An attorney at my firm recently asked me, in effect, if I thought LinkedIn was sufficiently professional that it would not embarrass her if she joined.
I answered that, yes, it was pretty far along, and that I thought there were several hundred thousand lawyers on that service.
(I have also suggested to a KM colleague looking for work that before she did any more research or on-line work she should get herself a Linked-In profile, as the absence of one might hurt her.)
I knew that my firm had its own company profile (which has 930 current employee members, plus former employees and other hangers-on) I wanted to check my math and found this useful and graphical post from Steve Matthews at Stem Legal Web Enterprises, suggesting that there were 840,000 people in the "legal practice" category in LinkedIn as of June 2009, up from some 406,000 in December 2008.
LinkedIn is not limited to the U.S. by any means, so I ran my own search and identified 627,302 U.S. people in the "legal practice" and "legal service" industries.
Let's assume that half of these people are IT, administrative, or marketing staff (a conservative assumption, for instance, at my firm more than half of the people are lawyers). So that leaves something north of 300,000 lawyers on LinkedIn (yes I pat myself on the back).
To put that large number in context, the ABA reports (based on reports from state bar associations) that were are a total of 1,180,386 lawyers in the U.S. at the end of 2008. So we are at around 30% adoption--well past the "early adopters" and into the "early majority," the middle of the adoption curve on LinkedIn. And the rate of growth--doubling every six months, four times that of Moore's Law--cannot be sustained, because we will run out of lawyers in about a year!
I have found that LinkedIn has greatly improved lately through introducing status updates, useful groups of various kinds, and good guesses at who else I might want to be connected to. These Web 2.0 features and its ubiquity help explain its success.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Article on Legal Matter Management published in ILTA White Paper
My article appropriately if plainly titled "Legal Matter Management" has been published as part on an otherwise outstanding edition of the annual International Legal Technology Association's Knowledge Management White Paper, titled "Knowledge Management: More Than the Sum of Its Parts."
In my article I address why matter management is important; the types of information captured shared and leveraged through matter management; and the possibilities for enhanced practice efficiency and more through a fully developed matter management system.
In my article I address why matter management is important; the types of information captured shared and leveraged through matter management; and the possibilities for enhanced practice efficiency and more through a fully developed matter management system.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Article Published in KMPro Journal
My article "Enterprise 2.0 at Goodwin Procter" has been published by KMPro Journal, of the Knowledge Management Professional Society (no subscription required).
http://www.kmpro.org/journal/KMPro_Vol_6_No_1.pdf
In the article I contrast some traditional knowledge management practices and the greater degree of communication and engagement possible with Enterprise 2.0 tools; address some of the many uses to which wikis and blogs have been put at Goodwin Procter; and discuss some lessons learned.
It was a really enlightening experience to put down my thoughts about Enterprise 2.0 and the progress made in adoption of these tools at Goodwin. My thanks to Deb Wallace and Mary Lee Kennedy for their helpful edits and guidance, and to Doug Cornelius for starting me and the firm down the Enterprise 2.0 path.
http://www.kmpro.org/journal/KMPro_Vol_6_No_1.pdf
In the article I contrast some traditional knowledge management practices and the greater degree of communication and engagement possible with Enterprise 2.0 tools; address some of the many uses to which wikis and blogs have been put at Goodwin Procter; and discuss some lessons learned.
It was a really enlightening experience to put down my thoughts about Enterprise 2.0 and the progress made in adoption of these tools at Goodwin. My thanks to Deb Wallace and Mary Lee Kennedy for their helpful edits and guidance, and to Doug Cornelius for starting me and the firm down the Enterprise 2.0 path.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Legal KM Survey from the International Legal Technology Association
This spring I joined the Steering Committee for the International Legal Technology Association's Knowledge Management Peer Group (see also their FAQ).
If your firm is an ILTA member, please take the one-page survey and help us evaluate how KM is doing.
Here's the official message:
"Dear Colleagues,
Our KM peer group will be producing a white paper in the near term, and we are gathering some important data to assist in reporting to you on the status of KM within our community. The link below will walk you through a very brief questionnaire. As an incentive for your response, your name will be entered into a drawing for a waived conference registration fee!
Your business e-mail address is required so that we can remove duplicates and enter you in the drawing. Complete anonymity is guaranteed, and your identifier will be removed from the "normalized" data before it moves into analysis. And you'll see a report on the findings in our white paper, scheduled for distribution in June.
Please provide your input at: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB2294Z23BDUY.The survey will be available through close of business May 6, 2009.
Many thanks for your participation!"
If your firm is an ILTA member, please take the one-page survey and help us evaluate how KM is doing.
