Irony struck during a webinar earlier week. Shortly after posting on the benefits of face-to-face communication, I was subject to an hour-long lecture from a senior sales person at a vendor, who both shall remain nameless. The pitch of his voice did not vary more than a half step or so. (Bueller?...Bueller?...Bueller?) The sad part was, despite the awful presentation, the product is one of the tops in its area, and looks really effective. If this person had been with us in the room, he could have seen some us coming close to nodding off and definitely would have been able to see a lot of non-verbal cues to speed things along and be more lively. If the sales person is this flat, I'd rather hear from a technical-side person who might use a little jargon, but would show some genuine passion about the product.
There were two other problems. One was the failure to "teach the problem" at the outset of the talk (this is a basic technique of change management, but also valuable in this context.) In other words, show us why we and our clients need this product (the answer is simple--all are overwhelmed by email and the other news sources, and there is too much pushed out without a way for to turn off the spigot). The other was the fairly slow pace of images. Staring at one slide for the first 15 minutes was not a great way to start.
So that's three lessons in one hour. Just not the ones the vendor wanted to impart.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Entity Extraction & Enterprise Search
Earlier in September, Ron Friedmann posted, with permission, some Oz Benamram comments from an ILTA conversation on enterprise search.
Ron opined that the ability to zero in on the best results through finding documents with a particular business or legal context, achievable in Recommind's MindServer Enterprise Search, is derived from entity extraction.
Certainly entity extraction is what Oz' firm uses and is a feature that legal enterprise search products are starting to achieve. The long time leader in the legal space is Real Practice. I am sure that other vendors are also developing entity extraction toolkits if they do not have them already (see, for instance, page 24 of this April 2007 presentation by Thomson West VP / manager of West KM George May).
But I do not believe that context has to be provided solely through entity extraction. In a professional services firm, context can also be provided through bringing in information from other systems about the matter in which the document was generated. For instance, at a law firm, a matter opening a code could be provided that indicates the "matter industry" (shorthand for the underlying business context of the matter, rather than the legal context). This information could also be imported into a matters database at the time a deal is closed, a litigation case is publicly reported, or some other triggering event. An enterprise search engine can take advantage of a "facet" like industry because both the matter and the document have a matter number that links these pieces of information. This way, the better job a firm does in capturing information about its matters, the better and more focused search it can have.
I suspect that Ron is also missing a key point about relevancy. The faceted navigation provided by Recommind and, by now, the other major enterprise search vendors such as Vivisimo*, allows the user to select the facets (such as a particular industry like shoe manufacturing) that are relevant to them, instead of presenting the user with an undifferentiated list or "wall" of results. The engine does not have to predetermine the higher relevancy of a particular author or industry because the user can drill down into what interests her. (Endeca is the firm that actually pioneered what they call "guided navigation", and they have dominated the e-commerce enterprise search market as a result.)
Of course, it isn't just the facets that matter. I understand that MindServe both provides facets for guided navigation and takes advantage of the metadata to pull up the most relevant documents (in addition to the document content). Good relevancy makes the search worthwhile but is not the only criteria since guided navigation also greatly enhances the lawyer's search experience.
Ron opined that the ability to zero in on the best results through finding documents with a particular business or legal context, achievable in Recommind's MindServer Enterprise Search, is derived from entity extraction.
Certainly entity extraction is what Oz' firm uses and is a feature that legal enterprise search products are starting to achieve. The long time leader in the legal space is Real Practice. I am sure that other vendors are also developing entity extraction toolkits if they do not have them already (see, for instance, page 24 of this April 2007 presentation by Thomson West VP / manager of West KM George May).
But I do not believe that context has to be provided solely through entity extraction. In a professional services firm, context can also be provided through bringing in information from other systems about the matter in which the document was generated. For instance, at a law firm, a matter opening a code could be provided that indicates the "matter industry" (shorthand for the underlying business context of the matter, rather than the legal context). This information could also be imported into a matters database at the time a deal is closed, a litigation case is publicly reported, or some other triggering event. An enterprise search engine can take advantage of a "facet" like industry because both the matter and the document have a matter number that links these pieces of information. This way, the better job a firm does in capturing information about its matters, the better and more focused search it can have.
