Dennis Kennedy

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July 29, 2004

The Definition of a Great Blog, Example #1

I am such a fan of Jack Vinson's blog, Knowledge Jolt with Jack, which covers knowledge management and work practices.

Here's how good it is.

Jack writes a post called Annual Ammonia Symposium. Not only do I look at it, but I read it, think about how it might have application to me, and now I am blogging about it.

For me, Knowledge Jolt with Jack is a blog that matters. Jack has earned my confidence and trust with his consistently excellent posts and now I'm ready to follow his interests wherever they lead. That's a pretty damn good blog.

Today's example: The Information Snowflake and Snowballs.

Posted by dmk at 11:11 AM

July 28, 2004

My Post on "Vita Triptych Drub" is #1 on Google

A week ago, I posted about a spam message I received with the subject line: vita triptych drub.

One week later, a search in Google on "vita triptych drub" shows my post as the #1 listing.

Two (and a half) simple questions:

1. How much are you paying your search engine optimizer and what results do they get you for that money?

2. How many shares are you planning to buy in the Google IPO?

The concern that I have is that people are relying too much on search engines that can be "gamed" and paying search engine optimizers for results that can be obtained for nothing.

The real skill in search engine optimization, by the way, is not to get a high ranking on an obscure phrase, although I applaud Anil Dash's prize-winning efforts. That's almost a parlor trick. It's getting a #1 rank on a commonly-used phrase for a brand new site. That will impress me.

Posted by dmk at 07:44 PM

July 25, 2004

A Sneak Preview of My CaseMap 5 Articles - and Special Treatment for Readers of this Blog

I've been working on a couple of articles about the new version of CaseMap, CaseMap 5. Suffice it to say, that I think that it continues its firm hold as the most valuable and innovative litigation software program. Unfortunately, the articles will not appear in print for a while.

However, I want to give one preview. Keep your eyes on the new ReportBooks feature - it may well revolutionize clients' expectations on how information about there cases should be presented to them.

As you may know, CaseSoft will give readers of my blog a free license to its NoteMap outliner tool. However, I now have lined up something even better for my blog readers - a personal contact. I've talked Danielle Carwell into be the CaseSoft contact person for readers of my blog. Call Danielle at (904) 273-5000 x237 or email her and let her know that you are a reader of this blog and she'll take care of your questions. She'll get you set up with a free license to NoteMap and, assuming that you are as impressed with CaseMap 5 as I am, she'll assist you in purchasing the number of licenses for CaseMap 5 that you need.

I love this quote about CaseMap from David Beckman and David Hirsch: "CaseMap is a must. It is like a spreadsheet for organizing facts, people and issues, as well as documents and other tangible things. Any lawyer who walks into a courtroom without it would be crazy."

Posted by dmk at 10:53 PM

July 22, 2004

Getting Things Done Zone

For David Allen fans (like me):

A group of Microsoft bloggers has ceated the Getting Things Done Zone. Check out the welcoming letter.

Here's the kind of welcoming language I like to find:

"In fact, if you do a search at Google or Feedster, you'll find a wealth of posts about how the GTD Natural Planning Method has helped a bunch of really smart, articulate, and technologically sophisticated people become more productive and less stressed."

Posted by dmk at 10:54 PM

Great Collection of PowerPoint Resources

McGee's Musings has long been one of my favorite blogs.

Lately, he's posted some great stuff.

1. A pointer to Michael Hyatt's fantastic collection of PowerPoint resources.

Let me emphasize this one:

"Beyond Bullets�This is great Web site on how to use PowerPoint more effectively. The content is very stimulating�and will challenge your presuppositions. Guaranteed. This is not a collection of more templates and clipart. Instead, it presents serious thinking about the way you use PowerPoint and how to improve your effectiveness."

When you decide to get serious about your presentations, you have to be subscribed to Beyond Bullets. It gets my highest recommendation.

2. A pointer to Michael Shermer's paper about "twenty-five fallacies that lead us to believe weird things."

3. A discussion of Martin Roell's recent presentation on blogs in KM.

Posted by dmk at 10:29 PM

35th Anniversary of the Men on the Moon

I heard a mention on the news this morning that this is the 35th anniversary of Neil Armstrong's first walk on the Moon.

I was 11, living in the small town of Garrett, Indiana. I had probably read so much about the LEM and Apollo 11 that I could have taken them apart and put them back together blindfolded. And so had my friends.

There are black-and-white memories. We watched on a small black-and-white TV because the experts said that you should use a black-and-white TV if you wanted to take Polaroid pictures when Neil Armstrong first stepped on the moon. I found a couple of those pictures a few years ago. They were blurry as hell, but I knew exactly what was happening in the picture, just like like I clearly see my daughter in the sonogram and all you see is gray shapes.

And I also, maybe more so, have the outdoor memories. Leaving the TV and walking out in the backyard and joining all the neighbors and probably everybody else who could get a view of the moon, and just looking at it, probably bugging one of my brothers to share the binoculars, hoping to catch just the chance metallic gleam off a a spacesuit or space ship.

There are probably a few of my friends who are starting to think about now, oh-oh, he's heading toward some Babylon 5 thing again.

It was a big vision that most everybody shared. I wonder how much time we all spent growing up planning to work in the space program.

It didn't turn out that way. Talking about going to Mars seems like another tawdry political trick, a trial balloon floated, and cast aside.

Yes, dammit, I'm going for the Babylon 5 thing. Here it is:

"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."

Anyway, a nice memory for the day. That, and my other Apollo 11 connection. Probably within a year or so after Apollo 11 returned, Neil Armstrong was doing a tour of th lodges of the fraternal order of the elks(?), eagles(?) - I can't remember which now. But my granddad was tending bar when he arrived. I believe that they spent the afternoon talking. Neil Armstrong gave my granddad some special swizzle sticks that his local lodge had printed up specially to commemorate the moon landing so that Granddad could give them to my brothers and me. That was cool.

Posted by dmk at 12:10 AM

July 21, 2004

Wow! Thanks for the Great Reaction to The Blawg Channel

I was busy today. That's why I haven't replied to your emails. And, no, I'm not saying that blogging about Damien Pagan and "vita triptych drub" is more important than responding to your email.

I didn't fully comprehend until launching The Blawg Channel how neatly the concept of "fast prototyping" dovetailed with that great line "Ready, fire, aim."

However, I'm a little overwhelmed by the great response we've gotten today.

[Memo to New Bloggers: You have to be ready to have a real audience from your first posting. Don't even think about trying a "testing 1, 2, 3" post. ]

We might have to release in the future some of our emails trying to work out the small details and decisions you never fully think about in advance. To our credit, even with a group of four lawyers, we've at least resisted bringing up the "is it The Blawg Channel or just Blawg Channel" question, an almost primevally instinctive lawyer question. Go ahead and laugh about it - but what do you write in when you're filling out a form or ordering coffee mugs with the name on them? You see, the practice of law is not quite as easy as some people believe.

But we're working on the details. Expect to see more announcements soon, or maybe soonish.

Posted by dmk at 11:40 PM

Who is Damien Pagan and what does "vita triptych drub" mean?

And why is he emailing me about it?

Maybe it's just me, but didn't everything about email, including spam, seem so much simpler just a few years ago, in the days before spam filters?

Think about this: what if the cold callers had to resort to saying phrases like "vita triptych drub" as soon as you picked up the phone just to get the chance to offer fantastic mortgage rates to you? It'd be disturbing and it's disturbing to see in your inbox too.

Perhaps, worst of all, maybe now I need to think about using subject lines like "vita triptych drub" to make sure my emails get through, instead of calling to make sure that important email arrives.

But, you know what, Damien Pagan - in a few days I'm going to rank higher in Google for searches on "Damien Pagan" and "vita tritych drub" than you ever will. I guess I get the last laugh.