Here's the official message:
"Dear Colleagues,
Our KM peer group will be producing a white paper in the near term, and we are gathering some important data to assist in reporting to you on the status of KM within our community. The link below will walk you through a very brief questionnaire. As an incentive for your response, your name will be entered into a drawing for a waived conference registration fee!
Your business e-mail address is required so that we can remove duplicates and enter you in the drawing. Complete anonymity is guaranteed, and your identifier will be removed from the "normalized" data before it moves into analysis. And you'll see a report on the findings in our white paper, scheduled for distribution in June.
Please provide your input at: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB2294Z23BDUY.The survey will be available through close of business May 6, 2009.
Many thanks for your participation!"
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Corresponding with Cornelius on Collaboration with Clients
In a post earlier this week Doug Cornelius (now over at Compliance Building) hit the extranet nail on the head by identifying the primary obstacles and benefits to extranet collaboration. His post sparked a flurry of activity with Luis Suarez of IBM making enticing comments about LotusLive (I have yet to check it out although I do note that now it is, in fact, live).
At ILTA 08 I heard of some firm-provided extranets through which clients obtained some access to up-to-date billing and fee information. Although it had to be done on a one-off basis, the clients who received that information valued it highly.
In addition to the instance of the large deal that requires very detailed item-level security access control, products liability litigation provides another extranet use case. There a whole set of cases revolves around a recurring group of experts, expert reports, plaintiff's attorneys, coordinating counsel, and local counsel. From the defense perspective, there is great value in aggregating information from many different people (such as local and coordinating counsel from law firms) who are repeatedly interacting with the same players and some of the same documents; you would think that could happen more easily on an extranet, though perhaps the logistical issues you note are a challenging barrier.
For their own marketing and KM needs, firms such as mine may already have collected information about the matters that clients also need and would like to have. If firms can aggregate and display (on an extranet) in a robust way rich sets of information about a lot of cases they handle for a major client, they are providing more value to the clients. That may initially be more of an information-gathering and reporting problem, but even this type of information could be made more useful through an interactive and collaborative online environment.
At ILTA 08 I heard of some firm-provided extranets through which clients obtained some access to up-to-date billing and fee information. Although it had to be done on a one-off basis, the clients who received that information valued it highly.
In addition to the instance of the large deal that requires very detailed item-level security access control, products liability litigation provides another extranet use case. There a whole set of cases revolves around a recurring group of experts, expert reports, plaintiff's attorneys, coordinating counsel, and local counsel. From the defense perspective, there is great value in aggregating information from many different people (such as local and coordinating counsel from law firms) who are repeatedly interacting with the same players and some of the same documents; you would think that could happen more easily on an extranet, though perhaps the logistical issues you note are a challenging barrier.
For their own marketing and KM needs, firms such as mine may already have collected information about the matters that clients also need and would like to have. If firms can aggregate and display (on an extranet) in a robust way rich sets of information about a lot of cases they handle for a major client, they are providing more value to the clients. That may initially be more of an information-gathering and reporting problem, but even this type of information could be made more useful through an interactive and collaborative online environment.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Upcoming Conference on "Leveraging Virtual Teams & Social Tools for Business Advantage: Blogs, Wikis, Twitter"
The Boston KM Forum is putting on a longer, more involved set of discussions around the business advantages of Web and Enterprise 2.0 tools, a subject near and dear to my heart, at Bentley College next Tuesday, March 31st. I'll be there.
The speakers and talk titles are:
The speakers and talk titles are:
- Soaring with Virtual Teams: How Working At-A-Distance and Across Boundaries Can Outperform Face-to-Face, Jessica Lipnack - CEO of NetAge and co-author of Virtual Teams; see her free webinar on the same subject.
(I've enjoyed Jessica's presentations at Enterprise 2.0 Boston and elsewhere, with her trademark of "stand up and tell us who you are!") - IBM’s Grounds-Up Social Software Transformation, recently married Suzanne Minassian (twitter)- Lotus Connections Product Manager, IBM
(Lotus Connections is one of the leading Enterprise 2.0 products (or sets of products) and I look forward to hearing some more stories of its implementation.) - Vital Catalyst: Social Media is Holding and Growing Audiences,
Ken George, New Media Manager, and author of The Converstation, WBUR
(I don't know Ken but WBUR has a quite sophisticated web presence and set of podcasts.) - Give to Get: Real-World Dividends from Social Networking, Sadalit Van Buren, Knowledge Management Associates
(Sadalit is the author of A Matter Of Degree and is a real expert in making the most of Sharepoint's Enterprise 2.0 features.)
