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 loo