Interesting news out of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania where a jury awarded David Rudovsky and Leonard Sosnov $90K each against West Publishing for defamation and for placing the Defendants in a false light. In addition to the $180K, the jury also slapped West with punitive damages for $2.5M for each defendant.
Here are the court documents for the jury’s verdict:

The background of the case is covered very well by Erika Wayne at Legal Research Plus, and the jury decision was broken by Louis J. Siricos, Jr. at Legal Skills Prof Blog. Basically, it seems that West tried to cut the salaries of the authors of West’s publication on Pennsylvania criminal procedure treaties, which Rudovsky and Sosnov refused to accept. According to the complaint, West publishing went ahead and published a pocket part for 2008 updates, and included the names of the two professors.
West Publishing argued that the authors were not damaged from the update… but, it seems that the jury seems to think otherwise and gave the authors a $5 million Christmas present.

Each time I look back on a past project or ahead to a new one, I am reminded of how much each depends on the collaboration of many. Each of us is surrounded by professionals and colleagues without whom our successes would never happen, people whose strengths complement ours, and who make us look good.

It takes a team to transform each vision into reality, and none of us could do our jobs well without the knowledge and skills of those around us. Of course we each have strengths and skills of our own, but we also have areas where someone else’s experience, someone else’s abilities, or someone else’s personality are just a better fit for what needs to be done.
In the spirit of the holidays, I want to say “thank you” to the entire legal technology village for making us a community that shares, supports, and most importantly of all, succeeds.

This post has nothing to do with law firms, libraries, marketing (well, maybe a little bit about marketing), or alternative fees (unless by alternative fees, you want fun games at a cheap price.) According to touchArcade, Electronic Arts has dropped prices on a number of its games for the Apple handheld systems do a measly 99¢, and this cheap geek has already started his Christmas break early by getting a few of these for my iPad!!

Enjoy the deals, and let me know if you want to do an online battle of Madden ’11, or a mind-stimulating round of Boggle or Scrabble!!

Here is the list of games marked down to 99¢:

iPhone/iPod touch Games:
iPad Games:

A good friend of mine pointed me to this video that lays out where we seem to be with client vs. vendor relations right now. Bad economies, bad relations, and unrealistic expectations (on both sides) lead to what’s being said in this hilarious video.

Enjoy… and remember… “yeah… cow.”

You gotta love my Alma Mater (plus, I actually worked right behind that circulation desk to the left!)

Thousands of students celebrated the (near) end of the semester by throwing a rave at the library. I applaud the fact that they could turn the circulation area into a mosh pit!! According to reports, no damage was done to the library and the police came in and sent them all back to study for their remaining finals.

Boomer Sooner!!