Monday, March 23, 2009
"Emergence" at the Boston KM Forum
Last Thursday I attended a Boston KM Forum talk titled "Emergence—Get with it or fade away" by veteran social networker and knowledge worker Dan Keldsen (http://twitter.com/dankeldsen, blog at http://www.BizTechTalk.com). Dan is a good speaker as well as the only person I know of whose Twitter profile picture is skewed sideways.
He was also kind enough to share his interesting slides on Slideshare. Jack Vinson has also posted on the event, in a fashion that compliments what I do here.
What is Emergence?
Emergence is not a great term because people don’t necessarily know what it means. A better term might be “viral success.” The main focus of his talk was about social media applications that have enabled such success, and how you can either take advantage of those systems directly yourself, and perhaps even structure your next effort to try to make it "viral."
He mentioned at the outset Andrew McAfee's seminal article on Enterprise 2.0 titled "The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration." and its SLATES acronym of key features that allow knowledge workers to organize their work in the way that fits them best, i.e., that support and enable emergent behavior.
He recommends “Emergence” by Steven Johnson (reviewers on Amazon were not so kind, I have to point out).
One feature of "emergent" practice is, how easy is it people like customers, employees, and partners to understand what you’re doing and “spread the word.” Are you providing a path for community feedback?
Quantitative Analysis of Emergence
Dan explained the simple underpinnings of "viral loops" or other behavior that will multiply and spread over social networks. He drew on a presentation by "Arch Viral," http://www.slideshare.net/Startonomics/arch-viral-creating-social-apps-for-social-platforms-presentation .
First a user issues an invitation to participate to "friends" (in Facebook parlance) or others to whom that user is known. Some percentage of those friends accept (the "install flow"), and some percentage of those friends go on to issue additional invitations (as part of the "engagement flow"). If the average number of friends invited times the average percentage of acceptance with initial or later add-on activities is greater than 1, then you have a viral application.
(For the math-challenged, here's an example; if a new user asks 5 friends to join, and an average of 22% of them accept, then the "viral factor" is 1.1, and the application is viral. If only 18% accepted, the "viral factor would be less than 1, and the application would not be viral).
Multiple invites and “bites at the apple” will increase the rate of viral adoption. Small changes can have a big effect (like the wings of a butterfly).
This part of the presentation struck me as the most directly useful to my knowledge work. Correlating Facebook applications to the spread of Enterprise 2.0 is not at all intuitive.
But inside the enterprise, relatively small barriers to adoption of social adoption can potentially destroy the viral spread of potentially useful applications. It behooves us then to make the barriers that new groups and employees have to hurdle to get to the tools as low and as unbureaucratic as possible, and to find ways to get "second bites at the apple" that mimic the
continuous engagement and reward that the more successful social applications provide.
My other main takeaway was Jack Vinson's comment that one should be able to discover or uncover the networks and effects that could let power of emergence affect the enterprise.
Emergent Social Networks
In Dan’s last transition he was able to tap into a rich vibrant network because of his work with LinkedIn, his blog, etc. People could Google his name and find out a *lot* about him. He also leveraged his extensive LinkedIn connections in his last trip to Denmark.
Dan is another musician, albeit from the rock & roll side of the tracks. He showed Blip.fm as another social web application with excellent user feedbacks that enhance emergence. For instance, you get “props” for promoting things that people like. In turn you can give out “props" and you eventually get “badges” that show rank. You can also “reblip” someone's "blip" and if they do the same to you, you get more credit.
Slideshare is another emergent social tool that shows how many times each presentation has been viewed. Dan’s slideshare on “Maps, Concepts, Process” has been seen 9,423 times (actually 9,485 as of this writing!) His presentation “Who’s The Boss, MOSS?” has been seen 5,917 times after an initial audience of "only" 100.
How to Enhance Emergence and Make it "Go Viral"
Blip taps into people's interest in game-like interactions with personal rankings, and also the social need to give and get respect. Other applications might tap into the competitive instincts by showing daily, weekly, or "all-time" rankings.
Slideshare similarly gives its users feedback about how many times their presentations have been viewed, with feedback allowed at the contributor or presentation levels.
The more detail you provide in your online interactions, the more likely you will be able to connect with people of like mind and similar interests.
Why tap into emergent platforms?
You may find something rich that you wouldn’t have found otherwise, along with new ways to learn information that you can share. Having more connections expands the potential of what you can accomplish.
Normally professional organizations would serve some of the functions that LinkedIn is now. These organizations represent professional contact networks and may be in trouble unless they adapt.
Participant-driven platforms are another communication revolution. What kind of meaningful mechanisms will make them more useful and avoid us getting swamped?
Summary
He was also kind enough to share his interesting slides on Slideshare. Jack Vinson has also posted on the event, in a fashion that compliments what I do here.
What is Emergence?
