Whenever I mention “The Cloud” to my IT/KM friends, I usually see the hairs on the back of their necks stand up and a flash of anger cross their faces. Up until yesterday I assumed that the general dislike of “The Cloud” was one born out of instability and lack of security issues. In fact, here is basically the arguments I get when I ask about law firms using Cloud based applications:

  • law firms don’t like, nor trust storing their data on the “cloud”… with good reason
  • “cloud” based apps are difficult to manipulate and configure to the firm’s individual needs
  • firms will never put confidential data on the “cloud”
  • firms will never put items that have high integrity needs on the “cloud”
  • data that need high availability and flexibility to access that data will never be put on the “cloud”
Usually I can get the IT/KM people to say that it is possible that data that doesn’t fit any of the needs listed above can go on the cloud and can be a cost savings to the firm.
But, when I attended the Virtual LegalTech presentation called “The Challenge of Preserving and Collecting Evidence in a Cloud”, I heard one of the presenters say something that made me think that my IT/KM friends may have other fears of the cloud. Craig Ball, Jeff Fehrman and Tom Morrissey mentioned that many firms are already using “cloud” apps (think Web Mail) and that it isn’t a matter of if the cloud will host more applications and information, but “when and who will hold that information.”
It was the “who” in that statement that made me realize that when applications like email servers and CRM applications go to the cloud, a fundamental structuring change will need to happen with our technology departments. No longer will application support personnel be needed. Instead, we will need high-level contract negotiators to craft the contracts between the firm and the companies providing the services. The “Cloud” may outsource an entire level of IT jobs currently held at law firms.
Just think of the effect that jettisoning your Outlook email system in favor of a web based application like a hosted GMail service. If you don’t need employees to monitor the email, update the software, and service the hardware because all of that is being maintained by the host provider, then why keep these employees? If I’m a Partner at a firm or a Chief Information Officer in charge of budgeting, I’m going to look at this option to see if it will save me money. And, on the surface it seems that if I can get rid of Outlook, my Exchange Server, the hardware to support the system, possibly the Blackberry Exchange Server, plus one or two employees?? I’d do it in a minute… if there were no security or availability issues.
The ‘Devil’ on my right shoulder starts to put two and two together and wonder if my IT/KM friends are also seeing this effect of the “cloud” and playing on the basic fears that the law firm leadership has about putting any information or resources outside the physical reaches of the firm?? Meanwhile the “Angel” on my left shoulder shouts that I’d better listen to my IT/KM folks and not be such a ‘greedy bastard’ (he’s a little foul mouthed angel) in trying to save money while exposing my firm and its information to all kinds of access, security and ethical risks.
I’m probably being over simplistic in my example, but this type of argument is probably going on right now. Cost versus Security… Cost versus Access… Cost versus Risk…. Over time, it seems that the cloud based infrastructure is going to close these holes and create a much harder argument for technology departments to win.

Being a female lawyer has a few perks: the money can be good, the prestige can be great. But as the saying goes, it is lonely at the top. I started thinking about all of this after my esteemed colleague, Toby a/k/a @gnawledge, passed me a dating site for lawyers. He’s heard a number of of my weirdo dating tales as a single female lawyer.

So, with some trepidation, I signed on to www.datelawyer.com. After joining, I immediately noticed a high sleeze factor: players (pronounced: play *yuhz) are clearly obvious. Some of the screening questions include: 1) are you a millionaire? If so, how big of one? 2) what is your occupation—and lists homemaking. Hey, wait a minute! This is a sham! I want my money … oh, wait, its free. Whew. Thank goodness I gave my junk e-mail address.

Over the years, both my sister (she is a solo IP attorney) and I have learned to not tell the men that we meet that we are lawyers. It either intimidates them or little dollar signs start flashing in their eyes.

Or, you get the Zorro types who look upon you like you are some sort of Catherine Zeta-Jones who is ready to duel. And the battle of wits turns them on.

Sadly, if you are like me and don’t like to argue, it is fun for a little while but then it just turns into constant bickering. Blah. What kind of fun is that? And then they sulk when the debates are over and you’ve defeated them.

Then there is the other strong female role model: Mrs. Brown. If you don’t remember the movie, Queen Victoria, played by Judie Dench, has her own devoted manservant, John Brown, who pledges his undying allegiance. Then he dies. Although I could live with that, I am not sure any man out there loves me that much—one divorce has already proven that to be true.

So I yearn to create a new model, one where contracts are made, promises are kept and men and women are respected for what they both bring to the table. Sigh. A real Boy Scout. Although I am no Angelina Jolie, perhaps the new role model is Mr. & Mrs. Smith?

