Dennis Kennedy

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January 28, 2009

Client Technology Surveys - A Powerful Little Tool

Client technology surveys are an easy and inexpensive way to improve your use of technology and make it easier for your clients to work with you. In my latest ABA Journal tech column, A Powerful Little Tool You Must Use, I talk about the basics, benefits and best tips for using client technology surveys.

To summarize:

"It’s a great time to focus on client technology surveys. They are simple, surprisingly effective, can fit on a single page and can be used as a script on a phone call."

I prefer a short and simple approach and suggest five types of questions to use. Tom Mighell and I also have a sample client tech survey in our book because these surveys can really help you pick the right collaboration tools to use with your clients. It's also worthwhile checking with Adriana Linares for her latest suggestions about client tech surveys.

I also suggest some good times to use a survey and how it can be a way to create a positive "touch" of your best clients, an especially good idea in tough economic times.

I invite you to read the whole article and let me know your thoughts on the topic.

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

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology client technology survey Law2.0 collaboration

Posted by dmk at 08:32 PM | Comments (2)

January 25, 2009

Will Law Firm Technology Budgets Be Decimated in 2009? Discuss.

I'm running a little late on my annual legal technology trends article, but I've been thinking a lot about it and reading other technology predictions to give me ideas and help me clarify my thinking. I especially liked those from TechnoLawyer and Ross Kodner.

I was thinking about the topic today, with the idea of doing some writing, and I realized that there were two real (as opposed to many imaginary) reasons why the article was difficult to write this year.

First, to a certain extent, I'm not sure that what I wrote about 2008 trends doesn't still basically apply for 2009, perhaps with a little more oomph in certain places, especially in the evolution of collaboration technologies.

Second, the discussions of legal technology and law practice management, for the most part, seem to be more optimistic than I feel about the topic and the economic crisis seems like the elephant in the room that no one wants to mention in polite conversation.

Today, I read and considered a number of items that I recommend to all my readers as they think about technology in 2009.

Fabius Maximus on Situation Report About The Global Economy, As The Flames Break Thru The Firewalls

Ron Friedmann on The Crisis Goes to Waste as BigLaw Muddles Through

Ron Baker on Recession-proofing Your Firm

Shelley Powers on The Frugal Algorithm

Bruce MacEwen's Report from London

The Greatest American Lawyer on The Adam Smith Blog Contemplates the Potential Consequences of Economic Downturn on the Legal Profession

Jordan Furlong's Avalanche Alert

Wendy Werner on Starting the New Year with Optimism

What Should You Do Now? A Roundtable Discussion on Law Practice in a Time of Great Economic Turmoil

LawPro's Surviving the Slide (pdf)

You get the idea.

Here's my thinking. You don't really see much discussion of the impact of the economy on legal technology.

Yet, if law firms are laying off lawyers and staff in large numbers and those who haven't been laid off at least a little nervous because no one knows where things are headed, should we still conclude that it's business as usual for legal technology, including electronic discovery?

In my original mindmap for my trends article, one of my trends was the likelihood of frozen budgets, of little or no new spending, of making do with what you had, and the likelihood that most of the legal profession would elect to skip a generation of Windows (Vista) and Office (2007).

Most of that is likely to stay in the version I'm writing, but the discussion I'd like to have (and where I'm starting to think that we are really going) is whether we are going to see just lack of increases or budget freezes.

Technology budgets at many firms have increased steadily over the years and have grown to be a significant line item in firm budgets. Significant line items are likely to get cut this year and there's probably plenty of misdirected tech spending in many firms to cut, although decision-makers aren't always able to see and understand that.

I chose the word "decimate" in my title for a reason. It originates from an extreme Roman practice that killed one out of every ten soldiers as a form of punishment, or a decimation. It has evolved to have the sense of drastic reduction.

The question I have, and I'm inviting you to think about with me, is whether we are in fact likely to see or might already be seeing 10% or greater reductions in legal technology spending by law firms and law departments for 2009? That's the question I'd be asking if I were attending Legal Tech NY next week to as many people who would listen to me and not try to change the subject.

I think that's where I'm headed in my trends article, but would like to discuss this and see if people can convince me otherwise.

So, the question on the test is: "Will law firm technology budgets be decimated in 2009? Discuss."

