levels A & B are entitled to purchase the legal advice relating to blogging for an extra £150 plus Vat fee
• For US Dollar prices, multiply the sterling figure by 1.9
• I am mulling over whether to offer the service overseas with using a web cam as some form of replacement for in person meetings   

Thank you for your help.

To contact me, please make a comment on this post or e-mail me at justin@human-law.co.uk

Terror in the skies - Now we know that the world really is flat

The recent arrest of a number of suspected bombers of US airlines between London & the United States has posed a number of questions, some of which I will explore now.

1 Are we rushing to judgment? Last week I read in the Times the somewhat depressing statistic that of the more than 1,000 arrests under the (UK) Terrorist Act since 9/11, only 158 people have been charged with offences. This has included the bungled raid on a family home in Forest Gate, East London in June. That said, in this new case the US,UK  Pakistani governments have all put themselves on the line so if this does not work out, there really is going to be egg on their face.

2 Is the response of the Muslim Community correct? As Janet Daley observes "When a committee of Muslim spokesmen announces that, while it condemns violence etc, it nevertheless finds it somehow understandable that Muslim youth should be so "alienated" by the Government's foreign policy that they become willing recruits to a murderous lunatic sect, their statement is described as a bid for peace rather than a blatant piece of blackmail.....What exactly does it mean, this message of "peace": that you can only be safe if we get the foreign policy we want - otherwise some of us may feel justified in blowing you out of the sky?"

3 Will the government's spin prejudice a fair trial for the accused?  As the Telegraph wrote yesterday "John Reid(the Home Secretary) has risked angering Gordon Brown by raising questions about the way the Treasury published the names of 19 of the suspects in the alleged transatlantic bomb plot. ....His implicit criticism of the Chancellor's department is the latest twist in a vicious "blame game" at the top of Government over claims that ministers may have prejudiced potential legal proceedings against the suspects.....The Home Secretary, who himself has been accused of putting future trials of the suspects at risk by claiming that the police had caught the "main players", has denied overstepping the mark in his statements about the arrests. But The Daily Telegraph has learnt that Mr Reid is far less willing to defend Mr Brown's department over its role in identifying the suspects."

4 Can anyone wreak havoc in the world? It took a relatively small number of internet savvy terrorists using cutters and not being that well funded to cause the misery and the humbling of the world's superpower on 9/11. If this new plot is true, it again shows how anyone in the world can be an opponent of us all. In its most extreme form, it gives manifestation to principles outlined by Thomas Friedman namely that the explosion of advanced technologies now means that knowledge pools have been connected all over the world, levelling the playing field as never before so that each of us is potentially an equal or an opponent of the other.   

More evidence of blogs explosion

Dave Sifry of Technorati has provided his latest state of the blogosphere.

I suggest that you read it yourself and then you can judge whether blogging is just a minor technology or a very significant trend.

Some key facts: 

• Technorati is now tracking over 50 Million Blogs.
• The blogosphere is over 100 times bigger than it was just 3 years ago.
• Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size every 200 days, or about once every 6 and a half months.

Who needs IE7 to help blogs explode?

Blogs will explode once Internet Explorer 7 is available

The blogosphere has shown a remarkable rise within the past few years but it is my view that the biggest rise has yet to be seen.

What will witness the explosion of new blogs coming into play will be when the final version of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 is available which will make adding RSS feeds much easier. 

As PC Magazine wrote in the review of the beta version of IE7:

"Next to this is the add/subscribe button for adding RSS feeds. The RSS reader is functional if unexceptional, but because the vast majority of Internet surfers use IE, even without a lot of the bells and whistles of more advanced readers, IE7 could be a catalyst for widespread RSS adoption. And adding RSS feeds from your favorite site is simple—just two clicks."

Welcome to the era of Singularity

I am grateful to Denise Howel who has informed us about a new law blog, Singularity by Professor Michael Scott. Primarily Scott(pictured left), is a lawyer and is a partner in the law firm of Perkins Coie LLP.

As Professor Scott writes in his blog "A technological singularity is a theorized point in time when societal, legal, technological and economic changes will greatly accelerate, creating new problems and new questions for humankind.  Scientists and commentators do not entirely agree on when and how the event will take place, or even the nature of the event itself.  But throughout human history, many have predicted that our current exponential growth in technology will one day reach a point beyond which we cannot predict the consequences."

One person who does have an unequivocal view on this issue of singularity is Professor Ray Kurzweil who has written a number of books including "The Singularity Is Near" which I am currently reading. This work has an almost unbelievable message and I will return to this book at a later point.

Justin Patten to write book on blogging

I am pleased to inform you that Gower Publishing Ltd has just commissioned me to write a book on blogging.

The provisional title is "Blogging and Other Social Media: Technology and Law."

Many thanks to Jonathan Norman for meeting me and being integral in getting the work commissioned.

I am due to complete writing the book by July 2007.   

Newspapers cannot fight links to rival sites

Yesterday I had a fairly long discussion on the telephone with the blogging expert, Kevin O'Keefe where we discussed a number of issues related to blogging.

One of the issues we talked about related to newspapers who have blogs and the fact that generally they do not actually link(that much) to other news outlets such as other blogs.

Perhaps that will change.

According to the Telegraph "In a move that shows newspapers embracing the power of the internet, various US publications have signed up to a news gathering service to provide links on their websites to rival newspaper sites, wire services and blogs.....The Washington Post, among other publications, has hired Inform.com to scan thousands of sites to post relevant links, including audio and video content, beside their stories, regardless of the source."

The Telegraph goes on to quote Alan Flitcroft, head of media and entertainment at Ernst & Young, who says :

"The problem is that if you've only got your own stuff on [your website] you're exposed because internet users will go to other sites that give access to way more news information from way more sources... and the ad revenue will go where the eyeballs go.....[This is] about the power the internet gives to individuals to access and disseminate information from numerous sources, and the recognition by these newspapers that they can't fight it." 

Nevertheless there are some who will resist this trend of linking.

As Kevin points out, a Memphis based lawyer,  Mark Field has advised in an article in the Memphis Commercial Appeal  "If you have a blog and you start linking to new sites, you have to ask yourself if you have a right to do that linking."

According to the article, Mr Field advises that in order to avoid violating someone's copyright, it is a good idea to have a linkage agreement in place.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion but I really do not think this is viable.

Many companies are still terrified of the idea of blogging

Another article on blogging appears in the Times today dealing with blogging in a corporate sense. It includes an interview with Mark Rogers, Chief Executive of Market Sentinel.

"......Many companies are still terrified by the idea of blogging. The interactive nature of blogs means customers can say what they want about a company and ask awkward questions.

Companies also fear what their employees might say and that corporate blogs will attract special-interest groups keen to attack a corporation.

“Corporations being corporations there is a lot of fear about doing something for the first time,” said Mark Rogers, chief executive of Market Sentinel, a company specialising in corporate reputations on the web. “This has led to a weird situation where companies are not punching their weight online.”"

In defence of blogging

As often happens, there has been an exchange of views between two well known figures on the issue of blogging, namely between Malcolm Gladwell and Chris Anderson.

Shane Richmond of the Telegraph writes "Malcolm Gladwell, the author and New Yorker journalist, wrote earlier this week that blogging is essentially a derivative medium. "Without the New York Times," he argued, "what would there be for bloggers to blog about?"Gladwell was reiterating a view that had earned him a rebuke from Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail - the source of the internet's latest buzz phrase. Anderson accused him of media elitism."

Shane Richmond goes on to make  a critique of Gladwell - "The problem is, I'm not sure that Gladwell really understands the role that many bloggers play. Or, if he does, he shows no sign of it in his argument...He says: "But newspapers continue to perform an incredibly important function as informational gatekeepers - a function, as far as I can tell, that grows more important with time, not less."

As Richmond writes, "In this statement, he is fundamentally wrong about the shape of media and about where it is going." and he provides examples of where bloggers have taken a different agenda to the mainstream media."The resignation of Trent Lott was, according to Professor Larry Lessig, the result of bloggers refusing to let a story drop from the news agenda.

Likewise, the Downing Street memo, which was first published in The Times, was overlooked by American media for a full two weeks while bloggers discussed and dissected it and eventually forced it onto the agenda.

Then there's the resignation of newscaster Dan Rather, which was the direct result of his story about Bush's service record being demolished by the blogosphere."

It is quite heartening to see that the Telegraph journalist, Richmond, has an understanding of the power of blogging. The article is recommended.

Congratulations to Naked Law

Congratulations to Naked Law which has just celebrated its 1st birthday as  a blog.

Naked Law is part of Mills & Reeve  and the firm remains the only large UK law organisation who has managed to embrace the medium of blogging.

Peter Wainman (whom I have spoken to on the phone and e-mailed to on a number of occasions) has just done a post stating that "the team is looking for suggestions about what the future should hold for Naked Law.  On a simple level, we're looking for a new logo - we like the simplicity of the text on the page and don't want to clutter it with pictures, but we would like something a little bolder than the heading we currently use.  And we would be grateful for feedback from readers (by email or as a comment) about our content - are we talking about the right subjects?  Are we giving enough detail (or too much)?"