We’re big fans of social media here at 3 Geeks… blogging, twittering, LinkedIn’ing… all of that. Whether it is making connections, finding information on obscure topics, or keeping up with the latest rumors, social media is one of the best communications tools available today. Let us know how it has helped you in your profession, or how you think it will help someday in the future. Here are some perspectives from law librarians, marketing analysts, knowledge management, marketing, coaching, and information technology. Enjoy! Also, take a look at next week’s Elephant Post question (down at the bottom of this post) as we make you think of how you use quotes from Saturday Night Live at work. Law Librarian Perspective Greg Lambert One of the greatest information tools in years! I can understand why some “Information Professionals” would be hesitant to enter into the social media universe, but I think the rewards are so great, that it would be foolish not to have at least a toe in the social media water. I cannot count the number of times that information I found on Twitter or blogs has helped me spot issues, answer existing questions, or make future contacts that have become invaluable to my day-to-day work. Whether it is breaking news, rumors of things happening in the legal field, or links to really good jokes… I’ve been able to leverage the vast amount of quality information I discover in the social media world and make myself look great in this world. It takes some getting used to at first (separating the junk from the valuable information), but as you spend more time working on ways to streamline the process, the more valuable an Information Professional will find social media to be in their profession. Marketing Analyst Perspective Danny Johnson Getting a job through Facebook I work at NetDocuments doing social media and web marketing and will be starting law school in the fall. Earlier this year, I wanted to contribute to a local politician’s campaign and went to become a fan on Facebook. When I saw that he had no fan page, I made one for him and it grew relatively fast. I kept my part in it secret for a long time while the politician wondered who had made this page. When he found out, he took me to lunch and hired me to do some marketing consulting for him on the side which has been an awesome experience and resume builder. Working in the social media at NetDocuments taught me the value of SM and it has provided dividends in my life outside of work. Marketing Analyst Perspective Danny Johnson Indirect revenues I manage the social media marketing at NetDocuments and have seen many dividends. One recent experience highlights this. After building a relationship over Twitter with Jared Correia of MassLOMAP, he wrote a blog about using NetDocuments in a small firm. We have signed up about 5 users who heard about NetDocuments through that blog post which amounts to over $2,000 of annual recurring revenue. I’ve also built relationships with a number of our channel partners through LinkedIn and Twitter. Law Librarian Perspective Shaunna Mireau Enabling the “trusted advisor” role Law librarians in firms are often the ‘trusted advisor’ for junior lawyers. I had a recent experience where one of my firm’s juniors found a blog post I wrote a year ago about a court decision that was useful to his research. If all legal information is seen to be moving to the web, what better way to solidify your role as trusted advisor if your colleagues web search finds…You. Social media provides another method for librarians to communicate with and be visible to their stakeholders. Knowledge Management Perspective Ayelette Robinson Have It Your Way One of the greatest things about social media, and the reason it’s becoming more and more pervasive in our professional as well as personal lives, is that it has turned the tables from network/meet/learn on everyone else’s timetable to network/meet/learn when *you* have the time and mental focus to spare. These activities often feel like, and are treated as, luxuries in our professional lives: we know we should do them, but we’re busy at our day jobs and we just find the time when we can. So being stuck to someone else’s schedule makes it even harder to fit substantive network/meet/learn interactions into your own life. Social media has come along and changed all that — you’re free to network with the people you want to, reach out and meet new people, and learn more about everything you ever wanted — all whenever and wherever you want. For those who are focused, you can spend a solid 30 minutes a day; for those who are multi-taskers/semi-focusers, you can break it into fifteen 2-minute bite-sized activities. Whatever you want, you can have it your way. Knowledge Management Perspective Toby Brown Bottomless Knowledge Source An often overlooked aspect of Social Media (SM) is the massive volumes of knowledge it generates. Last week in a meeting with the CLE team from the State Bar of Texas, it occurred to me how often I said, “Oh … I read about this in a tweet/blog post/facebook post/….” If you’re reading this blog, you already participate at this level and may well get a lot of your knowledge and news from different forms SM. But if you take this thinking a step further, you start to appreciate that even though SM looks and acts like a river of information, all that water ends up somewhere. So the River is the answer to our first question: SM is changing the legal profession by becoming an important and credible source of legal news and information. After that meeting with the Texas Bar CLE team, Pat Nester, their director, commented, “that there is a vast world of excellent thinking and relationships that is developing out there, unseen to the slow of step and the otherwise distracted.” Those that participate, have access to this river. The Ocean is the answer to the second question. People and technology are just starting to realize the volume and value of information that has flowed past them in the River. Now I want to retrieve something I saw (or didn’t) from the past. How do I get to it? This is a significant challenge and not just for the legal profession. As SM matures, our profession should be adapting to take full advantage of this ocean of knowledge. Internet Marketing Perspective Lisa Salazar Wanna Play? Social Media was a game-changer for me. Before, my job consisted of managing the content–both text and graphics–for the web site. All in all, it is a pretty innovative and creative position itself. But when social media came into the picture, my job altered. I was Internet marketing to the nth degree–everything word I wrote and posted was quickly replicating across multiple platforms. I was virtually everywhere 😉 At this stage in my career, I am learning more than I ever have before. I know more than I ever have before. And it is exhilarating. Librarian, Instructor, Coach, Psychotherapist PerspectiveScott Brown Realizing the promise of knowledge management What’s striking to me about social tools – among other things – is how they are accomplishing what the knowledge management movement of the late 1990s/early 2000s was trying to do. At that time, there were knowledge management efforts to try to capture the tacit information in people’s heads, but these typically were huge, unwieldy efforts that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars – and the failure rate was abysmal. The difference with social tools is that people are WILLINGLY and spontaneously contributing their knowledge and expertise. While the information is still somewhat scattered all over the place, the good thing is that people are using them, and the tools to find and organize information in social networks are getting better. Information Technologist Perspective Scott Preston SM Also Brings Risk Social Media (SM) is having a transformative impact on user expectation (disruptive technologies). User interfaces that are simple to use (requiring no training), technologies that enhance collaboration and software that permits people to create virtual communities are all great examples of disruptive technologies that are a direct result of the SM movement. The introduction of these disruptive technologies is fundamentally changing how IT thinks and works. Another aspect of SM that has an impact on IT is the concern about protecting company assets. Company assets includes:

