I’ve seen a couple of articles on VaporStream’s “Electronic Conversation Software”. The idea is that you can send communications that look a lot like e-mail, but the communication is temporary, exists in the cloud, and resides in your computers RAM (temporary memory). Once the communication is over, it disappears and cannot be recovered, even through e-discovery methods. The product is pitched as a great resource for reducing e-mail server storage, reduce the cost of potential e-discovery litigation, and satisfy the two tenants of HIPPA requirements. I took a quick look at it this morning and found that it is more of an Instant Messaging (IM) replacement than an e-mail replacement, but that it looks to have some good uses.

When I first read about this in itWorldCanda, and then again in ECM Connection, the articles were structured in a way that made me think that this was something that could potentially replace e-mail. I started dreaming of a situation where all those crappy vendor emails that I get ALL DAY LONG, could vanish automatically after I read/skimmed/ignore them. However, I quickly learned that you could only send or receive communicate with others that are also on the VaporStream software. So, my visions of a magic vendor communications fell to the wayside.

So here’s the reader’s digest version of how the product works:

  1. Sign-up for VaporStream’s service (free 60-day trial… $7.50/mth after that).
  2. Get everyone that you want to have confidential, temporary communications with to also sign up.
  3. Use VaporStream’s web or app interface to send and receive communications from other VaporStream users.
  4. The messages are sent and read via SSL (secure) through VaporStream’s interface, and reside in your computers temporary memory (RAM).
  5. When done, the message disappears and cannot be recovered.
VaporStream attempts to electronically recreate a “verbal conversation” using IM or e-mail structure. The only way to “save” the communication would be to take a screenshot of the message, but even that doesn’t get all of the communication because the header and messages are sent separately (thus, you’d have to take two snapshots, and tie them together.) There could be a great advantage to having something like this set up between members of your department or firm, but again, it is more of a compliment to current tools like e-mail or IM, and not necessarily a replacement for either. 
I could see a product like VaporStream being used on internal communications where you want to let others know certain things, but don’t necessarily want to clutter up everyone’s e-mail in-box, or have the issues that surround communicating via IM (if you’re even allowed to do such a thing.) Perhaps there are certain clients that would like a product like this to communicate on sensitive matters that you don’t want to leave any type of communication trail… I’ll let you think about the ethical “slippery slope” that something like that might bring.
VaporStream is definitely worth a look, and should be brought up as a potential secure communications resource that could be used in the right situation.

In response to Mark Medice’s post – Yes, it is past time for law firms to re-think expenses. There have been a lot of discussions about firm’s cutting expenses. And an equal or greater number of discussions on being more efficient (even here on 3 Geeks). What is needed is a re-thinking that merges these two concepts in a thoughtful way.
Using my traditional car analogy – cutting the costs of the landscaping service around the car assembly plant and reducing travel by admin staff will certainly improve the bottom line for Ford. However, that approach does not address the real question of lowering the cost of producing the cars. This challenge requires re-tooling and modifying the production process. It also requires conversations with suppliers about the costs for their component parts of the car (think Westlaw).
Law firms (for the most part) have not dove in on these types of discussions. The way I challenge lawyers on this topic is by asking how they can lower the cost of providing a specific legal service (e.g. a patent prosecution). What would they do differently in order to delver the same or better product at 60% of the current price?
This question changes the nature of the “re-think expenses” question. It’s not about the attorney-to-secretary ratio or the leverage between non-partners and partners. Instead the conversation should focus on doing things differently. This method brings a sharp focus on choice of technologies, number and type of personnel and on how the service is actually performed (think legal project management, ala Hassett, Levy and others).
At the core, law firms are experiencing a shift from a ‘cost plus‘ business model to the ‘profit margin’ model referenced in Mark’s post. The law firm business structure still reflects a ‘cost plus’ world. So I give a resounding YES to the idea of re-thinking expenses.
‘Cost plus’ behavior in a ‘profit margin’ world equals failure.

I bet a lot of you either have Comcast, DirectTV or U-Verse. Me? None of the above. All I’ve got is a laptop, an HDMI cable and flat-screen plasma TV. I can stream my Netflix or my Hulu account from my laptop onto my TV. Or watch a DVD. Or I can surf the web on my big screen. Or I can slideshow my favorite art while I play my iTunes during a party. Just one example how I use technology to save money.

