Dennis Kennedy

22. Certain to WIn, by Chet Richards

21. Crashproof Your Kids, by Timothy Smith

20. The Physics of NASCAR, by Diandra Leslie-Pelecky

19. The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle

February

18. Absolute Power, by David Baldacci

17. Stone Cold, by David Baldacci

16. The Art of Learning, by Josh Waitzkin

15. The Shell Game, by Steve Alten

14. Coltrane, by Ben Ratliff

13. The Sign of Four, by Arthur Conan Doyle

12. A Study in Scarlet, by Arthur Conan Doyle

January.

11. How to Pick a Peach, by Russ Parsons

10. Presentation Zen, by Garr Reynolds

9. The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets...And How We Could Have Stopped Him , by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins

8. Kitchen Confidential, by Anthony Bourdain

7. No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain

6. The United States of Arugala, David Kamp

5. Ronnie, Ronnie Wood

4. Dance with the Dragon, David Hagberg

3. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle

2. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle

1. Last Harvest: How a Cornfield Became New Daleville: Real Estate Development in America from George Washington to the Builders of the Twenty-first Century, and Why We Live in Houses Anyway, by Witold Rybczynski

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

Technorati tag: 52 books in 52 weeks

Posted by dmk at 04:23 PM | Comments (1)

December 30, 2007

Best of DennisKennedy.Blog: 2007 in Review

I was reading Brian Clark's post "The Best of Copyblogger in 2007 and realized how much I like this type of year-end post. It tells a lot about the subject matter a bog covers and provides a roadmap to the best posts.

I've thought about doing similar posts each year, but the idea has always seemed a little too daunting. I took a stab at it today and it was easier than I thought. I looked through the 135 posts (a smaller number than in any calendar year of this blog so far, in part due to working on a book project) and put together this post. Enjoy!

January

In January , I looked at resolutions – for your PCh and for my own legal technology (hmm, some might be on my list for 2008, too). January was also the time for my annual Martin Luther King Day reflection. I ended the month looking at the biggest unanswered question in electronic discovery: What will "documents" mean in a world where almost all information is held in gigantic databases?

February

February was most notable for my experiment in publishing my annual legal technology trends article as a series of posts and in a number of forms. The idea was to let people see how I wrote and edited the article to create different versions. Here's the start of the long version and the short version. There was also an intermediate (and probably the best) version published on LLRX.com. Other highlights included two posts on newsreaders (here and here), one on wikis for lawyers, and a note that non-lawyers might not be treating electronic discovery with the same emphasis that lawyers are putting on it.

March

In March, Tom Mighell and I announced our upcoming book, The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies. March also had posts on two of my favorite concepts of the year: Impromptu Consultation and the Post-Email Era and The Electronic Discovery Continuum - Accelerating Complexity. I also covered topics ranging from Track Changes to Firefox productivity extensions to document assembly, and made my 2007 legal trends article available as a PDF download.

April

April found me a bit overwhelmed with email overload, but also making some of my better posts of the year: Green Legal Technology: Is the Time Ripe?, Are Lawyers Doing Work That Should Be Done By Machines?, Do Excerpt Feeds and Poor Sound Quality Podcasts Have Something in Common?, Reports of Death of PowerPoint Greatly Exaggerated?, and Has Blogging Peaked?. I also noted the tenth anniversary of Dave Winer's Scripting News blog, probably the greatest influence on my launch of this blog.

May

May was a busy month, with the number posts dropping somewhat. I noted the anniversary of Eric Raymond's seminal essay, The Theater and the Bazaar (essential if you want to understand Open Source), posted my Handout Materials on Ethical Issues for Law Firm Websites, commented on "peak blogging," highlighted some great tips on presenting from Jon Udell, and suggested that lawyers who thought that simple auto accident cases would not involve electronic discovery might be sadly mistaken.

June

I started June with a post on my visit with Marty "The Trademark Blog" Schwimmer and some thoughts about the history and future of blogging by lawyers in a post called Birth of the Blawg. I ended the month mentioning a white paper I had written on dealing with metadata under the new amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In between, I posted on Pollard's Laws of Communication, Collection and Collaboration, Talking About GPL and Creative Commons for Bloggers, and Seven Step Guide for Knowledge Management Initiatives in Corporate Legal Departments.

July

July featured one of my most rantish and popular posts - Presumptuous Computing - A Trend to Reverse. Yesterday, iTunes presumed that a stray mouse click meant that I wanted to uncheck ALL of my songs and podcasts and I spent a long time rechecking the items I wanted to put on my iPod, earning iTunes a special place among my least favorite programs. I also posted on two of my favorite topics of 2007 – Google Reader's Shared Items and storage. I ended the month focused on Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.

August

August meant a new Springsteen single – Radio Nowhere. We lost power again in St. Louis. I had a great time at the ILTA Conference. A new episode of The Kennedy-Mighell Report podcast focused on lawyers using Facebook and the Google Reader. I also posted on the idea of using technology counsel in electronic discovery, clean legal technology, and a roundtable article I participated in on the impact of the December 2006 amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure on electronic discovery.

September

In September, I took a nostalgic look back at Google on its 9th Birthday. The important post of the month was called The Brand is the Talent. I also posted about a roundtable article on lawyer podcasting. By September, it became apparent that working on the book was going to start cutting into my time for blogging, as I mentioned in the post Collaboration Tools, AmLaw Tech Survey 2007, and Expect a Reduced Number of Posts for a Little While.