I suspect that Ron is also missing a key point about relevancy. The faceted navigation provided by Recommind and, by now, the other major enterprise search vendors such as Vivisimo*, allows the user to select the facets (such as a particular industry like shoe manufacturing) that are relevant to them, instead of presenting the user with an undifferentiated list or "wall" of results. The engine does not have to predetermine the higher relevancy of a particular author or industry because the user can drill down into what interests her. (Endeca is the firm that actually pioneered what they call "guided navigation", and they have dominated the e-commerce enterprise search market as a result.)
Of course, it isn't just the facets that matter. I understand that MindServe both provides facets for guided navigation and takes advantage of the metadata to pull up the most relevant documents (in addition to the document content). Good relevancy makes the search worthwhile but is not the only criteria since guided navigation also greatly enhances the lawyer's search experience.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Enterprise 2.0 and face-to-face interaction
These days, knowledge management practitioners work on computer technologies day-in and day-out. I think it is fair to say that without the power of technologies, starting with email and moving on up to collaborative technologies like blogs, wikis, and Sharepoint lists, many of us might not have jobs.
These technologies are so powerful in part because they enable communication in multiple ways. At the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference, a presenter opined that communication technologies could be broken down by the number of communicants on each side of the transmission:
For instance, LucasFilm has moved its special effects, animation, and computer gaming groups under one roof at the Presidio in San Francisco—even these technologically savvy people say in Business Week that with their projects requiring high-level collaboration, “there's no substitute for face-to-face interaction for their team-oriented projects.” (“The Empire Strikes at Silos”, August 20, 2007).
Looking back over my fairly brief time in the field, I have found that face-to-face training and approach has been a critical part of most KM successes I have had. Once I build trust with attorneys through face-to-face interactions, I can be much more effective in transmitting skills and information to them.
Why is face-to-face so much more effective? There are lessons from the science and KM literatures, art, and the law.
One of the most recent scientific or business literature articles to address the uniqueness of face-to-face was an article in the August 2007 issue of “Scientific American Mind” (free preview, but registration required) which suggested that a different set of neurons is activated when we think we are face to face and responding to another person. Carol Kinsey Goman in the May/June 2007 KM Review (article not available on-line) also opined that a “in face-to-face meetings, our brains process a continual cascade of nonverbal cues that we use as the basis for building trust and professional intimacy—both of which are critical to high-level collaboration, negotiation, and communication.” (I especially like her phrase “professional intimacy”, which seems contradictory at first but comes to make sense as you think about it).
More broadly, there is a perception, backed by some studies, that people are best at learning through not just one but a broad range of methods. In addition to the obvious preferences for visual or audio, some people have to do it to learn it (“experiential learners”) while others prefer abstract or theoretical approaches. Working face-to-face may provide each of the different kinds of learners with the type of learning experience that they need; in fact, a good teacher may well consciously or unconsciously be able to adapt the approach to the audience, based on live feedback.
My experience as a long-time classical music performer provides another answer. While a high-level audiophile might disagree, there is no question in my mind that the immediacy and raw power of the sound a live performer makes, working his magic (or not) directly in front of you, cannot be matched by a recording, no matter the depth of the sound. That is true as well for any decent speaker as well.
Another lesson from my musical background is that drama and excitement arise merely from seeing the person sweat (and possibly fail) in the performance—whether a literal high wire act, or violinistic pyrotechnics, or anything that is live and difficult. The listener identifies with the performer and thrills as the performer vanquishes the difficult run in the concerto (or, more pessimistically, feels schadenfreude or sympathy should the fingers slip). There is usually no such gripping drama in any electronic medium—while we know that theoretically there is a possibility of failure through such communications, experience has taught us that by their nature these are carefully vetted and approved well before they are displayed to the world. An exception that proves the rule are the highly promoted product demos, such as Steve Jobs’ spectacular iPhone demo or Bill Gates’ Windows 98 implosion.
There is another lesson from art and theatre. By coming to the event, the audience has already demonstrated a communal commitment to the message or the event. They are no longer passive recipients of a message. In a very real sense, even if (like all internal company events) it is “free”, they have paid for the message, through investing their time and energy in attendance, and they are wanting something back.