  • Computers – allowing access to SM sites increases the risk of computer infection. Some SM sites like Facebook are targeted by nefarious individuals as a means of distributing malware and viruses.
  • Intellectual Property – allowing access to SM sites increases the risk that your firm’s Intellectual Property might improperly flow outside the firm.
  • Company brand – allowing access to SM sites increases the likelihood that someone might say or do something that will reflect poorly on your firm.

Of course, many believe (including me) that done correctly SM will help the company brand not hurt it. Since the best defense against any of the concerns mentioned above is to restrict access to these types of sites and restricting access usually falls into IT’s lap, IT is put into a difficult position. IT becomes the traffic cop and the target of frustration by users who do not agree with or understand the firm’s policy. Next Week’s Elephant Post Share with us a Saturday Night Live quote that you’ve used (or at least wanted to use) at work. Welcome to next week’s Elephant Post Question. I’m Greg Lambert, and you’re not. Since next week will be right before Christmas, we thought we’d throw out a fun Elephant Post Question that gives you 35 years worth of content to choose from. You probably have figured out that we love Monty Python, and Star Trek, and Star Wars, and Doctor Who… but we are all big fans of Saturday Night Live, too. There’s hardly a day that goes by that I don’t toss out some quote from SNL… usually as a snarky response to something I just read or in a conversation that needs to be lightened up. In fact, most of the time that I talk with my co-blogger Toby Brown, the conversation usually starts out with “Toby, you ignorant slut.” We’ve set up a nice Google Docs form for you to fill in your answers, plus you can look at answers submitted by others. Don’t worry if your quotes are already used… it’s really the situation you’re using the quotes that we all really want to hear about!! Go Here For the Form Go Here to See the Answers Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

I’m sitting in my office listening to Earth Wind & Fire trying to figure out just where did it go wrong. Looking back, I guess I should have seen the signs:

  • Charging for both the User Interface and the content
  • Laying off all of the Library Relations staff on the West Coast
  • Reallocating personnel to the small firm (read: no pesky librarians) segment

All of these were symptoms. But I thought that we, at least, had developed a partnership over the years based on mutual trust and shared interests. From time to time, I would participate in their panels and write for their newsletters. I would give my opinion on new products and services. I guess I was mistaken.

This fall, I reached out to my account representatives to begin the discussions to renew our contract. Without warning, all contact was cut off. I was told that I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) before they would talk to me. A copy of one of the most poorly worded legal documents I had ever seen was then sent for my signature. Naturally, I refused to sign this. Who would sign a contract (the NDA) before negotiating a contract?
This is in direct contravention to Section 3.2(a) of the AALL Guide to Fair Business Practices for Legal Publishers which reads: “Publishers should not bind their customers to a non-disclose clause as a non-negotiable requirement of doing business.” This language shows that similar circumstances have come up before and been determined to be unfair as a business practice.

So the big question is why would they do this? The only reason I can come up with for this behavior has to do with the proliferation of consultants that specialize in providing advice to assist firms renegotiate there agreements. The amount of information this vendor has at their disposal far outweighs any advantage that a consultant can bring. The current economic environment has made it important for firms to level the playing field when negotiating with their vendors. The bottom line is, by attempting to control the process they risk alienating their customers. That, in turn, will have an impact on revenue, though not the type of impact they are hoping for.

I’m sorry to see it end this way, Westlaw (aka TR Legal). But I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.