October

October was a big e-discovery month. I started the month with Electronic Discovery Trends and Blogs: Thinking Aloud about Information Overload and Information Underload, which touches one of my favorite subjects, info underload. I followed that with 26 Electronic Discovery Trends for 2008, based on a presentation I gave, and then the short version, How About 3 EDD Trends Instead of 26? My new ABA Journal legal tech column debuted in October. I also commented on the RIAA's approach to customer relationship in The Benefits of Treating Regular Customers Like Criminals.

November

November had the smallest number of monthly posts in the history of this blog as most of my time went into finishing the final draft of the book. My infatuation with storage was on display in Windows Home Server and SharePoint and I noted Bob Ambrogi's useful article on electronic discovery blogs.

December

If it's December at DennisKennedy.Blog, then it must be time for the Blawggie Awards. This year was no exception. I must admit that I am a little disappointed that the Blawggies post did not inspire blawggers to post their own set of awards, but I had a lot of fun with the post and appreciate the kind emails and comments I've received. December also marked the untimely death of influential blogger Marc Orchant. I'll also note my post on the 2 trillion text messages sent in 2007 and the potential consequences of the move to email alternatives.

That was 2007 on DennisKennedy.Blog. Thanks for reading and commenting. If you are new to this blog, this post will give you a quick way to see some of the most representative (and best) posts.

Best wishes for 2008. If you haven't yet started your own blog, 2008 would be a great time to start.

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

Get your legal technology information by audio. Check out The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast.

Technorati tags: legal technology electronic discovery Law2.0 blawg dennis kennedy

Posted by dmk at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)

December 10, 2007

Marc Orchant

Like many others whose lives blogger Marc Orchant touched, I wanted to pass along my sympathy and condolences to Marc's family and friends. If you didn't know about Marc and his untimely death, I recommend Steve Rubel's remembrance of Marc here.

Like Steve, I remember Marc's blog as one I read earlier on in my blogging era. I never met Marc in person, but we exchanged some emails and both were part of an informal advisory group for Mindjet, where I appreciated his thoughtful insights.

When I heard the news of Marc's death, I did a search of my email to look at those emails again. What struck me most was an email from Marc in early 2003, I believe in response to something I posted on my blog, in which he recommended in a helpul and convincing way that I should try Lookout, the search plug-in for Outlook. That was one of the best software recommendations anyone ever made to me and I recommended Lookoout to many others over the years.

I formed a great opinion of Marc from that, and of the world of bloggers as well. I regret that I never got to meet Marc personally and was saddened to hear of his death.

Steve eloquently says in his post:

The story is all indicative of the blogging ethos. We help each other. Many of us are stars but we like to pass the ball and create opportunities for others. Points don't matter. Assists do. The blogosphere is a global village and, unfortunately, Marc's untimely death is a reminder that we should always remain that way - even when we often disagree.

Thanks for reminding us, Steve.

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

Get your legal technology information by audio. Check out The Kennedy-Mighell Report Podcast.

Technorati tags: marc orchant

Posted by dmk at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)

October 29, 2007

Whenever St. Louis Bloggers Get Together There is Fun

We made it to the very fun gathering of St. Louis bloggers mentioned in the prior post on Friday night. It's always great to meet local bloggers, and this was an especially cool group. Marijean (STLWorkingMom) Jaggers does a great job of summing things up in her post here. Her post also provides links to the blogs of bloggers there - I 've subscribed to the RSS feeds of all of them, giving my newsreader a decidedly (and welcome) local flavor the last few days. It's also nice to see the good vibes that the event produced as the different bloggers post their reactions.

Here's a collection of photos from the event - you'll see a nice shot of Matt Homann and me in the mix.

A big thanks to the organizers and attendees, especially Michelle Golden who alerted me to the event. We'll have to do some more of these, and maybe bring together the Friday night group with the blogger lunch group. I've long been intrigued by the dynamic of in-person meetings of bloggers and how often blogging makes good friends of people who would have never known each other otherwise.

You might try one of these gatherings with your local bloggers.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on Google Reader Shared Items or subscribe to its RSS feed. High volume, but lots of interesting items that will get you thinking.

Technorati tags: st louis bloggers blogger meetup saint louis

Posted by dmk at 09:20 PM | Comments (1)

October 25, 2007

St. Louis Blogger Meet-up

Michelle Golden is putting together a blogger get-together for St. Louis bloggers on Friday night, October 26. Details here. Hope to see you there.

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

Posted by dmk at 10:23 PM | Comments (0)

October 09, 2007

The Benefits of Treating Regular Customers Like Criminals

I can see no benefits to treating your regular customers like they are criminals, but I'm not in the music industry, where that seems to be a standard practice.

I bought some CDs from Amazon and they arrived today.

I tried to open them so I could play them.

Five full minutes, a pair of scissors, and a sharp knife later, I was ready to give up on getting the last one open before it finally relented and I could remove the shrinkwrap and get started on that sticky tape that keeps the jewel case closed and sticks persistently to your fingers when you try to throw it away. I honestly don't know how people with arthritis or disabilities get these things opened.

At the end of my ordeal, I was no longer excited about playing the music. I was too tired to put the CDs into a CD player, let alone rip songs into iTunes to put on my iPod.

However, that might be the purpose of the shrinkwrap obstacle course. In Good Morning Silicon Valley last week, Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, was quoted as saying:

“When an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song. [Making a copy of a purchased song is] a nice way of saying ’steals just one copy’.”

The music industry, like many others, is at a crossroads. Improving the experience for regular customers has to be part of the right path, doesn't it? Music is especially interesting because people who listen to a lot of music and like music, recommend it to their friends and others, resulting in more sales, larger concert attendance, et al. Word of mouth is a huge thing for bands.

Yet, rather tha making it even easier to listen to music and talk about it and recommend it, the music industry does things like raise questions whether copying music you already own is "stealing."

