Doug Cornelius .com

I recently had an article on Faceblocking published in the March 2009 issue of Law Practice Magazine: Online Social Networking: Is It a Productivity Bust or Boon for Law Firms?

Steve Matthews helped me conduct an informal poll to see if  law firms were still blocking access to social networking sites. Our theory was proven in the results. (You can download the raw survey data (.xls) if you want a look at the underlying data.) Of those responding to the survey, 45% said their firms blocked access to social networking sites. The three most blocked sites: Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. Those are also 3 of the top 10 most visited sites on the web. We also published some of comments from the survey respondents: Speaking Out on Social Networking.

The survey is very unscientific. Steve and I thought that it would be useful to get some data about what law firms are doing about access to social networking sites. I was surprised that 45% of firms blocked access to some social networking sites. Perhaps those working at firms subject to blocking were more likely to respond to the survey. I was also surprised that the 45% blocking percentage was fairly consistent across firm size. So small law firms were just as likely to block access as big firms.

Although I am an advocate of open access, I do so with the caveat that you need to let the people in your organization know what is proper use and to monitor their compliance. I fear that many firms use blockage as their policy. That may have worked 10 years ago, but not today. You can just as easily access these sites from iPhone or blackberry as you can from a firm computer. Blocking does not stop the bad behavior that you are trying to prevent.

You should set sensible policies and set reasonable expectations for your employees. Social networking sites at their core are communications platform. You should be able to adapt your policies on email, confidentiality, marketing and similar policies to easily include social networking sites. If not, those other policies probably need updating anyhow.

See:

• Online Social Networking: Is It a Productivity Bust or Boon for Law Firms? – Article in Law Practice magazine
• Raw Survey Data (.xls) cited in the article
• Speaking Out on Social Networking – selected written comments from survey
• Employers taking chances when blocking Facebook too, says Deacon
• Social Network Site Survey 2008 of summer associates at a big law firm
• Social Network Site Survey 2007 of summer associates at a big law firm
• Twitter in the Workplace by Mike Gotta of Collaborative Thinking
• Blogging / Social Internet Policy for a Law Firm a post from KM Space

After my previous post on Government 2.0, I ran across the story about the British Monarchy adopting Web 2.0: Queen Elizabeth Launches on YouTube.

The British Monarchy have set up their own channel on YouTube: The Royal Channel.

Who would have thought that Queen Elizabeth would have adopted social media before my firm (or your firm)?

After my earlier post on using YouTube as KM platform to supplement an intranet, I saw this story on the Intranet Journal by Troy Dreier: Will Video Kill the Intranet Star?

The Nielsen Norman Group pointed out American Electric Power as a company that makes extensive use of videos on its intranet. I was nearly knocked over by their investment in infrastructure: a $300,000 studio with four broadcast-quality cameras, four teleprompters, a full lighting grid, a green-screen stage, and four editing suites. Plus, a staff of five people for video production and two IT members to handle streaming events.

That is a serious investment in making videos available on their intranet.

Arjun Thomas of It’s All about KM posted: YouTube a KM Platform?

He listed these five points as what makes a good KM Platform:

1. Communities of Practice
2. Expertise Map
3. Great Search feature
4. Collaboration
5. Information Repositories

The problem with YouTube as a KM Platform is how much content is in video. Working at a law firm, most of the content ends up in word documents or .pdf files. There is not much video.

However, we do videotape training sessions and some group meetings for later use. However those videotapes sit on shelves and are not available through our intranet. Video caused a lot of problems with our infrastructure.

My solution was to offload the infrastructure to YouTube instead of trying to develop our own internal infrastructure. YouTube could be the plumbing. We could have a firm channel to organize and label the content. The content could be available internally and externally. Best of all, it is cheap and easy.

Of course, we would have to sanitize or exclude anything that addressed specific clients or trade secrets. But it would allow us to share training opportunities with clients.

The Cardozo Law School set up a channel with several short presentations. I think this would look great for a lawfirm. But nobody in my proposal meeting agreed with me.