Doug Cornelius .com

We have an extra day this year. What should we do with it? Does it feel like an extra day?

USA Today published 28 ways to energize your Feb. 29 and beyond. (Why not 28 ways?)

The Washington Post / MSNBC called it a day to catch up.

For me it is the last day in the office for a month. I am spending the month of March at home with my new daughter.

UPDATE: I removed the name of The Daughter.

JD Supra launched as a place that “offers free access to a constantly expanding database of legal documents (filings, decisions, forms, articles) from the people whose work gives meaning to the law.”

I contributed an article a few weeks ago and earned “Founding Contributor” status as part of my profile. Wearing my real estate lawyer hat, I published my article on Financing Your Acquisition and Construction.

There is a fair amount of blogging about JD Supra. Connie Crosby wrote about it on her blog and on Slaw. Lawyer KM put up a post. Here are some others blog posts.

I found the site was well put together and functions well. It was easy for me to add my article. I plan to contribute a few more articles and other content.

But with any site like this I always ask “What’s In It For Me?” I need a reason to come back to the site and I need a reason to contribute information to the site.

Steve Matthews in his comment to LawyerKM’s post on JD Supra, points to bcrelinks.com as an example of a commercial real estate group that posted a great deal of information on a publicly available site. Of course the difference there is that bcrelinks.com is an extension of that firm’s brand. With JD Supra, I am competing with Morrison & Foerster’s 256 documents and the Electronic Frontier Foundation‘s 665 documents.

The other comparison is to Legal OnRamp which is also trying to be the social network and document repository for lawyers. The difference with Legal OnRamp is that it was set up by in-house counsel to make resources available to them. There I know that clients and potential clients are there in the site. That is an incentive to add content and visit the site.

JD Supra also has a blog in conjunction with the site: JD Scoop.

Of course, JD Supra is free for the moment, so it does not cost anything to join and add content. If you are a lawyer, go ahead and join and add content. It will only cost you your time.

I am not sure what’s in it for me. But it is interesting enough that I will continue to dabble.

In a previous post, I wrote that Bill Gates has left Facebook because he was overwhelmed with is “friend” requests through Facebook. Mr. Gates has now resurfaced at LinkedIn. His profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/billgates.

Given that Mr. Gates has only three connections, he clearly is not using LinkedIn. He did post a question in the LinkedIn Answers section: How can we do more to encourage young people to pursue careers in science and technology?

As I am writing this, the question has been up for 42 minutes and there are already 32 answers posted. Mr. Gates certainly attracts attention.

The cynics among you have probably noticed the new wealth of Microsoft advertising now showing up in LinkedIn.

There is a huge buzz around the launch of Google Sites. This is apparently what Google decided to do with its acquisition of the wiki company JotSpot.

I found it curious that Google has erased an mention of the word wiki in Google Sites. Stewart Mader also picked up on the omission of that four letter word: The nasty four-letter word that must be banished from the web. It looks like a wiki and acts like a wiki why not use the term. Editable webpage is not very descriptive.

I found it problematic that Google packaged it into their Google Apps rather than as a more free standing application. I have my issues with the Google Apps. I like using Google Docs, but have a hard time navigating around the rest of Google Apps. I can get a PBwiki set up in seconds. Google Apps does not match that speed.

Dennis Howlett complains about the usability issues.

Ross Mayfield notes that Google is targeting Sharepoint and Lotus Notes.

Judi Sohn of Web Worker Daily gives a quick overview of its features.

Lee Rosen, the president of Rosen Law Firm, took a few minutes to talk with me about his firm’s experience with wikis.

Rosen is replacing his Lotus Notes platform with an externally hosted wiki from PBWiki. You may have read about the cash prize contest he ran for his employees in a story on CNN.com: Boosting Teamwork with Wikis. He offered up the chance to win a cash prize for contributing to the wiki. The more you contributed, the better your chance of winning.

Lee was drawn to the concept of using a wiki because of its purported simplicity. He found it much easier to develop and add content. Setting up the wiki was quick. The firm started with the free version of PBWiki and had their wiki up and running in minutes. Some of his administrators worked with the wiki for a few months to see its functionality and how it might work within the firm. Then others in the firm started asking to join and it took off.

Over the last year, his firm has created three to four thousand pages in the wiki. Lee estimates that 60% of his employees make at least one change to the wiki each day.