Since two of the CDs are from Sony's labels, I'll now have to determine whether ripping to iTunes is "stealing just one copy" or whether it's part of what I got when I bought the CD. I'm wondering if playing the CD in my car and at home will also be seen as a way of "stealing just one copy." Maybe I'll just play the CDs on Sony CD players, that should be a safe harbor, I would hope.

Sony also got a "thumbs down" on its approach to DRM on Movie DVDs in the post "Paying Customers Are the Enemy" on the Technology Liberation Front blog (hmm, notice a common theme). The money quote:

It's worth keeping in mind that only the legitimate customers have to jump through these kinds of hoops. If you're stupid enough to follow the rules and pay hard-earned cash for your movies, Hollywood rewards you by making you spend a relaxing evening learning how to update your movie player's firmware. People who break the law and get their movies via a P2P network don't have to worry about these sorts of headaches, as those files tend to come pre-cracked and in an open format playable on any device.

As many have said before, the entertainment industry needs to focus on ways to make it simpler and easier to comply with legal requirements than it is not to comply with them. Unfortunately, suggesting that making copies for your own use is "stealing" is not a step in that direction.

Update: Check out Ian' Rogers' presentation Convenience Wins, Hubris Loses and Content vs. Context, a Presentation for Some Music Industry Friends.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on Google Reader Shared Items or subscribe to its RSS feed. High volume, but lots of interesting items that will get you thinking.

Technorati tags: musings music+industry shrinkwrap

Posted by dmk at 10:58 PM

October 04, 2007

Free Burma Blog Day

free burma

Posted by dmk at 08:22 PM

September 11, 2007

09/11/2007

As I mentioned last year, I've been working on-site for a client and my highway exit (O'Fallon, Missouri) has a small 9/11 memorial with metal building structures from the World Trade Centers. It's called "Spirit of Freedom 9-11" and, to quote from the link above, "Thirteen tons of twisted steel from the September 11, 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center in New York dominate this compelling monument in the median at Winghaven Boulevard and Highway 40-61."

I drove by this morning, noting that the flags were at half-mast in the wind, and also noticing that the sky was very blue. It's the cloudless blue sky that I'll always associate with 9/11. And it made me a little uneasy as I noticed, as I walked from my car, that from my vantage point there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The helicopter that flew over about that time didn't help either. I was reminded of the 2003 post I wrote on 9/11.

This evening, I stopped for the traffic light and looked out my window and was face to face with the metal structural elements and the engraved stone monument at the exit.

There are many pieces of public sculpture these days that include rusting metal as a component. I can appreciate them intellectually, but they don't really do much for me. This rusting metal, so inexplicably place at a highway exit in Missouri, has great immediacy and power.

Many posts about 9/11 passed through my newsreader today. I'll single out this one from Marty Schwimmer, a revisit to his earlier classic post, in part because we talked about it and the fighter jet he mentioned when I visited him and his family this summer, and in part because I thought about Marty, that post and that conversation this morning.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.

Technorati tag: 9/11

Posted by dmk at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2007

Radio Nowhere

Ah, the only thing better than a new Springsteen album (called Magic) and tour announcement is the release of a song from the album. That, and how it activates my network of friends who are Springsteen fans.

This is Radio Nowhere, is there anybody alive out there?

I've been listening to and loving the new song, "Radio Nowhere," which makes me think of Joe Strummer in all the best ways every time I hear it. I also like it's positive out of negative motif. Like Beck's "Where It's At" (Two turntables and a microphone), Radio Nowhere also captures something essential that I find about blogging (and that ain't about using blogs as legal marketing tools).

I mentioned to a friend the Strummer/Clash comparison and wanted to share the response I got back:

The cadence of the verses are "Clampdown." With hints of "I Fought the Law"--both the Clash version and Bruce's more "authentic"-to-Fuller response version, which we heard in Champaign. The low sustained rumble of that, w/ the phrasing of Strummer.

It's so summational of his artistic position. Such a declaration. In that way, tonally, it reminds you of Badlands. A rage-against-futility howl.

It''s great to have friends who are great writers.

I'm also getting a chuckle out of all the different versions of the lyrics that you can find. This one seemed the closest to my best guess. Part of discovering a new song is figuring out the lyrics on your own, even though I always like the official lyric sheets.

I remember the old days when you'd try to hear a new single first on a radio station or by going to a record store on the release date. The Internet makes it so different now.

I read that a Spanish TV website was making the new single available for download at 6:00AM yesterday. I worked my way through the Spanish instructions (a bit of a trick since I only had a six week class in Spanish in the 8th grade) to get an mp3 download, only to find later today that there was a free iTunes download, presumably with instructions in English. The Guardian also has an mp3 download, presumably without DRM. The distribution channels are a-changing. With a warning about not safe for work language, Bob Lefsetz has a fascinating riff on this single and how the music business well could be changing.

Unfortunately, catching the early part of this tour does not look like a possibility. As the distribution channels change, I wonder if YouTube will provide the best seat in the house for concert tours?

I don't even pretend to be objective about Springsteen, so I won't offer anything like a review. I do suggest that you grab this song and give it a listen. If we still listened to radio, it'd be a hit. What does "hit" mean in an iPod world?

I'm also reminded, on this Katrina anniversary, to salute Ernie Svenson, another Springsteen fan, and the author of this moving post about the aftermath of Katrina two years later. See my earlier thoughts about the scariest time of my blogging career when we lost touch with Ernie after Katrina hit.

This is Radio Nowhere . . . .

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.The volume can be a little high, but you get some information that you probably won't find anywhere else.

Technorati tags: springsteen radio nowhere musings

Posted by dmk at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)

August 27, 2007

St. Louis - City without Lights (Again)

Lately, St. Louis summers have been characterized by100 degree temperatures and power outages. Sometimes at the same time and for several-day stretches.