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

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology decimated trends 2009

Posted by dmk at 08:53 PM | Comments (1)

52 Books in 52 Weeks - 2009

In the last few years, I've enjoyed reading the posts of several bloggers who are trying to read 52 books in 52 weeks. I've also wanted to find a good way for me to keep track of the books I've read.

Last year, I decided to try to do the 52 books in 52 weeks meme (and encourage others to do so). I made it to 64, which seemed pretty good. Here's the post with the 2008 list.

I'm doing the same thing in 2009, but with a few lessons learned, especially that it's definitely not worth the hassle of adding Amazon links for each book I read.

My approach is the same as last year - I'll simply update this specific post from time to time throughout the year as I finish books.

December

63. The Arms Maker of Berlin, Dan Fesperman

62.Exploting Chaos, Jeremy Gutsche

61. Red to Black, Alex Dryden

60. The Defector, Daniel Silva

59. Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard, Susan Fowler, and Laurence Hawkins

58. The Collaborative Habit, Twyla Tharp

57. Rules of Thumb, Alan Webber

56. Enough Already, Peter Walsh

55. Trust Me, Jeff Abbot

November

54. The Apostle, Brad Thor

53. Facebook for Dummies, Leah Pearlman and Carolyn Abram

52. City of Gold, Jim Krane

51. A Question of Blood, Ian Rankin

50. The Naming of the Dead, Ian Rankin

October

49. Eating St. Louis, Patricia Corrigan

48. Jason Kersten, The Art of Making Money

47. Black Noir, Otto Penzler

September

46. Free Agent, Jeremy Duns

45. The Age of the Unthinkable, Joshua Ramo

44. The Expediter, David Hageberg

43. The Mad Ones, Tom Folsom

August

42. The Venona Cable, Brent Ghelft

41. The Victorian Internet, Tom Standage

40. Final Notice, Joe Gores

39. Blank Spots on the Map, Trevor Paglen

38. A Brief History of the Future, Jacques Attali

37. The Gemini Contenders, Robert Ludlum

July

36. The Matlock Paper, Repbert Ludlum

35. The Osterman Weekend, Robert Ludlum

34. The Scarlatti Inheritance, Robert Ludlum

33. Say Everything, Scott Rosenberg

32. The Rheinemann Exchange, Robert Ludlum

31. The Matarese Countdown, by Robert Ludlum

30. The Matarese Circle, by Robert Ludlum

29. The Parsifal Mosaic, by Robert Ludlum

28. The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea, by Michael Harney

June

27. Making it All Work, by David Allen

26. Year of the Dog, by Henry Chang

25. The Icarus Agenda, by Robert Ludlum.

24. Bricklin on Technology, by Daniel Bricklin

23. The Chancellor Manuscript, by Robert Ludlum

May

22. Extreme Measures, by Vince Tynan

21. Maui Revealed: The Ultimate Guidebook, by Andrew Doughty

April

20. The Cry of the Halidon, by Robert Ludlum

19. 7 Deadly Scenarios, by Andrew Krepinevich

18. Moscow Rules, by Dan Silva

March

17. Divine Justice, by Dave Baldacci

16. The End of Lawyers?", by Richard Susskind

15. Rules of Deception, by Christopher Reich

February

14. Inevitable Surprises, by Peter Schwartz

13. Our Iceberg is Melting, John Kotter

12. Ghost War, Alex Berenson

11. The Spies of Warsaw, Alan Furst

10. Inside Drucker's Brain, Jeffrey Krames

9. Kiss Me, Deadly, Mickey Spillane

8. The Big Kill, Mickey Spilane

January

7. One Lonely Night, Mickey Spillane

6. Vengeance is Mine, Mickey Spillane

5. My Gun is Quick, Mickey Spillane

4. I, The Jury, Mickey Spillane

3. Enough, John Bogle

2. The Parsifal Mosaic, Robert Ludlum

1. The Culture of War, Martin Van Creveld

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

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tag: 52 books in 52 weeks

Posted by dmk at 08:36 PM

January 24, 2009

Recent Microblog Posts - January 24, 2009

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:

The Fully Connected Law Firm - http://bit.ly/10Cqy I wrote this several years ago, but it still seemed fresh to me today.

