Dennis Kennedy

	Web DennisKennedy.com

« August 2008 | Main | October 2008 »

September 30, 2008

Recent Microblog Posts - September 30, 2008

DennisKennedy.Microblog is a supplement to this blog that can be found on Twitter at @dkennedyblog. I invite you to become a follower. An explanation of the microblog can be found here.

Here are posts from the microblog for the last week or so:

Rajesh Jain's primer on the Don'ts of Public Speaking and Panels - http://bit.ly/4v8gog - BTW, if you start with an apology, you've lost me.

John Jantsch talks about how the telephone doesn't use any gas and benefits of online meeting tools (http://bit.ly/1K5S3i) Good suggestions.

Marshall Kirkpatrick on why it makes sense to read (work-related) blogs at work - http://bit.ly/1Fhemm - even better, monitor RSS feeds.

Ralph Losey's must-read on ediscovery - http://bit.ly/2D1Adk - balancing client & ethical obligations with legal & technological competence

John Heckman on reading off a computer screen - http://bit.ly/zLBBJ - If you don't like it, why do you do so much of it? Possible lessons.

Ten technologies that will revolutionize PCs from Charlie Bess - http://bit.ly/3ppmvp.

Let me know what you think about the microblog idea.

Also, Tom and I have started to do some regular posting at the Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration blog. I invite you to check it out and add it to your RSS reader.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Now Available! The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Visit the companion website for the book at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com.

Technorati tags: legal technology microblog Law2.0

Posted by dmk at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)

September 24, 2008

Planning for Legal Technology in a Recession (Or Worse) - Revisited

Back in January, I took a fresh look at some of my earlier thinking on what to do in connection with legal technology planning in bad economic times. My 2008 legal tech trends article had "dancing with a recession" as one of the eight trends.

But I never imagined what we've seen over the last week or so.

Difficult times make for difficult decisions. It's hard to wrap your brain around the current crisis. While financial concerns are certainly taking center stage, it makes sense to devote some attention to technology to make good decisions about how you go forward and, as they say, what to leave in and what to leave out.

Here's the core of my earlier post. It's a good starting point.

The key: being willing to think of technology in terms of investment.

I like to think of technology investing as a form of portfolio investing. Much as we rebalance our investment portfolios in changing economic conditions, the same principles apply to technology investment. . . . The interesting conclusion in modern portfolio theory is that the most prudent approach, over the long term, includes a reasonable proportion of high-risk, high-return investments, regardless of the investment climate. In a slow economy, sticking with a diversified approach is mandatory.

Investing in technology requires a similar portfolio approach.

Here are six areas to consider carefully when developing your technology portfolio:

1. Technology That Cuts Costs

2. Technology That Makes You Indispensable to Your Clients

3. Technology That Helps You Get New Clients

4. Technology That Helps You Move into New Practice Areas (or Creates Profitable Niche Practices)

5. Technology That Helps You Recruit and Retain Great People

6. Technology That Makes You Saner

The article concluded with these thoughts:

In a slow economy, you need to make smart choices about technology. Focusing hard on return on investment is important, but not if you are using that as an excuse to shut down technology investment. A better approach is to get a lot of options on the table and consider their likely risk and potential return. Then prudently pick a diverse portfolio of technology investment projects and step boldly forward. Not all of them may work, but the diversification will, and you’ll find yourself well positioned for the changes to come, both in the economy and the practice of law.

For another set of useful tips about how to use technology to save money, see John Jantsch: The Telephone Doesn't Use Any Gas - Benefits of Online Meeting Tools.

You can also follow the microblog companion to this blog at @dkennedyblog on Twitter.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Now Available! The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Visit the companion website for the book at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com.

Technorati tags: legal technology recession planning

Posted by dmk at 08:18 PM | Comments (1)

September 22, 2008

Recent Microblog Posts - Sep 22, 2008

DennisKennedy.Microblog is a supplement to this blog that can be found on Twitter at @dkennedyblog. I invite you to become a follower. An explanation of the microblog can be found here.

Here are posts from the microblog for the last week or so:

+ One source of content with many channels and user choice, ABA Journal really gets where mags need to go. http://www.abajournal.com/subscribe

+ "But the most essential thing law firms do for their lawyers is to share their brand" - @jordan_law21 in great post, "We are All Solos"

+ Just curious: If you follow @denniskennedy, why would you not also follow @dkennedyblog? Or vice versa?

+ Putting Blinders on to Enhance Productivity - http://bit.ly/44Z6fs - let good people work the way they want with the tools they want

+ Hanselman on telecommuting technologies. http://bit.ly/3THqXK Game changing?

+ ReadWriteWeb survey finds that 21% are using online word processors - http://bit.ly/45cwU [Note: Please participate in our informal poll on word processor usage]

+ Jon Udell on what is an Internet operating system - http://tinyurl.com/3eg7oh

Let me know what you think about the microblog idea.

Also, Tom and I have started to do some regular posting at the Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration blog. I invite you to check it out and add it to your RSS reader.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Now Available! The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Visit the companion website for the book at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com.

Technorati tags: legal technology microblog Law2.0

Posted by dmk at 08:23 PM | Comments (1)

September 16, 2008

DennisKennedy.Microblog

I've noticed a lot of discussion in the last week or so about ways lawyers (and others) might use Twitter. There have been some good primers on Twitter and Kevin O'Keefe, in particular, has talked about ways lawyers might use Twitter.