Unfortunately, I ran into both, sequentially, on my return to St. Louis from last week's ILTA conference.

Ironically, as it turned out, on my flight back into St. Louis, I was once again struck by the immense amount of light the baseball stadium now generates when games are in progress and, presumably, the amount of electricity used. The stadium lights wash out the other lights downtown and make it difficult to spot the Arch as you fly in. Has anyone else noticed this? From above, it looks like the lights could cook hot dogs in the stadium.

I walked out of the airport into what felt like an oven - at 9:00 at night. The 90 degree heat of Orlando seemed comfy by comparison.

Friday's storm knocked out electricity for thousands, now a regular occurrence. There were some huge trees down around our neighborhood and most of the area was dark, with the exception of a small island of electricity a block or so away, where, having grown accustomed to the outages, neighbors with electricity shared their power with neighbors across the street as long orange extension cords snaked across the street. For many, it was simply returning the favor from the last outage in which the roles were reversed.

In the past, outages seemed to last only an hour or two. In the last year or so, days, rather than hours, are the measure and the Ameren phone message system has dispensed with even attempting to give estimates for return of service.

On Saturday morning, I noticed the wire down at the back of our yard. Fortunately (I have nothing but praise for the people in the trucks who do the work of restoring power - a difficult and dangerous job - but really wonder what is going on at the planning and management levels of Ameren), our electricity was back on Saturday evening. A bit of a break in the temperature helped. Our neighbors across the street were not so lucky - they got back on the grid last night.

I made a couple of long bike rides this weekend. There were some big trees blown over that took down wires and poles and blocked two of my usual routes back to our house.

The unplanned break from electricity and the computer did give me a chance, during daylight hours, to read William Gibson's excellent new book, Spook Country (highly recommended). I hope to post some comments about that and file my delayed recap of the ILTA conference later this week.

My sympathies to all with electricity and experiencing weather difficulties (glad you're power is back, Fred). And a big thank you to the guys who got the power back. Once again.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.

Technorati tags: outage electrical musings ameren

Posted by dmk at 07:21 AM | Comments (0)

July 31, 2007

Return to Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

Every now and then, I'll tell the story of how my early history with the Internet is intertwined with being a fan of the TV series Babylon 5.

Babylon 5 was pioneering and influential in many ways, not the least of which was telling a story that was planned to take and took 5 years and 110 episodes to tell. It was a rich and rewarding universe that many fans, including me, hated to leave.

J. Michael Straczynski, affectionately known as the Great Maker of Babylon 5, has revisited the Babylon 5 universe with a DVD of new stories released today called Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.

I watched the entire DVD this evening. I loved it, but there's no surprise there - I don't pretend to be objective. I suspect that long-time fans will appreciate and enjoy the DVD more than those who are new to the series because there are references to backstory that it helps to know. There are also very nice tributes to two of the main actors, Andreas Katsulas (who I had the pleasure to meet once) and Richard Biggs.

It's a joy to see a familiar and meaningful fictional universe return, with some of the main characters returning in new stories that both honor the history of the show and extend the story in new ways. You can go back again. Great stuff.

For new and old B5 fans, I must recommend the excellent Babylon Podcast.

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

Read the blog posts and RSS feed items I find most interesting on my new linkblog or subscribe to its RSS feed.

Technorati tags: babylon 5 lost+tales

Posted by dmk at 10:24 PM

July 15, 2007

July 16 Idea Market

If you are in St. Louis, I hope to get the chance to see you at Matt Homann's Idea Market on Monday night, July 16, at XPLANE's offices in the Art of Living Building (at 1141 S. 7th Street) from 6-9 pm.

It'll be a "Best Of" the Idea Market, with the favorite exercises, experiences and activities from the past year.

Details and reservation form here.

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

Posted by dmk at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)

May 25, 2007

Congratulations to The College School's Class of 2007

Much of my time the last two weeks has been spent with the activities and events around our daughter's eighth grade graduation (and the final year) at The College School. It's been a wonderful set of experiences, culminating in a moving and ceremony last night. I could not be prouder of our daughter and happier with our choice of schools for her. It's an amazing and impressive group of young people and I offer them my heartfelt and respectful congratulations.

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

Posted by dmk at 06:48 AM

May 22, 2007

Notable Anniversaries: The Cathedral and the Bazaar

Jack Vinson and Knowledge Jolt with Jack: 4 years (reminds me to thank Jack for inviting me to Blogwalk Chicago and our email exchanges).

Marty Swimmer and The Trademark Blog: 5 years. Want to learn about trademarks and trademark law - check out these podcasts with Marty and Colette Voegele.

Eric Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar: 10 years. As Nicholas Carr and Tim O'Reilly note in excellent posts you will want to read, Raymond's essay is extraordinarily influential and important and is a must-read for understanding Open Source, wikis, web 2.0, John Robb's global guerillas (hope to write about Robb's great new book, Brave New World, soon), and even blogging itself. I think that the Open Source licenses themselves are much more important than O'Reilly and Carr suggest. It was (and is) about the licensing. That's why I've written about the licenses from time to time. The Cathedral and the Bazaar essay is worth re-reading from time to time, and has had a huge impact on my own approach to thinking about technology and many other areas as well.

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

Learn more about electronic discovery at Dennis Kennedy's Electronic Discovery Resources page.

Technorati tags: cathedral bazaar open source

Posted by dmk at 10:29 PM | Comments (0)

March 28, 2007

Robust Decision-making

A fun aspect of blogging for me is that occasionally authors send me copies of their books because they like a post of mine on the topic of their book. Recently, I've enjoyed reading and recommend Ross Dawson's Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships (Second Edition) and Rajesh Setty's Beyond Code which the authors sent to me.