I am sure that some feedback will come in - Irrespective of this, the firm deserves a great deal of credit for embracing the medium in such an effective way.   

Should lawyers be technology pioneers?

I am grateful to this post from Adam Smith Esq. who explores the work of David Maister, Richard Susskind & Kieran Flat. The issue of the day is to do with investment in IT and whether it leads to growth and profit for law firms.

I will focus exclusively on what Susskind has to say.

As Susskind asks - "Should lawyers be technology pioneers? When they hear, say, about the great promise of wikis and blogs, or of the likely impact of e-learning and automated document assembly, should legal practitioners reach enthusiastically for their cheque books or more reflectively for a stiff, single malt?"

Some of us do not need such an excuse for a single malt.

I think Susskind is right when he observes "Client-facing pioneering is not sufficient to sustain advantage. The trick here is not just to deploy the first workable system but to make it impossible or unattractive for competitors to imitate, and inconvenient or undesirable for clients to switch allegiance."

One observation - With ever increasing competition, is it feasible to have a system which others cannot imitate?

And then as Susskind concludes:

" This is a lesson for firms thinking about online communities for clients — internet-based, collaborative facilities that focus on particular specialities. These sites will be rich resources, full of source materials and commentary, of gossip and analysis; and will encourage active participation, through wikis, blogs, chat rooms, and more. Once clients are drawn into these communities and contribute themselves, it will be hard to entice them away. Here, therefore, is where firms should pioneer."

My view is that it will be the importance of content and the people doing the writing which will keep the clients within the community. The people are important than the technology!

Recommended article - Someone, somewhere, is slagging your company off right now in cyberspace

An interesting article in today's Telegraph which illustrates some of things that I have been going on about for the past 6 months.

The article deals with the emergence of social media and includes an interview with Norwegian serial entrepreneur Per Siljubergsåsen and his business partner Simon McDermott.

As McDermott observes : "You should be listening to what is being said about you - and that gives you an opportunity to talk back. Don't sit there and wait. This is a chance to engage. In the past companies talked down to people, but that won't work any more. You need to be authentic in how you approach people."

Net Neutrality - A significant and interesting contribution to the debate has emerged

I am grateful to David Jacobson, the current host of Blawg Review, and Antitrust Review who have alerted me to this significant piece on Net Neutrality.

It is a paper written by Ed Felten. To view it, click here:

Download neutrality.pdf

The conclusion is one which gives heart to both sides of the debate.   

" Readers looking here for a simple policy prescription will be disappointed. The network neutrality issue is more complex and subtle than most of the advocates on either side would have you believe. Net neutrality advocates are right to worry that ISPs can discriminate—and have the means and motive to do so—in ways that might be difficult to stop. Opponents are right to say that enforcing neutrality rules may be difficult and error-prone. Both sides are right to say that making the wrong decision can lead to unintended side-effects and hamper the Internet’s development."

My position is that I am still pro some form of net neutrality provision as some form of incentive to avoid ISP discrimination is better than none. 

More evidence of digital revolution

I am grateful to Roy Greenslade for this information below.

Jeff Jarvis points out that Nielsen last week revealed that America's four TV networks recorded their lowest ratings in recorded history. CBS, ABC, NBC and Fox averaged only 20.8m prime time viewers between them. Yet YouTube announced on Sunday that its viewers are now watching 100m videos a day. Jarvis comments: "Insert apocalyptic punchline here."

As Greenslade observes " Seen from a British perspective, it surely helps to explain the BBC's investment in online innovations. It refuses to follow ITV - and some of our national newspapers - into the grave."

Traditional media and organisations struggle in the blogosphere - What is the solution?

One of the political bloggers who is causing quite a stir is Guido Fawkes - The blog is about "plots, rumours and conspiracy" and in 2005, Fawkes' blog was voted the best in the Political Commentary category of The Backbencher Political Weblog Awards, run by The Guardian.

To get a feel for how significant the blogosphere is becoming, consider this post on his blog about online developments:

For example he reveals the following:

The unofficial ConservativeHome website is more popular than the official Conservative party website.

The independent LabourHome website, after only three weeks of operation, is gaining on the official party website as well, registering a readership about a third the size of the official site.

The lesson is as Guido Fawkes writes  "It means party members want honesty and openness, something that they don't trust the official channels to provide. "

It is not just the traditional parties who are facing trouble, according to research commissioned by the Guido Fawkes blog last week, the online industry monitoring firm Hitwise  found more people actually read Guido's blog than the Guardian's Comment is Free.

Please bear in mind that the Guardian is considered to be one of the most internet savvy newspapers around so this is quite a development.

Another observation is that if you check the unofficial Conservative and Labour websites, both have links to opposition weblogs. Can you imagine any of the  of the traditional party organisations allowing their blogs/websites to display this level of independence?

Irony of ironies is there is a model for organisations to allow their blogs/websites to have an independent spirit like this and that is Microsoft which allowed Robert Scoble  to make critical comments of the company on his blog.

The key is that if you want to have a successful online presence, you must display a level of independence and a willingness to engage in the online debate. This is something that most organisations have not shown a willingness to do. 

Lawyers face two threats to their economic existence

The latest edition of the Law Society Gazette includes a piece dealing with the views of a professional practices partner of Grant Thornton, Sacha Romanovitch who looks at the prospect of non-lawyers owning law firms as a result of the Clementi reforms.

She compares the legal market to stockbroking in the 1980s before deregulation and observes that “If you look at utilities – the French now own all our utilities. Firms should not get too UK-focused. International companies are very interested [in buying UK law firms], for example international insurers and financial services houses.....Clients are already taking control [over lawyers] with consolidation of panels, and this legislation will mean there are other people who can take control as well. There is a hell of a lot of complacency among lawyers. But there are others who have recognised the opportunity, and are keeping their traps shut in case anyone else realises what they are going to do.”

My observations are as follows:

Ms Romanovitch is right to emphasise the threat to law firm business that is evolving from outside the legal profession. In my view, many lawyers are complacent about this.

Beyond the threat that law firms face from non-legal players, there is a bigger and indeed far more dangerous threat.

It is the exponential growth of the technological revolution.

Ray Kurzweil(who's work "The Singularity is Near" has been referred to by Bill Gates and Richard Susskind) has said "The key idea underlying the impending Singularity is that the pace of change our human created technology is accelerating and its powers are expanding at exponential pace. Exponential growth is deceptive. It starts out almost imperceptibly and then explodes with unexpected fury."

According to Kurzweil, we are now entering the "knee of the curve" - He envisages that the pace of technological change will be so deep that human life will be irreversibly transformed.

If his theory is correct, things are really going to start heating up which will make the opening up of the legal profession to non-lawyers appear pretty minor compared to what is going to follow.     

The latest edition of the Society for Computers & Law Magazine has two articles on blogging

The current edition of the SCL Magazine has just been sent to its members. It has a number of articles including ones on Open Source Software,  Constructing of Contracts and Technology Based Outsourcing.

In addition, Peter Wainman of Naked Law and myself have an article each dealing with blogging.

In the normal course, only members of the SCL magazine would have access to the blogging articles. However the editor of the magazine, Laurence Eastham, and Peter Wainman have kindly allowed me to publish both articles on this blog. 

Peter's article  called "Never Mind the Bloggers - Here are the Risk factors" can be downloaded here:   

Download cl_p35_never_mind_blog1.pdf

My article which is called "Blogging's Biggest Risk?- Being Blogless in the Blogosphere" can be viewed here:

Download cl_p67_blogging_risk1.pdf

For more information about the SCL, please click here.

Our legislators do not know enough about the internet and technology

There has been much ridicule on the blogosphere about Senator Ted Stevens reason for voting against net neutrality when he said it was because the Internet was a series of tubes about to get clogged.

As Kevin O'Keefe writes "Perhaps though Stevens was just misunderstood. With Meryl Yourish's PowerPoint explaining Steven's position, I'm sure we'll all fall in line now. Or at least, as Ernie Svenson says, those folks who've had full frontal lobotomies." 

If you think things are better in the United Kingdom, well think again.

The Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott in appearing to display his ignorance of the internet when he spoke about allegations about his private life observed in a BBC radio interview with John Humphreys "...I think it's called the internet, isn't it, or blogs or something, I've only just got used to letters, John, I haven't got into all this new technology, but I watched the guy on television last night who does that, saying I have no evidence for these allegations I have made."    

Our legislators do not know enough about the internet and technology

There has been much ridicule on the blogosphere about Senator Ted Stevens reason for voting against net neutrality when he said it was because the Internet was a series of tubes about to get clogged.

As Kevin O'Keefe writes "Perhaps though Stevens was just misunderstood. With Meryl Yourish's PowerPoint explaining Steven's position, I'm sure we'll all fall in line now. Or at least, as Ernie Svenson says, those folks who've had full frontal lobotomies." 

