For those of you wondering if blogging is a real activity or whether blogging is worthwhile, you should checkout Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere. They are tracking over 133 million blogs and almost one million blog posts every 24 hours.
We have continue to wiki-fy content at The Firm. SharePoint treats wiki pages as documents and gives them high rankings in search results. They are quickly becoming the preferred way to capture information and knowledge in the firm.
The SharePoint wiki tool is simple, but that makes it easy to teach people how to use. Everyone who has actually used the wiki is stunned at how easy it is to edit.
Here is the latest count of wiki pages:
| June 6 | July 7 | Sept. 15 | |
| Wiki Page | 205 | 313 | 667 |
I am staggered at the amount of content flowing into the wikis.
I am using the number of wiki pages as an indicator of adoption. Ideally, I would like to be able to pull the total number of versions of wiki pages. That could be a better indicator of usage because it would show the total number of edits to pages, not just the number of pages. So far I have not been able to find a way to get a report on this from SharePoint.
Does anyone know a way to find that information in SharePoint?
I stumbled across this CIO.com article by Michael Fitzgerald : Why Social Computing Aids Knowledge Management. (I missed it originally because it was not listed under the Knowledge Management articles on CIO.com.)
In fact, social computing represents a third wave for KM: the set of tools and processes companies use to create, track and share intellectual assets, says Patti Anklam, an independent consultant who is focused on KM and social networking. Anklam says the first wave involved digitizing and tracking documents using tools like content management systems. When it became clear that it was too hard to share those documents, companies adopted collaboration tools. With social networks, companies are extending knowledge management to make it easier to connect employees and information.
“A framework for knowledge management consists of understanding what you need to have in place so that people can connect and share with each other, and then…connect to people outside of their own current, small personal networks,” Anklam says.
Even the Google ‘as jumpt on board as well. Google search is now available in pirate. Just change yer prefrrrrences: http://www.google.com/preferences?hl=xx-pirate.
I listened to a profound presentation on the benefits of inefficiency and its implications on enterprise social networks and enterprise 2.0.
One of the many great things at The Firm is the Life Series. The Firm brings in interesting outside speakers to speak about interesting things. A few weeks ago, Devon Harris spoke about his experience as member of the 1988 Olympic Jamaican Bobsled Team and Captain of the 1992 and 1998 Jamaican Olympic teams.
This week Dr. John Lachs, Centennial Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University spoke about how we, as individuals in a complex, modern society, can resist the tendency to allow large institutions to get the better of our human natures.
About 15 minutes into the presentation, I realized the implications of his presentation on justifying knowledge management, enterprise 2.0 and enterprise social networks. I did not have my laptop or even a pad of paper, so I started taking notes of the blackberry. (I think everyone around me thought I was ignoring Dr. Lachs and sending emails.)
Dr. Lachs put forth a proposition about the impotence of large institutions. They break the unity of action. He defined the unity of action as having three parts: (1) intention, (2) execution and (3) the enjoyment or suffering from the action.
People lose interest inside large institutions because they lack control of the three nodes of the unity of action. They are going through the motions because someone else is making them. They are stuck with policies for which they had no input or comment.
The misery of the modern world comes from there being so many of us and our institutions are too big. People do not feel good about it. We can’t go back to living in small communities. (Although there are a few left over hippies from the 60s.) But, there are great things about living in the modern world. (You can have grapes in the winter!)
Institutions need to make things more transparent. The CEO needs to spend time with front line workers. People inside institutions need to get to know what others are doing inside the institution.
What are the consequences?
1. Its okay to be a little less efficient if we can be more human. There is no need to keep secrets when making policies. Why are doing this? How could we do it better? How does it impact the enterprise as a whole? All of these questions can be better answered by exposing the policy-making process to a larger audience.
2. We have to lodge responsibility and accept responsibility. We should hold people at the top of ladder as responsible for bad acts of the institution as we do for those people who commit the bad acts.
Institutions, even if built on best intentions, can become inhumane. Sheer size causes institutions to become inhumane. There is a break down in communications. The larger the institution, the bigger the chain of command and the greater the problems.
Using new communication techniques, we may be able to break down some of the barriers and the breakdowns in communications. It is better to be less efficient in order to share information with a larger group.
How do you take the time in our time-sensitive culture? It takes less time then you think. Can you say hello to everyone? (On twitter or yammer you can!) Instead of creating a policy, say “what do you think?” It is actually more efficient because the opening up of the process allows for improvement of the policy. A larger audience will provide greater insight on the impacts of a policy and how it can be improved.
Dr. Lachs wrote the book “Intermediate Man” on this subject.
I am in New York City today participating in a panel on Social Networking for Lawyers sponsored by New York Legal Marketing Marketing Association. I will be joining Robert Ambrogi of Legal Line, David Johnson a member of the advisory board of Legal OnRamp and John Lipsey of Martindale Hubbell.