The book that I want highlight and recommend to you is David Ullman's Making Robust Decisions. I've done some research into decision-making over the years. I've even had some general discussions about the potential for decision-making software in the legal context.

Making Robust Decisions takes a deep dive into decision-making, especially for teams, and is one of those rare books that I immediately put on my "to re-read" list.

Highlights:

1. As thorough an analysis of the science of decision-making as I've seen in a popular text. There's even mathematics. Fascinating stuff.

2. Thoughtful discussion of the human dynamics at play in group decision-making.

3. Excellent description and analysis of a variety of tools and techniques, with templates and practical illustrations.

4. Most important, a focus on how to turn process into ACTION. Very worthwhile. I seem to be making a lot of tough decisions lately and this book has been very valuable. This emphasis on action will change the way you look at decision-making.

There's also a lot of coverage of topics that have captured my attention over the past few years, including John Boyd's OODA Loop and a good critique of the over-worked notion of consensus decision-making, quoting Margaret Thatcher, "To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects."

Ullman's combination of "robustness" in decision-making and practical action is a powerful approach.

Highly recommended and a big public thank you to David Ullman for sending me a copy and realizing that it would fit so well with my thinking and perspective.

Making Robust Decisions

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

Learn more about electronic discovery at Dennis Kennedy's Electronic Discovery Resources page.

Technorati tags: legal technology decision-making ooda making robust decisions

Robust decision-making

Posted by dmk at 08:39 PM | Comments (0)

March 07, 2007

The Day the Internet Music Died

I urge you to read Mark Cuban's post "Say Goodbye to Webcasting."

Does our focus on intellectual property ownership rights have dire implications for the sharing of culture, our cultural legacy, and the sharing of arts among humans? As I once said, "I can't dance to a copy of your copyright registration form."

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Technorati tags: webcasting copyright creativity culture sharing

Posted by dmk at 09:51 PM | Comments (0)

March 06, 2007

Get Well Soon, Tom Collins

One of my favorite legal bloggers and one of my favorite people I've met through blogging, Tom Collins, is having some surgery. I wish him the best and hope all goes well. Please keep him in your thoughts. There's an important message for all of us in his post.

Posted by dmk at 07:06 AM | Comments (0)

February 15, 2007

By Request Week at DennisKennedy.Blog

One of the things I do every year for the blogiversary of this blog is to give readers the opportunity to submit questions that I'll try to answer.

If you've always wanted to ask me a question about this blog, blogging, legal technology, or any other topic then either email me at denniskennedyblog @ gmail.com or leave the question as a comment to this post. Unless you indicate otherwise, I will not identify you as the author of the question. And, of course, I reserve the right to answer your question with an answer to a different question that I'd prefer to answer.

I'll try to answer as many of the questions as I can as blog posts.

Request lines are now open.

Blogiversary gifts are always welcome.

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

Posted by dmk at 09:32 AM | Comments (1)

Four Years Ago Today - And So It Began

On February 15, 2003 at 05:20 PM, I posted:

And so it begins . . .

I realized the other day that I had first written about blogs well over a year ago. In fact, the rise of blogs was one of my 2002 predictions for legal technology in my annual legal tech predictions article. As I was working on updating my web site (http://www.denniskennedy.com), I finally decided that I had to have my own blog. Thanks to people like Jerry Lawson, Sabrina Pacifici, the Support Forum at MovableType.org, it's finally here.

The pop culture mavens among you will note the Babylon 5 reference in that first post. For trivia buffs, does anyone know the only alternative name I ever seriously considered for this blog? As I reread the first post, I notice it was a highly appropriate name.

Two days later, on my birthday, I wrote more about the motivation for the blog:

"Today is my birthday. The blog is really my birthday present to myself. The start of a trend in gift giving?"

Wow, I really did write short posts back then.

What I didn't write about was how, at the time of the start of my blog, I had the overwhelming feeling that I was way too late to the game and that blogging had completely passed me by. Perhaps I over-reacted . . . .

The other part of the story, which I don't usually tell, is that starting my blog was never really about "blogging." You see, I had been reading Dave Winer's Scripting News for several years and had become enthusiastic about RSS feeds. In fact, I had produced an RSS feed for my website by hand before I did my blog. What I really wanted was an RSS feed, more so than a blog, and the blogging software (like Movable Type) provided the easiest way to generate an RSS feed. The trouble was that few people knew what blogs were in those days, and far fewer knew what RSS feeds were.

Over the years, I got the idea to turn the time of the anniversary of this blog into a bit of fun and a reader-appreciation week that I've referred to as either blogiversary or blawgiversary week, where I've done a number of different experiments, tried new things, and had some fun in ways that tend to earn me a little criticism from those who think that lawyer blogs should be oh so straight-laced and ever so much "on topic." The subtitle of this blog is "legal technology, technology law and other musings," so I like to do the "other musings" from time to time.

So,we begin the fourth birthday/blogiversary today with an important announcement. To honor DennisKennedy.Blog's fourth blogiversary, I'm very pleased to announce that NASCAR has decided to launch its 2007 season with not one, but two, races tonight. Let's go racing!

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Technorati tags: blawg LexThink! blogiversary

Posted by dmk at 07:24 AM | Comments (0)

January 15, 2007

MLK Day 2007: Holiday Musings

As I've written before (here, here and here), Martin Luther King Day is one of my favorite holidays.

In part, that's because there always seems to be pressure in the work environment not to take the holiday, and instead work right through it. In a certain sense, you must make an affirmative statement to take the holiday. In a way, celebrating the holiday requires that you think about and act on the principles being honored by the holiday. There's still much work to do, as this unsettling article suggests.