If you think things are better in the United Kingdom, well think again.

The Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott in appearing to display his ignorance of the internet when he spoke about allegations about his private life observed in a BBC radio interview with John Humphreys "...I think it's called the internet, isn't it, or blogs or something, I've only just got used to letters, John, I haven't got into all this new technology, but I watched the guy on television last night who does that, saying I have no evidence for these allegations I have made."    

Blink - Do you want to make a snap judgment?

A book which I am currently reading is "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell. It is interesting material. 

As is written on Amazon, Blink is about the first two seconds of looking--the decisive glance that knows in an instant. Gladwell, the best-selling author of The Tipping Point, campaigns for snap judgments and mind reading with a gift for translating research into splendid storytelling. Building his case with scenes from a marriage, heart attack triage, speed dating, choking on the golf course, selling cars, and military manoeuvres, he persuades readers to think small and focus on the meaning of "thin slices" of behaviour. The key is to rely on our "adaptive unconscious"--a 24/7 mental valet--that provides us with instant and sophisticated information to warn of danger, read a stranger, or react to a new idea.

I am finding the book intriguing and has certainly made me think about the power of relying on one's gut instinct. As it goes, I like to consider myself quite intuitive - The problem is that legal training makes you think again, again and again. The message of the book will not resonate with most lawyers.   

Lawyers - How interactive do you want to go?

Two different articles/posts got my attention.

The Times reports that Microsoft is expected to release a rival to the iPod, in time for Christmas. Nothing too surprising about that.

It is what the Times reports afterwards which got my attention - "Looking to feed the same appetite for media content on the go that has supported the iPod, Microsoft has already released plans for a new generation of ultra mobile PCs, dubbed The Origami Project. ....On a site that could give clues on the shape of Microsoft's iPod rival, the company  is currently using a blog to garner opinion on how its Origami product should look."

It is the fact that Microsoft is actively using a blog to test market opinion which I found intriguing

This is not dissimilar to the fact that as John Naughton reports, Chris Anderson wrote his book "The Long Tail"  ‘publicly’ — by publishing chapters on his blog and inviting comments.

Could you extend this approach to the legal profession?

For example, could you see lawyers using blogs to help them create new terms and conditions and billing policies? The lawyers would put them online and then the blogosphere could assess and scrutinise them.

Radical, but that is the way that things are going. 

The July/August 2006 issue of the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers is out

Delia Venables' July/August 2006 issue of the Internet Newsletter for Lawyers is now on  its way to subscribers. Here are some of the articles:

1. What use are judges making of the Internet? His Honour Judge Behrens gives a personal account of the online facilities made available to judges.  Whilst plans for further facilities are quite ambitious, there are some problems at the moment in balancing security with ease of use.

2. David Vaughan-Birch has been trying to work out ways of reducing the  costs of online research facilities for his firm. He thinks that a combination of free and low cost online facilities with the occasional use  of one of the major online legal research services would satisfy his
requirements. But who will provide a pay-as-you-go library service?

3. The task of satisfying the money laundering regulations has been giving many firms a major headache recently, having to demand that clients show them passports, driving licences and so on to prove their identity. Can online ID verification services be used as an alternative? Bill Jones argues that these online services can have a major role.

4. Blogs, RSS feeds, syndication... Nick Holmes explains how these concepts fit together and tells us how news feeds can be very useful to lawyers in keeping up to date. He also tells us how to find the best feeds and how to "subscribe" to them.

5. Why should you want to limit the use and re-publication of the information on your web site? Scottish QC Jonathan Mitchell has set up his website, and now also the web site for his Stable, using a Creative Commons licence. He describes how these less restrictive licences work.

As Delia has informed me and the other subscribers "The newsletter is primarily a printed publication (designed for lawyers who do not want to spend ALL their time in front of a computer) but it is also available to subscribers in a web version without extra charge. The usual cost of the newsletter for a year (6 issues) is £40 plus £3.50 VAT.....However, there is a special rate for new subscribers of £30 plus £2.63 VAT for the first year - AND - three earlier issues without charge."

Delia can be contacted at delia@venables.co.uk

Lawyers - Is your firm innovative?

Adam Smith, Esq does a typically detailed and thoughtful piece regarding the recent FT special report on "Innovative Lawyers 2006."

The part of the FT report I found most illuminating was this-

"The head of legal at a FT 250 company went silent for a few minutes when we asked him to mention an innovative lawyer he has used. Then he said he did not think it was possible for lawyers to be innovative." 

As Adam Smith, Esq says  regarding the FT innovation awards "The best news of all?  There is a series of firms that won Innovation Awards.  And, the more attention this gets in the world writ large, and the more clients attend to it, the more we'll be challenged to ask why, just because it was done that way yesterday, we should do it that way tomorrow....Who knows?  Imagine the law firm that creates a Director of R&D."

My problem with these awards is that the level of thinking from most law firms is still off the pace for our ever more competitive and changing economy.

If a law firm really wants to go for the juggular and display some real innovation it could do worse than consider Daniel Pink's work which has been picked up in the current edition of Fortune in an article written by Geoffrey Colvin called "The Imagination Economy". (Unfortunately I cannot link to it directly)

Pink is the author of the book, "Free Agent Nation" which was an inspiration for me to set up my own business.

Daniel Pink's article Revenge of the Right Brain (which is a taster for his most recent work,A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age,) gives some food for thought.

As he writes regarding legal practice and the way technology is impacting it.

"Dozens of inexpensive information and advice services are reshaping law practice. At CompleteCase.com, you can get an uncontested divorce for $249, less than a 10th of the cost of a divorce lawyer. Meanwhile, the Web is cracking the information monopoly that has long been the source of many lawyers' high incomes and professional mystique. Go to USlegalforms.com and you can download - for the price of two movie tickets - fill-in-the-blank wills, contracts, and articles of incorporation that used to reside exclusively on lawyers' hard drives. Instead of hiring a lawyer for 10 hours to craft a contract, consumers can fill out the form themselves and hire a lawyer for one hour to look it over. Consequently, legal abilities that can't be digitized - convincing a jury or understanding the subtleties of a negotiation - become more valuable."

The overall significance for all of us is that we must be looking for different skills which he calls "high-concept" and "high-touch"

"As the forces of Asia, automation, and abundance strengthen and accelerate, the curtain is rising on a new era, the Conceptual Age. If the Industrial Age was built on people's backs, and the Information Age on people's left hemispheres, the Conceptual Age is being built on people's right hemispheres. We've progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. And now we're progressing yet again - to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. .....To flourish in this age, we'll need to supplement our well-developed high tech abilities with aptitudes that are "high concept" and "high touch." High concept involves the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to come up with inventions the world didn't know it was missing. High touch involves the capacity to empathize, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one's self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning."

Can you imagine some of the top law firms in either the USA or the UK being willing to consider this level of innovation?

And would the FT be interested in that? 

Net Neutrality -The US Senate votes to support the corporate giants who misunderstood the internet

As the Times reports, the US Senate voted last night to pass telecoms legislation that could lead to phone and cable charging more money for faster access to websites.

The Times writes  "The telecoms companies hope that they can charge big companies that need to use a lot of bandwidth, such as Apple Computer’s i-Tunes or Skype’s internet telephone business, which will buy the faster access routes so that customers will get a faster service.

The telecoms companies also aim to gain a stronger foothold in the cable television business using DSL telephone lines to connect users to such services as video-on-demand. "

As the Times concludes  "The US Senate Commerce Committee yesterday echoed the views of the House(of Representatives) and rejected an amendment to the pending telecoms Bill that would have required that all internet traffic be treated identically regardless of its “source” or “destination”.

After a three-day hearing, the committee rejected an amendment from Republican senator Olympia Snowe and a Democrat, Byron Dorgan, which aimed to prohibit phone and cable companies from limiting access to their high-speed internet networks.

“What’s at stake is the internet in the 21st century,” said Ms Snowe. “This is the preservation of digital democracy.”

There is still a small chance that the Bill will falter, however, as Senator John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential candidate, has threatened a filibuster to prevent the Bill passing through the Senate."

One of the things that is quite illuminating about the conduct of the telecoms is that they totally misinterpreted the significance of the internet due to their failure to anticipate how the internet would lead to an era of participatory media.

As the Economist wrote in a survey earlier this year on participatory media "Almost everywhere, download speeds (from the internet to the user) are many times faster than upload speeds (from user to network). This is because the corporate giants that built these pipes assumed that the internet would simply be another distribution pipe for themselves or their partners in the media industry. Even today, they can barely conceive of a scenario in which users might put as much into the network as they take out."

That is whom the United States Senate has put its trust in.

The next move to accelerate the online revolution

Nick Holmes of Binary Law has managed to do a piece for the Law Society Gazette dealing with the prospective explosion of growth of online syndication due to Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 offering integral support for this.

