Presenting hard data in an insightful and interesting manner is very difficult. Malcolm Gladwell and Jim Collins do so by telling compelling stories, the New York Times, while using stories, also does it through clever infographics.

Forrester have just published an interesting piece of work on the Groundswell blog I encourage you to check out, not only because it’s well presented, but because it should provide some useful insight for KM folk.

The useful insight (theirs not mine)

Forrester have put together a little tool which profiles how different people use social technologies and provides hard data as to use within different age groups & countries (included below).  Have a play, its fun, but before you do, reading about the different user profiles will help your understanding.

Okay, now that you’ve enjoyed yourself here’s what I think it means for KM.

In general, the use of social technologies is increasing, but adoption rates vary significantly in differrent countries. For a global firm that will colour your adoption rates and should inform how you deploy social tools. The Germans just aren’t adopting these tools as much as others in Europe. Italy might be your best bet for a pilot of new tools.

Further, age makes a huge different in terms of correlation with a profile. The younger you are, the higher up the ladder you’re likely to be. Funny how those with the least experience are the most eager to share. Seems like a characteristic to nurture.

While the survey was not aimed at lawyers, I believe the results can reasonably be extrapolated to lawyers in their respective countries.

In terms of the different social profiles, here’s my view of what the results mean:

On Creators

A smallish group, the desire to contribute raw content is not pervasive.  While it might not be an area to devote a huge amount of time, it might be worthwhile to consider giving the young’uns access to these tools so that they can share experience with their peers (i.e. trainee to trainee rather than trainee to partner). It may not be PLC quality knowledge, but it might not need to be. In fact, the younger lawyers may be much closer to the knowledge that needs sharing than the Partners (who should be the grunt work).

On Critics

Commenting on other content is more popular than raw content creation. Tools aimed at capturing knowledge through comments, contributions to wiki articles, content ratings & discussions seem likely to see real use.  Again, age plays a big impact in terms of adoption, but arguably, it’s the less experienced who need the tools and are most amenable to KM indoctrination.

Teach them early and often and they just might develop some good habits.

On Collectors

The least popular of all tools, this area just isn’t going to give you as much adoption for your money. Tagging it seems, is for a select group of people. This is a little disappointing (since I obsessively use Delicious) but sometimes the truth hurts. I’d include the users of a number of the classical KM tools in this category as it’s often about profiling existing content.

On Joiners

People like Facebook apparently and of all the profiles that “participate” in the use of social tools, this is the most popular area. Still, a “Facebook for the Enterprise” sounds pretty lame, and I’m not sure there’s a latent desire for KM tools in this space among end-users.

If there is, my sense is that it would need to feel fun and light. What might that look like?

My guess? Not like Sharepoint’s My Site.

On Spectators

Passive consumers, they read things based on interest. Content is king, spend money on PSLs or creating tools for the producers, this lot (tend to be older) aren’t likely to contribute anything.

On Inactives

When you’re this experienced who needs to listen to the views of others? Cater to the needs of others, at most this group aren’t likely to share knowledge using any tool other writing a document or sending an email.

I was having coffee with a friend today who expressed frustration with the “tick a box” approach many people take to meeting objectives.  His view was that people become focused on completing new tasks to the exclusion of maintaining and fostering current commitments.

Once upon a time, I was obsessed with introducing a bug management tool to my software development team.  With each of us tracking software bugs in our own email folders and excel spreadsheets I lacked visibility and an understanding of our ongoing support tasks.  Being a techie, I decided I needed a shiny new tool to solve the problem for me.  It would let us prioritise tasks across our team, allocate resources appropriate, report on progress and let me skive off to the pub early on Friday afternoon.  I happily diverted one of my team to install an open-source bug tracker and once this was finished, defined our team’s new working processes.

No dice.

The problem was that having simply implemented the tool, I never took the time to entrench the desired behaviours and we simply carried on almost exactly as before.  As a consequence, I now had support issues in email, Excel lists AND our bug tracker.  I had made things worse even though I had ticked the “Install bug management software” box.

What my coffee colleague so insightful pointed out is that it is not sufficient to merely complete activities and tasks, the ideas driving them must be maintained and nurtured, which requires ongoing effort and attention.  He used the term “maintain your objectives” which I think that’s spot on.  It’s not “maintenance” in the traditional sense, but it’s necessary work done outside of the project cycle to keep your strategy on track.

I’m a messy desk kinda guy.  I know generally where things are, but not specifically.  While at Linklaters, one of the Knowledge Managers invited a number of us to a summer party at her house.  Unbelievably she has properly catalogued her book & dvd collection using some magical archiving system (i.e. alphabetically).  I’m fairly certain each book has both a label on the spine and a record in a library catalog running off her computer.  I genuinely cannot fathom being that organised.