I've said:

Over the years, I've noticed that law firms and lawyers are reluctant to celebrate Martin Luther King Day as a holiday. It often seems that they grudgingly allow lawyers and staff to take the day off, if they must, but firms do not encourage anyone to do so.

As I've been reading blog posts about the holiday and the man today, it strikes me that Martin Luther King, Jr.'s writings, including the letter from Birmingham city jail, would make for excellent blog posts (and it still does), and have brought the urgency and discussion that the best blog posts bring to an even wider audience. I don't mean to trivialize the writings, but to point to the potential and power of the medium of blogging and how it might be used in the spirit of the tradition saluted by this holiday. Think about it.

One of the great things about today's Internet is the way you can find audio and video of King's speeches and sermons. I encourage you to set aside some time today to think about the principles celebrated by this holiday, and to take a few minutes to track down an audio or video and watch or listen to it. I guarantee it will be well worth the effort.

You can also follow and participate in the Blawg Review MLK Day post/celebration from the Public Defender Investigator Network here.

MLK quote for the day:

Let us. all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

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

Technorati tags: martin luther king day martin+luther+king holiday

Posted by dmk at 08:31 AM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2007

Calling All St. Louis Bloggers

I had a great time talking about blogging at the meeting of the Computer Consultants of St. Louis on Tuesday evening.

One of the things I enjoyed most was getting to talk with long-time St. Louis blogger Jim Durbin, who runs the STLRecruiting.com site. He was somewhat disappointed when I told him the real story behind my St. Louis is Blawg City USA post and the effect that it had, but we shared a laugh about it. It's fascinating story about the unusual powers of blogs. Jim, we have to get together and continue our conversation.

Jim mentioned that he knows that are at least six groups of St. Louis bloggers in which people have gotten to know each other and socialize. However, he noted, none of the groups really know about or interact with the others. It's an interesting phenomenon.

I thought it might be cool to try to cook up a way to bring those groups together. I'd be interested in some ideas people might have for doing that.

The first idea I had was to extend an invitation to all St. Louis bloggers to Matt Homann's next Idea Market on Monday, January 15. Maybe we can spend a little time trying to find a way to do a St. Louis blogger event? Even if you are not a blogger, if you have a chance on Monday evening, consider dropping by the Idea Market.

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

This post brought to you by LexThink!(R) - The Legal Unconference. Ask us about private LexThink retreats and conferences for your firm, business or organization. Coming soon - a new LexThink public event.

Technorati tags: st louis bloggers idea market blawg city usa

Posted by dmk at 09:47 PM | Comments (1)

December 31, 2006

Best Wishes for 2007!

Best wishes for 2007!

Blawgspace is a Generous Place (2006)

- Dennis

Posted by dmk at 05:10 PM | Comments (0)

December 07, 2006

Scenario Planning

Dave Pollard on Scenario Planning vs. Collective Vision: Imagining the Possibilities. A must-read.

It's uncanny how Dave's post reflects some of my recent thinking.

Another post that will start you thinking - Evelyn Rodriguez on Make Money the Middle Way.

Lots and lots of good stuff on blogs lately and elsewhere too,as Evan Schaeffer notes.

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

Posted by dmk at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)

December 06, 2006

Just in Case You're Not Reading Enough Blogs

I suspect that most every regular reader of this blog probably is already reading quite a few blogs.

Well, it's a good idea to read even more. Just in time to help you out, Filmoculus has a great list called "Best Blogs of 2006 That You (Maybe) Aren't Reading" that will point you to some great, lesser-known, high quality blogs in a number of different areas. It was nice to see some of my favorite lesser-known blogs that I read regularly on this list.

I encourage you to sample some of these and, if you aren't using a newsreader to subscribe to RSS feeds, now's a great time to start.

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

Posted by dmk at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)

December 01, 2006

St. Louis Power Outage 2.0 - The Iced Version

As Evan Schaeffer, Marianne Richmond (hey, we went to a Panera's today for lunch too), and Shelley Powers have noted, St. Louis was hit with a devastating ice storm last night. 500,000 without electricity, including Evan's family and my family. That almost matches last summer's outages.

I've never seen so many trees and branches down (something I said after the summer storm). I've also never been without electricity for an extended period (and there's no doubt this will be an extended period) in the winter before. We've been working on alternative arrangements most of the day. I walked around the neighborhood with our daughter taking pictures. Hmm, another limb just dropped from a tree across the street as I wrote this.

It'll be another learning experience.

As bloggers like to say, expect light blogging for the coming days.

Posted by dmk at 03:23 PM | Comments (4)

November 29, 2006

Seven Great Questions

One of the things I love about newsreaders and RSS feeds is the intriguing posts that appear before you. In a way, it's reminds me of the effect of the shuffle feature on the iPod.

Here's an example from Dick Richards' blog, Come Gather Round. It's called "Great Question #7" and it's this:

Who supports my genius and purpose, and who must be left behind?

The post lists his six earlier questions. Check them out.

Spend a week by focusing on one of these questions each day and you may find yourself in a far different place. In any event, this is a post that illustrates the catalytic aspect of consuming the web by RSS.

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

This post brought to you by LexThink!(R) - The Legal Unconference. Ask us about private LexThink retreats and conferences for your firm, business or organization. Coming soon - a new LexThink public event.

Technorati tags: questions

Posted by dmk at 08:58 PM | Comments (0)

November 19, 2006

The "Unbearable" Everydayness of Blogging

I gave a presentation on blogging, podcasting and RSS feeds on Friday and it gave me the chance to reflect a bit about blogging. The night before, I had attended the unveiling of the impressive lobby display and video our daughter's class produced after their 8th grade field ecology trip to Sapelo Island, the Okefenokee Swamp and the Smoky Mountains (see details from prior years here). At the entrance of the school is a quote from its former director, Jan Phillips, that has grown more meaningful and profound to me each time I read it:

"The reflection on an educational experience is often as valuable to learning as the experience itself."