"Collaboration relies on the frame," says @jackvinson about #collaboration structures - http://bit.ly/1uW8iB A must-read.

Adam Singer concludes this about social media: "don’t chase spikes, pursue linear growth through participation." - http://bit.ly/2fq9

Berin Szoka asks, "Who needs a DVR when you've got Hulu?" - http://bit.ly/lnS0

Thought-provoking in major kind of way: @johnrobb on protection rackets - http://bit.ly/chbv - much to think about here.

Sobering graphics on bank market caps and shadow banking from Rob Paterson and @johnrobb - http://bit.ly/7b5E & http://tinyurl.com/9y94t4

In law school, I expected to be the last of lawyers who took a state bar exam. Wrong! Maybe a national exam is coming - http://bit.ly/ISdmF

Looking for your help on a #collaboration tips project - http://bit.ly/4jf7 - #collabtips

JP Rangaswami: insights into Twitter as a submarine in the ocean of the web - http://bit.ly/1emXgX

From Noah Shactman at Danger Room (http://bit.ly/kh8u): Martin Miller discovers real WMDs - http://bit.ly/iUrZ - awesome photos

This brings back great memories: Charlie Bess on rebirth of HyperCard - http://bit.ly/DEZmj HyperCard => http://bit.ly/4y5Ko3 Signed up.

Helpful explanation of key gmail concept - labels, not folders from Google Operating System blog: http://bit.ly/18eCK

Paul Caron points to a new series of IRS podcasts to assist taxpayers - http://bit.ly/14Uc0 - seems like a great idea to this podcast fan

Watch @collabtools and http://bit.ly/kNao for chance to help "crowdsource" list of #collaboration tips for #techshow handouts and more

Yet another reminder how great Twyla Tharp's book The Creative Habit is - http://bit.ly/USNS - it's going on my to-reread list for 2009

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/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology microblog Law2.0 collaboration

Posted by dmk at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)

January 19, 2009

Celebrating the Martin Luther King Holiday - 2009

As longtime readers of this blog will know, I've written before (here, here and here) that the Martin Luther King Holiday is one of my favorite holidays of the year. It's a perfect day to take some time to reflect. It also seems lately that it's one of the few holidays that people actually get off work anymore. This year's holiday also clearly has a special significance.

I also enjoy monitoring Technorati for the posts about MLK and Twitter Search. Try it.

Lots of interesting posts to find today.I like Bert Decker's Master Speakers King and Obama, the Teaching Company has a free mp3 download of a lecture about MLK , and Art Howe's The Arc of the Universe Is Long But It Bends Towards Justice (wow, what a sentiment that is!). Check for yourself and see what you find. As they say, "Make It a Day ON, Not a Day Off!"

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

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; follow me - @denniskennedy

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. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: martin luther king

Posted by dmk at 08:18 PM | Comments (0)

January 14, 2009

By Request: Will Dennis Kennedy Be at Legal Tech NY?

In the last few days, I've been getting a surprising number of emails (way more than one) asking me if I'll have time to get together at LegalTech in New York. It's flattering and it reminds me how much fun attending LegalTech can be. It's also interesting how people assume that I'll be at the show.

Unfortunately, however, I won't be attending LegalTech this year. In person, that is. I'll follow happenings there via reading blogs and Twitter.

If I were there, I'd be very interested in assessing the impact of the current economic turmoil on the legal tech industry. So, I'll be looking to my friends there to report to me on that. I'm a little disappointed, though, because I've already been invited to meet with people who would give me some excellent inisghts into new products and developments in legal tech.

In terms of 2009 legal technology shows, I'll definitely be at ABA TECHSHOW, where I'll be speaking on collaboration topics. There's also a chance that I might be at the ILTA conference this summer.

There's also an excellent chance that you will be able to see me at Matt Homann's upcoming Lexthink event.

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

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology microblog legaltech collaboration

Posted by dmk at 09:18 PM | Comments (0)

January 07, 2009

Recent Microblog Posts - January 7, 2009

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:

AMC is offering a chance to view the highly-influential TV series, The Prisoner, for free online - http://bit.ly/17sra

Steve Dembo (@teach42) asks if joining a PLN is bad for morale - http://bit.ly/KJzi - Really like the notion of "personal learning network"

"Lower your standards, take action, and be bold!" saysThomas Huynh in Chet Richards' Sun Tzu New Year's post - http://bit.ly/l9Kn

Toby Brown predicts the "paradigm of profitability" will shift the legal profession's reliance on the billable hour - http://bit.ly/bzej

The Great Reboot from @johnrobb - http://bit.ly/9q5B - "You start at the the small." Ideas on reconstructing a hung system.