My background in law is in litigation. In most cases, people or their representatives actually get a chance to stand up in court in front of a decision maker (such as a judge or arbitrator) who, by law and tradition, is neutral in the dispute. Making the plea in person, or perhaps even better yet, paying someone more eloquent than you to stand up in court, provides this opportunity. We also feel that we can better assess credibility in person, through our assessment of the veracity and likeability of the witness. The face-to-face “plea” satisfies the litigant that at least their voice has been heard. A comparatively anonymous written submission might not.
So what can the practitioner draw from the significance of face-to-face?
One point, ironically, is to keep an eye out for technologies that replicate some of the key aspects of face-to-face, like Cisco’s Telepresence (disclaimer: Cisco is a client of Goodwin Procter.) While I have not seen a demo, Telepresence comes closer to in-person communications by allowing much of the same type of interactions, such as non-verbal cues. The video is high-definition, and replicates the direction of a speaker’s voice; it is also at face level, not up on a TV-like screen. Another (more limited) F2F technology is the Lotus Webconferencing System that via a web connection shows a picture of all participants on an audio conference and indicates via a visual cue who is speaking and who is moderating. And trainings, even stored presentations, should include as many aspects of in-person communication as possible, whether that is video or audio.
A second point is to keep traveling. Integration across offices is a major challenge for all sorts of firms, and all of this makes plain that real integration requires cross-office travel by all sorts of people, in order to build the necessary “professional intimacy” at different operational levels. KM professionals should try to meet as many people as possible in their travels, not just those that they have appointments with, to broaden their personal network and effectiveness.
A third point, a professional development remark, is that KM practitioners should do everything they can to become more effective speakers. A small amount of study in effective speaking can provide a remarkable degree of improvement. The best communication teachers are those who make their living through the voice; actors, directors, and singers. I will always remember the effective coaching I received during a certain transitional period from Michael Allosso, a stage director in the Boston area. I know it helped me tremendously in several job interviews (admittedly a very specialized type of F2F), and I've also sent friends to him, also with good results.
Finally, as noted in the LucasFilm article and in a June 2007 post from my colleague Doug Cornelius, firms can enhance a culture of knowledge-sharing and collaboration by creating a flexible set of spaces within the workplace where people can meet face-to-face. While my current firm has wonderfully large and naturally-lit conference rooms, for more formal business interactions, I have noticed a deficiency (compared to previous firms I have worked) in informal spaces equivalent to coffee shops, eating places with banquettes, or markets. Some ideas for spaces like this would be: extend existing coffee / kitchen space by addition of tables & chairs, have more employee “lounge”-type areas, add a firm cafeteria as these Boston firms did. Even a firm apparel shop (selling branded clothing, mugs, and so forth) could be another such space.
These technologies are so powerful in part because they enable communication in multiple ways. At the recent Enterprise 2.0 conference, a presenter opined that communication technologies could be broken down by the number of communicants on each side of the transmission:
- One person to one person: telephone, IM, email.
- One person to many people: intranets, (email), blogs.
- Many people to one person/company: RSS, message boards, suggestion boxes.
- Many people to many people (web 2.0): video teleconference, face book, wikis, del.icio.us, blogs with actual comments.
(I wish I could identify who said this, but I wasn’t doing live blogging then.)
I think these technologies are amazing and would reject any suggestion that I am a Luddite, ready to toss my laptop. Yet much suggests that the most effective communications occurs face-to-face (a/k/a F2F, F/F) and not through any of these methods.For instance, LucasFilm has moved its special effects, animation, and computer gaming groups under one roof at the Presidio in San Francisco—even these technologically savvy people say in Business Week that with their projects requiring high-level collaboration, “there's no substitute for face-to-face interaction for their team-oriented projects.” (“The Empire Strikes at Silos”, August 20, 2007).
Looking back over my fairly brief time in the field, I have found that face-to-face training and approach has been a critical part of most KM successes I have had. Once I build trust with attorneys through face-to-face interactions, I can be much more effective in transmitting skills and information to them.
Why is face-to-face so much more effective? There are lessons from the science and KM literatures, art, and the law.