As Nick writes "Online syndication generally means making data "feeds" available from a Web site automatically every time content is updated....Until recently, Web feeds could be read only with a dedicated desktop reader(often called an aggregator), via an e-mail or browser add-ons or using certain Web site pages that pulled together. ...This has been too much trouble for most. Firefox and IE7 will popularise syndication and an explosion of ever more useful feeds will ensue."         

The net result leads us to the elimination of What's New pages and with luck, unwanted e-mail newsletters and announcements. 

Tennis players are blogging

If you do not think that blogging is entering mainstream, well read this.

The Times has an article today highlighting how tennis players are starting to blog. As the newspaper states about yesterday's first day at Wimbledon.

"Less than an hour’s play was possible, which meant that all 33,500 fans, plus corporate ticket holders, had to be offered their money back.

But for many of the players, the weather meant the chance for many to turn to their favourite pastime — blogging.

This is the first Wimbledon where players are complementing their performances on the baseline with a diary online.

While they struggle to raise their rankings in the grandslam tournament, many are turning to the web to improve their brand online — denying newspaper reports and updating fans on their movements. "

Scotland's Andrew Murray has his own blogsite but apparently the most rated one is Dmitry Tursunov who is seeded No 28 at Wimbledon.

The Times refers to some of his content in detail:

“I would like to summarise my entire singles match into one sentence: ‘Clay is for girls!’ ” he writes before going on to gossip entertainingly about affairs between players and his “blogging war” with female player Bryanne Stewart — whom he claims seldom takes to the court without her laptop. On tennis fan sites there have been calls for him to take up blogging full-time."

Is the United States run by the misguided short-term interests of large corporations?

As fellow bloggers Kevin O'Keefe and Diane Levin highlight, Sir Tim Berners-Lee has now entered the fray regarding the issue of net neutrality.

Briefly, let us give some background about some of the players involved here.

Berners-Lee is the British scientist who developed the web in 1989 as an academic tool to allow scientists to share data.

Network neutrality is the concept where everyone has the same level of access to the web and that all data moving around the web is treated equally.

This view is supported by companies like Microsoft and Google, who have called for legislation to be introduced to guarantee net neutrality.

Unsurprisingly, telecoms companies in the US disagree. They would like to implement a two-tier system, where data from companies or institutions that can pay are given priority over those that cannot.

The issue of net neutrality was recently debated in the House of Representatives and the issue now moves to the US Senate where the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee will vote on its version of the act in late June.

Tim Berners-Lee writes and posts on video " Control of information is hugely powerful. In the US, the threat is that companies control what I can access for commercial reasons. (In China, control is by the government for political reasons.) There is a very strong short-term incentive for a company to grab control of TV distribution over the Internet even though it is against the long-term interests of the industry.

Yes, regulation to keep the Internet open is regulation. And mostly, the Internet thrives on lack of regulation. But some basic values have to be preserved. For example, the market system depends on the rule that you can't photocopy money. Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it.

Let's see whether the United States is capable as acting according to its important values, or whether it is, as so many people are saying, run by the misguided short-term interested of large corporations. "

My view is that this is potentially scary. As Craigslist co-founder Craig Newmark wrote for CNN.com: "Let's say you call Joe's Pizza, and the first thing you hear is a message saying you'll be connected in a minute or two, but if you want, you can be connected to Pizza Hut right away. That's not fair, right? You called Joe's and want some Joe's pizza."

Do you really think that the telecoms industry is going to run this in a way which does not threatens the open model of the internet? Broadband providers will become gatekeepers to the web's content and it appears it will not be open as before.

For other sources of information, please click on Wikipedia, Information Week and Amanda Congdon who has done an excellent video post on this.

To hear a different point of view, please click here to listen to Scott Cleland speak on behalf the telecoms companies.

To support the campaign, please click here at savetheinternet.com

Recommended serialisation "The Long Tail" in the Times

Chris Anderson is the author of the book, "The Long Tail: How Endless Choice is Creating Unlimited Demand," which is coming out in the UK on 6th July. The book has been serialised in the Times this week and to read the two extracts, please click here and here. 

He has a nice mention on the impact of google on marketing which I think is a key point for how blogging is changing the PR and marketing professions.   

"We’re entering an era of radical change for marketers. Faith in advertising and the institutions that pay for it is waning, while faith in individuals is on the rise. Peers trust peers. Top-down messaging is losing traction, while bottom-up buzz is gaining power. Dell spends hundreds of millions each year on promoting its quality and customer service, but if you Google “dell hell” you’ll get 55,000 pages of results.

Even the word “dell” returns customer complaints by the second page of results. The same inversion of power is now changing the marketing game for everything from individual products to people. The collective now controls the message.

For a generation of customers used to doing their buying research via search engine, a company’s brand is not what the company says it is, but what Google says it is. The new tastemakers are us. Word of mouth is now a public conversation, carried in blog comments and customer reviews, exhaustively collated and measured. The ants have megaphones."

Discuss - Librarian law bloggers are more astute than top law firms marketing departments about the blogosphere

As I consistently rattle on this blog, take up on blogging and other forms of participatory media from law firms is low particularly within my country, the United Kingdom.

However what I do find interesting is this trend towards using law librarian blogs.

Recently I have come across a number of intriguing UK based law librarian blogs. For example:

Information Overlord -Please see previous post. This is  an effective blog which has been running since January 2004 written by Scott Vine. It takes a slant on communications and media and technology law.

Blogarian - This is an anonymous blog written by a postgraduate  student researching the use and value of blogs as sources of legal information. It has recently started but shows some promise.

Lo-Fi Librarian - Also, an anonymous blog. Written by someone studying part-time for her postgraduate qualification in Library and Information Studies.

The UK  has some of the most well regarded law firms within the world, paying marketing professionals and other senior staff great money, yet how many top 100 law firms have shown any desire to understand blogging, let alone embrace it.      

Let us be clear, blogging is not for everyone but a bit of understanding would not go amiss.

I know who I would trust to navigate the blogosphere if I had to choose between some City marketing professional and these law librarian bloggers.       

Will this law firm in a crisis embrace blogging?

Kevin O'Keefe is the President and founder of LexBlog, the leading provider of marketing blogs to lawyers and other professional service firms and he has written a very important post here which I will now make reference to.

The problem is that last week a federal grand jury indicted Milberg Weiss, a leading american law firm for allegedly participating in a scheme that paid out more than $11 million in illegal kickbacks to plaintiffs.

As Kevin writes "That's old news. We're now beginning to see an onslaught of blog posts about the indictment from lawyers, journalists and the like.

Just look at the increase in blog posts about Milberg Weis being tracked by Technorati this last week." (These numbers have continued to rise since)

With respect to damage limitation, as Kevin writes:

"Blogs are perfect for 'one to many' damage control. Just read some of the stories on corporate blogs told by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel in their book, Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers. Their Naked Conversations blog is full of many more.

If Milberg Weiss thinks they can control the PR spin with traditional press releases and responses to media inquiries, they're nuts. They need a blog to clearly communicate their position on various matters and allegations as well as to respond to reports by bloggers and journalists."

However, as Kevin writes it is extremely unlikely that Milberg Weiss will launch a blog.   

"Will Milberg Weiss launch a blog? Probably not. They'll have expensive PR people working on things who do not have a clue about using blogs for damage control. They'll have traditional lawyers who will be scared to death of innovative communication tools like blogs."

Some other observations:

1 It took until 22nd May for the firm to release a press statement on its website regarding the indictment - That is an eternity on the web.

2 Generally speaking, despite being very well paid, leading PR companies are out of touch with blogging - If there is one industry that is going to be changed by blogging, it is PR.

3 With my UK hat on, in light of the fact that there are less than 20 blogs done by lawyers, you are hardly going to see the UK legal profession embracing blogging as a PR tool. The UK is light years behind the USA for law blogs.      

Do american bloggers need to be less insular in their approach?

There is a school of thought that americans are too insular in their approach in the way they see the world.

One american law blogger who is openly addressing this question is Dan Hull of What About Clients.

Dan is  a member of the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and California bars. He is a litigator and lobbyist and is a shareholder in Hull McGuire PC, a law firm.

As he writes in this post: 

"Americans do tend to think that the rest of the world is rather far away and not terribly important." Delia Venables, UK legal IT commentator, in UK's Law Gazette, March 2, 2006."

Dan goes on:

"On Friday, May 26, look to this site for the completion of our ongoing catalogue of active non-U.S. legal weblogs for the following countries and jurisdictions:

I The West
Canada
United Kingdom
Ireland
Sweden
The Netherlands
France
Spain
Portugal
Germany
Poland
Switzerland
European Union
South Africa
Australia
New Zealand

II Asia
China
Hong Kong
Japan
Korea
Singapore
India "

Let's see how he gets on with the completion of his catalogue.

What I will say is that as commendable as Dan's efforts are, his open approach does appear to be the exception rather than the rule.   

Recommended book - A User's Guide to Copyright

I am just informing that I have just completed a book review of "A User’s Guide to Copyright" by Michael Flint, Nicholas Fitzpatrick & Clive Thorne.