Sing it, Philip Bailey…
“After the love is gone/What used to be right is wrong…”

[Guest Blogger Eric Hunter]

Why Google Apps? Why Not.
I know, it sounds a little nuts, but Google is going to take over the world, our collective consciousness and all of us in it, so we might as well just jump on board! Seriously though, from a strategic investment perspective, there’s a lot to Google Apps and competing collaborative cloud hosted applications that should catch the eye of firms of all sizes.
Consider my firm and our move (leap of faith?!) to the cloud as a decent starting point and case study in what collaborative cloud solutions, in our case Google Apps, can offer as well as what they can’t or shouldn’t provide (silver bullets are still tough to find!).
Technology Outsourcing 
All right, so what happens with your Technology? I was told by a good friend of mine recently, and recognized expert in her field, that “I don’t really do Knowledge Management, that my focus is purely on infrastructure.” I told her my choice is actually to outsource the infrastructure and solely focus on KM! Consider it fact, that the more collaborative cloud platforms like Google Apps evolve, the more technology will be outsourced. Both a portion of the humans in your tech departments, and the applications running wherever you currently have them, will be outsourced to Google in this model.
Behavioral Change? 
Yep. We chose to migrate to Google’s browser hosted web app. We wanted the most dramatic shift for our users possible to ensure they would begin altering their day to day behavior immediately. Google’s platform is built to tie in mail, documents, sites (their sharepoint/extranet equivalant), and messaging in ways completely outside the box from a traditional business perspective. Such a ‘shock and awe’ strategy helps users quickly get out of existing behavioral thinking patterns they take for granted, and to do something different, innovative, and evolve with both the business and consumer market. This is good, because when you move your firm to evolving cloud hosted collaboration, it’s going to change, all the time. Of course, the ability to implement such extreme change is dependent on a lot of factors, some behavioral, some business strategy focused. I firmly believe the concept that “law firms do not embrace change” is something that will change to “our law firm demands continual change to stay ahead of our competition and engage in the most strategic fashion possible with our clients.”
This may seem ludicrous to some, but consider the consumer market, primarily social media. How many of your users use Facebook? How many user Twitter? How often do those platforms change, and how much training do your users need in their personal lives to navigate changes with these evolving platforms? These collaborative cloud hosted solutions, both consumer and business, are built to be intuitive and designed to connect people with people and link information among users, including third parties. The platforms that do it the best, thrive. The ones that do not, fall away. In my opinion, the collaboration features in these knowledge sharing social media markets is merging within cloud hosted applications within the business market. These applications drive behavioral change in the consumer. Why not leverage this?
So how do you stay on top of this evolving platform? 
Training and professional development. Senior Management must embrace this behavioral shift to their business, and stay unified. Ensure your committees, practice groups and mid level managers are all part of continual training sessions on the evolving platform and the new ways your firm is utilizing these features. Some of these training sessions will be ‘target specific’ within your firm, and some of these sessions will target all. Granted, most firms have similar training procedures in place. But with a model like Google, the decentralized nature of the system and the continually evolving product demand these sessions to be consistent and innovative. We’ve found our relative knowledge level has risen across all departments, departments are better connected, we connect more effectively with our clients, and our end users are demanding change, faster than Google’s product is developing.
Speaking of that, is Google as a collaborative cloud provider ready for global law firms heavily invested in alternative systems and third party leveraged integration? No, not yet. But Google’s investment path shows they’re well on their way and will most likely move faster than many think. Third party players may be well advised to adapt their systems to offer integration options, and quickly before new players arrive in town.
What about Microsoft? 
Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite is a great product with considerable cost savings in licensing, and is a collaborative cloud option that competes directly with Google. It’s because of Microsoft’s investment path with this product I think Google is going to continue to innovate in this market. It’s because Microsoft has come out so publicly with their “cloud” offerings, that I think Google will continue to emerge as a player, and Microsoft will continue to refine and offer a better competing product. Bottom line, licensing drops across the industry, cloud hosted collaboration products continually improve, and it’s a win for legal and their clients.
Are law firms defined by the vendors they use?
Ultimately as law firms, it isn’t the name of the vendor we choose that makes the difference, nor even the technology, but the business drivers, behavioral change, and competitive intelligence that benefits our firms, our practice groups and our clients. So much focus is on the ‘Cloud’! When considering cloud hosted collaboration systems, I suggest taking away that ‘cloud’ focus from the analysis for a short time. Focus then on the immediate cost savings in licensing. Focus on the benefits of a hosted collaboration system that evolves and is integrating with consumer driven social media applications and enterprise level applications. Focus on the benefits of an emerging Knowledge Sharing platform, collaboration platform, and unified communications platform, and which existing and emerging third party vendors could best integrate with this platform. Consider how your staffing options will shift, how your client correspondence and extranets will shift, how many alternative staffing models become possible, and how your attorneys will rethink how they think! How will your business model shift in this environment, and how will your firm’s culture evolve? Then put the ‘cloud’ back into play and consider your options.
How will it all play out?
Google is still an emerging player, but they are highly innovative, and we are experiencing daily innovation within our line of business and our forward thinking investment strategy. We’re trusting that Google’s continual investments in improving their search and collaboration features and bridging them across all applications and to as many devices and mediums as possible will not only bring them obscene amounts of ad revenue, but will benefit their clients, like my firm, in a cloud hosted relationship. I’m trusting Microsoft will continue to compete in the business arena to protect their licensing revenue in Office, Sharepoint, and related applications. I’m trusting there is too much of a financial and market incentive for Legal’s third party players in business, financial and competitive intelligence to sit on the sidelines and not integrate in this medium. As you can see, I am very trustworthy (or is it trusting) … Stay tuned to see how it plays out.
About the author: Eric Hunter is the Director of Knowledge Management and Technology at Bradford & Barthel, LLP, where he is currently integrating a cloud-hosted collaboration platform within the firm’s 12 office environment. Eric has spoken on collaborative cloud solutions at ILTA’s Insight in the UK, ILTA’s 2010 Strategic Unity conference, and the Chilli IQ Conference in Australia. He is the recipient of ILTA’s 2010 Knowledge Management Champion Distinguished Peer Award. Eric can be reached at ehunter@bradfordbarthel.com.