One of the most recent scientific or business literature articles to address the uniqueness of face-to-face was an article in the August 2007 issue of “Scientific American Mind” (free preview, but registration required) which suggested that a different set of neurons is activated when we think we are face to face and responding to another person. Carol Kinsey Goman in the May/June 2007 KM Review (article not available on-line) also opined that a “in face-to-face meetings, our brains process a continual cascade of nonverbal cues that we use as the basis for building trust and professional intimacy—both of which are critical to high-level collaboration, negotiation, and communication.” (I especially like her phrase “professional intimacy”, which seems contradictory at first but comes to make sense as you think about it).
More broadly, there is a perception, backed by some studies, that people are best at learning through not just one but a broad range of methods. In addition to the obvious preferences for visual or audio, some people have to do it to learn it (“experiential learners”) while others prefer abstract or theoretical approaches. Working face-to-face may provide each of the different kinds of learners with the type of learning experience that they need; in fact, a good teacher may well consciously or unconsciously be able to adapt the approach to the audience, based on live feedback.
My experience as a long-time classical music performer provides another answer. While a high-level audiophile might disagree, there is no question in my mind that the immediacy and raw power of the sound a live performer makes, working his magic (or not) directly in front of you, cannot be matched by a recording, no matter the depth of the sound. That is true as well for any decent speaker as well.
Another lesson from my musical background is that drama and excitement arise merely from seeing the person sweat (and possibly fail) in the performance—whether a literal high wire act, or violinistic pyrotechnics, or anything that is live and difficult. The listener identifies with the performer and thrills as the performer vanquishes the difficult run in the concerto (or, more pessimistically, feels schadenfreude or sympathy should the fingers slip). There is usually no such gripping drama in any electronic medium—while we know that theoretically there is a possibility of failure through such communications, experience has taught us that by their nature these are carefully vetted and approved well before they are displayed to the world. An exception that proves the rule are the highly promoted product demos, such as Steve Jobs’ spectacular iPhone demo or Bill Gates’ Windows 98 implosion.
There is another lesson from art and theatre. By coming to the event, the audience has already demonstrated a communal commitment to the message or the event. They are no longer passive recipients of a message. In a very real sense, even if (like all internal company events) it is “free”, they have paid for the message, through investing their time and energy in attendance, and they are wanting something back.
My background in law is in litigation. In most cases, people or their representatives actually get a chance to stand up in court in front of a decision maker (such as a judge or arbitrator) who, by law and tradition, is neutral in the dispute. Making the plea in person, or perhaps even better yet, paying someone more eloquent than you to stand up in court, provides this opportunity. We also feel that we can better assess credibility in person, through our assessment of the veracity and likeability of the witness. The face-to-face “plea” satisfies the litigant that at least their voice has been heard. A comparatively anonymous written submission might not.
So what can the practitioner draw from the significance of face-to-face?
One point, ironically, is to keep an eye out for technologies that replicate some of the key aspects of face-to-face, like Cisco’s Telepresence (disclaimer: Cisco is a client of Goodwin Procter.) While I have not seen a demo, Telepresence comes closer to in-person communications by allowing much of the same type of interactions, such as non-verbal cues. The video is high-definition, and replicates the direction of a speaker’s voice; it is also at face level, not up on a TV-like screen. Another (more limited) F2F technology is the Lotus Webconferencing System that via a web connection shows a picture of all participants on an audio conference and indicates via a visual cue who is speaking and who is moderating. And trainings, even stored presentations, should include as many aspects of in-person communication as possible, whether that is video or audio.
A second point is to keep traveling. Integration across offices is a major challenge for all sorts of firms, and all of this makes plain that real integration requires cross-office travel by all sorts of people, in order to build the necessary “professional intimacy” at different operational levels. KM professionals should try to meet as many people as possible in their travels, not just those that they have appointments with, to broaden their personal network and effectiveness.
A third point, a professional development remark, is that KM practitioners should do everything they can to become more effective speakers. A small amount of study in effective speaking can provide a remarkable degree of improvement. The best communication teachers are those who make their living through the voice; actors, directors, and singers. I will always remember the effective coaching I received during a certain transitional period from Michael Allosso, a stage director in the Boston area. I know it helped me tremendously in several job interviews (admittedly a very specialized type of F2F), and I've also sent friends to him, also with good results.