The LMA put together this reading list for further reading:
Social Networking Articles
“Social Networks Get Down to Business”
eMarketer Daily Newsletter, August 18, 2008
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006482
“LinkedIn: A Competitive Intelligence Tool”
By Shannon Sankstone, Marketing the Law Firm Newsletter, August 14, 2008
http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202423760902
“The Social Network as a Career Safety Net”
By Sarah Jane Tribble, The New York Times, August 13, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/14/technology/personaltech/14basics.html?ref=personaltech
“Social Networking: For Lawyers Only?”
By Robert J. Ambrogi, Law Technology News, August 8, 2008
http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202423612473
“Social Networking May Pay off in the End “
By Robert Ambrogi, Law Technology News, June 9, 2008
http://www.law.com/jsp/legaltechnology/pubArticleLT.jsp?id=1202422007910
“Exclusive First Look at Martindale Hubbell Connected “
By Robert Ambrogi, Legalline, July 31, 2008
http://www.legaline.com/2008/07/exclusive-first-look-martindale-hubbell.html
“LinkedIn to My Facebook on My Blog – Social Media for Lawyers and Law Firm Staff“
By Jenn Steele and Doug Cornelius
Published in ILTA’s March, 2008 white paper titled, Marketing Technologies – Putting Your Best Face Forward
http://www.dougcornelius.com/pro/publications/linkedin_to_facebook_on_my_blog.pdf
http://www.jdsupra.com/post/documentViewer.aspx?fid=05cdf159-64b1-4a35-9d2b-bec72defe67d
or
http://www.iltanet.org/communications/pub_detail.aspx?nvID=000000011205&h4ID=000001184605
Social Networking Surveys & White Papers
Humans Seek Connections: The Case for Online Social Networking
LMA Resource Committee, with Jayne Navarre
http://www.legalmarketing.org/about-lma/products-and-services/white-papers/newssocialnetwork
Networks for Counsel Study: Online Networking in the Legal Community
Independent research, sponsored by LexisNexis
http://www.leadernetworks.com/networks_study_form.shtml
Social Media in the Inc. 500: The First Longitudinal Study
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research
http://www.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesresearch/blogstudy5.cfm
Social Networking Sites
LinkedIn www.linkedin.com
Facebook www.facebook.com
Legal OnRamp www.legalonramp.com
Twitter www.twitter.com
Definition of a Wiki
At its core, a wiki is a collection of editable pages on the web. Each time a wiki page is edited and saved, a new version is created. Also, when the wiki page is saved, the wiki platform will send out a notification of the changes to subscribers to that wiki page. A typical feature of the wiki platform is that it is easy to compare changes between any two versions of a wiki page.
Wikipedia is the most famous wiki. Wikipedia.org is a web-based, free content encyclopedia project. This site is based on a wiki platform, open for anyone to add content or edit existing content. With over 9 million articles in more than 250 languages, and over 2.2 million articles in English alone, Wikipedia is several times larger than the Encyclopedia Britannica. One key step that Wikipedia took was to eliminate any requirement of registration to add or edit content. Anyone can anonymously edit wiki pages in Wikipedia. Rarely would a firm allow for anonymous editing of wiki used within the firm. Most wiki platforms deployed inside a firm’s firewall will allow a single sign-on so the editor is recognized from their initial sign-on to the network.
Wikis are attractive as a knowledge management tool because they it make very easy to contribute content and easy to find the content. Most wikis offer an easy to use “What You See Is What You Get” page editor that resembles a simple word-processing program. Since the wiki content is in the form of a web page most search engines can easily index and search the contents of the wiki.
Definition of a Document Management System
A document management system (DMS) is a computer system used to track and store electronic documents. Those electronic documents can include word-processing documents, presentations, scanned documents, spreadsheets and a variety of document formats.
A typical DMS will automatically tag the document with a specific reference identification. This identification allows for immediate retrieval of the document. The DMS will allow (or require) you to add metadata about the document. For law firms, that metadata will typically include a designation of the client and the particular matter for the client. This allows you to search for a document based on specific criteria about the document in addition to the text of the document.
The DMS will also allow you to add security to the document, so it can be private to the individual, limited to the matter team, limited to the client or to exclude specific people (as may be required for ethical purposes). The DMS allows you to store multiple versions of a particular document so that you can track the edits to the document.
A DMS succeeds because it offers more functionality than the user would have from saving the document to a standard drive. The DMS offers greater searching and categorization of documents. The unique identification marker on the document allows you to quickly identify the exact document in question. This identification is much shorter than the long file folder designation you would get from a file located on a standard drive. The DMS can also easily be tied into the word-processing software. In the end it easy to contribute to the DMS and easy to find content in the DMS.