As someone that has both attended (2005), and presented (2009) at the Advanced Management for Private Law Librarians (AMPLL) Conference, I encourage anyone that is a manager at a law firm or corporate law department to apply for the upcoming conference. I wrote about how AMPLL recharged my batteries back in 2009 and I still feel that this type of training / social interaction with peers is important for anyone who is a leader in the private law library world.

One suggestion I have on the application is that you pay particular attention to questions 6 (What are your biggest management challenges?) and 7 (What do you hope to gain from attending this conference?) on the application. Those are extremely important when deciding who gets in and who doesn’t. (Come to think of it, they’d also make some pretty good Elephant Post questions!)

Here are the instructions. The deadline is December 31st, so get to work!

The Eighth Advanced Management for Private Law Librarians (AMPLL) Conference, sponsored by the LexisNexis Librarian Relations Group, will be held April 8 – 10, 2011 in Dallas, TX.  Applications due by December 31, 2010.
THE MISSION:
Redefining ourselves in the new law firm landscape: changes, challenges and opportunities.
CONFERENCE OBJECTIVES
  • Our world: appreciate and capitalize on intimate knowledge of the legal industry
  • Our firm: collaborate to create and leverage strategic opportunities
  • Our department: measure and communicate value
  • Our staff: cultivate the staff you want
  • Ourselves: enhance time management, project management and soft skills
Application deadline is December 31, 2010, and all applicants will be informed by February 18, 2011.  Previous applicants who did not attend are encouraged to apply again.
 Additional information can be found at: AMPLL 2011 and the application to attend can be found at: http://www.lexisnexis.com//ampllapp
 If you have any questions about the program, please contact your LexisNexis Librarian Relations Consultant.

[Guest Blogger Ryan McClead brings us part II of the End of Corporate IT]

Despite what may have been a slightly overstated prognosis of doom and gloom, no one has (as of this writing) stepped up to refute my scenario.  We may quibble about the details of the CorpTech-pocalypse (CTP) , but no one has suggested that it won’t happen at all.   So…where do we go from here?