Emergence is not a great term because people don’t necessarily know what it means. A better term might be “viral success.” The main focus of his talk was about social media applications that have enabled such success, and how you can either take advantage of those systems directly yourself, and perhaps even structure your next effort to try to make it "viral."
He mentioned at the outset Andrew McAfee's seminal article on Enterprise 2.0 titled "The Dawn of Emergent Collaboration." and its SLATES acronym of key features that allow knowledge workers to organize their work in the way that fits them best, i.e., that support and enable emergent behavior.
He recommends “Emergence” by Steven Johnson (reviewers on Amazon were not so kind, I have to point out).
One feature of "emergent" practice is, how easy is it people like customers, employees, and partners to understand what you’re doing and “spread the word.” Are you providing a path for community feedback?
Quantitative Analysis of Emergence
Dan explained the simple underpinnings of "viral loops" or other behavior that will multiply and spread over social networks. He drew on a presentation by "Arch Viral," http://www.slideshare.net/Startonomics/arch-viral-creating-social-apps-for-social-platforms-presentation .
First a user issues an invitation to participate to "friends" (in Facebook parlance) or others to whom that user is known. Some percentage of those friends accept (the "install flow"), and some percentage of those friends go on to issue additional invitations (as part of the "engagement flow"). If the average number of friends invited times the average percentage of acceptance with initial or later add-on activities is greater than 1, then you have a viral application.
(For the math-challenged, here's an example; if a new user asks 5 friends to join, and an average of 22% of them accept, then the "viral factor" is 1.1, and the application is viral. If only 18% accepted, the "viral factor would be less than 1, and the application would not be viral).
Multiple invites and “bites at the apple” will increase the rate of viral adoption. Small changes can have a big effect (like the wings of a butterfly).
This part of the presentation struck me as the most directly useful to my knowledge work. Correlating Facebook applications to the spread of Enterprise 2.0 is not at all intuitive.
But inside the enterprise, relatively small barriers to adoption of social adoption can potentially destroy the viral spread of potentially useful applications. It behooves us then to make the barriers that new groups and employees have to hurdle to get to the tools as low and as unbureaucratic as possible, and to find ways to get "second bites at the apple" that mimic the
continuous engagement and reward that the more successful social applications provide.
My other main takeaway was Jack Vinson's comment that one should be able to discover or uncover the networks and effects that could let power of emergence affect the enterprise.
Emergent Social Networks
In Dan’s last transition he was able to tap into a rich vibrant network because of his work with LinkedIn, his blog, etc. People could Google his name and find out a *lot* about him. He also leveraged his extensive LinkedIn connections in his last trip to Denmark.
Dan is another musician, albeit from the rock & roll side of the tracks. He showed Blip.fm as another social web application with excellent user feedbacks that enhance emergence. For instance, you get “props” for promoting things that people like. In turn you can give out “props" and you eventually get “badges” that show rank. You can also “reblip” someone's "blip" and if they do the same to you, you get more credit.
Slideshare is another emergent social tool that shows how many times each presentation has been viewed. Dan’s slideshare on “Maps, Concepts, Process” has been seen 9,423 times (actually 9,485 as of this writing!) His presentation “Who’s The Boss, MOSS?” has been seen 5,917 times after an initial audience of "only" 100.
How to Enhance Emergence and Make it "Go Viral"
Blip taps into people's interest in game-like interactions with personal rankings, and also the social need to give and get respect. Other applications might tap into the competitive instincts by showing daily, weekly, or "all-time" rankings.
Slideshare similarly gives its users feedback about how many times their presentations have been viewed, with feedback allowed at the contributor or presentation levels.
The more detail you provide in your online interactions, the more likely you will be able to connect with people of like mind and similar interests.
Why tap into emergent platforms?
You may find something rich that you wouldn’t have found otherwise, along with new ways to learn information that you can share. Having more connections expands the potential of what you can accomplish.
Normally professional organizations would serve some of the functions that LinkedIn is now. These organizations represent professional contact networks and may be in trouble unless they adapt.
Participant-driven platforms are another communication revolution. What kind of meaningful mechanisms will make them more useful and avoid us getting swamped?
Summary
- Enable easy sharing of posts, information, or whatever else your application addresses (Twitter, Facebook, "Add This" application)
- Set up reward systems that will draw on competitive instincts and show progress (any online game, Blip.fm)
- Count hits, downloads, views, and such to show people how much of interest others have taken in a piece of news or application (Youtube, Amazon)
- Enable a friend or follower system that will let people connect to each other, give them some idea of who else is around, and share their interests (Facebook, Youtube, etc.)
- Tags to let people identify for you, rather than coming up with your own terms (Facebook, Delicious, #twitter)
The best social information applications combine all of these characteristics.
As Jack says, let people "Find, Share and Compare."
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