Still, there comes a time, when every messy desk needs to be cleaned, despite the suspicious correlation with the start of large projects.  The worst part of cleaning is not the organising or filing which is usually quite easy, if not a little tedious.  The difficult part comes when I have to throw something away, which is agonising.  Two weeks ago I was forced to abandon a variety of clothes I no longer wore (suits jackets absent the trousers, ugly t-shirts I never wore, shorts that haven’t fit me in years).  It was painful, and I only took my junk down the road to OxFam under threat from Mrs. Knowledgethoughts.

So, I was delighted to see Netvibes provide an approach which is both sensible and sensitive to my pack-rat ways.  It’s also suitable for mothballing knowledge at law-firms.

For those unfamiliar with Netvibes, it is a supercharged RSS reader.  I highly recommend you check it out.  I start every day with an apple (of the edible and not ipod variety) and a glass of OJ before collapsing bleary eyed in front of my computer to read my Netvibes feeds.  Unfortunately, Netvibes makes it very easy to collect RSS feeds and as a consequence I have loads of stuff coming in every day that I never ever read.

Recognising this, Netvibes have launched a shiny new toy which tells you which feeds belong in the bin.   Included are feed that have:

• never been read;
• have not been updated in 30 days;
• have not been updated in 6 months; or
• have not been updated in the last year.

Scanning your old feeds is simple and the process is painless, and feels risk free as its based on clear data.  By tracking knowledge use within your firm you could offer a similar service to your lawyers, helping to keep your knowledge system clear unused content.  Now, I wouldn’t necessarily go as far as to suggest you ship your old knowledge to OxFam, but perhaps keeping it from poluting the remainder of your knowledge system will help connect lawyers with the content they need more easily and keep the Hawaiian shirts and lime green socks of your knowledge repository away from your clients.

One of the things I’ve found about blogging is that it’s more interesting to write original content as oppposed to just linking to articles.

However, over at KM Space Doug Cornelius has uncovered a tidbit from Mark Miller which is too good to ignore, which can help you to determine when blogs or wikis are appropriate for you.

Simple test: one or two people providing content, use a blog; many people providing content, use a wiki.

Genius!

Several years ago a group of major banks in the UK joined together with their major law firms to create the Banking Legal Technology Group which brings together publication and other materials from those firms. This provides the clients with one place to be able to search the publication content from their firms, and also provides email alerts and the like. Typically the publication content is the same as the content which the firms make available on their Internet sites.

The concept of simultaneously searching the content at the websites of the various firms probably has wider appeal – in one search being able to see what has been published (both in newsletter, client event listings or in practice profile information) about things ranging from the three rivers decision to market abuse, dawn raids, or the Microsoft judgement

Enter Google

Google has a custom search engine which enables you to assemble a custom search engine which does just that. When pointed at the websites of the AM Law’s top 100 law firms, Google becomes a powerful Law Firm Search. As with regular Google it can only return content it can find, so firms who have optimised their websites for Google see better results that those who haven’t.

Imagine you could use Google to search across the websites of the world’s biggest law firms without having to filter results from the other 150 million websites on the planet (akin to searching for a pin amongst a mile-long haystack). Would that be helpful?

Google ads are a small price to pay

Of course, there are a range of business reasons why Google released the custom search engine some time ago. Google Ads are built in to the search results – so you will see Google ads in the search results for the Top 100 law firm search (which is unavoidable, but not too distracting).

Sometime in the next week, we’ll produce a how-to, and share some ideas for using the Custom Search Engine. It’s a powerful and frankly amazing tool.

Both Wired GC and KM Space have linked to a review by The Lawyer on Eversheds’ recent win with Tyco.

It seems Eversheds helped Tyco replace 175-200 law firms, doing so using their “Global Account Management System” (aka GAMS). It seems GAMS allows Tyco to approve work before it starts, an attractive idea for any cost-conscious GC. You can bet the partners involved are doing high-fives (or whatever English lawyers do to celebrate).

Also of interest, the article describes how Eversheds are training lawyers outside the UK in English law. Work can then be farmed to international offices, reducing the cost for clients.  Incidentally, this increases the capacity of the firm to execute large deals at the drop of a hat, AND is an attractive proposition for hiring the best and brightest into their international offices (lateral hires anyone?).

With the growth of RSS and other tools, the technical challenges of integration with clients’ systems diminish significantly.  At the same time opportunities for sharing information grow across the board (financial, knowledge, seminars & publications to name a few).

Like many others around the world late yesterday London time I was refreshing the gizmodo blog of the Steve Jobs Keynote , with perhaps an equal interest both in the content and the style.What a great way to return to the world following several weeks family vacation escaping a rather grey London in beautiful Shaker Heights Ohio, and a Caribbean cruise on the Crown Princess.