Lee really likes the flexibility of the wiki platform. People can work in the wiki the way that they want to work. Of course, that has lead to some disagreements over the way to organize content. The upside to the disagreement is that people are working together to add content and organize it. They would not bothering disagreeing if they did not care about the content.

Lee sees a conflict between the need for rules and the freedom to contribute. There are places where the wiki is not organized in a way that works for him. But it does work for others.

There is a great deal of latitude on what people can do with the wiki at Rosen Law Firm. Many have created a personal page where they update information about themselves. This social component has been well-received and keeps people engaged in using the wiki.

Lee also likes that the wiki is externally hosted. He lets PBwiki worry about keeping the server up and all the “plumbing” headaches. He wants to be out of the IT business. That benefit was a little offset by the long term viability of wiki providers. It’s great the PBwiki does not charge much for their product. But what is their long term plan? His firm’s thousands of pages of content get dragged along with their long term plan.

One of his biggest issues is keeping the wiki in people’s minds as a way to communicate. It takes some time for people to realize that they can communicate through the wiki. Lee still sees lots of email communication that could be better handled in the wiki. They are also still transitioning some of the content from Lotus Notes into the wiki.

Lee also drives people to the wiki by only publishing some information in the wiki. For example, monthly reports like time billed are only published on the wiki. Lee uses the wiki to host his video training. The wiki replaces weird URLs and DVDs. With PBwiki, the video can display right in the wiki page.

It looks like the PBWiki has been a tremendous success for Lee Rosen and Rosen Law Firm. That is a lot of content and a lot communication happening inside the wiki.

It gets me excited for the up-coming launch of our wiki platform. I am acting like a nine-year old on the day before Christmas waiting for the launch.

There is nice piece in next month’s Forbes on Kimco Realty Corporation and Milton Cooper: Beyond the Big Box.

“REITs have to follow certain rules in order to avoid most corporate income taxes. Chiefly, they must pay out 90% of their income to shareholders in dividends. Many REITs are content to own buildings and collect rent. Others, like Boston Properties, have also moved into developing their own buildings. But Cooper gets 45% of his earnings from sources like managing real estate for pension funds, lending to bankrupt retailers and buying distressed properties. Only a few other REITs, such as Developers Diversified and ProLogis, have branched out like this.”

“So in 1998 Cooper had a brainstorm: go into business with pension funds, developing and managing shopping centers for funds such as New York Common Retirement Fund and G.E. Pension Trust. Here was a bunch that was happy with returns as low as 6%, if the investments were safe. Many also were required to have some capital in real estate. Typical partnership deal: The pension funds contribute 85% of the project cost, Kimco the remainder. Once the center is built Kimco earns a fee for managing the properties, around 4% of rents.”

As a blogging lawyer, I tend to keep an eye on Mike Dillon. Mike is the general counsel of Sun Microsystems and writes a blog: The Legal Thing.

Mike was interviewed by Real Lawyers Have Blogs. A few things caught my eye in the interview.

One, Sun has between 3,000 and 4,000 employees blogging externally, including their CEO. As of this morning, they had 4039 blogs, with over 94,000 entries and over 96,000 comments. They leverage these blogs in one platform so you can search across all of this blog posts: http://blogs.sun.com. I ran a search for “knowledge management” and got over 8,000 results back. This robust collection of blogs is a tremendous knowledge resource. It seems like a great way for the company’s employees to stay connected and for the customers of the company to be connected with the company.

The second was his take on in-house lawyers blogging:

“It’s surprising to me that more GCs don’t blog. But, I think there are two factors behind this. First, attorneys are by trade somewhat conservative and risk adverse (I still remember attending legal seminars in the 1980s about the terrible risks associated with a new type of communication called “email”). Consequently, I think many of us focus more on the risks of divulging confidential information or violating the attorney-client privilege; risks that while possible are more than offset by the value of a blog.

The second issue is generational. I doubt that few GCs of large public companies today grew up using wikis, social networking, mash-ups, virtual communities or blogs. The current generation of law students cannot imagine life without them. They understand the incredibly rich and powerful benefit of these knowledge sharing and communications tools. And, they doubtlessly will apply them in their legal practices as they become GCs in the future.”

Third, I discovered that Sun has collection of blog postings from Sun’s alumni. I particularly noticed their legal disclaimer:

“The individuals who post here are part of the extended Sun Microsystems community and they may not be employed or in any way formally affiliated with Sun Microsystems. The opinions expressed here are their own, are not necessarily reviewed in advance by anyone but the individual authors, and neither Sun nor any other party necessarily agrees with them. This site aggregates content posted on third-party sites. The content posted here may be hosted at third party sites in no way affiliated with Sun.”

