3 Geeks and a Law Blog

Happy New Year!

It's the time of the year when everyone is optimistic. When we reevaluate who we are and what we're doing and almost universally decide that it is not good and it must change. But still, no one says, "this time next year, I'll be fatter, uglier and make less money". We all assume next year will be better. It’s also the time of year that pundits publish lists of the great things that happened last year and predictions of the even-greater things that will happen this year. Sure, you occasionally get a Gloomy Gus like this guy, but for the most part predictions are positive and exciting and we are filled with the wonder and possibility of things to come. I'm here to tell you that this year all of the predictions you've read, the increased dominance of social media, the new must-have gadgets, and the "I cant believe I was ever able to get any work done at all before I installed these" super-productivity tools, will all come to pass.

More or less.

Ok, they won't all exactly come true, but they will all be true in one sense - and here's where I go out on a limb and make my big prediction for 2011 - this time next year the technology landscape, from gadgets to games, corporate to consumer, will have somewhat changed.

What? Not the revelatory prognostication you were hoping for? On the contrary, this is the most exciting news you can imagine. This time next year the techno-verse will either be slightly different than it is today, or wildly different than it is today, but it will not be exactly as it is today. In the face of the CorpTechPocalypse (it is going to happen), this is the single greatest reason for geek optimism. If you are a member of the Tribe Geek, or the Clan Nerd, or (for those fans of Science Friday) the Peabody Gang, then you, my friend, are a Changeling. We live on change. We thrive on change. We are agents of change, explainers of change, and advocates for change. We are change dealers in a world of change junkies. Technology is the medium of change and Changelings are the high priests and priestesses of technology. It is our ability to innovate and our willingness to adapt to change that sets us apart from the rest of the population and makes us indispensable to those who desperately crave change, but are so frightened of it.

And this is not a new phenomenon. We are directly descended from the prime geek, Australopithecus Geekerensis, who was the first hominid to slam a rock onto a nut to open it. She didn't keep this information to herself, she shared it with the less change-loving members of her troupe and soon they were all cracking nuts with a rock. Eventually a younger, somewhat socially awkward, adolescent discovered that placing another rock below the nut before the slam was even more effective. He too shared his discovery with the tribe and the cycle of change had begun with the advent of technology. Bigger brains, better posture and iPads all follow from our proto-geek’s initial fearlessness in the face of change.

So my reason for optimism in 2011? It will be different than all the years that came before and the need for Changelings will be greater than ever, in fact, the need for Changelings will never diminish. In the future we may be reallocated or redistributed. We may work for different companies or in different industries. We will most likely be doing something in the future that we can’t even imagine right now. But our particular skill set will always be needed.

We are Change. We are Legion. And now that most of our social interactions can be accomplished online, we are finally ready to take over the world.

Happy 2011!

We mentioned last week that Thomson West was slapped with a $5.18 judgement from a case brought against them by two Law School Professors where West published shoddy pocket parts and attributed the profs' names to the publication even though they did not write them. We also mentioned that the general consensus from those interested in the decision was that Thomson West would appeal that judgement. According to a report from Courthouse News Service (CNS) this morning, an appeal is coming.

Although CNS couldn't get Thomson Reuter's VP of Communications, John Shaughnessy, to comment, they did get him to admit that TR planned an appeal because the verdict had "no basis in fact, law or equity."   From some of those I've talked to in the legal publishing and library industry, the thought is that TR will attempt to get the entire case thrown out by the appeals court, or at a minimum to get the damages reduced significantly.

As the CNS article points out, although Thomson West's attorney, James Rittinger, defended his clients by saying that even though the pocket part that got published was "terrible," there was no malice on behalf of his client and backed that up with mentioning that no one even complained about the pocket part when it was released. Even with that said, Rittinger admitted that "They would have been a lot better off if they paid them the 5,000 bucks."

We'll just have to wait a bit longer now to see what the final verdict in this mess ends up costing them.