Whilst the Macbook Air , the newly announced ultra thin laptop (fits in an envelope) is interesting for a whole lot of reasons (including the absence of any disk drive – software is to be installed over the air either via the web, or via another person’s optical drive), there were a couple of points worth reflecting on from a marcomms perspective.

Of course, a Steve Jobs Keynote is always something to learn from – to observe what some refer to as to the Job’s reality distortion field. However, from the perspective of generating internal buzz, and launching internal knowledge management initiatives, the Apple marketing machine does provide some ideas.

First, there is a rhythmic sense to the keynotes – something amazing will be delivered which is shrouded in secrecy, which generates a pre buzz. There is a clear release cycle, rather than perhaps the somewhat adhoc release cycles to software, upgrades and systems within firms. That pre buzz is then carefully managed. Two days out from the event the apple website bore a large graphic with the tagline “There’s something in the air”. The banners went up in the venue, and photos circled the world in blogs.

When Jobs opens the keynote, as always, very clear sign posting – today I am going to tell you about four things. Whether it be an address to a college graduating class, or to the Keynote crowd, this technique, in a very personal and engaging style is classic Jobs. When we reflect on our own presentation style, is it as clearly signposted and accessible for the audience. Are we as humbly enthusiastic – and thankful? When you watch the video, you will see that before moving into the products Jobs takes a moment to say thanks in a very authentic way.

Next of course is the great clarity of the slides produced in the most under priced application of all time, Apple’s Keynote. Review the slides on the gizmodo blog, and also in the full screen presentation of the recording of the session and ask yourself what’s stopping you getting to the same standard of communication clarity in sharing your knowledge. Simple. Elegant. Wonderful.

As soon as the speech was finished, the video passed to the apple website, and then the new website material then went live – where video snippets and introductions are the major content carriers – rather than text to read. A significant shift has been going on with apple product announcements where short video segments, quite personal in nature, and now taking the leadership position in communicating messages – and are the first thing I click on when trying to get a sense of the material. These are not tiny small box videos, but quite compelling high quality, large size pieces. In a knowledge management context – is this not the standard to aim for in a pithy 5 minute overview for associates joining a major client team, or a short intro into a type of transaction?

The sequence of rhythm, buzz, buzz marcomms, elegant signposted presentation, instant web availability and release of complete comms kit is a sequence which we might be well to consider in the context of both transferring knowledge and increasing the velocity of transfer of knowledge within our organisations, and also as a communications approach in relation to knowledge management initiatives.

Do take the time to watch the video and reflect.

Oh, and check Steve’s smile. He is having FUN, and is deeply proud of what his team has achieved, their innovation, their relationships with content providers, their skill. My new years wish for you is that a smile of such intensity may appear on your face many times this year.

Oh, and Santa has a year to save for the new things I would love to see in my stocking…. Watch the Keynote and be amazed.

Happy new year.

which can mean only one thing.  Steve Jobs is about to share something exciting in his keynote. 

Can’t wait.

As a sufferer2.0 of too many buzzwords and social networks, most of the shiny new sites I come across quickly instill a sense of ennui.  More social features, odd names and quirky logos. 

Snoozeville. 

Dapper however is amazing (even if it does feature an odd name and logo).  It lets you take any static website and turn it into a useable rss feed (which they call a Dapp) with only a few mouse clicks.  If you already have rss on your website, move on, nothing to see here. 

Creating a feed using Dapper is extraordinarily simple, taking only five steps. 

1. Start >> Select the site you want to RSS enable
2. Collect Sample Pages >> Select similar pages
3. Select Content >> Select the content you want in your feed (see below)
4. Preview Feed 
5. Save Feed

The entire process is very simple, even providing a nice url for users.  The quality of the feed you produce will depend upon the content in the page.  With more detailed pages you are able to add more detail to a feed. 
The best part is that it requires no involvement from IT and is free to use.

Dapper have a demo which is worth checking out.

For completeness I should mention that you are not limited to publishing rss.  Dapper can also produce content as:

• Xml
• Html
• Google Gadgets
• Netvibes Modules
• Image Loops
• Google Maps
• iCalendar
• JSON
• CSVs
• Email
• XSL
• YAML

Update: I’ve removed the feed and posted an image instead.  Providing a feed for use by punters is not something I’m looking to do/support. 

 

It’s very simple to do this. 

Step 1 >> Click “Add this search engine to your blog or webpage” from the CSE page. 

Step 2 >> Click “Get the code” button

Step 3 >> Copy the all the code, including script tags. 

Step 4 >> In netvibes select “Add Content” >> “External Widgets” >> “HTML” >> “Edit”

Step 5 >> Paste the code

You can try it out using the ReadWriteWeb Open Data search.