Finally, as noted in the LucasFilm article and in a June 2007 post from my colleague Doug Cornelius, firms can enhance a culture of knowledge-sharing and collaboration by creating a flexible set of spaces within the workplace where people can meet face-to-face. While my current firm has wonderfully large and naturally-lit conference rooms, for more formal business interactions, I have noticed a deficiency (compared to previous firms I have worked) in informal spaces equivalent to coffee shops, eating places with banquettes, or markets. Some ideas for spaces like this would be: extend existing coffee / kitchen space by addition of tables & chairs, have more employee “lounge”-type areas, add a firm cafeteria as these Boston firms did. Even a firm apparel shop (selling branded clothing, mugs, and so forth) could be another such space.
Monday, August 27, 2007
New CommonCraft Video--Social bookmarking
CommonCraft Video has the best training materials I've seen on social collaboration tools. See for instance Doug Cornelius' KM Space posts on Wikis and also on RSS feeds, "RSS in Plain English."
Their next video educates about the power of social bookmarking:
Last month in Pivoting In Delicious I dug down a little bit more into the social collaborative aspect of the tagging than Lee Lefever does here. In particular, I explained how you can examine others' Delicious tags for a particular URL, and, how useful that social context can be.
Their next video educates about the power of social bookmarking:
Last month in Pivoting In Delicious I dug down a little bit more into the social collaborative aspect of the tagging than Lee Lefever does here. In particular, I explained how you can examine others' Delicious tags for a particular URL, and, how useful that social context can be.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
ILTA Extra--Extracurricular Activities--the "ILTones"
One of the more enjoyable sideline activities I participated in this year at ILTA was the choir/chorus, perhaps unfortunately called the "ILTones" (that's the top of my shiny head in the back row). Really, we didn't sound that bad.
The main performance was at ILTA's annual meeting, during lunch on Thursday. I heard that some of the people in the back of the room--OK, perhaps anyone who wasn't in the front row--had a hard time hearing the new lyrics written to the tune of "Fly me to the Moon," so, I'm recreating them here, as best as I can recall:
Take me home too soon, let met stay with ILTA's stars
Education, recreation, how we've raised the bar
In other words, I'm inspired
In other words, love that choir.
As we end this song, there's only one last thing to say
Time to start the planning for our thirty-first soiree
In other words, guess the place
In just a tune... (segue into theme song of a Texas-based 80's drama)
I really enjoyed singing with this group of people. Joining your voice with others, especially in live performance, is a great way to get and stay connected. These folks struck a nice balance between having fun and working hard enough to get the job done. Plus, the director was none other than the charismatic Joy Heath Rush of Sidley Austin, the incoming President of ILTA.
The main performance was at ILTA's annual meeting, during lunch on Thursday. I heard that some of the people in the back of the room--OK, perhaps anyone who wasn't in the front row--had a hard time hearing the new lyrics written to the tune of "Fly me to the Moon," so, I'm recreating them here, as best as I can recall:
Take me home too soon, let met stay with ILTA's stars
Education, recreation, how we've raised the bar
In other words, I'm inspired
In other words, love that choir.
As we end this song, there's only one last thing to say
Time to start the planning for our thirty-first soiree
In other words, guess the place
In just a tune... (segue into theme song of a Texas-based 80's drama)
I really enjoyed singing with this group of people. Joining your voice with others, especially in live performance, is a great way to get and stay connected. These folks struck a nice balance between having fun and working hard enough to get the job done. Plus, the director was none other than the charismatic Joy Heath Rush of Sidley Austin, the incoming President of ILTA.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Last ILTA Session: Sharepoint 2007 at Sheppard Mullin
Tom Baldwin, ILTA Regional VP, Chief Knowledge Officer at Sheppard Mullin, and blogger.
Sheppard Mullin has 500 lawyers and 1,000 users. They have 10 offices (including Shanghai).
Microsoft's Office Sharepoint Server 2007 (I use "Sharepoint" and "MOSS 2007" interchangeably to refer to this software) includes six pieces; workflow, business intelligence, collaboration, portal, content management, and search. Sheppard Mullin is "eating most of the pie" except for business intelligence.
Sheppard Mullin gets more use out of search than any other features. Microsoft has invested a huge amount in search.
Sharepoint acts as the initiator and host of workflow processes, but Sharepoint is just the front end of that (you'll need something else at the back end).