Interesting topic going on over at the Hildebrandt blog on whether it is time to develop new ideas for measuring performance at law firms. In Lisa Smith’s post “Time for New Metrics“, she lays out some interesting new categories that law firms should develop to show how they are managing their business:

  • Firm Performance – what are the relevant measures of firm performance, including the profit margin idea above?
  • Expense Management – how do we measure the impact of changes in staffing models, leveraging technology in delivering services, outsourcing?
  • Practice Management – how do we compare the performance of practices who may have very different profit drivers and pricing models?
  • Partner Performance – how do we move from a billable hours and originations driven approach to measuring partner performance?
  • Client Development/Market Strength – how do measure success in strengthening client relationships?
  • Balance Sheet/Risk – can we assess the strengths and weaknesses of a firm’s financial practices?
  • Management and Leadership – can we measure the effectiveness of strategic, talent management and other initiatives? 
I’ve seen a lot of talk lately about how firms and clients are wanting to find ways to improve overall efficiency effectiveness of how matters are handled, and I’ve seen a lot of charts from consultants on methods to follow to improve efficiency and effectiveness. However, it doesn’t seem that anyone is putting these ideas into motion.
It reminded me of a story that a secretary once told me when I worked at a law school. She said that the people she worked for were very good at “getting their ducks in a row.” Unfortunately, they were not very good at “kicking the last duck in the ass to get them to go into the water.”  When that happened, she took it upon herself to do a little kicking to get things moving. 
Once again, someone has come up with a new method of looking at measuring performance, but it doesn’t look as if anyone is lining up to put this type of tool into action. If law firms don’t kick themselves in the rear and get moving… then they might find their clients putting on their boots and getting ready to do a little kicking in order to get their firms into the water.

I am so excited! I found a way to have someone read my emails, texts and voicemails to me while I am driving 🙂

Last Wednesday, me and @sapreston were discussing how to configure my Outlook to get it to use a voice command. All were too complicated and NOT EASY TO IMPLEMENT.

So me and the two other geeks were discussing this on our way to SBOT. They didn’t have a solution either.

So geeky me spent my Friday evening trolling through all the free Blackberry apps available on my phone.

To my delight, I found drivesafe.ly, a free app available to Blackberry, Android, iPhone and Windows Mobile users.

I just have the basic plan, which reads the sender’s name, time and 25 words of the message. I did run into problems if the message was formatted in a table and it read the HTML code instead.

But I have been really, really happy with it.

There is about a 30-second delay between delivery and reading but that’s cool.

You can, of course, upgrade to a paid version that will give you Caller ID, more words read, ability to change the voice and the reading speed, plus the creation of an ad-free auto-response. The price is $3.99/mo. or $13.95/yr.

They also have an enterprise solution that gives SSL encryption, allows you to download through mobile browser or push through BES. Plus, multi-user discounts and HIPAA compliant versions are available. The price for this is $7.99/mo. or $79.90/yr.

Like I said, I have been really pleased with drivesafe.ly.

By now you may have heard about the 24-year old “blonde beautician from Essex” who won an appeal against one of England’s largest property developers, Bellway Homes back in November, 2009. Georgina Blackwell, a woman with no legal training, faced down a English courtroom full of barristers, presenting her evidence and cross-examining the Bellway solicitor. At the initial case, Bellway won right of access to the Blackwell property to tear down a wall between the two pieces of land. Blackwell was also ordered to pay five-figures in damages, £22,000 in legal fees as well as cover her own £3,000 in legal costs. Facing bankruptcy, Blackwell’s daughter stepped in. She had just turned down a position to study law at Kingston University, choosing instead to help out in her mother’s salon after her mother broke her wrist. Reviewing the legal documents, Ms. Blackwell discovered that the the right of access pertained to only one wall. She reopened the case, went before the court and won the day, reversing the previous decision and earning a £75,000 judgment. Today, Ms. Blackwell is studying law at BPP Law School after the dean of the school learned about her win and offered her a scholarship. She will continue to work part-time at the salon to cover the cost of transportation between home and school but she is determined to make it. I write this blog to tell any male lawyers out there who still think that “women have no business being lawyers”–a fellow law school classmate said this to me in 1990–that we are here to stay. Do not underestimate us. We may not be able to physically best a man but we can emotionally and intellectually stand shoulder to shoulder. You wonder why the previous generation of female lawyers were called “pitbulls with lipstick” or “bi*ch on wheels”? Because they faced actual and passive discrimination when trying to get a seat at the table: Being called “little lady”, being ogled in the courtroom, being physically threatened, being excluded from the good old boy network. They paved the way for women like me. This a post for all the female lawyers: Illegitimi non carborundum.

Well, the 3 Geeks had a fine time this afternoon. After being up before the crack of dawn, @glambert, @gnawledge and I drove up to Ft. Worth and got there in time to hear Susskind, Jeff Carr and Rocky Dhir.

Then it was our turn.

I have to say I had a great time and I think Toby and Greg would agree–a great crowd. And then to be able to actually have us 3 Geeks really walk into a bar afterward was hilarious …

SIDE NOTE: Joe T. Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant has some awesome margaritas and fajitas. I’m just sayin’.

Here is our presentation if you’d like to take a peek.

Geeks Do Ft. Worth – Texas State Bar 2010 – So What Do I Do Now?

View more presentations from Lisa Salazar.

… Association Meeting.

The “3 Geeks” hit the road tomorrow and head up to Ft. Worth to present at the Texas Bar Association Annual Meeting.  We’ll be part of “The Adaptable Lawyer” program on Thursday discussing how the business of law is in transformation. Lawyers and firms who do not adapt to this changing world risk being left in the dust. Those that embrace creativeways to practice, network, and manage business have a great opportunity to set  themselves apart.