Just watch your back.

Many of you have probably seen the Tweets going around this morning about how Google Scholar has entered into the legal research arena. I have to say that I’m initially thrilled with the idea that after 15 to 20 years of legal vendor consolidation, that we may actually be on the cusp of reintroducing some serious competition.

With major players like Google, Bloomberg and even the ABA jumping into the online legal research arena, the big boys (Westlaw and Lexis – or collectively known as “Wexis”) should be, as one of my esteemed colleagues puts it – “soiling their pants right now.” Of course, I’ve mentioned in the past that pushing out case law is one thing, but adding value and authority to those works is why we keep Wexis around. There do seem to be some attempts at challenging the Wexis authority, especially from Bloomberg (via adding their own headnote system), and through the ABA Federal Opinion Summaries.
It seems that Erik Gerding over at The Conglomerate has been anticipating the competition by asking the questions:
  1. When will Google take on Bloomberg?
  2. When will either take on Lexis and Westlaw?
Perhaps Erik can look back in his crystal ball and let us know how this will all pan out.
There is a lot of buzz and excitement going around in the legal research field this morning about the Google Scholar announcement. Internet for Lawyers put out this review of the new Google Scholar resource. Carl Malamud even jumped in with a comment about how well Google Scholar is citing the Federal case law.
Although we are just at the beginning stages of all of these resources, it is nice to see a little competition coming back to the online legal research world! I, for one, welcome it!

Last week, Toby and I dove into the clean waters that is know as Google Wave. I say that it is the “clean” waters of Google Wave because most people I know have barely stuck a toe in – and most of them immediately pulled that toe back out.

There has been article after article of how Google Wave is going to replace email; that Wave how email would be if we could start all over again; how Wave better to communicate via Google Wave for conferences rather than Twittering about it; or, that Wave ‘Gadgets’ are going to be the iPhone ‘App Store’ of the future. From what I’ve seen so far… it is a whole lot of chatter by a bunch of dreamers, and very little actual success.

I’ve sent invites to some of my technology co-workers and friends only to be told that they simply do not have the time to mess with such a product, or have absolutely no interest in trying to learn Wave. I even tried to get some interaction going last week by creating a Wave to monitor the Journalism and New Media Ecology conference being held at Yale Law. I had two people join in, and one of them was my co-blogger, Lisa. Either people were not interested in the conference topic (which I doubt), or the struggle of understanding how to use Wave in an effective way was too much of a hurdle for most people to try to jump over.
The reason for the lack of success so far has been two-fold:
  1. Google Wave looks like it is still in Alpha testing phase, much less the Beta testing it is claiming (think Linux, pre-1999)
  2. Simply not enough people are engaging the product or each other
I’m usually a big supporter of Google, and I like a lot of what they have done over the past few years in expanding the Internet to include actual applications rather than just information retrieval. But, let’s face it, this isn’t the first time that Google has attempted to replace desktop business applications with cloud-based products (Gmail, and Google Docs) with varying degrees of success. Both of these products are “good” products, but neither have exactly caused Microsoft’s Outlook or Word to become obsolete. It seems like Google Wave might be following the same path as the Google Docs products — great personal programs, but not ready for the Enterprise Level.
Here are some of my suggestions:
  1. Open up more invitations (there are just too few people in this test… and most of them have participated very little)
  2. Stop with the 80 minute presentations on how Wave is so cool, and give me 3 minute “how-to” videos
  3. Navigating through a Wave has to be more intuitive – if you are not glued to the Wave screen, it is too hard to understand what new items have been added since you last visited the Wave
  4. Make Wave Gadgets (Apps) easier to find and use — if the Gadgets are the future of Wave, then make it easy for me to find and use them!!
  5. The “Search” portion of Wave is horrible!! For God sakes, Google… you’re a Search Engine company…. make the search portion as easy as it is on Google!!
  6. Allocate more power to the back-end of Wave — Wave is becoming slow… and getting slower. Try going through the “playback” function on a Wave that has a couple of hundred different communications in it. When I have… I find it to be extremely S L O W ! ! !
Wave is a great idea that is wrapped in a frame of confusion. Google has succeeded in the past by making products that are simple yet effective for the person using it. With Wave, so far at least, it accomplishes neither.
I’ve been thinking about my fantasy search engine would look like, and somehow when I saw this Miller Lite commercial it hit me on what I want my search engine to do. Watch this 30 second ad… then stay with me as I explain….
Until the guy raises the beer, it looks like an e E-Harmony commercial, right?? That’s what got me thinking.
[Note: Suspend your ‘privacy’ fears for a few minutes and think that you are living in a ‘perfect world.’ After all, this is why I called this my “fantasy search engine.”]
If taking a long survey like e-harmony helps connect you to those that fit your personality, can’t something like that be set up to find the news, web pages, and other content that best fits your needs?
There could be an actual “survey” conducted (for the sake of simplicity, let’ call the product “E-Googley“), but a long survey could be supplemented by:
  1. indexing your Twitter (and other social media) posts, the URL’s you post on Twitter, and who you choose to follow on Twitter (and any other social media that is relevant to your search preferences like LinkedIn, MH Connected, etc.)
  2. indexing your blog (if applicable)
  3. submitting any personal writings you’ve done
  4. embedded cookies that follow your browsing preferences (sites that you bookmark, or go to without being prompted from an RSS feed or other reference point)
  5. ranking of items returned in your results (kind of like the Pandora “thumbs up”, “thumbs down” ranking… simple, but effective
Taking all of this information should help the magical E-Googley system start to weight the results you get from your newsfeeds, readers, web searching, etc. – PLUS should start suggesting new items that you should follow and what existing items you should drop off your lists.
Here’s the catch phrase:

E-Googley – We’ll help you find “the one” you need now… and keep a look out for “the one” you’d like to meet later.

This week, Bing added support from Wolfram Alpha, and Google added data from the World Bank to help improve the “data” is supplies for the search results, but I want these search engines to not only work on the backend data, I want it to get to know me better and the kind of results I want to meet. I’m sure with all the cash that Google or Bing has (although e-Bingley doesn’t seem to have the same ring to it..) either could pony up a few million for the E-Harmony survey algorithms and make my dreams come true of a search engine that is truly “The One.”

I got it! I got it! I got it today! I was so, so happy–when I came home tonite something told me to pick up my mail and to my distinct pleasure I had received the December issue of Esquire; “henceforth to be known as the Genius Issue,” to quote Robert Downey, Jr. Why, you may ask? I’ll tell ya why–it is their Augmented Reality Issue. On the cover sits said Robert Downey, Jr. atop “a googly-eyed box”. After spending a half-hour downloading some special A/R software (25 minutes more than Esquire’s quoted 5 minutes), I was able to hold the magazine cover up to my laptop’s web cam and–VOILA–watch Mr. Downey cavort about my screen. Yes, he did some shameless self-promotion on his upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie–the Warners Bros. Studio probably paid for the production of the video footage–but it really was exciting to see it all unfold. And it wasn’t just one video “on the cover,” so to speak, but 4. With every turn and tilt of the cover you got more footage. The A/R segments were built by the Barbarian Group and Psyop, both digital design companies at the very front of the online marketing pack. Thankfully, most of the segments were no longer than 20-45 seconds long because you had to hold the magazine up in such a manner so that the laptop could read the A/R icon on the cover. It took me a little while to figure out that I had to make sure and hold the mark in front of the webcam even after the footage started running to ensure that the video continued to move along and stay in the center of the screen–there is a little marker locator in the upper-right hand corner.In addition to the cover, there were 5 other embedded A/R icons: one for their monthly feature “A Funny Joke From a Beautiful Woman”, another from Esquire Style, the third from jazz musician Robert Glasper and the last one from photographer JR.The “Funny Joke” segment was interesting. Actress Gillian Jacobs tells two jokes set to the time on your computer. If it is before midnite, the PG-rated joke plays. If it is after midnite, the NR one plays (I didn’t stay up to listen).The Esquire Style piece was interesting. I began to see some opportunity for product placement in this one, obviously because the actor Jeremy Renner was modeling clothes but also because even tho the background was illustrated the the name of the sponsor Dolce Gabanna was prominently displayed. The execution of this one was a little hard because in order to see Jeremy transform from one season of clothing to the next, I had to rotate the page. Which got to be rather akward for me. Maybe I am just uncoordinated.The jazz musician’s piece was good, too, because I was afraid that I was going to have to hold the magazine up for the entire play of the song. But once the web cam recognized the A/R icon and I dropped the magazine, it automatically rolled over to a web page featuring a billboard and a slider showing the extent of the play. By the way, it was some great jazz.The photographer’s slideshow was a little disappointing. It had some stunning work but in order to scroll through the images you had to rotate the page of the icon. When I did, the images scrolled a tad too quickly for my taste. It could be user error but I did try it a couple of times and got the same results.And there was one other, and to Esquire’s credit, unpromoted use of A/R. Lexus had an A/R ad. However, I have to say it was pretty disappointing. It didn’t have a lot of razzmatazz and seemed to be a reworking of a typical car video. But I’m not into cars or car ads so maybe it was kinda cool. But the whole Esquire effort was SO COOL! I was just grinning. Okay, I was grinning because, yes, Robert Downey, Jr. is one of my favorites, but it was just so damn cool! I mean, can’t you just see it? Just imagine: you will be able to send a pleading to the judge and have an A/R icon embedded into it, which switches to a the video footage from your Academy Award-winning deposition where the opposing party’s client says, “Yes, I have the smoking gun! And I am glad I did it!” Or you are at a virtual trial and you go to submit your evidence to the holographic jury and the holographic judge, which documents the fraudulent expenditure of company funds and embedded into the documents are the fingerprints, which auto-hyperlink to all of the related records that the defrauder touched and includes a receipt for a matching amount of deposits to an off-shore bank? Ummh. Sorry. Clearly, I missed my calling as a sci-fi, legal thriller writer. Or maybe not. But anyways, we are just beginning to see how A/R will be used. It is the dawn of a new day. Have you had your Jolt yet?