By contrast, the collaboration tools in MOSS 2007 are limited. In particular, Tom mentioned that the built-in RSS feed only has the capacity to capture one fee, and that it was not easy to customize the blogs. At Sheppard Mullin they used the "discussion thread" aspect of MOSS 2007 instead. Blogging is limited as only three blog posts fit on one page. SM lawyers had some practice area requirements, like the ability to post a document to a blog, that didn't work out of the box. An attendee cautioned that Sharepoint wikis and blogs use a completely different set of master pages, so branding has to be recreated.
MOSS 2007 led to savings in maintenance, enterprise search, and workflow at Sheppard Mullin.
Lessons Learned
They almost had too tight a conception of what they wanted. Sharepoint 2007 is very different from 2003. It can take a developer a few months to get up to speed on sharepoint 2007.
Tom suggested starting with search. It's easier to get buy-in.
Try to figure out how to consume data from as many different data as possible. Rollout of a new application might mean simply adding a new tab to a user's home page.
Microsoft may not have understood the massive scope of Sharepoint 2007 adoption across the business world. Getting support can take a while.
What Sharepoint Does For You
Sheppard Mullin has 500 lawyers and 1,000 users. They have 10 offices (including Shanghai).
Microsoft's Office Sharepoint Server 2007 (I use "Sharepoint" and "MOSS 2007" interchangeably to refer to this software) includes six pieces; workflow, business intelligence, collaboration, portal, content management, and search. Sheppard Mullin is "eating most of the pie" except for business intelligence.
Sheppard Mullin gets more use out of search than any other features. Microsoft has invested a huge amount in search.
Sharepoint acts as the initiator and host of workflow processes, but Sharepoint is just the front end of that (you'll need something else at the back end).
By contrast, the collaboration tools in MOSS 2007 are limited. In particular, Tom mentioned that the built-in RSS feed only has the capacity to capture one fee, and that it was not easy to customize the blogs. At Sheppard Mullin they used the "discussion thread" aspect of MOSS 2007 instead. Blogging is limited as only three blog posts fit on one page. SM lawyers had some practice area requirements, like the ability to post a document to a blog, that didn't work out of the box. An attendee cautioned that Sharepoint wikis and blogs use a completely different set of master pages, so branding has to be recreated.
MOSS 2007 led to savings in maintenance, enterprise search, and workflow at Sheppard Mullin.
Lessons Learned
They almost had too tight a conception of what they wanted. Sharepoint 2007 is very different from 2003. It can take a developer a few months to get up to speed on sharepoint 2007.
Tom suggested starting with search. It's easier to get buy-in.
Try to figure out how to consume data from as many different data as possible. Rollout of a new application might mean simply adding a new tab to a user's home page.
Microsoft may not have understood the massive scope of Sharepoint 2007 adoption across the business world. Getting support can take a while.
What Sharepoint Does For You
They wanted to provide some level of personalization for the lawyers. The portal looks at practice group, office, and title to dynamically dictate content.
A "My $" tab has partner's WIP, A/R and so forth.
There is a "My Library" list that shows research sites most relevant to that practice.
Search
The default view on the result list is by relevancy. The other option is by date. In collaboration with XMLaw, Sheppard Mullin enhanced document search results with links to relevant metadata like matter, client, and author. Sheppard Mullin's search requires licensing from XMlaw.
They have adopted matter centricity for email with Interwoven. Each matter space has documents, including emails from the matter workspace. Search may be driving import of emails into workspaces some.
The seach crawls Ceridian (HR/firm directory), accounting, and the DM.
Financial Information
They have drill-down into matter financial information through Aderant. Partners can get to pdf copies of the bills from the finance.
Knowledge Management / Expertise Location
They have a self-sourced attorney information data in a directory in Sharepoint. This was a highly-customized aspect, drawing data from 3 sources. The screen shot shows a mug shot, contact into, education, language, and bar admissions, and can be refined in faceted fashion by attorney type and practice area.
Extend Sharepoint
The standard firm home web page shows news and events are tailored to the individual--from their office and practice group. There were too many "attaboy" announcement. They now have a "vanity page" that lets the marketing department filter events. Two or three of the announcements cycle with forward/back and pause. Each office page has 10 tabs including Hotels, Restaurants (with reviews), Floor Maps, Cars, Directions; the office manager's secretary usually is the publisher.