We’ll be following a number of great speakers such as Richard Susskind, Jeffrey Carr, Kevin O’Keefe, Judge Susan Criss, and more (no pressure there!!)

Our presentation, entitled “That’s Great, But What Do I Do Now?”, where we are hoping to share our experiences and give examples and suggestions on how to actually implement some of the ideas presented that day. If you’re not able to attend the meeting in person, you can follow the twitter stream through the Texas Bar Association meeting hashtag “#sbot10“. More importantly, there will be a “Tweet and Greet” from 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM. We hope to see you there — either virtually or in person!

I had lunch yesterday with a some folks from outside the legal industry where we discussed issues of making existing knowledge more readily available to others within our companies. I was taking my own advice and discussing the issues of libraries and knowledge management with those outside of law firms to see if there are different approaches that they are taking that we may not have thought of. Unfortunately at this meeting, it turns out that we in the legal field may be further ahead on KM/Library issues than those sitting at the table with me. I was both proud of that, and a little saddened that it turned out that I would be the one doling out the information at this session.

One of the issues we addressed was the fact that the employees of the company were creating documents that would actually benefit others within the same company, but that the departments were so siloed that currently there was no logical way that employee ‘X’ could even find a document written by employee ‘Y’ because X was in Houston, Y was in Dallas, but no way to search each others documents. It’s an old problem, and one that they know needs to be fixed, but they’re not sure where to start. They asked their existing library for help and their answer was for the authors of the documents to send their ‘important documents’ to the library and the library would catalog and store them in their Online Public Access Catalog (OPAC). This is where someone in the group said, “this is what we call ‘Legacy Thinking’.” Legacy Thinking is where you’re trying to make new problems ‘fit’ into existing solutions, even if that solution isn’t practical or effective in solving the existing problem.

Now it was at this point when the same person then told a great “geek” joke that I’m going to share with you:

Q: If God is all powerful, why did it take 6 days and one day of rest to create the heavens and earth?
A: Legacy Systems

Ha… that still cracks me up! Okay… back to my story.

Legacy Thinking doesn’t mean that new problems can’t be solved using existing resources. What it means is that you’re trying to solve all problems using one of the resources that you know, rather than thinking bigger and perhaps determining that there are other, and perhaps better resources for solving this issue. Perhaps those resources already exist in other parts of the company, or it is time to search for an external solution by bringing in a new tool to solve the problem. In this case, the traditional library answer of “put it in the catalog” was Legacy Thinking. Perhaps you could get everyone to send their ‘important’ documents to be cataloged by the library, and perhaps you could train all the employees to search the library catalog for important internal documents, but, that’s asking a lot of your employees to change their basic habits of how they collect and search for existing knowledge. Quite frankly, I don’t know of a lot of places that do very well at this type of collection process.

When I heard this story, I immediately told them that this was a “Knowledge Management” problem and that they need to go to their KM department (which they immediately said didn’t exist), or their IT department (which they said didn’t seem to want to address the problem), or hire a KM consultant (which they finally nodded and said they had the money to do) to come in and see what could be done to solve this issue.
So everyone walked away with their ‘next steps’ in the process, and I left feeling that the library at this company missed an opportunity because they were stuck in Legacy Thinking mode. It is like the old saying of “if your only tool is a hammer, then all problems look like nails.” Same with this situation, if your only solution is the catalog, then everything looks like a MARC record.  (Look it up!)

Over the weekend I had to come up with an emergency presentation on marketing. I serve on the Board of the Houston AMA Chapter and was tasked with serving as a back-up speaker. Then reading Steve Bell’s post on Client Satisfaction Lessons prompted me to capture the main ideas in this post.
My presentation idea: Staying Relevant. I borrowed this idea from a presentation I gave way back in 1996 to a group of bar association leaders on the same topic, only applied to lawyers (Lesson – write a book this time).
The Staying Relevant concept is to:
1) Examine the core changes occurring in a market,
2) Understand the impacts of the changes, and
3) Figure out how to adapt and stay relevant.
The first core change to consider – a shift of power. The shape of this shift is a bit unique. In the 60’s, when marketing was born, there was scarcity of marketing channels (i.e. 3 TV stations) and an abundance of customer attention. Now there is a infinite number of marketing channels (for TV think Hulu.com) and a scarcity of customer attention. So there has been a shift from marketers controlling the flow of information to customers controlling it.
The second core shift comes from the power of Web 2.0. Customers are sharing product and service opinions with each other on a very grand scale.
Results of these shifts:
1) Marketing messages pushed out the old fashioned way don’t hit their targets or at best have a declining rate of return.
2) Customers prefer to get their product information from other customers since these opinions are not paid for and therefore not biased by the provider.
The Moral of this Staying Relevant Story: Happy, informed customers will bring you more customers.
So for the practice of law, the best marketing advice may be: Promptly return phone calls from your clients. As the perennial #1 complaint of clients, this simple effort could become your best marketing tactic.
Now quit reading this and return some calls.