During the presentation, I was asked a question that made me think about the amount of work it takes to sustain a blog. As I like to say, the difficult aspect of blogging is not the time commitment, but the "everydayness" of blogging.

Over the time I've been blogging, I've noticed a certain ebb and flow to my posting, an almost cyclical pattern of feast and fallow periods. In my case, that reflects a common alternating pattern of taking in information, followed by a period of expressing information. Learning, then writing.

Lately, I've been in an intake period. If you count the number of posts over the last few weeks, you'll see that.

When you live in your newsreader as much as I do, it's intriguing to see how the RSS feeds you subscribe to bring you the insights you need on a regular basis.

Since I gave the presentation, I read two posts that gave my insights into the "everydayness" and work involved in blogging and, in the process, insight into what blogging is about, at least to me.

First, Evelyn Rodriguez, in a post called "All Good Things Come to An End, or Shift Happens," touched on the notion of "blog fatigue" and quoted Hugh McLeod who said:

"I usually come down with a heavy dose of blog fatigue every couple of months or so. It usually lasts a week or two. I think it's normal."

Evelyn's post intrigued me because I have been a regular reader of her blog for a long time, and recently I noticed that it did not seem as compelling to me as it once had and that distressed me a bit. I was looking for the old magic.

She says in this post: "Anyway, I'm back. Yep the blog was up for grabs in the mass clearing too. This blog started after nearly two years of deliberation (er, hemming and hawing) since I knew it'd be pretty much a second job. (And I was right, it is.) But it also was the outcome of true inspiration, which when I mine that space, those nuggets always outlast any and all of my ideas du jour."

Yes, she is back. The notion of knowing that a blog would be "pretty much a second job" and the importance of being in a space of inspiration resonated with me.

Then, this morning, I read a post from another blog I really enjoy, Slaves of Academe, called "My Blogging Workbook." If you have been blogging for an extended period of time, you must read this post. In fact, as soon as I read it, I sent the link to my friends at the Between Lawyers blog with an exhortation for them all to read it. You should read it all to get the full effect, but at least read the last few paragraphs.

In the post, the pseudonymous Oso Raro reflects (there's that word again) on blogging, the work it requires and its impact. I like how she describes blogging as a subjective art that requires both community and freedom of expression, with the thrill of blogging coming from the "performative aspect."

As you read the post, and you really must, you'll find insight after insight into this blogging thing and then, there it is again, you run into a paragraph on "blog fatigue."

In this respect, she says:

[U]nlike the widespread notion of blogging, it is in fact work to maintain a blog. You must have an idea, execute it somehow, with an eye towards communication and community. This, on top of everything happening in one’s personal life, can be a struggle.

Oso writes about academic blogging, but the insights apply to lawyer blogging or blogging in general. Substitute "legal" for "academic into the following quote:

But this returns us to the communitas at the root of most academic blogging. We reach out to build community, to build bridges, to (only!) connect, in ways that are generally not approved in our home (real time) professional communities. Which of course is why blogging remains on some integral level both a) transgressive, and b) dangerous.

Hmm, no wonder that I think the discussion on blogs solely as forms of legal marketing or advertising is misplaced.

The money quote (and the point of this post) - once again substitute "legal" (or the name of your own field) for "academic":

Blogging, and the online communities we exist within, and the work (yes real intellectual work) that we are producing are the future. It may not be the only future, or keep its current form and shape, but it is where we will all end up one day. And in that sense, academic bloggers are truly transgressing, carving out new ground and territory for what will, sooner rather than later, be the space of the profession.

But, as we know only so well, no good deed goes unpunished.

Reflection is a valuable thing, and it is a joy to be part of a blogging community with Evelyn and Oso to help me reflect and see more clearly. It makes the everydayness of blogging oh so bearable.

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Technorati tags: blogging blog fatigue

Posted by dmk at 08:28 PM | Comments (3)

November 07, 2006

Election Day 2006: The Applause You Hear

Hosanna! The cheers you hear in Missouri are from those of us relieved that the telephone hell of incessant phone calls from political campaigns will finally be coming to an end. We all dread to pick up the phone at our house when it rings any more. The current approach to political campaigns of bombarding potential voters with recorded phone calls really must be rethought. There's really nothing worse these days than being in a "swing state," "firewall state" or whatever the pundits' phrase of choice for a state like Missouri. I hope analysts find a strong correlation between use of these techniques and losing elections.

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Posted by dmk at 07:47 AM | Comments (0)

October 16, 2006

Procrastination Cured! (Well, At Least Helped Some)

I've been planning to write about this topic for a few days. . . .

I've written about David Allen, Getting Things Done and procrastination from time to time on this blog (see this post, for example).

In the last few days, I've been having a bit of a David Allen / GTD festival. I did a big brain dump and collection of tasks,along with a sorting and organizing, in part prompted by watching a video seminar, courtesy of the great people at MindJet, in which Allen talked about the GTD (that's "Getting Things Done") approach and how he uses mindmaps. Details on viewing that seminar can be found here.

Even better, Merlin Mann at the great 43 Folders blog is doing a series of podcast interviews with David Allen on a number of topics.

I listened to the one on procrastination today. It's insightful and enlightening, at both the practical and psychological level. I liked Allen's comment that the prettier his house looked, the more you could tell that he was avoiding a big project. I also was cheered to learn that the time management guru cheerfully admits to the need to deal with procrastination.