Posted by dmk at 11:18 PM

July 20, 2004

The Blawg Channel Opens the Door to the Next Stage of Legal Blogging

I don't know if it was because I was back in my old hometown, historically a railroad town, a few weeks ago, but the lyrics of some of the great "train songs" keep running through my head. Sometimes it's Springsteen's "Land of Hope and Dreams," but a lot of the time it's Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready," which Springsteen's song obviously honors.

It goes like this:

"People get ready there's a train comin'
You don't need no baggage, just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
You don't need no ticket, just thank the lord."

Of course, in my mind it got a little garbled (I'm not crazy enough to think that I can improve on Curtis Mayfield):

People get ready,
There's a train a-comin'.
Don't need no ticket,
Just climb on board.

But I get the gist of it - the part about climbing on board.

I've been thinking about those lyrics and that image as I've been talking with three of the smartest and coolest people I've met in the blawg world about what we might do together and what we might be able to build in this little piece of the blog world.

The first round of talking is done, but there's a bigger and broader conversation to come. The talks have taken on a first form and that became live tonight.

People get ready, the Blawg Channel's comin'. You know the rest.

Take a look here. And there's a feed. Subscribed!

Posted by dmk at 11:14 PM

My Breathless Article about News Aggregators and Newsfeeds from 2003

While I was having some fun taunting Foley & Lardner in my last post about missing a great website opportunity by failing to post an article by one of its lawyers that had gotten a lot of Internet exposure, I was reminded of a few failings of my own in that regard.

Not that I don't have good excuses - I have a solo practice and I'm in the middle of a wholesale revision and redesign of my website. The latter excuse, as many will attest, covers a world of sins.

However, I published a gushing article last year about news aggregators and newsfeeds that got pulled behind a members-only wall a while back and I've been remiss in not making it freely available in its original form on my website.

It's a little dated here and there, but I'm still a huge FeedDemon fan, and most of it still works well. The article was my attempt to put into as plain of language as I could what was happening with news aggregators and feeds, how they worked in a non-technical sense, how you could use them to help you take control of the information washing over you, and more. In short, I tried to write about why I found feeds and aggregation to be so damned exciting and important.

Nothing that's happened in the last 10 months (other than comment spam, of course) has tempered my enthusiasm. I'd say that my enthusiasm has continued to grow.

So, I wanted to get this article back out there to help convert the unconverted.

It's called - "Life-Altering Technology - News Aggregators and Newsfeeds" - I hope you find it helpful. It's probably the article I've written in the last years that was the most fun for me to write.

Posted by dmk at 10:49 PM

IP Memes Sampler

I keep forgetting to follow the lead of my fellow IP Memesters Denise Howell and Stephen Nipper and post a sampling of the IP Memes Newsletter I work on at TechnoLawyer.com - (email subscription available with free reqistration).

Here's a sampling from the July 12 issue I put together.

From the �Internet Avenger� to the Tenth Anniversary of TRIPs � �Do Something Constructive� and Read This Edition of IP Memes

The Arrival of the �Internet Avenger� � Glickman to Replace Valenti at MPAA

Former U.S. Department of Agriculture, Dan Glickman, has been named to replace the retiring Jack Valenti, who came to symbolize the U.S. entertainment industry and forcefully asserted its views of intellectual property rights during his long tenure as the head of the Motion Picture Association of America. Although I must admit to hearing a few notes of the �Green Acres� theme song in my head every time I think of a former Ag Secretary moving to Hollywood, some commentators have referred to Glickman as the �Internet Avenger� and expect his approach to differ from that of Valenti in some significant ways. In fact, his approach to complaints about the threat of Internet competition to the entertainment industry has been described as �do something constructive about it.� Others expect little change. If you want to single out one place to watch for IP developments in the U.S., that place would have to be what happens in the wake of Valenti�s departure.

Lockergnome Bits and Bytes �Internet Avenger� Story - http://channels.lockergnome.com/news/archives/20040706_hollywoods_internet_avenger.phtml

More from Wired - http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,64063,00.html

More from Yahoo News - http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/washpost/20040701/tc_washpost/a21151_2004jul1

More from Broadband Reports - http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/47269

Primer on Eighteen Hot IP Issues

Foley and Lardner�s Hal Wegner generated a lot of buzz this past week with his �18 Hot Issues in IP � A Checklist.� The list is a good one and picks up on a number of topics mentioned in the IP Memes newsletter over the past six months or so. I highly recommend it, but you may find it to be focused more on very specific issues and cases than on �big picture� matters. On the other hand, you will be hard-pressed to find a better list in one place with specific case and statute citations and links to key upcoming cases than Wegner�s list. As an aside, Wegner�s article illustrates the continuing ability of big law firms to �get� the Internet � there�s not a sign of Wegner�s article on the Foley website. As a result, the link below does not go to the Foley website. A great opportunity missed.

IP Memester Stephen Nipper�s Coverage - http://nip.blogs.com/patent/2004/07/primer_on_hot_i.html

Link to article on Foley website � Oops, Another Big Law Firm Missed a Good Web Opportunity.

[NOTE: I've recently heard that Foley, perhaps shamed by my comments (but I doubt it), is working on and may have now posted the article on their site. Unfortunately, they fooled me once and I'm not heading back to the site again to check.]

How Free Became Open and Everything Else Under the Sun

You can never have too much of an understanding of the Open Source licenses and the Open Source movement. Biella Coleman and Mako Hill�s recent paper, �How Free Became Open and Everything Else Under the Sun,� is a good addition to the Open Source literature, especially in an election year. It attempts to cover how Open Source works and the opportunities it offers for people and businesses of all political and economic stripes. For those who like to align their software and their politics, recent articles suggest that Republican websites run on Microsoft software and Democratic websites run on Open Source software. You are free to draw your own conclusions.

Free and Open Source Paper - http://www.media-culture.org.au/0406/02_Coleman-Hill.html

Trademark Licensing � The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

As much as I hate to give away one of my best resources, I must mention the exceedingly valuable PLI Lawyer�s Toolbox email newsletter. What�s so great? In nearly every weekly issue is at least one link to a free download of an outline from a recent PLI program on intellectual property issues. The recent �Trademark Licensing - The Good, The Bad and the Ugly� is a great example of the useful material you can find. I�ll be kicking myself if PLI drops this feature because I mention it, but, until they do, it�s a fantastic resource, and it definitely makes it more likely that you will attend a PLI conference. :-)

Trademark Licensing Outline - http://www.pli.edu/emktg/toolbox/Trademark_Lic25.htm

TRIPS at Ten

The IPKAT blog is always worth a visit. Take a look at the coverage of the recent �TRIPs � Ten Years Later� conference honoring the tenth anniversary of the TRIPs agreement, designed, as you may recall, to globalize intellectual property law. IPKAT highlights some of the key issues that arose at the conference and point to useful links and resources.

IPKAT TRIPs Post - http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2004/06/ipkat-trips-light-fantastic.html

To Litigate or Innovate

It might be today�s most important IP question � �Litigate or innovate?� Donna Wentworth�s Copyfight blog collects three big IP hitters, Terry Fisher, Fred von Lohmann, and Kembrew McLeod, on exploring alternatives to common responses like mass lawsuits against filesharers and/or controversial and fast-tracked legislation like the Induce Act.

Copyfight post - http://www.corante.com/copyfight/archives/004597.html

Posted by dmk at 10:24 PM

Killing the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg: My New Policy on Announcing Your New Blog

I was shocked by the �perfect mini-storm� of blog posts I saw in the last few days advocating the following �search engine optimization� or �PR optimization� strategy.

In a nutshell, here's how the "strategy" is described. When launching a new blog, website, business, whatever, simply contact a group of prominent bloggers and ask them to �announce� your news on their blogs. As the argument goes, you end up with great search engine placement, �buzz,� and visibility far beyond what you can expect by any other means and, best of all, it�s all free. You can use the audience and placement of the prominent bloggers to your own advantage, all for free. This �advice,� as best as I can tell, is offered without any sense of shame or conscience.