DMS and Wikis at Goodwin Procter
Almost a decade ago at the beginning of my firm’s knowledge management group, one of the first action items was the selection of iManage (now Interwoven’s Worksite product) as the firm’s DMS. We now have over 8 million documents in the DMS. Nearly all of the documents produced by the lawyers and staff in the firm are stored in the DMS.
Over the past year, we have been planning and implementing an upgrade of our intranet to Microsoft’s SharePoint 2007 platform. Wikis, blogs and some other enterprise 2.0 tools are included as part of SharePoint 2007 platform. At the outset of planning for our upgrade, we decided to actively use some of these tools to see how they worked. In particular, wikis caught our attention as a great tool for knowledge management within the firm. I used the free test version of PBWiki for a variety of projects: managing our knowledge management projects, co-authoring an article on social networking, planning a conference, managing transactions for a client, preparing and gathering the results of a survey of law firm knowledge management leaders, and gathering definitions of knowledge management.
Comparison of Functionality
In comparing the features of a wiki and the features of a DMS, a wiki combines more of the features in the document production process into one package. A wiki has a basic word processing program, with a simple editor for creating content. The wiki has a flat list of wiki pages within the wiki platform. (Although some wiki platforms do allow for greater organization.) The wiki has the ability to compare changes between versions of a wiki page. The wiki has a notification process that alerts subscribers to the wiki page when changes or additions occur.
The wiki combines features of a word-processing program, a DMS, a document comparison program and an email program into one package. Of course, a wiki does not have all of the bells and whistles that these four programs do.
The strength of the DMS lies in it rich metadata collection, version control and security. Within a law firm, it is important to be able to retrieve all of the documents for a particular client or for a particular matter for a client. And perhaps even more important is the ability to apply security limitations to documents for a particular client or matter. For example, a document for public company merger would have security applied to limit viewing to the matter team in an effort to avoid the disclosure of the transaction.
Document Behaviors
A wiki and DMS are both focused on producing, storing and sharing content. A wiki page is just another type of document. When producing content, I have noted five types of behaviors: collaborative, accretive, iterative, competitive and adversarial. In a collaborative scenario, there are multiple authors each with free reign to add content and edit existing content in a document, and they do so. With accretive behavior, authors add content, but rarely edit or update the existing content. With iterative, there is single author controlling changes to the document. The document may have originated from another source, but stands on its own as a separate instance of content. With competitive content creation, there is a single author who seeks comments and edits to the document as a way to improve the content. However, interim drafts and thoughts are kept from the commenters. Adversarial behavior is where the authors are actually competing for changes to the content for their own benefit. Although there may be a common goal, the parties may be seeking different paths to that goal or even have different definitions of the goal.
Collaborative, accretive and iterative content production are largely internal behaviors. Competitive and adversarial are largely external document behaviors. Of course, a document may end up with any or all of these behaviors during its lifecycle.
Typical Behaviors With a DMS
The principal behavior for use of content in he DMS is iterative. Lawyers will search for and reuse existing content in a DMS. But rarely will they change an existing document. Generally, a document in the DMS was drafted for a particular issue for a particular client. They reuse existing content, but create a new iteration of that content. Lawyers will work collaboratively in drafting documents, but the process is iterative. They draft the document with some collaboration with their assistant in finalizing and editing the draft. The draft is circulated for comments. Then the lawyer creates a new iteration of the document as a new version of the document in the DMS. The lawyer then incorporates the changes they accept, finalize this new draft and circulate again.
The transmission of the content to a client or a more senior person inside the firm will result in a competitive behavior. A junior person will generally want to hide interim drafts and issues from the senior person. The junior person is looking to impress and move up in the firm. The same behavior is typical with a client. The client is expecting vetted, finished work for their review and comment. With a lawyer-client relationship there is the additional and important issue of liability for mistakes resulting in possible malpractice and personal liability for the lawyer.
Typical Behaviors with a Wiki
I have seen two principal behaviors in using wikis. The first is accretive. With this behavior, the person will add content to the wiki, but not update or edit existing content. This is largely the learned behavior from email. The second behavior is collaborative, where the person will add content, but also edit existing content.
The accretive behavior is distinguished from the iterative behavior by the grouping of similar content together. With accretive behavior the content is being added to the same wiki page, effectively editing the document. With iterative behavior, the lawyer creates a new document rather than adding to an existing document.
When to Use a Document in the DMS
The traditional DMS process is best used when the production of content is adversarial, rather than collaborative. Generally all discussions between opposing counsel are adversarial, even in transactional law. With collaborative behavior in a typical wiki, there is no control over the addition or editing of content, other than responding to edits or locking the wiki page from editing. You give up the control of authoriship. Most of the bad behavior stories from wikipedia come from an adversarial editing process. A robust infrastructure has grown as part of wikipedia to deal with adversarial editing.