Adam Smith, Esq. asks "if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" - http://bit.ly/sT9g - How do we improve our critical thinking skills?

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/)]

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology microblog Law2.0 collaboration

Posted by dmk at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)

January 06, 2009

DennisKennedy.Blog: The Year 2008 in Review: Part 3: The Posts I Didn't Write

This is part 3 of a 3-part retrospective on the year 2008 on DennisKennedy.Blog.

In part 1 of this retrospective, I covered the articles I wrote in 2008 and the related posts about them. In part two, I covered the other posts I wrote on this blog in 2008.

In this part three, I cover the posts I planned to write but never got written.

I decided to write this post for three reasons:

1. The idea itself came from an idea I had for a post that I didn't write a few months ago when a meme was making the rounds in which bloggers wrote about how they chose what they posted about.

2, I've always loved the writings of Jorge Luis Borges in which he wrote book reviews of books that didn't exist. This is a small homage and it's better than my old idea of writing software reviews of programs that didn't exist. I realized that people would really believe the reviews and that might not be a good thing. You probably noticed all the excitement over the "keyboardless" Mac joke today. You do have to be careful about taking ironic approaches on law-related blogs.

3. I actually have notes of blog post ideas that I have jotted down throughout the year.

And it also gives me a chance to put a bit of closure on the one post that I didn't write that I've thought about for the last few months: the dreaded Part 5 of my series on My Next Laptop is an iPod Touch.

Here's part 5, in a nutshell. The iPod Touch as secondary laptop worked almost exactly how I planned. When I travel, it's great. I can go to conferences and carry only the iPod Touch rather than a backpack and a laptop. At the public library, I can get on the WiFi and check my Amazon Wishlist to see if books are available at the library. Checking Gmail, Google Reader, weather, news and the like whenever I have access to WiFi is great.

There's just one problem. For me (and in part, but just in part, it's because I'm using iTunes on Windows in connection with the iPod Touch), iTunes remains one of the quirkiest and most frustrating programs I've ever used. Unless I exit out of iTunes and reopen it before I sync to the iPod Touch, the time and date will be set randomly. Google it and you'll see that that's not an issue unique to me.

Bottom line: I'm a huge fan of the iPod Touch and it extended the range of my laptop and serves as a second laptop in a great way in situations where I travel or have access to WiFi. However, I'd suggest that people might have better luck with iTunes on a Mac than on Windows or might expect some odd behaviors in a Windows environment. I mean, I can live with it OK, but it is frustrating (and I have to take a big deep breath and say a short prayer before I install an iTunes update) even for me, and I doubt that others will want to be as patient as I am. On the other hand, it all might work just fine for you, and that's the quirkiness I refer to. By the way, my experiment was purposely done in the Windows environment, so there's no need to give me the "get a Mac" advice. However, I'd enjoy reading your post if you try the same experiment in a Mac environment.

On the posts I didn't write.

As I said, I pulled together some of my notes on blog posts I had planned in 2008. I often think up posts on my bike rides. Some of them get written. Some of them get noted. But there are a lot of unwritten blog posts scattered to the side of Grant's Trail.

Here's the list I pulled out of my notes, plus a few I remembered as I was writing this:

Here's What's Bugging Me about iTunes Now (just joking)

Legal Ethics and Web 2.0

Three Inexpensive Technologies I Really Like and Use Myself

Reflections on Raymond Chandler

Four WInds

Blog/Blawg 2.0

An Audience Survey

My Favorite Podcasts

Recommended Podcasts for Lawyers

The Power Cord is the Weakest Link

Using Extension Cords to Make Friends at Conferences

Projector Tips from Projector Failures I've Known

The Best Skills a Lawyer Can Have

Using the LazyWeb

Some Reflections on my Experience with Twitter (and Facebook and LinkedIn)