I saw examples of people advocating this strategy here, here, here, here and here.

One irony, by the way, is that I noticed these posts because I am a fan of these bloggers and might well have mentioned any of them on the strength of their posts alone. If that weren�t the case, I wouldn�t link to the posts in question and give another potential bump in their ratings. I agree with their assessment of the results of this strategy; I disagree with their approach of not considering all of the consequences of advocating this approach.

Kevin O�Keeffe, a legal web pioneer I admire greatly, also discusses this strategy in the legal blogspace in a nuanced fashion, but the casual reader of his post might easily take away a much less subtle notion of Kevin's approach than he intends (note that Kevin's post carefully (note that Kevin begins by saying that he was �politely asking fellow law bloggers by email if they would be nice enough to link to my blog from their law blog� � that little detail makes a world of difference).

I didn�t notice much mention in any of these posts about thanking, let alone compensating, the prominent bloggers. See the quote at the bottom of this post for one comment that was made that was especially memorable.

I don�t know that I�ve ever seen a clearer example of trying to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

This subject (seeking blog mentions and links as a calculated method of optimizing search engine results) has been a source of irritation to me for a while now. A few months ago, someone said something to me that led me to the conclusion that some search engine placement consultants might be charging their law firm clients for the advice that the law firms could enhance their Google rankings by trying to get me and other prominent legal bloggers, all of whom you would know, to post something about the a firm's website on our blogs. I�ve commiserated with a number of these bloggers in the last few months about the number of requests they get. I�ll also mention that I've seen requests that feel like orders (with an astonishing sense of entitlement), are not followed up by thank yous, do not result in my blog being listed on the blogroll of the requesting party, etc. You understand my point.

It�s clear that the promotion of this �strategy� will increase the number of requests for mentions of new blogs that I and others get. Am I right Ernie, Tom, Denise and Jerry? Of course, if you read on, you�ll see that my requests will probably decline in number, but I�ll be much more attentive to the ones I do get.

By the way, there�s no question that this �strategy� works. I�m happy to tell you that either for free or for half the amount that you are paying someone to tell you the same thing, except that I�ll tell you to ask nicely, respectfully and personally, to thank the bloggers you ask when they do mention you, and to offer something, even small, in return. The bloggers you ask would probably faint in shock.

Here�s an example of how I can illustrate the success of the strategy:

I published a post on my blog about my law firm annual meeting. Within about a week, my post was the #1 result to a Google search on �law firm retreat.� To me, that shows more about Google than about my �clout,� but that�s the world of search engines we live now live in. I also have nine years of experience getting my pages into search engines at very high rankings on the terms that I want without paying any �optimizers.� For free, here's the biggest �secret� in search engine placement � care about what you are doing on your site.

Unfortunately, we�ve now moved to a world where blog mentions and the accompanying links are treated as one-sided economic transactions � all take and no give. Read the enthusiastic comments about the results of this strategy here and come up with a number for the dollars of economic value obtained by the use of this strategy. Consider that the bloggers who �implemented� the strategy for the beneficiaries got nothing (other than, arguably, to be shown as the chumps in crowing articles about this smart strategy). While it�s true that many of the most prominent bloggers are true believers who routinely list new blogs just as part of their efforts to promote the blog world, no one likes to feel that they�ve been publicly taken advantage of.

I�ve pulled way back from simply announcing new legal blogs already. Perhaps it was one snippy request too many. Perhaps it was seeing other blogs prominently mentioned on a blog I "announced" for someone and mine not mentioned at all. Mainly, though, people who launch blogs using this strategy tend not to follow through. They don�t have the commitment and the blog fades away and I�m left with a link to a dead blog in one of my posts that talks about �the great promise� of that new blog - chumped out twice.

Here�s what I do now. For my friends and people I like and respect, I will announce their new blog. If you send me a note about your posts that I might truly find interesting and I see, over a period of time, that you post consistently good content, I probably will mention you. If you are doing cool things and have great content on your blog, I�ll probably mention you consistently, because that�s what I care about.

Now, in response to the apparent advocacy of this "take advantage of the prominent bloggers" strategy, I�m formally adopting a new policy on mentioning new blogs when people send me an unsolicited request to mention them on my blog.

In these cases, I'll announce new blogs that I find acceptable to me in exchange for one of the following:

1. You provide me with five decision-maker level personal referrals to potential clients for my services;

2. You purchase a sponsorship or advertising option on my site which will include placement in a list of �highlighted blogs� on my site for a limited amount of time, which can be extended for further payment;

3. You provide a reasonably equivalent mutual benefit to me in exchange � I�m willing to be creative and there are audiences that I currently do not reach that I would like to be in front of;

4. If we can agree, you pay me an amount that fairly reflects the economic value you believe you will obtain from the mention.

Otherwise, I�ll mention blogs because I like the people, what they are doing or the quality and usefulness of their content, which is probably how it should be anyway.

It never had to be �just business,� but now it appears that that�s where we are headed. If you want to reduce interactions with bloggers to purely economic transactions, I suggest that one think twice before taking an approach that makes them totally one-sided in your favor. As for this goose, I ain�t laying no more golden eggs for free no more.

Here�s the quote to remember: �Let me repeat - 5,000 links, lots of discussion, 130,000 downloads, and 6m links/hits all generated for $0 - yes, no money!�

It�s a powerful testament to the power of blogs and feeds, but half of the equation is missing. Is this the blog world we want to create? Do principled stands like the voluntary moratorium against placing ads in feeds still make sense when others are encouraged to take advantage of the audience prominent bloggers have worked to build over the years? I don�t know the answers, but I do know that the playing field may be rapidly changing and tilting away from the "old school" philosophies of blogging.

[Note: Links now should work - an example of the dreaded "curly quote marks" problem. Thanks for the heads-up from the TechLawAdvisor.]

Posted by dmk at 12:00 AM

July 19, 2004

New Study Gives Procrastinators a Great New Ethical Argument

Note: This is a reconstruction of the post I lost the other day when I lost my mind about Windows Updates.

Do the procrastinators in the world need any more justifications for their inactions? A new study from professors at Wharton will give procrastinators a way to take the moral high-ground when questioned about why they are lying on the couch all day watching television instead of doing something �productive.�

From the excellent Knowledge@Wharton email newsletter (now with a feed):

Goal-setting and Cheating: Why They Often Go Together in the Work Place

�From childhood on, individuals are told that setting goals for themselves will make them more successful in whatever they set out to do -- whether it's win tennis games, ace their exams or become CEO of their company. But goal-setting also has a dark side to it, according to a recent research paper by a Wharton faculty member and two colleagues. In addition to motivating constructive behavior, goal setting -- especially if it involves rewards such as bonuses or perks -- can also motivate unethical behavior when people fall short of the goals they set or that are set for them.�

I�ve often found �getting around to goal-setting� to be at least as problematic. The breakthrough I had on that subject, however, came from some comments from goals guru Brian Tracy. Tracy says that if at the beginning of each year, you take the time to formulate ten legitimate goals (specific, measurable, attainable, etc.), write them down on a piece of paper, and then fold up the piece of paper, put it away and never look at it again for the whole year, you will still find that in the average year you will achieve at least six or seven of your written goals. How liberating is that?

Don�t even get me started on the �working toward the goal� piece of the puzzle. Here, fortunately, David Allen�s �Getting Things Done� approach of identifying the �next physical action� is a huge help.

The aspect of goal-setting that gets too little attention and causes the greatest problem for many people I know is what happens when you attain a major goal, especially if you do so much more quickly than you ever imagined. I�ve seen this throw people way out of equilibrium. I have some examples, but my friends might not appreciate their stories being used to illustrate this point.

So, I look to myself as an example. For many years, I never got the hang of �goals.� I just did not compute. I blame that on the Cold War and the nuclear war drills we had in elementary school.