The rollout of Compulaw will lead to the addition of a "My Docket" tab, targeted to the practice area (i.e., a transactional lawyer wouldn't see it). Tom has abandoned classroom training. Firms are adding applications at an alarming rate.
Partners have a "CFO Reports" tab that has the most current version of financial information for them.
Another "Contacts Network" application is mining email to show who at the firm knows who, with a particular focus on outside contacts. A comparison between that product and the firm's more traditional contact management software showed roughly a three-fold increase in the number of relationships exposed.
Tom has one full-time developer and there is one more in IT who deals with workflow. Apparently, in selecting developers, ".net" and Sharepoint knowledge are not good enough; Sharepoint 2007 developers also need XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language).
Usage Tracking
Tom looks at who is and who isn't running searches. He bought a separate reporting module from Microsoft (for not a lot of money). Most people providing add-ons are quite inexpensive.
West KM
It is a challenge is getting lawyers to use any separate search. Sheppard Mullin wanted to integrate West KM into their advanced search. They have been working with Thompson to get some of the functionality of West KM into their document search results.
By way of background, West KM uses some of Thompson West's well-known search technology, first to vet, and then to search a firm's internal work product.
Sheppard Mullin will be adding a tab to the results that targets "premium" content from the separate West KM document repository; documents found through this tab have a "KM Preview" option. (Tom mentioned aftewards that they might also decide to have the KM Preview be the default search tab). The "KM Preview" shows an HTML representation of the document, complete with the West KM treatment of case citations. This means:
- a live check of a KeyCite flag (indicating whether or not a case remains good law, per Westlaw's databases);
- a hyperlink to the full KeyCite, from Westlaw;
- a separate hyperlink to the case authority itself; and,
- a "km" icon to link you to all other internal firm workproduct that cites to that case authority.
[West KM is a key piece of knowledge management software for litigators at my firm. I'm impressed with Thompson's willingness to open up and work with Sheppard Mullin to integrate West KM functionality with Sharepoint search, without having the West KM logos all over the place. Of course, it is in their interest to have the West KM technology spread as far as possible, since it tends to drive people to use Westlaw research tools. They were smart to do this with MOSS 2007 since, per the general impression I received at ILTA, it looks like it will eventually be the dominant platform in the legal market.]
Session 3 of last day of ILTA: Training for Matter Centricity / Taming The "What's In It For Me" Beast
There were two substantive speakers at this session containing many tips and a fair amount of interesting discussion on training and change management issues relating to matter centricity (MCC) adoption in the Interwoven platform
Gina Buser, President of Traveling Coaches, Inc. (moderator).
Patty Stover, Manager of Technology Training at King & Spalding LLP.
Jeff Ward, Director of Application Support at Fulbright & Jaworski.
Fulbright & Jaworski
Documents from matters were being saved to multiple location. MCC works best when all documents from a matter are in the same workspace.
They structured the database based on the year the matter was started. The year is embedded in the matter numbers.
If they had left out MCC from the introduction of Interwoven "it would have been like ripping off the bandaid all over again."
FJ worked with Baker Robbins & Traveling Coaches to assess and implement change management needs. They had focus groups for 20% of the users over 2 1/2 weeks, video conferenced, and had an e-learning and training program. Attorneys won't go through the difficulty of dealing with a new system and workflow unless they understand the big picture. They did play-acting with lawyers and the staff. Jeff played a corporate attorney with an email problem and his colleague played another one with 4 tasks. They lined up the office administrators and partners in charge of each office behind the road show and had decent lawyer participation and very high admininstrative participation.
Partners were interested because of the email management problem. Other drivers included not having to do redundant printing.
They went with Filesite because they got mixed up between Interwoven and Interaction. "You can't flash-cut over humans." They had target goals for the first week:
Day 1: find documents
Day 2: file documents
Day 3: start with matter list
Lessons Learned
Rolling out new software can be a difficult test. Prepare users. Rolling out new software can be a difficult test. Prepare users.
Call it "Interwoven in Outlook" or "electronic file wrapper," not MCC.
King & Spalding
Practice support is not office-specific. They have six trainers plus a manager on their training staff. They started in August 2005 and finished rollout in January 2006. They did a staggered rollout, not just one office at a time but started with one as they finished with another.
The strategy was determined by the need to finish the switch before the move to a new office.