The Difficulties of Staying on Topic on Your Blog

Thoughts on Editing Podcasts

What Can ESPN's Pardon the Interruption Show Teach Presenters

Why I Love getAbstract

Getting Deeper into Podcasts

The Library of Nineveh

Various Reflections on Books I've Read

A Guidebook for Fourth Generation Legal Technology

Marty Schwimmer is a Genius . . . Again

My Recent Conversation with Tom Mighell

Revisiting Open Space Technology

Improving Brainstorming Sessions

A Fond Memoriam on BlogWalk (Thank you Jack Vinson for inviting me to one of my favorite events in my whole blog history)

Open Source Programs Lawyers Might Use

My Facebook Friending Policy

Reconnecting with Childhood Friends Via the Internet

I Just Finished a 50-mile Bike Ride

A Fresh Look at RSS

Why I Hate Using Old Versions of Software

Finding Great Podcasts

The Hardest Thing(s) about Writing a Book

I Love FireFox and Tabbed Browsing, but Too Many Open Tabs is a Hazard

Tony Colleluori Reminded Me What the True Benefits of Blogging Are - see this post

How to be a Better Mentor

That's the list. I'm not sure I'll go back to any of these (some would be long posts), but if I see that there might be interest in some of these, I might work on writing a post on the topic. Also, I haven't done a "By Request" post for a while, so if you have a question that I might answer as a post, let me know in the comments to this post.

On to 2009. Coming soon: my annual legal technology trends article/post.

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

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology 2008 Law2.0 collaboration

Posted by dmk at 04:51 PM | Comments (1)

January 05, 2009

DennisKennedy.Blog: The Year 2008 in Review: Part 2: The Posts

This is part 2 of a 3-part retrospective on the year 2008 on DennisKennedy.Blog.

In part 1 of this retrospective, I covered the articles I wrote in 2008 and the related posts about them.

In this part two, I cover the other posts I wrote on this blog in 2008. Part three might be the most interesting: posts I planned to write but never got written.

Overview: In many ways, 2008 was the year of the link at DennisKennedy.Blog. It's ancient history now, but my original website started as a collection of links to useful resources and I wrote a column, often with Tom Mighell, called "The Strongest Links" for a number of years that focused on presenting useful links to resources on a variety of topics. I found that I wanted to get back to my roots and tried two separate approaches to create posts with links to posts, articles and websites that thought my blog audience might enjoy and find useful.

1. The Links Posts. The first experiment was called Links of the Week and appeared for about five months. There are a lot of great links in those posts. I ended up deciding, for several reasons, that I did not like this approach and began thinking about an alternative approach.

The second approach, which I really like, is something I call DennisKennedy.Microblog. The idea is to use Twitter to post a link to something I find especially interesting on a more or less daily basis and then collect those "tweets" on a more or less weekly basis in a post on this blog to create a post with a good collection of useful links. You can find the collected Microblog posts here. You can follow the microblog on Twitter here (@dkennedyblog) I've been pleasantly surprised by the number of followers to-date.

2. My Favorite Posts of 2008 (or a Great Introduction to his Blog for New Visitors).

"Returning to the Internet Roundtable"

"The Internet Roundtable Revisited: The Blog Columns"

"I've Been Listening to So Many Podcasts that I Didn't Realize that Podcasting Might Have Been Declared Dead"

"Kevin Kelly on Better than Free"

"KM for Legal Apps"

"8 Legal Technology Trends for 2008"

"I am the Worst Liveblogger Ever: A Report from ABA TECHSHOW 2008"

"Using Word 2007 and Google Docs to Collaborate on Documents"

"An Illustration of the Beyond Bullet Points Approach to Presentations"

"Talking Legal Tech"

"My New Laptop Computer is an iPod Touch" - part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4. (I have mixed feelings about this series because I never finished it, but that's a story for part 3 of this 2008 retrospective).

Dennis Kennedy's 2008 Law-related Blogging Awards (The Blawggies)

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

"The Land of Hope and Dreams"

"Why I Blog - 2008 vs. 2004"

"9-11-2008"

"52 Books in 52 Weeks"

Another good rediscovery while preparing this post was a link to the long interview I did for Lexblog in which I gave a lot of insights to my approach to blogging and my perspectives on it: My LexBlog Q & A Interview

Coming tomorrow: Part 3 - The unposted posts.