Finally, as my writing career started to unfold, I read an article by a famous expert I really admired that mentioned that he had published over 150 articles in his long career. I told my wife that I had found a real �goal� that I wanted to try. My goal would be to try to publish 100 articles in my career. Since I had gotten off to a late start in writing, I didn�t expect to reach the goal, but I thought that it was a good one to try for. Not quite two years later, I had blown past the 100 article goal. I soon left 150 behind and, when I last counted, I had gone by 300.

The point is not to say, look at me, look how I made my goal, but instead to focus on what happens when you achieve what feels like a very significant goal in a ridiculously short time. I really didn�t know what to think. I didn�t think that it meant that I should stop, but I didn�t know what it meant.

I felt like I stumbled around for a while trying to figure out what would come next. Blogs provided the answer. Think of Lou Reed�s song, �Rock and Roll,� and substitute �blog� and �blogging� where appropriate.

I decided that I had found a comfortable niche that I both enjoyed and in which I excelled � writing about technology in ways that lawyers especially found helpful and understandable. I knew from the way my friends ribbed me that I had mastered the �Ten Tips,� Six Steps,� style of articles. (But, it wasn�t as easy as you thought when you tried it, was it?) I wanted to keep doing that, but I wanted to do some other things with my writing, too.

My idea was to use this blog as a way to write in new ways, on new topics, and let my writing find a new audience. It�s a continuing experiment, a rewarding experiment and a great new goal for me � one that�s hard for me to cheat on. I�ve used a portion of the summer to push a little harder on that aspect of this blog, but will soon return to an approach that will either bring my posts on legal technology and technology law back to the forefront or put them into separate feeds or separate blogs.

Or, I might have another surprise in store, because now I have a new goal in mind.

Here are a few great books I�ve found to be quite helpful on goals over the last few years:

Brian Tracy�s Goals: How to Get Everything You Want-Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible - a classic work form one of the gurus.

Wade Cook's Don't Set Goals (the Old Way) - the �contrarian� approach really works for me.

David Allen�s Getting Things Done � the new classic that helps you accomplish exactly what the title says.

Posted by dmk at 11:27 PM

People I Know Who Are Doing Some Cool Stuff � Dativoci and BlackBerries

In the world of big law firms, BlackBerries are hot. For many other law firms, BlackBerries are on the �we must talk about this� lists.

My friends at Dativoci are doing some cool things in the BlackBerry world that might help law firms and other small businesses.

Dativoci is a Nextel Partner who develops, integrates and licenses mobile business solutions software for iDEN handsets and BlackBerry devices. It�s also a BlackBerry Alliance Partner whose products are featured in the most current BlackBerry Solutions Guide.

Dativoci usual work entails either deploying turnkey Microsoft Exchange and BlackBerry Enterprise Server infrastructure and/or extending existing back office applications into the mobile environment.

For a law firm, Dativoci might do projects ranging from getting a firm�s document management system to work on the attorneys� BlackBerrys to supplying a full-blown Microsoft Exchange / BlackBerry Server system either as an ASP or as an onsite turnkey system. I make no secret of my leanings toward the ASP environment in the small/medium business setting.

If you are one of the many law firms considering projects in these areas, check out what Dativoci might be able to do for you.

Posted by dmk at 11:15 PM

July 15, 2004

Paczkowski Solidifies Hold on King of Headlines Title

There's no one who consistently brings a new perspective on tech news and writes better headlines that John Paczkowski on Good Morning Silicon Valley.

Today, he unleashed another gem:

Maybe you should rename it AIEEEEEEE!!!!!!

Not content to rest on his laurels, Paczkowski, on the same day, follows up with:

Jackhammer noise of IE repairs finally getting through to browser users

Industry giants form "Coalition of the Willing to Hobble Your Gadgets"

and

Ellison takes top honors in Peoplesoft-baiting contest

Just another day in the office for John. How were your headlines today?

More headline highlights can be found here, including recent classics like:

Seagate defrags workforce

Microsoft to ask court for more time to kill off competitors

Feds supersize Ebbers' indictment

He's not just a headliner either - he gets off great lines in his news summaries with a seemingly effortless regularity.

Here's the feed.

Posted by dmk at 10:31 PM

July 14, 2004

It's Not That I'm Ungrateful: Ten Reasons Windows Update Will Drive You Crazy

OK, it's the day after the second Tuesday of the month. I know that the second Tuesday of each month is now Windows critical updates day. However, I know that I am safe because I have the automatic update setting turned on.

Of course, I wasn't safe and here are ten reasons why the Windows Update process (which is very laudable) will drive even the most diligent and well-intentioned Microsft customers to hurl epithets toward Redmond.

1. The Windows Update URL Could Be Just a Little Easier to Find. I love this. Like anyone else who uses the Internet on a regular basis, I know that I should always be able to find the Windows Update (or at least be redirected to it) by typing in http://www.windows.com or http://www.microsoft.com/windows/. No one can memorize the actual URL for Windows Update. In fact, if you want to choose a strong, uncrackable password, there are few better choices that the URL for Windows Update. Put it in your Favorites? Ha-ha-ha. No website in the history of the Internet has ever changed URLs of pages more often and with fewer redirectors than Microsoft.com. Finally, how about keeping the link to Windows Update in a prominent place where I can find it instead of moving it around all the time? I know the page looked different a couple of days ago. Why not keep it like it is today?

2. How about Making "Automatic" mean Automatic? If I turn on Automatic Updates, shouldn't I be safe in assuming that when I connected to the Internet last night and this morning the updates would be loaded and installed? Here's a suggestion: make the Automatic Update at least as persistent as the damn Windows Messenger, which one again has return to haunt me after I thought I tracked it down and finally got it out of my startup menu. The Windows Messenger team might talk with the Windows Update team and share some tips.

3. Inconvenience Me for Using Good Security Settings. Ready to get started? Oops, need to give permission for an ActiveX control to run. I wouldn't have to be inconvenienced if I took a more risky approach to security. Here's an idea: inconvenience the people who don't use good security practices, not the ones who do. Suggestion: make it really easy to find and set up a setting that will permit only the Windows Update Active X controls to run without a prompt.

4. A 3.8 Megabyte Download? Does nayone really wonder why so many home users are running unpatched versions of Windows. Memo to Microsoft: either provide broadband with the purchase of Windows or make patches available in formats that are friendly to dial-up users. As many people have pointed out recently, a visit to your parents often involves installing Windows updates and other security updates. Has anyone calculated how long it takes on a dial-up line to download all Windows XP critical updates?

5. Adding Insult to Injury - the Five Minute Installation. The updates(s) are downloaded and the installation begins. All but the foolhardy wait for the installation to complete before doing anything else. I have a reasonably fast computer and the installation took roughly five minutes.

6. Don't Let Me Walk Away and Do Something Else. Three times ZoneAlarm asked permission to allow what seemed to be the same program to access the Internet, even though I checked the "remember this setting" box. Nothing more fun than walking away for a short break and then finding that the installation process has barely begun when you return because you needed to give a permission or check a box in a pop-up window.

7. Make Me Reboot. I knew it was coming, but I remained an optimist. Great choices: close up everything that I've been working on or continuing to work in an unsafe OS.

8. Make Me Feel Like You Are Punishing Me For Delaying the Reboot. I really do know that these two things are probably unrelated, but why did I lose a blog post I was working on (admittedly I should know better than this) when IE would not connect to the Internet when I tried to save the post right after I chose not to reboot immediately? Why is FireFox not the answer? 1. As best as I can tell FireFox's pop-up blocking or something else keeps me from using the formatting and URL buttons in Movable Type. 2. You can try to run Windows Update through a browser other than IE - I'll watch. In fact, I did try it and the page would not display.

9. Don't Give Me Any Reassurances. The reason I chose not to reboot was because I was afraid something wacky might have happened when I did. How about a little message that says "update successful and everything is working great" that promptly displays when I reboot?

