Dennis Kennedy

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July 30, 2003

SpringsteenNews.Net - RSS Feed

At long last I've found a Springsteen site with an RSS feed - SpringsteenNews.net. With news, set lists from recent shows and more, you can keep tab on the latest happenings on the current tour.

Posted by dmk at 09:38 PM

But the Lawyer Said I Have to Get a New PC

In PC replacements: Lawyers, auditors and common sense, Peter Kastner argues that companies may have a fiduciary responsibility to update computer equipment. Anyone working with an outdated and underpowered computer might want to place a copy of this article on the boss's desk.

Posted by dmk at 09:31 PM

The Case for PDF

Jakob Nielsen and others have been highly critical of PDFs lately. Not surprisingly, there is another side of the story. This article on PlanetPDF.com critiques those critiques and presents the other side of the story.

Posted by dmk at 09:17 PM

July 28, 2003

"Expert" Speaks on Legal Tech Cost Savings and More

When I returned home from a very productive and enjoyable TechShow 2004 board meeting in Denver, I saw an article called "Tech for Less" in the ABA's eJournal Report. The article quotes me at length on some of my favorite topics: wise use of technology budgets, IT portfolio management and the like.

I had a pretty lengthy conversation with the author and while she emphasized a few points a bit differently than I would have, I think the article contains a lot of good points for lawyers to consider.

My final point in the article, however, lost a little in translation, because my point of view is a little counter-intuitive. The article says: "If you have a terrific Web site, Kennedy says, then consider investing in another area where you are lagging behind other attorneys." My belief, in fact, is that in a slow economy you should seriously consider prioritizing investments in areas in which you are already ahead to further distance yourself from your competition. So, if you have a great web site, you should think hard about putting more money into the site to extend the gap between you and your competitors.

That said, it's definitely an article that's worth a read and there are also some excellent comments from Andy Adkins.

Posted by dmk at 10:06 PM

July 23, 2003

Missouri Biotech: From Burbank to Biobelt

A week or so ago my friend and personal biotech guru, Kevin Buckley, invited me to a bill signing for Missouri House Bill 688, which Kevin played a key role in drafting. The new law is pretty cool - dedicating a portion of Missouri's tobacco settlement funds to life sciences research and development.

His invitation prompted me to pull out the copy of Matt Ridley's Genome that I had been wanting to read for a while. As I read a chapter on Gregor Mendel the night before the signing, I found myself wondering whatever happened to all the notes and research that Luther Burbank did with plants. I made a mental note to check into that.

The next day at the signing, Kevin and I were talking with Dennis Roedemeier of the Missouri Department of Economic Development and, much to my surprise, he started talking about Luther Burbank.

As it turns out, Burbank was so impressed by the work at the Stark Brothers nurseries in Louisiana, Missouri (still a major seed and plant supplier) that he assigned them his patents and materials. Part of this fascinating story is told in this paper written by Dan Kevles for a Yale Law School legal theory workshop.

Missouri has been billing itself as the "Biobelt" recently, which seemed a bit of an overreach to me (because I didn't know the history), but, as I now consider the lineage of Burbank and Stark Bros., the work of Peter Raven at the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the world-renowned work on Washington University, Monsanto and other Missouri entities in the plant sciences, that moniker now seems quite fitting.

There is no one who is more enthusiastic about the future of biotech in Missouri than my friend Kevin Buckley and his enthusiasm grew by leaps and bounds as we heard this story. I thought that I might even be driving with him out to Stark Bros. that same afternoon, but we're saving that for another day. Given the Burbank pedigree, the great history of Missouri biotech seems highly likely to evolve into quite a future.

By the way, this was my first bill signing. Governor Holden won a vote by personalizing an autograph to my daughter and giving her a signed copy of the bill and the pen he used. Thanks to the governor for letting me score some major Dad points.

Posted by dmk at 09:31 PM

July 22, 2003

Best Article on Legal Blogs Yet?

Thanks again to Sabrina at LLRX.com for publishing the latest installment of The Internet Roundtable, where regulars, Jerry Lawson, Brenda Howard and I, along with very special guests, Ernie the Attorney and Tom Mighell, discuss the usefulness of blogs in part 1 of a two-part article.

I'm biased, of course, but this Internet Roundtable column is full of great practical information about lawyer blogs and I thoroughly recommend it to all blawgers and blawgers-to-be.