The Twitter Times is perhaps one of the best formatted mashups of Twitter posts I’ve seen. This jewel is the brainchild of Russian genius Maxim Griniv and combines the power of information provided in the Twitter community with the aesthetic comfort of a newspaper style format. In my opinion, this might be one of the best Twitter resources since TweetDeck (and I love TweetDeck!!) I immediately jumped on this little product and created my own personal Twitter Times.

The idea behind The Twitter Times [TwtTimes] is to take your first and second level Twitter friends and compile the information that the people you are following are “tweeting,” by pulling it all together in a format that helps you quickly see “What’s Hot” and the “Top News History.” The result is a wonderful display of text and pictures that look very much like a newspaper website. In a couple of minutes, you can quickly scan the information and catch up on the major discussions your Twitter friends (and their friends) are discussing.
I shot Maxim an email a few days ago suggesting that he should expand TwtTimes to include “Twitter Lists” as well as generic twitter user profiles. The idea I had behind the “Twitter Lists” option was that it would allow the end users to narrow the topics displayed on TwtTimes based on the lists. In other words, if I have a list of people who are focused on “law libraries” or “competitive intelligence” then the topics of TwtTimes would (hopefully) fit those more narrow topics. In its current form, The Twitter Times tends to pick up the Twitter “biggies” (e.g., ReadWriteWeb, Guy Kawasaki, WSJBlog, etc.) This isn’t saying that the current form is bad (because it isn’t), I was just hoping to guide the iteration of TwtTimes to take advantage of the Twitter Lists and be a much more flexible resource.
Maxim responded that the idea of handling Twitter Lists would mean TwtTimes would “have to support more newspapers for a single user and, consequently, [would] need more computers to handle them.” In other words, it would cost more money and equipment than TwtTimes is able to handle at this time. To off-set the costs, Maxim asked if he thought people would pay for the service. If there is one thing I know about my social media friends… they will not pay for anything “social media” related. So, that idea is definitely DOA. Combine that with a comment that (3 Geek member) Lisa gave me when I asked her to take a look at TwtTimes…

Mashup of Twitter Trends and TweetDeck notifications and Google Reader? Hmm. Not sure I have room on my social media platter …

…you’ll see that not only are my social media friends cheap… they are also burning out on all the available social media resources. If TwtTimes can support this with ads, then I think people will be fine. But, no one that I know would want to pay for a social media resource… no matter how useful it might be.
So here’s the situation. We have a great product, with a lot to offer, but in a market that is completely being overwhelmed by one social media resource after another. For all of you that are reaching your saturation point on social media tools, my suggestion is to take a look at TwtTimes and try it for a week or two. If need be, click the “mark all as read” button on your Google Reader from time to time to make room on your “social media platter.” I think you’ll find this product will be pretty tasty. Who knows… something like this could end up in the Google stable someday (hint, hint Google!!)