10. Microsoft Isn't the Only One. I actually like many things Microsoft does and take some criticism because I do. My beef is that they continue to make it too difficult to be a good customer. I have a whole list of others I could pick on, but they didn't make me lose a blog post today. It's not really fair to criticize FireFox yet on "customer service" issues, but jeez Louise there is a lot of work that needs to be done before that's a 1.0 product. McAfee - thank you for setting up your updates so I can't download them directly from your site with either IE or FireFox even when I turn off pop-up blockers like you tell me. There are others - you know who you are.

Look, here's my point of view. Microsoft works hard on fixing security problems. That's a good thing. I'd like to be happy in the Microsft desktop world because, well, because that's where I happen to be. The last project I feel like taking on now is a full conversion out of the Microsoft world. I'm not sure anyone is ready yet to see how the Open Source model will work for security patches when Open Source apps come under the same intense and frequent attacks as Windows does. We got a taste of that in the past week when a security hole was identified and fixed in Mozilla/FireFox. (Note to FireFox - consider making it clear on the download site that by downloading the newest version and installing it I did in fact patch the problem).

It's hard to be careful out there. Maybe we should be working on ways to make it less difficult.

Coming soon: I question why when I set up Outlook to prompt me if someone requests a receipt that I have received his or her message that the default behavior is to turn back on automatic responses for all messages. I certainly believe that I have only authorized a response to a selected message. Could that be why I suddenly got more spam until I noticed that the default setting had been changed, primarily because I saw outgoing messages being sent when I knew that I wasn't sending any? Maybe spammers sending messages asking for receipts were getting validation that my email address was active and I inadvertently undid all the benefits of my "safe" email practices? Ironically, I noticed this after I gave a talk on spam prevention where I told people to turn the automatic response setting either to "off" or "prompt," so my audience didn't get to play "laugh at the expert."

The morale of the story: when I lost a blog post, somebody is going to get criticized and the more significant I feel the loss is, the less likely it is that I'll be criticizing myself. And, yes, not only have I heard of SharpMT, I have actually installed and used it. Unfortunately, not earlier today. Will I learn a lesson? Who knows.

Posted by dmk at 07:23 PM

A Must-read Tim O'Reilly Article on Three Key Tech Trends

Every now and then, someone will ask me where I really think technology is taking us. Unfortunately, they tend to want a twenty-second answer. Lately, I tend to focus on the excitement I have about the potential of RSS feeds and how I fascinated by the potential of web services.

In fact, this afternoon, I was talking with a friend of mine who suggested that I should focus my law practice more explicitly on some advanced information technology areas and the legal issues that arise with them. He probably knew that the first words out of my month would be "you mean web services?" A while back I worked with a client who rolled out a web services app that saved them approximately $200,000 a month. My role was to develop and draft the prototype standard agreement that could be used as this company rolled out even more of these apps. For lawyers who practice the type of law that I do, those are the types of projects that are really fun. They involve creativity, judgment and ways to manage legal risks in ways that produce business benefits. I've never understood the approach of the "nay-saying" types of lawyers who start from the premise that in the absence of court decisions, you don't want to do anything innovative.

That's an aside.

Later this afternoon, I was a conference call with some of my favorite people - the other people on the board of the ABA TECHSHOW. One of Canada's premier legal technologists, Dan Pinnington, is on that board. I received an email from him this evening with a URL for Tim O'Reilly's recent article, "The Open Source Paradigm Shift," which Dan noted he had read twice in the last day or so. That's plenty enough recommendation for me.

O'Reilly's article is an important one, that I also recommend to all. He synthesizes a lot of ideas I strongly agree with and makes them clear. As with all great articles, the artice is really about something bigger than Open Source and paradigms. My only criticism is that his conclusion is disappointing because it comes back to the more specific topics and doesn't push his argument to its logical ends.

Because it is possible that many readers may focus on O'Reilly's critique of looking solely through "Open Source" or "Free Software" lenses and the article may become more known for that than his underlying thesis, I encourage you to read the article carefully and hold on to your judgments for at least one pass through the article.

It's more important to focus on the core of this article, which is encapsulated in these lines:

"Artificial intelligence pioneer Ray Kurzweil once said, "I'm an inventor. I became interested in long-term trends because an invention has to make sense in the world in which it is finished, not the world in which it is started."[2]

I find it useful to see open source as an expression of three deep, long-term trends:

* The commoditization of software
* Network-enabled collaboration
* Software customizability (software as a service)"

When I use the term "web services," I use it in the sense of the apps and tools that bring together these three trends. There's a lot of very important thinking in this article. It's fashionable these days to dismiss Kuhn's notion of "paradigm shifts," but get past that as well. This article is as important as anything else you may read this summer and it will reward repeated study.

Posted by dmk at 12:01 AM

July 12, 2004

Dave Winer and the Best Political Analysis You Are Likely to See in this Campaign Season

While I admire Dave Winer's role in blogging, RSS and all that is happening now, I have to say that I truly admire his courage in continuing to sing his song when so often he is the target of slings and arrows.

I don't always agree with Dave, but he's long been a daily read of mine. A few days ago, he posted a gem of a comment on Joe Trippi and the Democrats' "adoption" of blogging that struck me as being exactly on target.

Consider this. Dave says:

"Joe Trippi, get a clue. Geez Louise. He thinks the role of the Internet in politics is to raise money so they can run ads on TV. Look at how much good all those TV ads did for Howard Dean. You think he would have figured it out by now. The election will happen here, not there. Probably not the Presidential election of 2004. Perhaps one of our goals for the DNC is to smoke out innovative uses of the Internet by Democrats, where they're doing more than raise money for TV ads. Put that one on the list for sure."

I shake my head when I see John Kerry using the Internet only to raise money for more and more TV ads. I don't get the reason this is someohow considered new politics.

If Kerry instead were focusing less on his ads and his good hair and more on the truly cool Internet technology that his campaign already has (maybe he knows about it(?)), I might be able to understand how he is able to claim his Internet savvy.

I'd like you to take a look at what Kerry's campaign has at its disposal as a dedicated feed reader at http://www.download.com/3000-2164-10297071.html and tell me whether you find that a little more exciting and a little more "new politics" than millions of more dollars of superficial TV ads. It's an innovative approach that intrigues me greatly with its potential and has me discussing other uses of this technology, in law and elsewhere, with the people at MyST Technology Partners, who were heavily involved in the development of the Kerry Reader. Put that innovation as one on your list, Dave.

Of course, there is an ironic analogy with the heady days of the dot-com era where companies convinced investors that the Internet was the future and then used most of their capital to buy expensive TV ads. All that money spent on ads didn't buy too many people's loyalty either.

Posted by dmk at 01:28 AM

The Clearest Picture of the Future Practice of Law Comes From . . . Non-Lawyers

Ross Mayfield wrote a post called Standard Weblog Employee Policy in which he lamented the current state of affairs for policies that govern employee bloggers. Ross's concern was not so much what should be in the policies (although he obviously has an opinion), but more the fact that there are no "standard" guidelines for these kinds of policies. What's worse, he fears, and I agree, is what will happen when lawyers jump in with deluxe blogger policies.

Ross sums up the concern as follows:

"Enter the lawyers. The problem is most lawyers didn't study under Lawrence Lessig or Jochai Benkler, read Cluetrain and Gonzo, and are card carrying members of the EFF. They come from the school of fear and greed. Just think of the billable hours possible for surveying every risk, asserting control and property and taking what they can from the market. They will come up with their own agreement, backed by their opinions. The human voice of the company will be muffled and the enterprise gains little benefit."

I'll add that the problem is further complicated when a company compartmentalizes the legal project as an "employment law matter." In that case, it really becomes a hit or miss proposition whether the lawyer drafting the policy knows anything at all about blogging and the blogging policy is likely to be modeled on the hardware and software use plicy or email use policy, whichever is handy. Even though I practice in the area of computer law and like to believe I have some knowledge of blogging and the related issues, I would predict that, in most cases, a company would not seek to obtain recommendations from someone like me. As a result, Ross's fears are more than warranted.