The year 2010 may be remembered for a lot of reason (or maybe you want to quickly forget it)… but, for me it will always be the year that the 3 Geeks' started the Elephant Posts. As many of you may know, our best ideas are developed after a few beers and a good meal, and this was no exception. Scott Preston thought that getting the perspectives of a lot of people on a specific question would make for good blog material.

The “Elephant” name came from the story of the blind men explaining what an elephant looked like by describing the part of the elephant they were touching. It also came from the "Elephant in the room" concept of talking about something that was right there… but no one seemed to really want to acknowledge.

Every Thursday for the past twenty-one weeks, we've asked a question and a lot of you have offered up your perspectives. After twenty Elephant Posts, we think we've hit on something good.

What Elephant Post Question Would You Like To See In 2011??


I thought we'd do a little year-end retrospective of the Elephant Posts, and while you're watching/reading/re-reading them, think of some questions you'd like to see asked in 2011, and either post them in the comments, email them to me, DM me on Twitter, or add them to the Google Docs form that we've set up.

And remember, next week's Elephant Post is already waiting for you to give your perspective!!


Review of the 2010 Elephant Posts:

1. Is It Better To Get It Right Or Do It Right? (August 12, 2010)
2. When Does Your Firm's Culture Trump Innovation? (August 19, 2010)
3. When Does Great Get in the Way of Good? (August 26, 2010)
4. Did the Downturn in the Economy Give You an Opportunity to 'Rightsize'? (September 2, 2010)
5. What Do You Do Well, But No One Seems To Ask You To Do It? (September 9, 2010)
6. What's the Next Process That Will Get 'Efficiencied'? (September 16, 2010)
7. What Do You Spend A Lot of Time, Money and Effort On That Just Isn't Worth It? (September 23, 2010)
8. What Would You Tell a Law Student Before They Enter the 'Real World'? (September 30, 2010)
9. How Do You Build Upon the Strengths of Your Firm's Administrative Staff? (October 7, 2010)
10. Consultant – "Your Job Should Be Outsourced… Prove Me Wrong!" (October 14, 2010)
11. Name Something Transformational That You Learned From Your Boss (October 21, 2010)
12. “I Think You Need to Look Up the Meaning of _________. I Don't Think It Means What You Think It Means.” (October 28, 2010)
13. What Is Something You Can Do Immediately to be More Productive? (November 4, 2010)
14. How Do You Market Your Department and Yourself Within The Firm? (November 11, 2010)
15. What Drives You Crazy When Dealing With Vendors? (November 18, 2010)
16. Which Fictional Character Would Be Outstanding In Your Profession? (November 24, 2010)
17. What Free Product Do You Use In Your Job? (December 2, 2010)
18. What Surprised You Most About Your Profession? (December 9, 2010)
19. How Is Social Media Changing Your Profession… Or, How Should It Be Changing Your Profession? (December 16, 2010)
20. What Saturday Night Live Quote Have You Used At Work? (December 23, 2010)

I ran across an interesting post yesterday from a law firm that posted their response to a Cease & Desist (C&D) letter. It seems that the Berkeley, CA firm of Cobalt LLP posted a story on their "News" section of their website/blog about the Utah case of Wilcox v. Career Step. At the beginning of the post, they used an image of Career Step's logo. A week later, Cobalt LLP received the C&D from Durham, Jones & Pinegar firm out of Salt Lake City, UT on behalf of Career Step, demanding that Cobalt remove the logo from their website.

Cobalt decided to post the letter, and their response to the C&D on their website… which they don't refer to as a "website" but rather as their "blog":

 We are a law firm; and we are reporting news in our blog. Clearly is that stated under the category on ‘News’ as you acknowledge in paragraph two of your letter.

The next part of the response is what caught my eye, and made me wonder if a calling something a "blog" as opposed to "website" allows for extra protection… in this case First Amendment protection under "Freedom of Speech?" It is also interesting that on Cobalt's on website, there is a disclaimer that calls the site a "website" … even at the bottom of the "News" page.