Obviously, Sun’s adoption of blogging comes from Sun’s open corporate culture and focus on building communities. In the process they are building a rich knowledge repository that can be leveraged by their employees and customers.

Since my prior post [Legal OnRamp - A Social Network and Collaborative Platform for Lawyers], Legal OnRamp has rolled out a substantial revision to the site. Legal OnRamp is still in Beta, but the features are growing.

Legal OnRamp now allows lawyers to form ad hoc groups, both public and private. Within the group you can share documents, have bulletin boards, post events and some other collaborative features. For example, the administrators set up a group for legal knowledge management leaders. After I pointing out a better name for the group, they ceded administration of the group over to me.

They have put several collaborative systems into Legal OnRamp. They have several wikis and contribution areas for lawyers to add content. The top content items are items such as appropriate use of email policy, privacy and data protection policy, and a document retention policy.

Legal OnRamp also pulls in static information such as updates from law firms. Allen & Overy has over 600 articles published to the platform.

In Legal OnRamp you can search across the platform. So if you are looking for information on a topic, you may find an article, an FAQ or an attorney expert.

The core audience for Legal OnRamp is in-house counsel. The thought is that law firms will want to join and contribute information so that they can get themselves in front of potential clients.

The goal of Legal OnRamp is to combine a repository of information and a communication platform for lawyers. That seems like a great mix of features

One short-coming I found in Legal OnRamp was the inability to quickly identify people you know who are already in the system. Facebook, LinkedIn and other social network sites allow you to import your address book. Then they analyze which of your contacts are already in the network (and ask you to invite those that are not.) Legal OnRamp is working on adding this feature. Without it you feel very alone. Lawlink presented this same problem. After joining I had no way to find anyone I knew. (Matching up contacts also gives you a few steps to stay in the system and encounter its features.)

David Bicknell wrote a piece for ComputerWeekly.com: Make Web 2.0 deliver business benefits.

“The risks involved in embracing Web 2.0 are outweighed by the benefits experts say, and CIOs are already adopting Web 2.0 thinking to deliver a new approach to information creation, publishing, aggregation, discovery and validation.”

These lightweight, easy to deploy, easy to use applications make it easier to communicate and collaborate inside the enterprise and outside the enterprise.

For years technology advancements and especially legal technology was advanced based on computer speed and more features piled onto existing software. Web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 are the new paradigm that it is the power of the network that is advancing technology. Your ability to connect with other people inside the firm and outside the firm and capturing the effect of connection is a powerful tool for knowledge management.

Lawyers are blogging. Kevin O’Keefe of Real Lawyers Have Blogs noted an article in the Financial Post: Blogging Can Be Useful As a Low-cost Public Relations and Marketing Tool. They cite an American Express Survey that 5% of businesses with 100 or fewer employees have blogs.

Kevin goes on to note that law firms adoption of blogs are on pace with other businesses. With “40,000 small law firms and 2,000 lawyer blogs, our profession is right on pace.” Kevin also noted that 39 of the AmLaw 200 firms have blogs: State of the AmLaw 200 Blogosphere, August 2007.

Over at my Real Estate Space blog, I compiled a list of 39 blogs that originate from Massachusetts based lawyers: Massachusetts Blawgs.

I have found that law firms (including my firm) are unsure how to deal with blogs. There is a lot of concern about how blogs amplify bad content and make it easy to find that bad content. They are rightfully concerned about preventing the release of confidential client information, inadvertently creating attorney-client relationship, stating positions that are adverse to clients and attorney advertising restrictions.

I think the mistake is thinking that blogs only amplify bad content. They amplify all content. Good content rises to the top as well. I ran an example of a Google search for “bad boy guaranty” (that’s a commercial real estate finance term). My blog posts on bad boy guarantees at Real Estate Space appeared on the top of the search results. Similarly, a Google search for “Interwoven Express Search” pulls up my posts on Interwoven’s new search tool in the top position. (Ahead of Interwoven’s website.)

Those results do not come from implementing expensive websites and SEO campaigns. (My blogs run on free blog hosting services, with no support from my marketing department or IT department.) The results come from writing content. If you are not writing content, people are not finding you. Some people may not like what you have to say and some people love what you have to say. You can’t please everyone. But you will not please anyone if you remain silent. Blogs are about having that conversation. Lawyers should join the conversation.