More specifically, he says:

"Right now, they can point to the Sun Policy on Public Discourse, Groove Weblog Policy and the evolving Corporate Weblogger Manifesto as examples. They can talk their executives into considering it by pointing to Jonathan Schwartz, me (heh) and Bill Gates any day now. But its still an emerging issue.

When an employee proposes external enterprise blogging, she needs to kill off policy debate by pointing to an open and accepted agreement. Either that or wait until a court decision on corporate exposure."

Although Ross gives the two options, it is clear that no one other than lawyers prefers the second option. The practices of lawyers are increasingly becoming a significant "friction" in processes that people would like to streamline. It's one thing when the friction we bring into the process is legitimate risk management that addresses real concerns and issues, but it's quite another thing when the "friction" is just plain "friction" that doesn't seem to help anyone out other than lawyers.

Ross suggests an approach where there may exist one or more approaches that are generally acceptable, given an employer's approach to legal risk management and its willingness to accommodate its employers, its ability to see the benefits of blogging, etc. In a manner similar to, for example, the GPL or the BSD License, a company might choose a standard approach and use a standardand easily (and cheaply) available agreement that matches its desired approach. Rather than have lawyers customize all sorts of elaborate language, the company could use lawyers to help them understand the legal risks of the different approaches and any unique issues that might need to be addressed.

Ross has stated something very important and Robert Scoble and others have picked up on the points he makes. Among other things, he has given us a good practical example of the ways that law and software do have some tendency to merge and the general concern (see, e.g., CAN-SPAM) that laws and lawyers trail too far behind where most people, not just technologies, are today. The longer lawyers offer only the option of waiting three or more years for a court to decide issues that everyone knows have practical solutions that can be quickly implemented, lawyers practicing in traditional ways risk becoming increasingly less relevant.

Mayfield's post should be studied carefully by lawyers. Increasingly, lawyers will see clients tire of waiting for lawyers to bring them solutions to new problems and seek to find solutions that have some industry-wide acceptance and ask their lawyers to work within the constraints of those solutions. For what it's worth, my own interests take me increasingly toward models of delivery of legal services that look more like software applications than the traditional document preparation that lawyers have done for years.

Posted by dmk at 12:53 AM

July 11, 2004

A New Approach to Blog Archives

One of the drawbacks of the most blogs today (or at least mine) is that if you find a blog that you like, it's difficult to take a leisurely look through the archives of the blog to find out what all is there. With both blogs and feeds, the view you get of a blog tends to be immediate and typically does not extend too far into the past, unless you decide to devote some effort, online, to trolling through the archives.

Today, I had the idea of trying to address this problem in a simple way. I have created a simple PDF file of all of the archives of my blog, which I will make freely downloadable, so that you can read the archive offline, print it out, read it as an eBook, whatever works best for you. It's not a small file, but I got it down to somewhat less than 700K. I'll then update the archive PDF file around the first of every month. As a result, you should be able at any time to read all of the blog posts either on the front page of the blog or in the PDF file.

I'm not sure whether it is a good solution or even a solution at all. Maybe I'm the only one who sees this as a problem, but I consistently find blogs that I'd like to spend some time later reading through the archives.

If you think it works, or you see problems with the approach, let me know.

Posted by dmk at 11:45 PM

July 09, 2004

News Story Disproves Claim that Big Law Firms Have No Identities

Big law firms have it tough these days. Many critics claim that they have no identities, no personalities, no souls, no individuality.

The good news is that the article "Impersonating a Law Firm" in today's ABA Journal eReport tells a story that utterly refutes the claims that at least one big law firm has no identity.

The article's subtitle says it all: "Fish & Neave Identity Stolen by Paralegal, Prosecutors Charge." Now I don't pretend to have a black belt in logic, but I did have a minor in philosophy in college and it seems pretty clear to me that Fish & Neave's identity could not have been stolen unless, in fact, it had one. Q.E.D.

I eagerly await the "critic's" attempts to refute this argument.

I recommend the article for the story it tells, the questions it raises (how do you spend $500,000 on psychics?), and the highly-nuanced arguments of lawyers (you'll catch a version of "it depends on what the definition of identity theft is" argument in there).

In the Sarbanes Oxley world, these kinds of occurrences are going to draw attention to the security and other IT practices of law firms, and, frankly, I'm not sure that some companies are going to like what they find.

Here's a great item to find on your "to do" list if you are a partner at Fish & Neave: "Explain to clients how they really can be sure that we can keep their important documents and records secure, safe and confidential."

On the other hand, maybe it is better to be considered to have no identity than to be referred to as "you mean the firm where the paralegal (allegedly) stole the firm's identity."

For those who enjoy irony, you might take a look at Fish & Neave's discussion of its technology capabilities. For those at big firms enjoying a laugh at Fish & Neave's expense, contemplate for a minute that, as one of the premier patent firms in the U.S., Fish & Neave is likely to be doing a better job on technology than firm's that do not have such a strong technology focus.

Posted by dmk at 12:36 PM

July 08, 2004

Kill Your Idols

My longtime friend and personal music attorney, Emmett McAuliffe, is someone who I'm hounding to start a blog on music law.

Emmett just sent me a link to a great article called Idle Worship, or Revisiting the Classics, by Jim DeRogatis.

DeRogatis ostensibly reviews a new book called Kill Your Idols: A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics. The book has the great premise of having a new generation of music critics look back at some of the "classic" albums of the 60s and 70s and write about why they despise those albums.

From the article:

"If we want to be high-minded about it, we can call it a spirited assault on a pantheon that has been foisted upon us, or a defiant rejection of the hegemonic view of rock history espoused by the critics who preceded us. If we want to use the vernacular, we can say it's a loud, angry but hopefully amusing "f--- you" to the ubiquitous forces of nostalgia: the schmaltzy Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the tawdry VH1 "Behind the Music Specials" and the endless Rolling Stone magazine lists of the 500 Greatest Albums in Rock History (which never, ever seem to get it right).

The point of the book isn't to make readers change their minds about works they hold near and dear; I agree with only about a third of the essays myself. It's to make them think about what they value in these allegedly great albums; about why, exactly, these works have been included in the canon, and about whether an art form as loud, rude and unruly as rock 'n' roll should even have a canon in the first place."

That second paragraph of the quote is worth reading again.

DeRogatis goes on to reprint his critique of the "Sergeant Pepper's" album. There's some great stuff there, although there's nothing more fun than hitting a Beatle's fan with a dead-pan look and a "The Beatles were before my time" comment.

It's an enjoyable article to read, it makes me want to read the book and it's a great "find" by Emmett.

Emmett is the author of a now out-of-print niche classic on power pop music called "Pop Power!" Emmett's blog would be a great place for him to revive and refresh that classic work in addition to providing a great resource on music law for bands and artists - but, hey, that's just my opinion - no pressure, Emmett.

Posted by dmk at 10:41 AM

July 07, 2004

At U.N. Conference, Officials Say Spam Can Be Beaten in 2 Years

From the always-excellent GigaLaw.com:

At U.N. Conference, Officials Say Spam Can Be Beaten in 2 Years

I'm sorry, but this headline and story defies my tiny level of comprehension. Handling WMDs, the global war on terrorism, AIDS, world hunger in two years, I can understand. But spam?

I was not convinced until I saw the solution. It's so brilliant, so inspired. A bit obvious, yes, but it takes a visionary to truly "see" the simple beauty and elegance of the solution.

No, it's not a Spam for Food program.

It's more legislation, of course. D-oh! It was so clear - why couldn't I have thought of it?

Earth to UN! Oh, never mind.

I have to admit that I'm beginning to question the logic and priorities of the institutions and governments around the world just a tiny little bit.

Posted by dmk at 10:20 PM

Well, At Least St. Louis Still Has That Blawg City, USA Thing Going For It

St. Louis has a very good local news blog called Blog St. Louis, even though it took an unfortunate hit recently by all-but-guaranteeing the Gephardt as VP pick. Hey, as rumors go, the evidence looked pretty good.