Well, we have two options:

Option 1:  Ignore it, maintain the status quo, stick your fingers in your ears and la la la la…

IT departments that maintain the status quo will be the first to collapse under the weight of the CTP.   Chances are good that a favorite topic of conversation for your CEO is currently “my IT department doesn’t understand what we do.”  I am friends with educators, doctors, accountants, business people, and even a few lawyers, and they have all at one time or another expressed to me their displeasure with their own IT department using a variation on that phrase. It’s probably the most common IT related phrase ever spoken by professionals, with the possible exception of “why do I have to reboot again?”.  Eventually your CEO will be lamenting your general un-helpfulness while seated across the table from a salesperson for a major technology services provider who will helpfully explain that they can offer all of the services that you currently provide for a quarter of the cost.  At that point it’s too late to change.  So, ultimately, option 1 isn’t really an option.

Option 2:  Change the way you operate now, learn the business your company is actually in, prepare your company to transition into the post-IT environment, and develop the skills that will be useful in your next career.

Change the way you operate now.

This is less a practical suggestion, than an exhortation that you need to change sooner rather than later.  Change is never easy, but it’s not going to magically be easier in a few years.  In fact, it’s never going to be easier than it is right now.

Learn the business your company is actually in.  (Hint: it’s probably not IT services.).

IT departments were created because management recognized the need for someone with special knowledge to maintain and support the technology needs of their business.  As technology needs have exploded, IT has too.  IT policies originally set in place to make it easier for IT to provide services, have evolved into de facto Company Policies with IT as the enforcer.  This has created an antagonistic relationship between the IT department and the company at large.  When someone finds a new or better way of using technology to do their job, the last people they want to tell is IT because IT will shut it down. We’ve become obstructionists standing in the way of innovation.  A company within the company, but fundamentally disconnected from the primary business.

Your value as a technologist isn’t in your general understanding of technology, but in your understanding of how technology can improve business practices.  If you don’t understand those business practices, you are providing minimal value to your company.

Prepare your company to transition into the Post-IT environment

First and foremost, stop habitually saying “No” to non-standard technology requests.  If you don’t know about a particular technology that is being requested, ask the user to explain it to you.  How do they want to use it?  What service will it provide them that they don’t currently have?  You may already have a system in place to provide the service the user is looking for and if you don’t it might be a valuable addition to your network.  If you’ve already reviewed, evaluated and rejected the technology, give the user an explanation for why it was rejected in language that they can understand.  Rattling off a string of techno-babble is tantamount to just saying “no”.

Develop processes to quickly review, evaluate and adopt (when possible) popular consumer technologies and services. You should have a small group whose job it is to review new technologies, see how they work in your environment, discuss the value of the service with business management and present a report with risks and benefits clearly defined so that management can weigh the options and make decisions about technologies that will be allowed.

Develop an End Point Agnostic network. Once upon a time, mobile computing devices were the province of corporate IT.  That ship has sailed.  Mobile computing is a wing of the fashion industry, and people are passionate about their fashion accessories.  Let them use whatever device they want.  Blackberries, iPhones, Androids are all capable machines and there are ways to connect them to your network safely.  Experiment and document acceptable usage of all devices,  If you provide an acceptable way to use the devices people want to use, they will most likely use them correctly.  Most people understand the issues of security and compliance.  They will try to comply right up until you tell them they can’t use their pretty pink phone, then they will figure out how to connect said pink phone to your network in a way that isn’t secure.

End Point Agnosticism is a first step toward Cloud Computing, Telecommuting and SaaS adoption.  Each of these become easier if your network is already EPA.

Develop the skills that will be useful in your next career.

This is not to say that your next career will not be in technology, just that it probably won’t be in a non-tech corporation, unless you are consulting on using technology to enhance business practices.  Step 2 above, learn the business your company is actually in, will help your company now and enhance your personal value in the future.

Most of us originally got into corporate IT because we had a deep interest in technology.  Redevelop, or in some cases develop, that interest!  Don’t just know how you do things in your company, study how other companies accomplish the same tasks, learn new technologies, and explore new solutions.  We are living in the most exciting technological period in history, revel in it.

Lastly, throw out old biases.  PC vs. Mac vs. Linux, Blackberry vs. iPhone, Google vs. Yahoo. It doesn’t matter anymore.  You need to know them all.  Embrace it.  The more you know, the more valuable you are.  The more focused you are on a single technology, the more easily you are replaced.

The CorpTechPocalypse is going to happen, but it doesn’t need to be painful for you or for your company.  In the end, you might both be better off going your separate ways and seeing other people, having grown for the experience.  And if you do it right, you can still be friends.