Here is Cobalt's answer on the trademark issue of the C&D:

We acknowledge that your client has trademark rights. However, protection for trademark rights under the Lanham Act is limited to protection against another’s use of a designation to identify its business, or in marketing its goods or services in a way that causes a likelihood of confusion. Such trademark rights do not override First Amendment rights.

Now, it has been 15 years since I took Intellectual Property classes in law school, but this seems to be a bit of a stretch in claiming that labeling a section of a website/blog as "News" allows for a law firm to use a company's trademark by claiming First Amendment protection.

Anyone think that Cobalt has a leg to stand on here? Can a law firm use a trademark logo when reporting on a case and claim that it falls into a safe haven against trademark rights because it is listed under their "News" section?

I'd like to see how this plays out… Maybe Durham, Jones & Pinegar will post their response on their website/blog, too!!

Kudos to the Minnesota SLA division's Terri Horsmann for converting this 1964 information film to a YouTube video for all to see. It was fun to see how the information research of 1964 corporate libraries has changed, but it was more interesting to see how much of it still runs parallel to today's research techniques.

As you watch the video, pay attention to the number of times you see the "Reading is Key" posters in each of the different corporate libraries. I'm thinking that was the ALA Library Week Theme that year…

Here's the description of the video, and you can go to the Minnesota SLA YouTube channel to leave comments for Terri and the others responsible for archiving this little piece of corporate librarian history.

Get a rare glimpse into a day in the life of a corporate research librarian in 1964! Created for National Library Week by Grieg Aspnes, Research Librarian for Cargill, the film shows Grieg going about his day as he visits other libraries throughout the Twin Cities, trying to answer a complex question for an internal customer. At the time, the film was sent several places in the U.S., as it was used by several library schools and at professional events. It was also shown on local television station, WCCO TV, channel 4, along with a panel of special librarians, for a career segment.
As you watch, be sure to pay attention to the "little black bag"!The original film is held in the archives of the Minnesota Chapter of the Special Library Association (SLA), and was converted to digital format in 2010.

Back in November, I reviewed a product called Summarity that summarized websites on the fly so that you didn't have to read an entire page to get the relevant information. However, as a researcher, sometimes you want to point lawyers to a specific article, but really want them to see a specific section of that article so that they can quickly see why it is relevant to their research. To do that, you can use a new product called Sniply.

Sniply (snip.ly) is a web URL shortener, but it also allows you to set focus on a specific section of a webpage, and even add comments to explain why you're pointing to this section of the page. This is particularly useful if the person you are sending the snip.ly link to is someone that has a short attention span. (I imagine that some one's face just popped up in your head just now???)

The process is simple, effective and free! You can connect Snip.ly to your Facebook or Twitter account, or you can use it as a guest user. Snip.ly simply adds an overlay to the web page with the portion you've highlighted, plus any comments you've added. Here's a quick example:

Let's say there was something in last week's Elephant Post that I wanted a friend to read. However, I really wanted her to focus on the part that talked about “competitive intelligence” and breaking bad news. Using snip.ly, I can draw her eye to that paragraph simply by sending her the snip.ly link.

Step One: Paste the link into snip.ly and click next (or, use the bookmark tool that allows you to just do it right from the page you're on!):


Step Two: Select the portion you want to highlight.


Step Three: Add comments, select the image you want to include, and determine if you want to directly share it to Twitter, Facebook, email it, or if you just want to get the shortened URL.



Once you have the snip.ly URL, send it to the person and when they click on the link, they'll see an overlay with your snip.ly comments.


How easy is that??

If you've connected snip.ly with your Facebook or Twitter account, it will save your links if you ever need to go back and review your work. The only issues I saw with this was that it didn't let you delete those links if you wanted to clean up your history, and it sometimes would not get the formatting exactly right… especially if you're highlighting numbered lists. Both of which seem pretty minor considering the usefulness of this resource.

Give snip.ly a try and let me know what you think. Heck… even send me a couple of snip.ly links of stuff you think I should read!!