However, Houston has an awesome local stories blog in Houston's Clear Thinkers. It's a must-read for me just for its overall quality. With Houston's news well in hand, they had the chance recently to skewer St. Louis's light rail system in their post, "The Economic Absurdity of a Light Rail System," which highlighted an article written by people in the St. Louis Office of the Federal Reserve.

A quick check of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch website shows no mention of this article, indicating what we think of the "newsworthiness" of this item (or the possible consequences of living in a one newspaper town).

But, watch it Houston. St. Louis may still have thousands of homes without electricity or cable TV as we reach day 3 after a thunderstorm, and there may be questions about our light rail system, but we are still Blawg City, USA.

Posted by dmk at 09:55 PM

Starting a Solo Practice Out of a Home Office

There was great discussion on the fantastic Missouri Bar Small Firm Internet Group mailing list today chock full of advice to a lawyer who was considering starting her new practice from a home office.

Unfortunately, in my continuing saga of the power outages, cable TV outages (during tonight's repeat of the episode of Monk that we apparently missed, for Chrissakes! You tell me what credit would adequately compensate my daughter and I for that!), customer support call horror stories and other glitches that have greeted my return to St. Louis, my contribution to the discussion was rejected repeated by a mailserver that refused to recognize my email address (OK, Mr. Wiseserver, how come you have no problem sending the emails to my addresses?) and claimed that I was attempting to send an attachment.

Well, I have other options. Here's the mildly edited and disguised message to the list that originated the discussion:

"I am starting up a solo practice in estate planning and elder law and I have lots of questions. I have been pondering the idea of practicing out of my home, and traveling to my clients. I spoke with a few people at the conference who had had good experience with it, but I am not getting positive feedback from other attorneys in the town where I will be practicing. Opinions and/or advice anyone?"

Here's my unedited response (that means that I'm sure that I must have intended any typos or other errors):

Let's see. The other attorneys in your town see you as a likely competitor. You might want to factor that into your evaluation of the objectivity of their advice. By the way, part of this comes down to that old childhood philosophical question: if the other attorneys in your town all jumped off the Empire State Building, would you jump off too?

Seriously, though, all of the other positive encouragement you have received from members of this list is right on track, in my opinion. The world is changing and expectations are very different today than they were even a few years ago. To me, that means that the home office option is one that must be considered in every start-up practice, and probably will be a wise choice in most cases.

As far as estate planning clients, by 1998 when I left the estate planning department at The Stolar Partnership, it was already starting to be the exception when clients came into the office instead of us going to them. While there is a "downtown St. Louis" component to this issue, I can tell you that all of the biggest St. Louis firms now have offices in St. Louis County for the purpose of servicing estate planning clients. Requiring the "elderly" elder law clients to come to your office may not make sense in any number of cases.

I went from law offices on ten floors with 300 lawyers to working out of my house. If you made me pick one word to describe the experience, I would choose "liberating." My clients are business and technology clients. Do they have an issue? Not at all. Some compliment on my business judgment on cutting overhead and everyone else appreciates my willlingness to make "house calls." Most of my work is done via phone and email.

On the other hand, I think that the home office approach will work best when you can handle your work by relying on technology, temps or even "virtual legal secretaries." Once you need full-time employees, it will be much harder. On the other hand, lawyers with leased offices may be willing to "lease" you secretarial hours, storage space, meeting rooms, reception services and the like on an outsourced, or pay-as-you-go basis. In one of the "projects I know that I'll never get done so why do I kid myself" ideas that I have on my list is creating a web page or exchange where lawyers can offer and seek out these types of arrangements. I hereby donate that idea to anyone of the SFIG list who can put it together.

I believe that in the areas that you intend to practice (especially elder law), the willingness to "make house calls" or meet in a place convenient to your clients could be a "positive market distinguisher." If you worked out an arrangement with a bank, for example, to use a conference room for meetings, you'd probably develop relationships and get new clients.

If clients have to come to your house (especially felony criminal clients - despite the presumption of innocence), or if you require more than a limited staff, working out of your house might create some problems, zoning or otherwise (consider access and disability issues for elderly clients).

As I tell people in my presentations, a solo practice is ultimately a cash-flow business. If you cut your expenses, you improve your chances to get into the black faster. Is your money more effectively spent on an office lease or on marketing or technology? I can adjust my marketing or tech budget in a poor month, but a lease payment comes due whether you have a good month or a bad month.

Those of us working from home are probably going to be taking over the world in a few years anyway, so climb on board the home office train. As they say, "People get ready, there's a train a-coming, don't need no fancy lease, just climb on board."

Posted by dmk at 09:27 PM

Battling Blog Comment Spam - Turn em Off

Today, on the otherwise rational Net-Lawyers email list, people who I truly admire were sharing the time-consuming acrobatics that they are willing to go through in a fruitless attempt to stop comment spammers on their blogs.

Enough, I said. Let me take a mildly contrarian approach.

You can't stay ahead of the spammers. They've now added Trackback spam to their repertoire. See, e.g., http://www.elise.com/mt/archives/000577trackback_spam.php.

I flat out don't allow comments on my blog - sort of a tribute to Ronald Reagan's famous "Mr. Green, I paid for this microphone" moment. The spammers have destroyed my use of my telephone with unsolicited calls, my email with barrage after barrage of messages, and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay to give them a platform from which to destroy blogging for me, too. If they are going to destroy my blog experience, they are going to have to earn it the hard way. I'm not giving them an inch this time. As for pre-approving commenters, I'm not sure I understand why I need to do all the work - shouldn't the spammers do all the work? That's why they have rooms full of programmers in Eastern Europe working all day long for anyway. Let them pay the programmers to earn their pay instead of making me put together whitelists and other time-consuming temporary fixes. "Whitelists" baffle me in this context. There's no way that I could have approved in advance comments from many of the bloggers I now count as friends.

And, blog comments would be just one more type of communication that I'd be late in responding too and never having the time to police. My hats off to the people who want to do the comment thing, but blog comments just seem like the worst of all possible worlds for me. People who have something to say to me about my blog can email me. If they have something they need to perform in public as a response, they can use their own blog and I'll see it here. For other blogs I might do, comments might make sense, but this blog is the microphone I paid for. They can go ahead and send me regular spam or call me at home during dinner, if they want, and leave my blog alone.

Finally, I remain hopeful that Congress will soon approve the CAN COMMENT SPAM bill that should eliminate the entire problem.

By the way, to all the spam filter fans out there, thank you for your continuing efforts to endorse programs that further destroy the remaining utility of email. Today's example, I look unprofessional for not turning in an article because someone's spam filters blocked two emails I sent with the article attached. Welcome to 1980s email all over again - "Ring, ring. Just calling to see if you got the email I sent you."

Shouldn't this be our battle cry? "Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the spammers."

For now, if you want to split the cost of my hosting fee, then we can talk about providing you a platform to spam and deface my blog. Until then, let's just keep the microphone turned off.

In fairness to the spammers, however, I must admit that today I received a subject line that made me chuckle from Daniel Yankovic, a nom de plume of a spammer who apparently enjoys spoofing my email address. It said simply, "Pornstars use Cialis to stay hard." In its own way, it struck me as the highest attainment of the spammer's art and I fear that we face only a downward curve in spammer creativity after this point.

Posted by dmk at 09:11 PM

July 06, 2004

Lights Out in Webster

If you are a heavy metal historian or had your heavy metal formative years during the mid-1970s, as I did, you may have noticed the reference in the title to the classic title track from the seminal UFO classic, Lights Out.

I was reminded of the song all last night and through this morning. We arrived back in St. Louis (the suburb in which we live is called Webster Groves) at the same time as a thunderstorm.