Since Part 2 is already written, I can say already that, to me, part 2 will top part 1 and explore some areas that have been a little neglected in discussions of blawgs. Keep an eye out for its later publication at LLRX.com.

Ernie and Tom are brilliant in these articles and I thank them again for sharing their uncommon expertise and insight.

Posted by dmk at 10:05 PM

July 21, 2003

The Best Article Your Lawyer Probably Won't Be Reading

From Larry Bodine's Law Marketing Blog - Larry posts about a videotape documenting a focus group in which business clients of lawyers were asked a variety of question about their law firms. Larry delivers the quotes, which will give you a good overview of the current ways many law firms treat their clients.

This type of information is enormously valuable, but I can guarantee you that the vast majority of lawyers will studiously ignore it and continue to treat their clients in exactly the ways their clients do not want to be treated.

Welcome to the Great Lawyer / Client Disconnect of 2003. It ain't right and this sorry state of affairs is one of the reasons I left the big firm world to go solo and am also focusing on the subject of client-driven technology.

Here's my favorite of the quotes: "We're actually looking for something more profound - lawyers who don't sell us hours. Companies want to buy expertise, responsiveness and assurance. I don't care how long it takes the firm to do the work. At our company we're asking for something more profound."

Why do I like this quote? Because it is pretty darn close to what I really want to do in my new law practice.

Posted by dmk at 10:28 PM

July 17, 2003

Matt's Cool Reading List

I spent some time tonight on the A Whole Lotta Nothing blog and was greatly rewarded.

I particularly enjoyed Matt's list of books that shaped his view of the web, in part because I had read most of the books over the years and could nod my head in agreement with his assessments.

But I was delighted by his mention of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. While I think that the book is quite helpful in thinking about web site design, it's the most influential book I've ever read in terms of impact on my use of PowerPoint. The book made me think very carefully about the transition of thought from slide to slide and the logic of both the gap in between slides as well as the way to use slides themselves. If you think about that, that's a key element in comic strips. In fact, a lot of the explanantion of why many PowerPoint presentations are considered "bad" can be found in this book, but you have to think and try to draw some analogies out. It's well worth the effort.

Ironically, when people tell me they like my presentations, I'll mention this book and notice that they never believe me. Now, don't you do that. I recommend both Matt's list and McCloud's book.

Posted by dmk at 10:22 PM

Lessons for RIAA and Entertainment Industry?

The RIAA's scorched earth policy in which they seemingly want to sue all of their potential customers never has made much sense to me. Matt Haughey's Donuts 'n Porn essay seems dead on target to me. As he says, "there are two ways a business can view people crowding around their valuable products: either as thieving pirates that must be stopped at all costs, or as potential customers that can bring in a lot of money. As a business owner, what view is best for your profits?"

That question seems to be a rhetorical one to me, but I guess that others disagree.

Posted by dmk at 10:07 PM

Litigation Trends Article

The May/June issue of the ABA's Law Practice Management Magazine has been posted to the web. Among other excellent articles about the use of technology in trial practice is a fascinating collection of short essays on leading trends in litigation. The list of authors is an honor roll of some of the best thinkers and doers in legal technology and it's flattering that I was included in this group. I talk about client-driven technologies (my current favorite topic), but you will also see Marc Lauritsen on smart technologies, Sharon Nelson and John Simek on electronic evidence, Mark Tamminga on "transparency," and Wells Anderson on virtual court rooms, to name a few. Very cool stuff, even if you don't do litigation, and essential reading for litigators. It's also interesting to notice multiple mentions of CaseMap by this group of experts.

Posted by dmk at 09:58 PM

July 16, 2003

Steve Gillmor on the Sound of Silence

Steve Gillmor's comments on why RSS feeds are so cool captures my thoughts precisely and even gives the Ray Ozzie example I would choose to illustrate the disappearance and reappearance phenomenon. Nice little essay that I'd recommend to those trying to get a better sense of why some people have a transcendentalist approach to the possibilities of RSS feeds.

Posted by dmk at 09:45 PM

Electronic Discovery Resources

From BeSpacific.com, a great list of electronic discovery resources.

Posted by dmk at 09:37 PM

More Legal Tech ROI

Another plug for ActiveWords. The program has a handy ROI calculator built in so that you can check from time to time to see how well it's working for you. I expect that most people will earn the cost of the program back pretty quickly.