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

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology 2008 Law2.0 collaboration

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

January 04, 2009

DennisKennedy.Blog: The Year 2008 in Review: Part 1: Articles

This is part 1 of a 3-part retrospective on the year 2008 on DennisKennedy.Blog.

The big news in 2008 at DennisKennedy.Blog was the publication of the book The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technology: Smart Ways to Work Together, by Tom Mighell and me. We're delighted by the response to the book, especially the excellent reviews it has gotten.

However, I can definitely tell you that writing a book takes a tool on your other writing efforts, especially the quantity of blog posts. I'm hoping that 2009 will see a return to a more traditional pace of posts on this blog. In addition to resting after writing the book, I also launched the Twitter-based "microblog" companion to this blog at http://twitter.com/dkennedyblog (or @dkennedyblog in Twitterese).

As I looked back at this blog and my 2008 posts, I noticed that there were three types of post and so I decided to do a three-part retrospective on 2008. Today, I'll cover the first kind of post: posts about other articles I wrote. Part two will cover the other posts I wrote. Part three might be the most interesting: posts I planned to write but never got written.

1. My ABA Journal Column. I write the technology column for the American Bar Association Journal. Probably the best way to find them all is to use this link.

Over the year, I found that enjoyed writing the blog posts about each column as much as I enjoyed writing the columns.

Here are the columns, with links to my post about each and a link to the actual column.

It’s Time to Talk Audio/Video - December 2008 - Rethink the text-based world and thinking seriously about ways to use audio and video delivered over the Internet. http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/its_time_to_talk_audio_video/

Get the (Instant) Message, Dude! - November 2008 - Maybe my favorite column on the year, on ways lawyers can use instant messaging. http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/get_the_instant_message_dude/

Go Green, Save Green - October 2008 - My most thorough discussion to-date of green legal technology -
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/go_green_save_green/

Master Your Disasters - September 2008 - Basics of backup and disaster recovery -
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/master_your_disasters/

Learning 3G-Speak - August 2008 - A primer of the language of mobile communications.
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/learning_3g_speak/

Become a Google Master - July 2008 - Some of my best tips for Google users.
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/become_a_google_master/

SharePoint: A Legal Killer App? - June 2008 - Maybe the most popular of my columns focused on Microsoft SharePoint as a collaboration platform. http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/sharepoint_a_legal_killer_app/

Really Simple Competitive Intelligence - March 2008 - Some really simple approaches to getting useful competitive intelligence. http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/really_simple_competitive_intelligence/

Hiding Assets - February 2008 - Encryption and methods to protect confidential information.
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/hiding_assets/

Tech Greats for ‘08 - January 2008 - I must admit that I still don't understand the title they chose for this column, but the column was a list of New Year's resolutions for lawyers using technology.
http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/tech_greats_for_08/

2. Roundtable Articles. I was also involved in two roundtable articles, which exceeded my highest expectations and I recommend most highly.

Competitive Intelligence Roundtable Article. The ABA's Law Practice magazine published an article called "CI Tactics, Tools and Lessons to Be Learned," which featured a who's who of experts on the use of competitive intelligence in the legal profession.

Law Practice in a Time of Great Economic Turmoil - Roundtable Discussion - A stellar cast of experts take a practical look at the impact of the current economic crisis on the legal profession in the Law Practice Today webzine - "What Should You Do Now? A Roundtable Discussion on Law Practice in a Time of Great Economic Turmoil." Highly recommended.

3. Collaboration Tools Articles.

Tom and I found some time to start a new companion blogsite for our book at LawyersGuidetoCollaboration.com (a big thank you to LexBlog where we'll both be posting on topics related to collaboration and the book (follow @collabtools on Twitter for regular updates on the topic of collaboration).

We also wrote a couple of articles on collaboration tools:

Collaborative Technologies: Working with Others Around the Corner or Around the World

Get Smart (starts of page 40 of PDF)

After reading this post, I now realize that I wrote more in 2008 than I thought I had. Hope you enjoy these articles.

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

Follow my microblog on Twitter - @dkennedyblog; Follow me - @denniskennedy

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. Twitter: @collabtools

Technorati tags: legal technology 2008 Law2.0 collaboration

Posted by dmk at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)