I read a great study about the difference between Generation X and Generation Y female online activity.According to PopSugar Media—isn’t that a great name, by the way?—two-thirds of female Gen Xers rely on female Gen Yers to define pop culture trends. And female Gen Yers are twice as likely as female Gen Xers to rely on social media to identify new brands and products. YAY me. :)I am right on the cusp of Gen Y. And I am in a position of influence. And I’m in charge of social networking for my firm. That means if a law firm is smart—and aren’t they all?—they would put a woman in the middle of her career in charge of their online strategy and let her rip. Arm her with the firm’s online social media policy, heck, maybe even let her craft it, then let her develop a web presence on behalf of the firm.I am watching a good friend of mine @KatDeLia do this for her segment of her professional services firm. I don’t think that either she or the firm realize what is going to happen.. But the results are inevitable. Mark my words, in a few months she is going to hit everyone’s radar in her office and in her industry. She’s out there every day, conscientiously tweeting about her firm. One tweet at a time, she is going to turn eyes her way. And the pay off is going to come. Because she is a likeable, attractive face in the crowd of professional services.And that is important because one of the points that the study made is that Gen Yers are extremely skeptical and seek genuine and authentic messaging. Interestingly, @KatDeLia and I were talking about this very issue last week. We have both discovered that on Twitter, if you talk “occasionally” about funny, family, quirky stuff, you are more likely to get read. And that is the point. In the overcrowded sphere of social media, you need every edge you can get. So, as we girls like to say, if you got it, flaunt it. Because it doesn’t last forever (this is me speaking from the far end of the Gen Y cusp). And you don’t just have to be a female to make this work for you. Be adorable. Be cute. Be attractive. Then talk business. Because, as @KatDeLia likes to say, “a girl’s gotta eat.”

Just found out that Amazon granted my wishes of pushing the beta version of the Kindle application to the PC Desktop!! This, my friends, is a total game changer in a number of ways. I’m about 5 minutes into testing out the new application, but I’m already finding some good, and some bad things.

Good:
  • Big Screen!
  • Color!
  • Syncs with Kindle
Bad:
  • No note taking ability in PC mode
  • No highlighting ability in PC mode
  • No searching ability in PC mode
  • No voice option in PC mode
Let’s all hope that Amazon updates the PC version to match all the features you can get on the Kindle. But, regardless of the shortcomings of the Beta version of the Kindle for PC, this is a great step forward for electronic book publishing! Now, for all of those legal publishers out there… get busy making your books available on the Kindle!!

I read with great interest a NYT article, “Virtual Estates Lead to Real-World Headaches” that analyzed the death of an online relationship in Second Life. Apparently, a couple married, bought an island and built a house–all on Second Life. Last year, the man died of liver failure.

With the push of a button, the man’s partner lost everything they had together on Second Life: their island, their home and all memories of their relationship. Arguably, since Second Life has a current currency rate of 259 Lindens to $1, the estate had some value and could fall under legal scrutiny. I remember when I first heard of Second Life back in the early 2000s I was ranting at my friends about how this was going to raise all kinds of weird legal issues like virtual property rights, trademark issues and contractual problems. I remember saying, “they are making and selling designer clothes for their avatars, for God’s sake!” They all just rolled their eyes and said, “that whacky Lisa–she’s such a geek.” Well, they were right about the last half of that statement–little did they know how prophetic their words would be. As for the rest, it turns out that I was right, after all. I believe that we are just at the tip of the iceberg that represents all of virtual law. Remember, we are only at web 2.0. There is a long way between 2.0 and web 200.0–heck, even web 2,000.0. Don’t believe me? Take a look at science fiction writer Orson Scott Card’s description of social media that he wrote about in Ender’s Game. He wrote that book before 1985 and it perfectly describes blogging. And we are only barely touching the surface of what the human mind is capable of imagining. Ever watched Ted.com? If you have, you know what I mean. We have only just begun to comprehend the extent of the web’s reach.

My friend Saskia, a professor at University of Houston’s School of Law, turned me on to related article: “What Happens to Your Facebook After You Die?”. Facebook’s answer is to shut down the profiles but to memorialize their wall so that friends and family can pay their respects. But it is causing some backlash because dead people were showing up in their “Recommend a Friend” feature. We–meaning the social media community–are still thinking through the physical, virtual and legal ramifications of the web. We haven’t even begun to comprehend its reach.

What I foresee in the area of estate law, and the NYT article mentions this, is that lawyers will need to begin educating executors on how to manage the deceased’s social media accounts. Will, Estate and Probate forms will need to begin including social media and online passwords to not only Facebook, LinkedIn, Martindale Hubbell and Twitter but also online banking, credit card sites and the like when preparing their documents.

Heck, lawyers might even think about creating online safety deposit boxes to “hold” all these valuable docs.

We just finished celebrating Day of the Dead here in Tejas. Might be a good time to contemplate these more macabre issues. Leave it to a lawyer to ruin the party.