Posted by dmk at 09:33 PM

July 15, 2003

ABA TechShow 2004 Ideas

I'm preparing for the major planning meeting of the TechShow Board, where we'll select programs and speakers.

I welcome any suggestions on topics, speakers, improvements from prior years, things you'd like to see, potential sponsors and the like. Email me with your suggestions and I'll add them to my agenda list for our planning meeting.

Posted by dmk at 10:33 PM

Blogger Symposium - The War on Terrorism

I really enjoyed all the war bloggers that appeared around the time of the Iraq war and have wondered about what will happen to many of them. I miss the energy, excitement and sense of being clued in to the real story that some of them gave.

Since regular coverage of the war on terrorism tends to be non-existent or limited to legalisms over what words were use when to describe uranium sales that may or may not have happened (are we a nation of lawyers or what?), it was good to see the return of some of these bloggers in a discussion forum where they spoke at length about developments in the war on terrorism.

I really don't find myself able to take much of a purely political position on these subjects, but I am a information guy and I like to see the topic discussed by people who have both strong opinions, apparent access to real information and a sense of a need for vigilance.

Posted by dmk at 09:56 PM

Managing a Web Site with Movable Type

From A Whole Lotta Nothing, one of the coolest articles on web sites that I've seen in a long time. Among other things, Matt writes about ways to use Movable Type to convert and power an existing web site. Very cool idea and one that I want to study in more depth. Highly recommended!

Posted by dmk at 09:41 PM

Example of Calculating ROI for Legal Tech

Interesting article in Transform Magazine suggests that not only can return on investment for legal technology be calculated, but that in this particular example (portal software), ROI of 237% in five months was achieved.

We don't have to believe everything that we read, but this article is definitely food for thought for legal tech feet-draggers.

Posted by dmk at 09:33 PM

July 14, 2003

Jerry Lawson - Blawg Genius

Jerry Lawson has another of his brilliant analyses of the blawging world in his recent answer to the question: "Do Blogs Look Unprofessional On Law Firm Web Sites?"

His comments strike me as extremely on target and anyone with a law blog or thinking about starting one definitely should spend a little time thinking about Jerry's wise answers to this question. I feel this post has something of a Zen quality to it - there is far more in his answer than may first meet the eye and it pays to re-read and think about this one.

One of the highlights of my Internet experience has been my opportunity to learn from, become friends with and then collaborate with Jerry on a variety of projects. In this post, you see Jerry at his best.

Posted by dmk at 09:56 PM

July 11, 2003

SpeakerNet News

I'm always on the lookout for good resources. The SpeakerNet.com site and the free email SpeakerNet News newsletter are chock full of great info, tips and resources for speakers. Highly recommended.

Posted by dmk at 08:00 PM

July 10, 2003

RSS Killed the Infoglut Star

I really like Chad Dickerson's recent column called "RSS Killed the Infoglut Star," which nicely sums up many of my feelings about the joy of RSS feeds.

I've also been experimenting with a new news aggregator (in beta) called FeedDemon and I'm am very pleased with its features and user experience. I suggest that you give it a test. One great thing - it imported all the feeds I had subscribed to in Amphetadesk - a very, very nice feature.

Posted by dmk at 11:23 PM

July 09, 2003

New Blawg on Charter School Law

I'm convinced that there is enormous potential in very focused legal blogs. To illustrate this point, my friend David Scott recently launched a blog on charter school law, his area of expertise. He told me that he's already the #1 hit on Google for a search on charter school blog.

Posted by dmk at 01:18 PM

July 08, 2003

Taming the Email Tiger

Email - everybody's talking about it, but what can you do about it?

Here's an article with my thoughts prepared in connection with a recent presentation I did on email managment.

I was very pleased with that presentation and the reaction to it and have decided to keep it on the list of presentations that I offer. Contact me if you are interested in this kind of a presentation for your group.

Posted by dmk at 11:47 AM

July 01, 2003

Issue #3 of Practical Tech Contract Review News

The newest issue of my monthly Practical Technology Contract Review News email newsletter has been released. It features an article called "The 5 Ws of License Grants" and some other useful resources. The URL for the online version is http://www.denniskennedy.com/ptcrn3.htm.

Posted by dmk at 12:51 PM