Not that power outages in our neighborhood are common, but, after racing between raindrops to get our luggage in the house, we started to collect flashlights and candles. A quick check of the weather showed no warnings and the radar showed a line of showers that was all but through. In a few minutes, the house went dark.

And we're still without power. The electric company estimates that we will get our power restored sometime after 9:00 tonight. As I drove around looking for a free Wifi access spot (it took three tries), I was amazed by the extent of the power outages, especially in the business districts.

If you are familiar with St. Louis, you know that one of the most hellish experiences you can have is trying to sleep on a July night in St. Louis without air conditioning or even a fan. I can attest to that, even though I did enjoy a series of fascinating, near-hallucinatory dreams. Perhaps the only thing more hellish is spending a July day and evening in a house with no air conditioning, fan or refrigerator.

So, we are working today on running errands to air-conditioned spots, visiting family members and the like.

A few major shout-outs, however, are definitely in order.

First, to Intel for the Centrino chip - wireless access and still more than 4 hours of battery life left (even after starting with a not-fully charged battery).

Second, to Sony for the Vaio PCG-Z1AP and the great decision to include the Centrino.

Third, to Panera/St. Louis Bread Company for breakfast, air conditioning and the free WiFi access.

Posted by dmk at 11:29 AM

July 04, 2004

St. Louis, Missouri Crowned "Blawg City, USA"

Scraps and Workshop #1

I attended a seminar this May in Huntington Beach, California, which has the storied nickname "Surf City, USA."

When freshening up my list of legal blogs (often referred to as "blawgs," a term originated by Denise Howell (one of the legal bloggers I refer to as "The First Ones") (see background story)), I noticed that the St. Louis metropolitan area has a high concentration of popular and influential blawgs.

Consider for a moment:

Matt "the [non] billable hour" Homann - Perhaps the most influential blawger on alternative billing and law practice innovation issues and creator of the "Five by Five" feature, probably the best example of a regular, ongoing blawg content feature.

Evan "Notes From the Legal Underground, The Illinois Trial Practice Blog and The Illinois Personal Injury Blog" Schaeffer - Evan is hands-on the funniest of the blawgers, writes regular insightful and humorous essays and, through his multiple blogs, dispenses a lot of great, practical information. He ties with Jerry Lawson for maintaining the higest number of high-quality blawgs. I admit to being a little jealous of that, but I also have a kind email from Evan that I treasure because he thanked me for inspiring him to start a blog on account of a presentation that I made that I had felt had fallen on deaf ears.

George "George's Employment Law" Lenard - If you want to see a great example of how to operate a legal subject-matter-specific blog, George's blog is a great starting point. There is consistently good practically and thought-provoking content. George's recent posts on health care insurance issues that effect all of us are especially good.

Dennis "DennisKennedy.Blog" Kennedy - Hey, that's me. (At least I didn't put my blog first on the list.) I am proud of what I've done on my blog - it includes some of my best work.

By any standard, that is a very strong list of blawgs. In the near future, with a bit more arm-twisting from me, I expect to see several new blogs from St. Louis lawyers that will unquestionably become highly-praised and valuable blogs. You know who you are .

However, does this list really get St. Louis to the point where it can claim the crown of "Blawg City, USA"? The answer: a resounding "yes!"

Here's why. There are not yet very many legal blogs. There are also a limited number that have a high stature, large audience or great infuence. And the blawgs that fit those categories are widely scattered across the country.

Ernie the Attorney is all but synonymous with New Orleans, but you don't think of other New Orleans blawgers.

Tom "Inter-Alia" Mighell may well be the most brilliant of the blawgers and, in my mind, the lawyer who understands blogging better than anyone else, but most people wouldn't associate him with Dallas or be able to think of any other Dallas blawgers.

Marty "The Trademark Blog" Schwimmer may have the single best example of a subject matter expert blawg, but you do not associate him with a cluster of New York City or even East Coast blawgers.

While Denise "Bag and Baggage" Howell would be at or near the top of any list of most influential blawgers, there is not really a Los Angeles area cluster of blawgers. There are a number of Southern California blawgers, but that's a big area. In addition, Denise lives and works within walking distance of Surf City, USA, so another nickname would be more appropriate.

Rick Klau is another of "The First Ones" and as influential as can be, but I don't have the sense of much else happening in blawging in Chicago.

The law professor bloggers are scattered all over the place and many blawgs do not give you a sense of geography.

The biggest competitor to St. Louis, in my mind, is Washington, DC. The lineup of Jerry "NetLawBlog" Lawson (the wisest blawger), Sabrina "BeSpacific" Pacifici (the most professional blogger) and Carolyn "My Shingle" Elefant (a fantastic example of a content-rich resource blog) is a formidable one indeed. However, since Washington, DC is the nation's capital, it is fair to have it defer to St. Louis on the "Blawg City, USA" designation.

Finally, as bloggers know, there's an enormous first-to-market advantage of simply making the claim that "St. Louis, Missouri is Blawg City, USA" and seizing the benefits of the Google results that will arise from this post itself - not that, heaven forbid, that is what I have in mind with this post.

It is incumbent upon those of us who make up the current first group of blawgers to blaze the paths, create the directories and establish the maps and geography of the blawging world for those who follow us and those who will become the future readers and creators of blawgs. In this 200th anniversary year of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, I now plant the blawger flag and proclaim that St. Louis is Blawg City, USA.

In the words of Jan and Dean:

"You know they never roll the streets up 'cause there's always somethin' goin'
(Blawg City, here we come)
You know they're either out blawgin' or they got a party growin'
(Blawg City, here we come)
Yeah, and there's two swingin' blawgs for every attorney
And all you gotta do is just subscribe to the RSS feeds"

Posted by dmk at 01:24 PM

Celebrate the July 4th Holiday with a Free Pepsi Edge from Jeff Gordon and Me

Man! Despite the long rain delay, the edge-of-your-seat last laps of last night's Pepsi 400 more than lived up to the historical name of the race - The Firecracker 400.

In a "we could not have planned this any better" marketing moment, Jeff Gordon's win triggered a Pepsi promotion that allows everyone to get a free 2-liter bottle of the new Pepi Edge.

Simply go to http://www.pepsiedge.com and register today before 9:00 EST and you'll receive a coupon for a free bottle. If you are reading my blog today, have a free Pepsi Edge, courtesy of Pepsi, Jeff Gordon and me, as a way of celebrating the 4th of July, the Pepsi 400 and my upcoming 400th post to this blog.

[IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: More than a few "legal marketing experts" have opined that lawyers should NEVER make references to personal interests on their blogs, especially interests that, in the opinion of these experts, might show that the lawyer is a human being or has interests in anything other than snobbish, high-falootin' cultured and "professionally correct" things. Mentioning NASCAR is an example that has been commonly used as a "no-no" to avoid. My continuing response to these "experts" is and has long been: GET A LIFE! Any web marketing "expert" who gives you advice that suggests that you can be more successful by reducing the personality and individuality of your web presence betrays an utter lack of understanding of the history of the Internet, the reasons for site success (especially in the blog world) and how clients ultimately choose lawyers. I've given you more valuable information for free in this tongue-in-cheek disclaimer than you'll ever get for the thousands of dollars you may pay to "experts" who encourage an impersonal approach. I now get over a million hits a year on a legal website that dares to be personal, human and individual, including specifically mentioning NASCAR if I feel like it, or anything else for that matter. Check out the web sites of the button-upped experts as a comparison and do the math. As is the case with all of the best and most popular legal bloggers, I'm a blogger who happens to be a lawyer rather than a lawyer who created a blog as part of a paint-by-the numbers marketing plan. Vive la difference!! Please feel free to use the language of this disclaimer when posting on a subject that the "experts" might not consider high-falootin' and cultured enough. Declare your independence today from the "cult of hyper-professionalism" that wants to crush every element of individuality out of the practice of law and make lawyers conform to their dry and lifeless standards. And have a Pepsi Edge on me. It's Independence Day.]

Posted by dmk at 12:00 PM