This session is especially good for bloggers. Many times, you will find barriers and distractions to getting a post up there, especially if you get hung up on writing the "great American blog post."

Currently, I have a few of those that I'm not writing - but I do have titles for them. Here are just a few on my list that I hope will one day get written and see the light of day: "The Unbearable Everydayness of Blogging," "Reading on the Backstreets," "OODA Loops in the Delivery of Legal Services," "The Coming Legal Expansion to India," "My Email from Patti Smith," "The Compleat Macintosh Primer for Lawyers," to name just a few that I see on the list I'm looking at now. It probably goes without saying that these would all be long posts.

With the new ideas I have, I have a new understanding of the procrastination issue. Soon, action may follow. If you haven't experimented with the whole podcast thing yet, the procrastination podcast might be a good starting place.

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

Remember the St. Louis Idea Market #2 on October 17 - details here. Hope to see you there.

Technorati tags: legal technology procrastination GTD getting things done podcast

Posted by dmk at 09:25 PM | Comments (0)

October 09, 2006

Shuffle Logic

For those of you interested in the iPod shuffle phenomenon as I am, I thoroughly recommend this excerpt, called "Oh No Steely Dan Again," from Steven Levy's upcoming new book, The Perfect Thing: How the Ipod Shuffles Commerce, Culture And Coolness.

If you use the shuffle feature on your iPod, the excerpt will ring true. You do start to wonder how "random" the randomness is, question whether certain artists are over-represented or under-represented, seem to see recurring patterns over one artist following another, or even seek to find meaning in the pattern that is shuffled out to you. Some even attribute ESP or other magical powers to the shuffle.

In Levy's case, he felt that the shuffle was over-weighting Steely Dan songs. After exhaustive (and fascinating) research, he concluded that the shuffle was indeed random, but that humans have troubles dealing with randomness. As he says, "My original iPod's fixation with Steely Dan turned out to be my fixation - shared with all iPod users, if not all of humanity when trying to deal with randomness."

Now for the really interesting part.

Apple, in response to the sense of non-randomness people had, adding the "smart shuffle" to let you tune how your music is shuffled. Steve Jobs said, "We're making it less random to make it feel more random."

And, now, the money quote:

I had already come to terms with the idea that the iPod version of shuffling creates a sufficiently unbiased distribution to earn the casual appellation of "random". What was bothering me was now something even deeper. Yes, the bothersome clusters of certain artists are within the bounds of randomness. But that made me realise that the seemingly magical effects of the shuffle function - a spooky just-rightness, even brilliance, that comes from great song juxtapositions - were also consequences of randomness.

And, in its own way, that was much more disturbing.

I'm not sure that it's disturbing. It's intriguing, especially in the way that it causes us to see patterns and find meaning in the pattern that is shuffled out to you

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Technorati tags: shuffle ipod

Posted by dmk at 10:17 PM | Comments (0)

October 02, 2006

Meme to Watch: Identity and VRM

Lots of interesting posts coalescing around a theme or meme for me today.

I was listening to a fascinating podcast of a discussion between Jon Udell and Phil Windley about identity issues in our Internet and post-9/11 world. Highly recommended. Interesting stat from the podcast - 20% of identity documents get lost (do you know where your original Social Security card is? Birth certificate?).

They also mentioned P3P, a concept whose name I was trying to remember during a conversation last week, wondering what had happened to the idea.

All of which connected to the VRM - Vendor Relationship Management - an idea that Denise Howell brought to my attention here (part 3 of the podcast Denise mentions is especially recommended). My initial reactions are here. Start with this article by Doc Searls to learn more about the idea of VRM.

This evening, I caught up with this recent post on VRM from Dave Winer. Dave also pointed to this post from Kim Cameron on the topic.

As Cameron says, "This is exciting stuff."

I love it when a meme comes together. This is one to watch. I'm especially intrigued by combining the concept of P3P (not the reality of it) with the idea of VRM and identity management. In all events, the Udell/Windley podcast should definitely be on your listening list.

Watch for more of my thoughts about podcasting and its benefits in an upcoming post soon.

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

Like what you are reading? Check out the other blogs where I post - Between Lawyers (feed) and the LexThink Blog (feed).

Technorati tags: vendor relationship management identity VRM P3P meme podcast technology law

Posted by dmk at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)

September 26, 2006

Explaining Blogs and RSS: A Primer

It's surprising how it's still difficult to tell, rather than show, people what blogs and RSS are. I've struggled with the explanation for a long time. Today, I have a new approach. thanks to David Maister.

Maister, one of the leading authorities on professional services management, generously and graciously mentioned me and a conversation we had as he started blogging in his excellent "Blawg Review" post yesterday.

One of the coolest aspects of blogging for me is that I occasionally get contacted by people whose work I have long admired. I'm one of the biggest fans of bloggers. I was thrilled when David got in touch and asked to talk because I had been reading his books and articles for years. What I remember most from the call was the wise advice he gave me, and the simple fact that it is much easier to talk to people for the first time when you've read and admired their work. That's in part why bloggers seem to easily make friends with each other - there's an earned respect that comes from reading each other's work.

As an aside, David's blog had one of the fastest speeds from zero to "must read" that I've ever seen for a blog. He has excellent content and a great podcast too.

His post got me thinkiing about blogging and RSS, and the difficulty in explaining it in words to people who are unfamiliar with the concepts.

It's easy to show people a half-dozen or so blogs so that they get the idea - "posts," "reverse chronological order," et al. I've long maintained that if you have have 30 seconds to show people how RSS feeds work in news aggregators, they'll know right then whether it's something that they absolutely must have or whether it's not useful to them. There's little middle ground.

However, the short description still evades us. As many of you know, I like to explain blogs in terms of effects rather than techno