The DMS is the better repository for documents that enter a competitive or adversarial behavior. The lawyer will want a record of what was contained in each version of the document as the content was changed by the author.
When to Use a Wiki
The question is what content in the law firm should you “wiki-fy”?
Of the document behaviors, a wiki is an exceptional platform for collaborative treatment of documents. Ownership of the document is less important than the collection of the content into one synthesized place.
One great use of a wiki is to replace a practices and procedures manual. One of the first questions I hear when a group creates a practices and procedures manual is how will they know when it changes. The typical behavior is to draft the manual in a word processing program, save it into the DMS, then email the group when it is complete. The recipient will then print it out or refer back to the email when using the manual. With the manual in a wiki, the notification of changes happens as soon as the change is made. The manual becomes an active flow of information rather than the republishing of a manual.
I had some success using a wiki to manage the internal closing agendas for a client with several transactions occurring in the office at any one time. Instead of one person needing to control the edits, the entire client team can update any closing agenda at any time. When viewing the wiki page, it will always be the most up-to date location of information. As changes are made to an agenda, the wiki platforms sends out a notification of the change to the entire internal client team. The DMS behavior would be to maintain the closing agenda in a word-processing document. A single person would be responsible for keeping it up to date (usually the most junior person). After an edit or a group of edits, the author would email the updated agenda to the client team, who would then have to discern changes or eschew a version full of the marked changes. The wiki collapses the document process into a shorter series of steps and provides a richer flow of information.
Wiki While You Work
As law firms begin implementing wikis, they will need to identify the best way to use this new tool. Wikis can simplify the production of content by reducing the number of programs and the steps needed to produce the content. Although they are not appropriate for all types of content, they are an excellent tool to add to your knowledge management program.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project released a report on the use of cloud computing applications and services: Pew Survey: Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services (.pdf).
“Some 69% of online Americans use webmail services, store data online, or use software programs such as word processing applications whose functionality is located on the web. Online users who take advantage of cloud applications say they like the convenience of having access to data and applications from any Web-connected device.
…
When asked why they use the different services that store personal information on the web, users cite a range of reasons that have mostly to do with ease and flexibility. They like how such services enable them to share data with others and let them easily access their data from any computer.”
Thanks to beSpacific for pointing out this story: Pew Survey: Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services.
Michael Idinopulos published a great piece on his SocialText blog: DMS and Collaboration Suite: Friends not Foes. (It reminded me that I never published my Wikis and Document Management Systems piece. I have it set to publish tommorrow.)
“When asked about the relationship between DMS and collaboration tools, what I said was that some of the content in a typical DMS really belongs there. These are the documents associated with highly regulated processes. But most of the content in a typical DMS–to-do lists, meeting notes, press clippings, conversations, working papers, personal observations–doesn’t really belong there. It’s in the DMS because there was no good place to put it. That’s where a collaboration suite can do a much better job. A good collaboration suite can liberate that content from the tyranny of documents and nested folders, and will encourage people to use it for actual working materials.
In many cases, you will want to integrate the two. Law firms, for example, are absolutely dependent on their document management systems to manage their filings and other legal documents. But we’re increasingly seeing them set up collaboration suites to capture all the discussion around the documents, how to use them, what they mean, and so on. The two systems are integrated with links from the collaboration suite into the corresponding DMS records.”
Stewart Mader put together a list of 5 Effective Wiki Uses over at Website Magazine.com:
Here at The Firm we currently have four uses for wikis:
First, we are using them as a classic encyclopedia, similar to the Wikipedia model. We start a wiki page for a substantive legal topic, seed it with information and ask others to edit and add to the information. It is easy to link a topic page to other related topics.
Second, we are using the wiki as a lightweight content management tool. We are replacing hard-to-edit conventional web pages with wiki pages. This use is largely focused on administrative information that can be edited and updated by those who know and are responsible for the content. We are removing the barrier of having to go through IT or an intranet editor to update their content. The individual subject matter experts can update the information themselves.
Third, we are using wikis to manage clients. Rather than keeping a client’s practices and procedures manual in a word document or three-ring binder, we “wikify” it. The individual sections of the manual get their own wiki page in the wiki library. Also, each case/matter for the client gets a separate wiki page in the wiki library. On the case/matter’s wiki page, we maintain the status of the matter, with key notes and items to be completed.
Fourth, we use wiki pages to manage administrative projects. Each project gets an wiki page. On that page we list the items to be done, the milestones to be achieved and the links to other relevant information. On the page you can get a background, see how the project has evolved, where it is headed and its current status. This works much better than a folder full of e-mails.
© 2012 Doug Cornelius .com. All Rights Reserved.
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