It is a 6^th edition of the book and its intention is to “to help anyone whose job, business or studies brings them into contact with copyright issues, by giving them a general understanding of UK copyright law.”

The book is highly recommended and the full review will be appearing in a subsequent edition of the European Intellectual Property Review.  The book can be purchased at Wildys and other leading booksellers. 

The Times joins blogging revolution

One of the trends within the media industry is for newspapers to not only offer a website but also weblog as well. The Times newspaper has embraced this theme and has a number of blogs.

Of particular interest to this blog is its law weblog which is described as "a regular dose of legal news and comment, updated throughout the day."

Currently there are four authors of the blog with one of the authors being Edward Fennell who covers City law for The Times. 

The biggest risk of blogging is not to do it

The phenomena of blogging is getting more attention within business circles yet is it good for business? Generally there is still a great deal of resistance out there to blogging - Take up of corporate blogs remains low. This article seeks to address the risks of blogging.

Prior to considering this issue, let us ask what actually is a weblog(a blog) 

A useful definition is given by the weblog hosting firm TypePad who describe weblogs as "a way of publishing to the web one idea at a time.. By simplifying the process of publishing, letting authors create posts easily, and making it simple to link to related ideas on the web, blogs make it easy to update a website while still making sure your words retain a clear, personal voice."

It differs to a website in that weblog  is much easier to put material online and the nature of the medium anything between a few words or a long essay online. When new material is added online, you do not have to rearrange the rest of the content - It happens automatically. This contrasts to a conventional website. In addition, you can invite comments from webusers so that they can engage with what you have written online.

Of course there are dangers which a business faces with blogging. Stuart Robertson, editor of OUT-LAW.com recently identified some risks of blogging. Some of them include:

• risk of defamation
• unhappy bloggers generating negative PR
• copyright and trade mark infringement
• a joke provoking a sexual or racial harassment claim   

These concerns do have merit but they can be addressed and these dangers reduced by following some simple steps.

In fact, it is my belief that there is a bigger risk with blogging and that is for businesses not to do it.

Here is why:

1 Ease of publication - According to the blog search engine provider, Technorati the so called "blogosphere" has risen 60 fold in the past three years - On average a new blog is created every second of the day with 27.2 million blogs being tracked and 13.7 million bloggers still posting 3 months after their blogs were created. There is a massive online community being created which can have a permanent written record. Anyone and anywhere can publish what they want and billions of people can access it. This is the way people (particularly younger ones) are interacting and they are expecting to be engaged in such a way. By not blogging you are effectively ignoring a significant section of your potential clients.   

2 Search engine optimisation - This is crucial for enabling people to link up and find out about people and organisations. As Thomas Friedman writes in his book " The World Is Flat"  "Never before in the history of the planet have so many people-on their own- had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many people....Search engines flatten the world by eliminating all the valleys`and peaks, all the walls and rocks, that people used to hide inside of, atop, behind, or under in order to mask their reputations or parts of their past."  Increasingly all of us are obtaining a "google profile" - What type of profile do you/does your organisation have? Due to ease of publication, chances are that someone is going to write about you and/your firm. Do you wish to influence it?

3  The capacity of one person to attack a brand -  In contrast to the past, where companies might be attacked by other firms or by media organs, now it is the little man who is capable of drastically affecting a brand. One example is Jeff Jarvis' blog, Buzz Machine which detailed one man's negative experience with the computer firm, Dell. This obtained not only comments & links but also press coverage, within newspapers and radios. An article which was written by Mr Jarvis regarding the experience in the Guardian is here.  According to Julian Smith of Jupiter Research, companies would be better off not suing individuals as they may not have the funds to pay and might be better advised to both reach out to the consumer community to directly address allegations it feels are unfounded, or work with the disgruntled  commentators to find an agreed solution. 

4 Public disillusionment with traditional forms of marketing & PR efforts of organisations. In a significant piece for the Observer, James Naughton writes about the decision to embrace blogging and why it is so difficult for organisations to embrace blogging:  "But the decision to adopt that tool requires a sea change in corporate attitudes....markets were originally conversations, but the arrival of mass production and of mass markets created by mass media changed that, and the gap between the people who ran businesses and those who bought their products began to widen, bringing in its train a pathological distrust that made consumers increasingly resistant to broadcast messages. 'We speak, you listen became the mantra of the classic mass-production enterprise. ...The internet, by enabling conversations between consumers on a global scale - and potentially between consumers and businesses - will turn the clock back, and make markets more like conversations again."

5 Fundamental shift in relationship between organisations and individuals with individuals rising to the fore - Where blogging is really going to change the nature of business is that it empowers individuals.  The crux of the matter is that conversations  are going to change business because as David Weinberger, a blogger and fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Centre, points out institutions are closed, assume a hierarchy and have trouble admitting fallibility, whereas conversations are open-ended, assume equality and eagerly concede fallibility.  An organisation which has a blog will be in a better position to cope with this new terrain.

6 Capacity to learn other interactive media tools. One of the main benefits of blogging is that it puts you on the road for learning about other interactive media tools such as podcasting and videocasting. This enables you to experiment with different forms of communication with the online world including potential clients and recruits. For example, the management consulting firm, Bain & Co. used a 20-minute podcast featuring Bain executives to attract students at the Indian Institute of Management and pleased with the results, Bain plans to expand its use of podcasts to more universities and other countries next year.  According to the Wall Street Journal "That will put the firm on the leading edge of what may be an emerging trend in recruiting, as employers tap a popular new technology to reach young job seekers.”

Is podcasting good for business?

There are 2 schools of thoughts about podcasting.

The first is that it is a passing fad with no long term prospects.

The second is that it is a tool which can have significant business consequences.

One person who may believe in the latter option is the Dubliner, Ken Carroll - His language learning site Chinesepod.com has sent out 3m free podcasts since it was set up. According to the feature in the Guardian "...the site is one of the first and best examples of how Web 2.0 technologies can be applied to business."

With respect to the business model, the site offering all the podcasts free of charge. Money is made by offering extra teaching materials, available from a subscribers-only learning centre: transcripts of the lessons require a basic subscription ($9 a month), while Flash-based interactive teaching materials require the premium level subscription ($30 a month).

Alternatively, as Prism Legal Consulting recently pointed out you can use podcasting as a recruitment tool. They refer to a Wall Street Journal article Podcasts Extend Recruiters’ Reach  explaining how management consulting firm Bain & Co. used a 20-minute podcast featuring Bain executives to attract students at the Indian Institute of Management. “Pleased with the results, Bain plans to expand its use of podcasts to more universities and other countries next year. That will put the firm on the leading edge of what may be an emerging trend in recruiting, as employers tap a popular new technology to reach young job seekers.”

Online libel is an inadequate remedy for big corporations

Rupert White of Law Society Gazette has another significant piece which deals with blogging and online libel.

He expands on an issue dealt with in a  previous post of mine namely that Jupiter Research found that only 24% of web users contribute to blogs, websites or online forums unprompted but have a disproportionate influence over the opinions of consumers. Rupert managed to interview Julian Smith, an analyst at Jupiter Research.

What Rupert does mention (which I did not) regarding Jupiter's research is "...But perhaps worst of all is that, contrary to tradition where companies might be libelled by other firms or by media organs, now it is the little man who is capable of drastically affecting a brand...These people are generally not worth suing, Mr Smith said, so companies might be better advised to both reach out to the consumer community to directly address allegations it feels are unfounded, or work with the disgruntled  commentators to find an agreed solution." 

As I keep on emphasising, power is shifting to the individual due to the ease of publication from anyone. Why sue in the Courts when the remedy is not going to give satisfaction? This issue of blogging and online communities is going to get bigger.      

Understanding the impact of blogs, wikis and RSS

As part of the trend illustrating the movement of blogs to the corporate sector, there is going to be a conference called "Understanding the impact of blogs, wikis and RSS" which is to be held at the Hilton London Metropole on 17th May 2006.

As the Conference providers write "Effective communication is a challenge for everybody in today’s organisations and social media is all about communication.  Knowing what’s being said both inside and outside your organisation is critical and must be understood and controlled.  But what exactly is involved?"

The one day forum will combine expert insight from leading thinkers of social media technologies with real case studies.  To view more information about the event, please click here. 

The main significance of blogging is in its impact on institutions

This week's Economist has a survey conducted on new media which should be useful reading for blogger and would be bloggers.

To read the opening part of the survey, please click here.   

A key part of the survey appears here where it deals with the impact on institutions by having online conversations-  "The mainstream media, says David Weinberger, a blogger, author and fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Centre, “don't get how subversive it is to take institutions and turn them into conversations”. That is because institutions are closed, assume a hierarchy and have trouble admitting fallibility, he says, whereas conversations are open-ended, assume equality and eagerly concede fallibility."

Effectively we are now starting to live in an era where all institutions and people are accountable, and are far more vulnerable to online discussion. The way that you can "google" someone and find a great deal of information about them means that we are all accountable.

In my view this illustrates that power is shifting from the top to the individual.