They supplemented training with 4 additional trainers--2 in classroom and 2 on floors. They could receive an on-line program customized to the different products (30 went through this way) and the rest got classroom training.
Email
Gina Buser, President of Traveling Coaches, Inc. (moderator).
Patty Stover, Manager of Technology Training at King & Spalding LLP.
Jeff Ward, Director of Application Support at Fulbright & Jaworski.
Fulbright & Jaworski
Documents from matters were being saved to multiple location. MCC works best when all documents from a matter are in the same workspace.
They structured the database based on the year the matter was started. The year is embedded in the matter numbers.
If they had left out MCC from the introduction of Interwoven "it would have been like ripping off the bandaid all over again."
FJ worked with Baker Robbins & Traveling Coaches to assess and implement change management needs. They had focus groups for 20% of the users over 2 1/2 weeks, video conferenced, and had an e-learning and training program. Attorneys won't go through the difficulty of dealing with a new system and workflow unless they understand the big picture. They did play-acting with lawyers and the staff. Jeff played a corporate attorney with an email problem and his colleague played another one with 4 tasks. They lined up the office administrators and partners in charge of each office behind the road show and had decent lawyer participation and very high admininstrative participation.
Partners were interested because of the email management problem. Other drivers included not having to do redundant printing.
They went with Filesite because they got mixed up between Interwoven and Interaction. "You can't flash-cut over humans." They had target goals for the first week:
Day 1: find documents
Day 2: file documents
Day 3: start with matter list
Lessons Learned
Rolling out new software can be a difficult test. Prepare users. Rolling out new software can be a difficult test. Prepare users.
Call it "Interwoven in Outlook" or "electronic file wrapper," not MCC.
King & Spalding
Practice support is not office-specific. They have six trainers plus a manager on their training staff. They started in August 2005 and finished rollout in January 2006. They did a staggered rollout, not just one office at a time but started with one as they finished with another.
The strategy was determined by the need to finish the switch before the move to a new office.
They supplemented training with 4 additional trainers--2 in classroom and 2 on floors. They could receive an on-line program customized to the different products (30 went through this way) and the rest got classroom training.
Lessons Learned
They made it too complicated. The words "matter centricity" scares them. Call it foldering or "workspaces." Foldering will help them in a flexible fashion according to how they do their work. People in her firm stored email in Outlook folders already. Foldering is an extension of that idea. Foldering is part of getting them organized and sharing their documents with their peers. It lets them share Outlook folders.
Partner with the records, the library, and practice groups.
They developed an online training capacity that allowed preintroduction and post-testing.
Success was measured by the number of attorneys using the folders. One program was called "the trainer is in." They spent 1/2 a day on the floor and tried to find out what people needed. Sat on the floor with paralegals and secretaries and learned about the "unarchive" problem." Has tips of the week for attorneys, and for two months everything was about workspaces.
In-house people trained the attorneys, others trained by vendors. Staff could receive follow-up classes the next week.
She did not expect people to go back and move documents from their matters. "As you open or reference a document, file it."
Another person mentioned that they used "orphan document" filing problems to identify file needs.
Patty said K & S encouraged "to be filed" folders, especially for attorneys who weren't comfortable with filing themselves. Jeff said FJ did not allow "to be filed" and cautioned that there will be people who dump-file into the wrong matter, and you have to look out for them. A commentator mentioned that her firm forced people to file new documents into a matter workspace and did not allow them to file documents through filling out profiles.
They have workspaces set up for nonbillable administrative work.
I asked Patty what King & Spalding is calling the DMS. She thought that you need to call it "Interwoven" even though some people call it "iManage" (they have not moved to FileSite yet). Another commentator said they started calling it "the DMS."
You have to market the benefits. She creates special introductions to what she is doing. "This will teach you how to..." Give them an introduction to better profiling or organization by doing a webinar as they eat lunch at their desks.
A commentator (with a British accent) from a major international law firm mentioned that they haven't had problems getting documents into matter workspaces and that they have "personal" and "pending" folders. The biggest pushback has been on email.
Patty said that they have a policy that all documents have to be electronically filed. Filing could be in an Outlook folder. They didn't want to advise people to copy emails into workspace folder. They also established that 2 months after the matter is closed, the emails have to be out of Outlook.
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