Last week I presented on “Extracting and capturing knowledge found in social software tools” at the Knowledge Capture and Retention in Law Firms conference. Below are the slides I used.

Synopsis

• how firms are using web2.0
• how to extract structured data from web2.0 tools
• quality control
• indexing, archiving and distributing the information

Law firms are using web.20 tools, but the specific types and purposes vary. Blogs, wikis, rss, tagging and social networking tools are all in use.

I referenced a number of examples of how law firms are using social software. If you care to read the original case studies you can access the links below:

• Dewey & Leboeuf are using wikis, blogs, RSS & social bookmarking – link
• The Rosen Law Firm are using wikis for hosting reports, profile pages, communications – link
• Goodwin Proctor are using wikis to manage projects, and client & legal knowledge – link
• Dykema are using RSS for communication and information distribution – link
• Magic circle firms are targeting team wikis, practice wikis and “Pedias” – link link link
• AM Law 200 firms using blogs – link

With respect to extracting knowledge from web2.0 tools, the most important thing to remember is “garbage in – garbage out”. You need the participation of many, while recognising lawyers are unlikely to contribute willingly and that form-filling and wiki-markup is too difficult. I propose that in order to extract knowledge, systems need to be simple and that you need to avail yourself of:

• Tagging / categories
• Favourites
• Social ratings
• Usage stats
• Enrichment
• Data analysis
• Social platforms

In terms of quality control, you need to monitor content, use “track changes” functionality, and watch usage. You also need to visibly differentiate high-quality content (PSL or Partner approved), and make sure that the names of contributors are highly visible.

When it comes to indexing and archiving, the focus for any firm should be high-value / low volume content. Firm’s will never have sufficient resource to index everything, and, much as it may pain them to do so, firm’s will have to prioritise. In order to do so, usage stats are quite helpful in determining what content people find useful. Just as importantly, firms need a process to retire knowledge to avoid poluting their search engines and intranets with irrelevant content.

Finally, I talked about distribution, leveraging a full range channels, including:

• email
• phone
• rss
• newsletters
• meetings

In putting the presentation together I accessed a number of websites, some relevent, some not. For my convenience I used Delicious to keep track of them. You might have a look if you’re interested in learning more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Enterprise2.0, KM, Presentation, Social networking, blogging, social bookmarking, web2.0, wikis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.