Sale of MP3 players surge

I am grateful to this post by Audacious Commuications - Audacious are a UK based communications company who possess an impressive website.

They refer to the market research company Gfk who released actual sales data on the number of MP3 players sold in the UK in the run up to Christmas and throughout 2005.

The research indicates that Mp3 players are now the fastest growing electronic consumer goods of all time with 2.2 million sold in December 2005 alone. Total mp3 players sold in the UK during 2005 reached 6.3 million. In other words one in four UK households bought an MP3 player during the year.

Ignore bloggers at your peril

The Guardian has a significant feature today on blogging. The newspaper refers to a report by a technology research company, Jupiter Research that bloggers and internet pundits are exerting a "disproportionately large influence" on society. Its study suggests that although "active" web users make up only a small proportion of Europe's online population, they are increasingly dominating public conversations and creating business trends.

More than half of the internet users on the continent are passive and do not add to the web at all, while a further 23% only respond when prompted. But the rest who do engage with the internet - through messageboards, websites and blogs - are helping change the national conversation, say researchers.

The legal business is soon to be the commodities business

Last week we were blessed by having David Maister's forthcoming article in the American Lawyer  "Are Law Firms Manageable" placed on his website. This article explains how law firms dysfunction as organisations.

I can also post that The Law Society Gazette has managed to publish an interview with Richard Susskind who is the IT adviser to the Lord Chancellor and the author of the book "The Future of Law." The interview was made with Rupert White who deals with IT matters at the Law Society Gazette.

If you read both articles, you could view them as a massive incentive for Venture Capital Funds to enter the legal services market. 

With respect to Susskind's interview, the message is that lawyers must adapt to the fact that the legal services can be sold as commodities otherwise they face a bleak future.   

What I like about Susskind is that he really does have the capacity to use radical language but make compelling sense - This interview contains a cracking soundbite - "The dominant way in which law firms impart legal guidance remains the same as Bleak House and well before." 

Where I may take issue with Susskind is over the time-frame when some law firms will see the writing on the wall as they cling into what he calls "bespoke service" and resist commoditisation - He is talking within terms of 20 years of many law firms who ignore this facing oblivion. I think it is going to be significantly less.

The biggest threat to all our businesses derives from a new business model

The Telegraph has a piece in today's edition about the fact that LOVEFILM and Video Island are merging to create Europe's largest online DVD rental group. This may be causing some concern to Blockbuster, the rental giant.

Online competition has already hit the market leader, Blockbuster and market screen group, Screen Digest has predicted that online rental companies will capture a quarter of the market in the USA and a third in Europe by 2009.

The industry is experiencing a radical transformation of its business model with online movie downloads emerging as the new frontier.

As the Telegraph writes, US-based Netflix are now moving into online movie downloads. Currently, the rental operation works by letting subscribers order several films online, which are then posted out with a pre-paid return envelope. There is no deadline for returning the films and once they have been received others can be ordered.

I have used this type of service for a number of years and can recommend it.

Where I feel the significance lies in this story is that the biggest danger facing all organisations is not really the existing competition, but it is when someone comes along with a new technology and can adopt a totally compelling new business model.

The danger for us existing players is that we end up fighting the war with tactics and tools that worked in past rather than focusing on the tools needed in the current battle.            

Podcast - Downloadable e-books are coming

In this podcast, I explore the issue of downloadable e-books. Is the publishing industry going to embrace this concept?

Libel and privacy book on hand to solve issues facing digital economy

One of the crucial legal issues emerging within the digital era is that of online defamation and libel law. This is due to the ease with which any individual can publish material online.

I have previously posted about the need for all businesees to use the web but we have to be aware of the potential dangers as well. The worldwide reach of print media, broadcasting, and the Internet has made ignorance about the laws of far-away jurisdictions a here-and-now liability. Publishers, journalists, and authors(including bloggers) can be sued successfully for breaching legal standards thousands of miles away.

A book which seeks to address these issues is International Libel and Privacy Handbook  which is edited by Charles Glasser. 

As the publishers describe the book, it is a nation-by-nation summary of libel and privacy law, written in straightforward language accessible to journalists and editors. It is presented in an easy-to-use format designed for rapid analysis of media law as it applies to globally accessible publications, Internet sites, broadcasting, and wire services.

Contributions by legal experts in Europe, Asia, and the Americas explain the risks publishers should know about prior to publication, what steps editors and publishers should take to avoid legal conflicts, and what defences are available should they be confronted with a claim.

It can be purchased at the Bloomberg Press Bookstore or at Amazon.co.uk

Podcast - Should we be searching for a new business model?

In this podcast, I consider some points raised by Keith Woolcock in his latest article for the Telegraph.

Recommended article - Roy Greenslade on the way the internet revolution is changing the newspaper industry

The Telegraph columnist Roy Greenslade has written a very interesting article on how the internet revolution is changing the  newspaper industry and how the industry should respond.

I am a firm believer that law firms should be dancing on the same place as newspapers and offering podcasts, video and any other form of multi media platform which will enable them to reach out to their clients. 

Effectively we are all media players now.

Podcast- More on blogging seminar

In this podcast, I give some more background on the forthcoming seminar which my firm is running on blogging.

Recommended article - Rupert Murdoch's warning to all organisations

Last week Rupert Murdoch delivered a speech to the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers about the supreme challenges facing the newspaper industry from the online revolution.

In fact the speech has supreme relevance to all organisations and individuals. An edited version appears here in the Independent.

Some memorable excerpts include: 

• "...we probably haven't heard the name of what will be the world's largest company in 2020. Indeed, that company may not even exist yet.."
• "Societies or companies that expect a glorious past to shield them from the forces of change driven by advancing technology will fail and fall. That applies as much to my own, the media industry, as to every other business on the planet."
• "From the wheel to the web, from the printing press to fibre optic cable, it has always been technology that has driven history. Those in the driving seat have always been those who fully understood and used that technology. Today one of our great challenges is to understand and seize the opportunities presented by the web. It is a creative, destructive, technology that is still in its infancy, yet breaking and remaking everything it its path."

For what it is worth, I entirely agree with Mr. Murdoch's analysis about how far reaching the internet revolution is.

What I think is interesting is that the continued de-fragmentation of the media does create an opportunity for lawyers to start putting forward content which can be accessed in a media friendly way. Effectively lawyers can start behaving like online newspapers and TV channels. I will be exploring this issue in my forthcoming seminar on Blogging on 12th April.

WiFi on the rise but WiMax is poised to take over

The current edition of Computing Magazine gives a great deal of prominence to the WiFi revolution.

Several of the UK’s largest cities are poised to go live with broad-reaching WiFi projects this month. Birmingham, Leeds, Nottingham, Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Cambridge, Oxford and parts of London will all introduce WiFi to city centres.

London Stansted has just become the first airport to go live with wireless broadband access in its terminals and bus company, National Express is piloting WiFi on coaches from London to Cambridge.

The growth of WiFi-enabled zones in towns and cities across the country has made the UK the second most wireless nation in the world, surpassed only by the US, according to consultancy JiWire. Citizens and businesses can now use public wireless networks to link to high-speed internet services from wireless laptops and PDAs.

What is interesting is that WiFi itself could be made obsolete by the presence of WiMax processors which will have the potential to cover a much greater range than WiFi such as several kilometres. This is yet another example of how fast the technology revolution is.

WiFi is a set of product compatibility standards for wireless local area networks based on the IEEE 802.11 specifications.

Wi-Fi enables a person with a wireless-enabled computer or personal digital assistant (PDA) to connect to the Internet when in proximity of an access point. The geographical region covered by one or several access points is called a hotspot. It has an effective range of 300 metres.

By contrast, WiMAX is an acronym that stands for Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access, a certification mark for products that pass conformity and interoperability tests for the IEEW 802.16 standards. WiMAX is a standards-based wireless technology that provides high-throughput broadband connections over long distances.

It looks as if WiMax is going to start rolling out by the end of the year.

What are blogs? They are the new community of interests

One of the questions that I am asked by friends and work colleagues is what actually is a blog and what does blogging involve.

The marketing professional Bruce Marcus and the lawyer, Bruce MacEwen(pictured left) of the blog, Adam Smith, Esq. have co-authored an article entitled "Blogs - the new community of interests" which has just been published in the UK based, PM forum.

The PM Forum describes it itself as "a 4,000 strong regionally-based members' association, formed in 1996, dedicated to raising the standards of professional services marketing and to enhancing the credibility of marketers working in professional service firms worldwide."

The actual article provides some useful analysis in explaining what the blogging phenomena is all about.       

The legal revolution is going to speed up

I am grateful to the post by Infolaw and can report that that in his Society for Computers and Law Lecture,  the leading IT expert, Professor Richard Susskind OBE predicted that the pace of development within in the coming decade will be more profound than during the last.

Emerging technologies would enable transformations in the nature of legal service, the way lawyers work, relationships between lawyers and their clients, legal training and learning and dispute resolution.