I'd suggest that you start with Adrian Lursson's post listing lawyers who use Twitter and Grant Griffiths' Twitter tutorial for lawyers if you want to get some more background.

Here's an example of Twitter use that I've found compelling.

I've experimented with Twitter (I'm @denniskennedy on Twitter) for a while now - actually quite a while - and I have a few thoughts on the subject. They aren't too original, frankly.

Twitter is another possible channel of communication that for the right people with the right audiences might be quite successful for certain purposes. For others, it probably won't be very useful. And, as Jerry Lawson once presciently said about lawyer blogs, for some lawyers, it would be a disaster.

For a variety of reasons, I've found it easier lately to maintain a regular presence on Twitter than on my blog or other channels.

My friend, Marty "The Trademark Blog" Schwimmer, recently pointed me to a possible use of Twitter that I found compelling and launched the subject mentioned in the title of this post.

Marty started using Twitter to create a companion "microblog" for The Trademark Blog. I emailed him immediately when I saw it to tell him that he was a genius. He deflected my praise and said that he got the idea from Techmeme, but I'll still give him credit because we talked about some of the nuances of this approach over the last two weeks.

Typical of my approach, I became convinced about how the idea would work for my blog and then, rather than hopping right in, I let the idea incubate for a while and thought it through. At least for a couple of weeks.

Here's my thinking.

I've said before that the true difficulty of blogging is not the time commitment or the usual things people ask bloggers about. No, the real burden of blogging is the "everydayness" of blogging. How do you maintain a consistent, regular presence?

This is especially true when your style of blogging centers on longer, essayish posts. Or, God forbid, you commit to a series of posts. That final unwritten part (or two) of my series on "my new laptop computer is an iPod Touch" has blocked many a new post for me, as has the yet unwritten ILTA reflections post.

My idea then was to use Twitter as a microblog that worked with this blog. The Twitter blog will be a place for short items - quick links and observations of the "one quick thing" nature (another of Marty's great ideas). Then, to integrate with this blog, I'll collect them every week or so into a post on this blog with its own category.

It's a new and different approach, and definitely an experiment. I also expect it to find its own, somewhat different, audience. It can also see the Twitter posts turning into seeds for extended posts on this blog. I'm also planning to try using the hash tag #legaltech as a way to help people find the posts.

How to find the new DennisKennedy.Microblog? It's at @dkennedyblog (the Twitter character limit on user names got me there). I start there with the obligatory reflexive post and, of course, the obligatory Babylon 5 reference.

I welcome you to the new experiment and invite you to follow the new microblog. Let me know what you think about it.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Now Available! The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Visit the book's companion website at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com.

Technorati tags: legal technology legaltech microblog Law2.0 twitter everydayness

Posted by dmk at 09:33 PM | Comments (1)

September 11, 2008

9-11-2008

I so associate blue skies with 9/11 that the overcast, drizzly morning was oddly comforting to me.

My commute now takes me by an unexpected 9/11 memorial. Unexpected both in that it is in O'Fallon, Missouri and that it is found in the median of a four lane road. It's made of large, rusting pieces from the World Trade Center.

It's not that you ever stop noticing, but some days you notice it more. Today, the three very large flags over it flew at half-mast.

Some days, I find that I want to go up and touch it - to create some kind of tactile and emotional connection.

However, it is in the middle of a busy road and I've never seen anyone actually walk up to it.

As I drove by this morning, though, I saw a woman, dress in a business suit, walking to it with a bouquet of flowers, wrapped in plastic. I wondered all day about the story behind that.

When I drove by this evening, still oddly comforted by the gray skies, I noticed the single bouquet still lying on the hedges that surround the rusted metal.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Posted by dmk at 08:49 PM | Comments (0)

September 02, 2008

Master Your Disaster - Online Backup

My new column in the ABA Journal, Mastering Your Disaster, is out and, even though it was written a couple of months ago, it seems especially timely in these Gustavian days.

The topic is online storage and backup and the role it can and should play in your disaster recovery and other planning. I consider some practical approaches for using online storage, its benefits and limitations, and some of the services now available.

The money quote:

Should online storage be part of your backup and disaster recovery plan? The short answer is yes, but only as one part of a layered backup strategy and only if you do your due diligence on the online storage provider.

I welcome your comments on the column.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Now Available! The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell. Check out the companion website for the book at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com.

Technorati tags: legal technology online storage online backup collaboration tools disaster recovery aba journal

Posted by dmk at 10:12 PM | Comments (1)

September 01, 2008

Gone Biking

Ah, back to the blog after spending time at the excellent ILTA '08 conference and the holiday weekend.

I got in quite a bit of seat time on my bike over the weekend (120 miles), with a 50-mile ride this morning.

Here's a picture of the technology I use for cycling:

The bike was conceived, selected and created for me by cyclist extraordinaire, old school bike designer (yes, it has a lugged frame), and high school classmate, Howard Smith. When it comes to technology, it's one of my favorites.

I'll be getting back to legal technology observations and reflections on ILTA shortly.

[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (http://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]

Now Available! The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell.

Technorati tags: cycling

Posted by dmk at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)