He sees an evolutionary path to the commoditisation of legal service, through standardisation and systemisation, fuelled by explosions in processing power. Lawyers' methods of working and their working relationships will see major changes influenced by second-generation Knowledge Management and by technology which encourages and requires greater collaboration and an appreciation of the importance of online communities.

Wikis, blogs and webinars carry enormous potential for changing working methods - for example, a partner in charge of a major transaction might keep a daily limited-access blog and would thereby create a more powerful KM tool than could be contemplated by existing techniques.

Human Law joins Law.com network of bloggers

I am pleased to inform you that the Human Law blog has just joined the United States media company's ALM's Law.com affiliate network of bloggers.

The affiliated Network blogs are featured on the Law.com home page and through a daily Legal Blog Watch.

Headquartered in New York City, United States, ALM is a leading integrated media company, focused on the legal and business communities. ALM currently owns and publishes 39 national and regional magazines and newspapers.

The Law.com Blog Network provides links to specialised blogs on legal topics, ranging from constitutional law and business litigation to solo practice and law technology, and offers commentary, analysis and advice that supplements Law.com’s award-winning legal news and information content for lawyers.

The Law.com affiliate bloggers number at least 15 and include  Excited Utterances, May It Please The Court and Adam Smith Esq.

The blogs in the Network feature headlines from Law.com and advertising sold by Law.com. All bloggers in the Network retain editorial control of their respective sites.

From my perspective, the rationle  behind joining the Law.com affiliate bloggers is to significantly expand the reach of this weblog and to identify with a prestigious organisation and set of fellow bloggers.

Technology firms - How ethical are you?

It is not been a good week for the technology firms with U.S. legislators attacking at Google Inc. and other prominent Internet companies on Wednesday because of the companies alleged complicity in human rights abuses by the Chinese government.

Over the past year Yahoo has given at least two of its clients to the Chinese thought police. We are also aware that Microsoft and Google will "co-operate" with what the Chinese government thinks its people should see or read on the internet.

As representatives from Google, Yahoo Inc., Cisco Systems Inc. and Microsoft Corp. looked on, lawmakers from both political parties delivered a withering attack.

"Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace. I simply do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night," said Rep. Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on a House International Relations subcommittee on human rights.

Perhaps the US Congress should be a little careful in being too critical of the Chinese because as a result of its massive trade deficit with China, the Chinese have $250 billion invested in Treasury bonds. Effectively the Chinese are lending the Americans money and if it will pulled the plug, it could send the US financial system haywire.

With respect to the technology companies, Keith Woolcock of the Telegraph provides an illuminating piece.

Here are some of the reasons why technology firms are investing in China:

• Currently there are 110m internet users in China, out of a population of 1.3 billion. By comparison in the West, internet penetration is over half the population.
• The Chinese only spend about 0.3pc of their gross domestic product on advertising, compared with 1.3pc in the US and in other Western countries.
• Google earns 99pc of its revenue from advertising.

As Woolcock writes "Each company can tart their actions up with arguments about a lesser of evils, or taking a course for the greater good, but reality is that dollars and cents has always been the alpha and omega of business, not ethics."

Blogosphere continues to expand

According to David Sifry, head of Technorati who has just posted his quarterly report on the world of blogs, the blogosphere is over 60 times bigger than it was three years ago, and is doubling in size every 5.5 months, on average.

One of the key problems is how to easily find the most interesting blogs on the subjects that you care about. Technorati has tried to get around this by launching Blog Finder, a tags-based way for people to find the most authoritative blogs on a particular subject, allowing bloggers to tag their blogs into the categories that they felt were most relevant for themselves. 

How to bypass Google plans to censor the Chinese internet

Last week there were headlines about Google's rather unsurprising move to stop Chinese citizens from using the company's new google.cn portal to search for websites that refer to Tibetan independence, the Tiananmen Square massacre and the banned Falun Gong organisation.

Therefore I was most grateful to receive this information from the excellent weblog, Blogscript that you can bypass Chinese censorship simply by putting the search terms in capital letters.

Somehow I do not believe that this way to get around Chinese censorship is going to last an eternity but we might as well enjoy it whilst we can.   

TV law channel to launch on 20th February

As the Law Society Gazette announced in its latest edition, the UK's first TV channel dedicated to law will be launched on Sky next month.

Legal TV will cover a daily schedule of live topical debate slots and pre-recorded programmes on consumer orientated subjects.

The channel aims to build up an 18 hour transmission day, but will most likely start with a day that runs from 10 am to 6 pm.

According to a statement from Legal TV, "Our intention is to allow the viewer to access the law in an easy, informative and understandable way. We intend to be the law firm in your living room by introducing a wide range of legal professionals, regular contributors, occasional experts in specific areas."          

My own view is that with the fragmentation of the media, the time is ripe for a TV channel dedicated to law and clearly any approach which tries to present law in an accessible way is bound to be positive. Good luck to Legal TV.   

Warren Buffet enters technology zone

Warren Buffet, the legendary investor and the United States' second richest person (The number one honour goes to his bridge partner, Bill Gates) is investing within a technology company.

According to reports his investment company, Berkshire Hathaway has bought press release publisher, Business Wire.

The deal has my attention for 2 reasons:

1 Warren Buffet has been known to be reluctant to invest in the past few years so any acquisition gets my attention.

2 Mr Buffet is not known to invest within technology type companies. According to the Business Wire's press release the company which has expanded in Europe and Asia in recent years, "is poised to take advantage of impending shifts in corporate transparency and disclosure requirements." It has set up numerous regulatory disclosure networks in Europe in preparation for the European Union's Transparency Obligations Directive, which will take effect in January 2007. The TOD mandates harmonised, pan-European disclosure standards for publicly traded companies in all 25 Member States.

Recommended read

A column which I enjoy reading is that of Keith Woolcock which appears in the Telegraph on Fridays.

He offers some very useful insights into how the digital revolution is going to impact business.

I particularly liked his last column entitled "Flamebait: Lights, camera, roll the year of the download."

He concluded the piece by making the interesting statement "My idea of the average telecoms executive is someone with a head full of feathers paired with a heart of stone. In other words, they have the strategic insight of a pillow and as much concern for customers and shareholders as a lump of rock."

Podcasting enters mainstream

"Podcast" has been declared 2005 Word of the Year by the New Oxford American Dictionary.

Judges said that a year ago that the term was known only to a "few techie and self-admitted geeks" but now its use has spiralled.

To read more about podcasting, please click on this link.   

Video - Why my firm is video blogging

In this video blog, I explain why my firm is video blogging.

Human Law launches video blog

Human Law has just launched its first video blog (or vlog or video casting). To view the first video, please click on the post above.

In this post, I give some background on what video blogging is?

What is video blogging?

According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia "A vlog or video blog is a blog (short for weblog) which uses video as the primary content; the video is linked to within a video blog post and usually accompanied by supporting text, image, and additional meta data to provide context."

Blogs often take advantage of RSS for syndication to other web sites and aggregator software (RSS readers).

Video blogging continues to gain in popularity with each passing month, especially since the release of the new Apple Video iPod and the availability of iTunes Store's video content. iTunes uses the term video podcast to describe a video blog.

Why is video blogging gaining in popularity?

The main reason why video blogging is gaining in popularity is that video is set to become more mainstream in what we do. The latest iPod now offers a video facility as well as the best selling PSP (Portable Play Station) have the capacity to store video. Perhaps more significantly we are seeing digital camcorders continue to decline in price as well as some mobile phone handsets now offering the chance to take and edit images. In addition, the telecommunications company, Skype which was recently purchased by E-Bay now offer free video calls over the internet.

What are the benefits of video blogging?

The main benefit is that it provides a different medium in which to communicate with the outer world and can have particular appeal to a younger audience. With the inclusion of RSS Enclosures, which provides the ability to attach media files to a feed item/blog post, it is possible to bypass the mainstream intermediaries and openly distribute media to the masses via the Internet.

What equipment do you need to set up a video blog?

You will need to use a camcorder, webcam or advanced mobile telephone. Also you may need a external microphone to take the sound. Thereafter you will need to edit the movie and use some software to get it on the internet and to find a company to host it.          

Is the Human Law blog going to become an exclusively video blog?

No. Video is just one medium that I will be using on this blog. The weblog will continue to use written form of communication, audio(via podcasting) and on occasions, video. From my perspective the key is to experiment with a variety of different of mediums and see what is the most effective to communicate to the wider world.

Will Human Law promote its practice on the weblog?

From time to time, I will  use the weblog to promote my practice and in particular the seminars that I do. Nevertheless the weblog will continue to mainly explore the themes of technology, people and law in a more general way without reference to my firm. Indeed such is the way that the legal blogging has emerged is that often law weblogs promote other law weblogs.      

The gulf between law and technology widens

Law has often had to struggle to keep up with technology changes but with the ever speeding technological revolution, the gulf is widening.

The matter is not helped by the fact that most politicians of whatever political disposition do not have an understanding of new technology. For example, how many politicians know what a weblog is, let alone have a capacity to do one?

The point is illuminated by the fact that last week, Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, posted on the internet memos appearing to support claims that Britain had used evidence obtained under torture.

In normal circumstances, Mr Murray would be charged for breach of the Official Secrets Act.

Why was he not charged?

It is reported that the memos were on 4,000 different websites/blogs within the next 72 hours.

As the Observer wrote yesterday, "Who, then, was in receipt of the leak and therefore guilty under the act? Everyone with a computer who downloads them?"             

A legal system for the 19th or 21st Century?

It is rare for me to write on matrimonial matters but read these words in yesterday's leader in the Times:

"Baby M is too young to speak for herself. She is also far too young to wait for a suitable opening to appear in a family court schedule. She has been separated from her mother since September and must wait until April at the earliest to learn whether she will be returned to her mother or given up for adoption. The reason, according to a study by the Law Society on which we report today, is that there is no earlier date available for a court hearing. And her story is not unusual. Another cited by the society involves a women whose husband has built a wall within their house to restrict her movements. She applied for an injunction in March but will not know if one has been granted until January....and the root causes are severe staff shortages in family courts — especially of judges. ."

Elsewhere you can read that the Lord Chancellor's department is in the midst of a campaign to enhance the diversity of the judicial profession and that Philip Waller, District Judge of the Principal Registry of the Family Division, has said: “We acknowledge the problem and are striving to do everything we can within limited resources.”

The new law of the economy -Online libel and defamation

There is an interesting piece in Naked Law's weblog on Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia.

As Naked Law observe, the online encyclopedia, has been forced to change its submission rules following bad publicity by US journalist John Siegenthaler.

According to the Guardian there have been claims it had become a breeding ground for "false and malicious" information. After a week of blunders, the operators of the site - which allows anyone to write and edit articles - are banning anonymous changes and requiring contributors to register.

Mr Siegenthaler, a former assistant to Robert Kennedy, found his biography had been amended to implicate him in the assassinations of both his former boss and JFK.

This case once again highlights that one of the key issues within the New Economy is that of defamation and libel law.     

Confused by the online revolution? You are not alone

Sir Bob Phillis, the chief executive of Guardian Media Group was recently questioned in a newspaper interview about what was the Guardian's online business model.

His response was - "We don't really know."

In the normal course, one would be disturbed by such an answer but in these turbulent times, it seems a perfectly rational and a sensible thing to express. 

Branson enters the media party

As yesterday's Sunday Telegraph reports, Sir Richard Branson is set to transform the British TV and telecoms landscapes by merging Virgin Mobile with NTL, the cable company.

The move will create an organisation worth £4.5 billion with more than 9m customers.

Perhaps the real significance lies in the fact that the coming together will create the first company to offer a "quadruple play" package of mobile, fixed-lines, TV and broadband services.

I believe that this will hasten the continued merging of all media fronts(radio, tv, newspapers and telecoms) and hasten the de-fragmentation of the modern media.

This will accelerate the trend towards people moving away from traditional forms of media such as the 5 terrestrial TV channels, the national daily newspapers and local radio.

The choice of media is wide ranging and as barriers to entry are now zero, everyone and anyone can become a media player.   

Where does this leave your law firm?

It means that you now have a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of communicating with clients and would be clients.

You have the chance to bypass traditional media such as local radio stations, national newspapers and specialist law magazines to communicate your message and enhance your profile. 

But in order to achieve this objective you do not need money but you do need to be technically savvy.   

    

Peter Drucker - An appreciation

The recent passing away of Peter Drucker means that the world has lost one of the greatest management thinkers ever. An appreciation to his life appears in this BBC article.

What I found most amazing about his work was that even into his 90s, he was making profound insights into how the digital economy was impacting society. I really enjoyed his book "Managing in the Next Society."

A fantastic contributer to the world. By all accounts, a man of great humility as well. 

A brief guide to defamation law

In an earlier post that I did, I referred to the growing importance of defamation law due to the ease with which people can put their words online.

During my online travels, I found quite an interesting section on the Weblaw defamation page.(Weblaw is the Internet/E-Commerce division of the London law firm, Sprecher Grier Halberstam.)

Here they provide a succinct but useful analysis of the legal position on defamation law.

They observe that key legislation derives from the Defamation Act 1996 and the Information Society Directive (Directive 2001/29/EC).

Important recent cases include Godfrey v Demon Internet, Dow Jones v Gutnick, Dow Jones v Jameel and Don King v Judd Burstein (Lennox Lewis's New York lawyer) have helped to clarify the law in this area.

According to Weblaw in the context of online defamation:-

i. It is mainly irrelevant where the website is hosted and that what is important is whether the website is accessed in a jurisdiction where the claimant has a reputation capable of being damaged;

ii. English defamation law can be applied to Internet publications irrespective of where the parties are based so long as any such publication cannot be considered negligible and that any action would represent a proportionate and meaningful use of the court’s time and resources;

iii. ISPs who fail quickly to remove allegedly defamatory content can themselves become a party to the defamation. They may, in any event, be compelled to disclose details of publishers whose identities are not apparent from the face of any hosted site.

What impresses me about this summary is the fact that it is concise but gives some useful pointers for us all.

The fusion of TV, computers & newspapers continues

The Telegraph on Tuesday is my recommended read.

It contains the excellent Roy Greenslade media column which often goes some way to making sense of how the digital revolution is impacting the newspaper profession.

This week, Greenslade points out that the latest newspaper sales for October show that the 10 national titles sold an average of 11.3 million copies a day, the lowest in the past 50 years.

Furthermore, he refers to the deposed editor of the Financial Times, Andrew Gowers saying that the print's days are numbered. 

Elsewhere in the newspaper, you can read that the Telegraph is now offering free podcasting of its newspaper where spoken word content is distributed over the internet.

Finally, there is a section on how the internet portal, AOL is to launch its own television network on the web.

These are just another series of example of how television, film, radio and publishing industries are converging.      

The revolution speeds on

One of the technology books which is attracting some interest is written by Ray Kurzweil who is a scientist and inventor.

In his book "The Singularity is Near" he predicts that mankind will see as much progress between the years 2000 and 2014 as there was in the whole of the 20th Century.

Too extreme? I do not think so.

Consider these unlikely statements by respected people:

The late Peter Drucker wrote "The corporation as we know it, which is now 120 years old, is not likely to survive the next 25 years. Legally and financially yes, but not structurally and economically."

Tom Peters, author of Re-Imagine predicts "At least 80 percent of white-collar jobs, as we know them today, will either disappear entirely or be reconfigured beyond recognition."   

Stephen Hawkins said in an interview with the German magazine, Focus  "Unless mankind redesigns itself by changing our DNA through altering our genetic makeup, computer generated robots will take over the world." 

Bloggers beware- Your free speech may be at risk

A significant decision occurred last week within the Courts, namely that the chairman of Southampton football club, Rupert Lowe was awarded £250,000 damages against The Times.

This followed the newspaper claiming that he had behaved "shabbily" in suspending the manager, Dave Jones who was facing child abuse charges of which he was subsequently acquitted.

The key aspect of this case is that it was the one word "shabbily" which played a crucial role in the award of damages.

Against this strict interpretation taken by the Court here, consider the proliferation of website content, weblogs and podcasts and the number of people who can easily put their words online.

The nature of this medium is unregulated and strong opinion is often expressed.

Indeed the word "shabbily" may be comparatively mild.

   

As a consequence, do you not think that one of the key legal issues of the digital economy is going to be defamation and libel law?

After all, if one word can cost you £250,000, think how much damages some webloggers could face? 

We are all media players now

One of the most profound things about new technology is that it is enabling us all to behave like online newspapers/magazines, radio and TV shows.

How so?

Any business can now obtain a website at a relatively inexpensive price which frankly looks just as good as any other on the market.

You can set up a weblog with impressive designs, for free or again, for a low price. 

Many online media outlets offer podcasts(or MP3 files) - Again, there is free software on the market which enables anyone who is relatively computer literate to do this and put their words onto cyberspace.

The phenomena of down-loadable video content is also within the grasp of us all well. Those of us who can use a digital camcorder can create content which makes us all look like TV producers.

With the inevitable fusion of internet and TV, this trend is going to continue. This appears to the philosophy of BSkyB's purchase of the broadband firm, Easynet.

Perhaps in less than 3 years many of us will all be watching our TV via the internet.

The startling thing about this technology is that it is happening so quickly and that its price is so relatively low.

A useful piece on how these trends are impacting the media industry appears in this article in the  Telegraph - Here, the respected media commentator Roy Greenslade urges all newspapers to embrace the online media revolution.

But perhaps the biggest threat to the media profession is that all of us professionals can use media outlets about our areas of expertise(be it law, accountancy or whatever)as a means to communicate with our potential clients.

Previously we dreamt of appearing in local or national media to reach out to the wider world.

Now we are the media.

In light of the fact there that there is every incentive to put this content online for free(to act as an  enticement for our paid services), there is every reason for the media profession to be pretty worried.