This week on Slaw - Copyright Week

This week on Slaw we are exploring our first weeklong theme: Copyright. Special guest bloggers David Vaver, Professor of intellectual property and information technology law, University of Oxford, and director of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre, St Peter's College, and Michael Geist, who holds the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, have joined us to explore and discuss the issues.

My scheduled day to post to Slaw is Friday, and I have something interesting in the works--I hope it comes to fruition. I may do some additional blogging as well if I get inspired.

I encourage you to have a look at Slaw and add your voice to the discussion by posting your questions, comments and concerns.

What I've been up to

Well, no time today to mention everything I've been up to. Suffice it to say I have been out meeting and talking to a lot of different people with a variety of interests, and I'm hoping to blog about it soon. (I keep saying that to myself: get this one event over with and you can blog about EVERYTHING!). Oh, the pressure!

Anyway, I don't even have the energy at this particular moment to even list everything, but I am excited about my latest article on LLRX which I see has just been released.

In this episode, Librarian on the Verge of KM, I talk about a wide range of knowledge management issues I have been contemplating, not the least of which is the idea that I even actually do KM. I am forced to admit to my inner knowledge manager. I did not conduct any interviews this time around since it was mostly a "download" of all my thoughts at the time I was writing, but I did quote my colleague out in Vancouver, Steve Matthews. And I don't think he knows it yet.

The other exciting thing I should mention is that I finally had a chance to meet Jim Milles in person this weekend. He came up to Toronto from Buffalo, we met for dinner, and then went over to the first meetup of Toronto podcasters. That was an interesting and fun meeting. I learned an awful lot!

Internet Tools for Lawyers: Law Firm Extranets

Law Firm Extranets - by Jerry Lawson. Good article; the negative "watch out for" stuff is towards the end.

ETech@work - emerging technologies and trends in business

ETech@work is a new blog by Shwen Gee, an otter group advisory board member, to supplement supplement his podcast ETech@Work Podcast. I don't think the podcast part is up and running yet, but so far the blog is excellent!

SYNOPSIS:
From "blogging for business" to "podcasting for profit"--we've all heard the buzzwords, but who are these actually working for and what are the direct or indirect benefits of using such emerging technoligies (ETech) in corporate environments, academic institutions, and other organizations?

Information Highways - Now With e-Content!

Now rebranded as the "e-content institute," this year's Information Highways conference is smaller but sleeker... Gone are the halcyon days of yore with sprawling trade shows in the ginormous Toronto Metro Convention Centre. Instead this is a compact show at the Holiday Inn on King with three or four concurrent sessions, and probably about 350 attendees. This was day two of the conference, with seminars by vendors yesterday which I gave amiss.

I have notes to post later on each of the sessions I attended today, but let me give you a quick overview for now. Peter de Jager was keynote speaker talking about change management. I had not heard him speak before, and thoroughly enjoyed his talk. What he said made a lot of common sense, although I had not heard these specific ideas before. I am signed up for a full day workshop tomorrow with him, continuing on the theme of change. Should be good!

Next up were talks on intranet development, the use of wikis in organizations, reducing legal risk in using electronic content and product development, and finally a great session on competitive intelligence.

I saw a number of familiar faces: colleagues from other law libraries, vendor reps, and a friend in a completely different industry presenting at one of the sessions.

I also immediately spotted Dave Hook, The Industrial Librarian, after the keynote address. He looks a lot like his picture (imagine that) so it was fun meeting him face to face and talking with him in person for the first time. We chatted about the Computers in Libraries conference he had just attended, and for which he has been posting blog notes. He was a speaker at both events (CIL and today's) so it was interesting to compare notes on how our blogs have helped to raise our profiles. It was also a pleasure to meet his wife, a fellow blogger going by the handle Canadian Lib Genie. I think that is the first biblioblogging couple I've met!

That's it--gotta rest up for tomorrow. I probably won't be posting too much until the weekend since I'm hosting my bookclub tomorrow night and it would be overly optimistic to think I could fit blogging in sometime between food preparation and my friends arriving at my place. So, do stay tuned for those notes!

Cheers,
Connie

Dave Hook on CIL2006

I have been following Dave Hook, fellow biblioblogger The Industrial Librarian, on his coverage of CIL2006 (the Computers in Libraries Conference) which was held last week in Washington, D.C. Word has it the conference had record attendance this year of 2,662. Wow. Read back to Dave's post on March 18, 2006 for his conference coverage.

See also:

list of blogs covering CIL2006

Jane Dysart blogging at Dysart & Jones

Where's Connie? Catching you up on my recent activities!

I sometimes get caught up in projects and neglect to update you, my loyal readers, on just what I'm up to. Here therefore is a list of some of my recent activities for your perusing pleasure!

• I am delighted to be one of the administrators of the CALL 2006 blog, the first ever blog for a CALL conference. Michael Lines has done a fantastic job creating it--doing both technical and design work. Steve Matthews has given great technical support. Every now in then I throw in some moral support. If you will be attending the conference and would like to join us in blogging it, let one of us know. Otherwise, I hope you will read along. And we strongly encourage comments!

• I've been included as a panelist in the pre-conference workshop on Knowledge Management for the CALL 2006 conference. I will be representing the KM novice who has been avidly watching from the sidelines and who is going to start out by doing KM on an informal basis. We have a spectrum of librarians-who-do-KM so I hope you will consider attending this day-long session.

• Some of my recent posts on Canadian law/technology blog Slaw have included a series on recommendations for legal publishers from the point of view of the law firm customer. I have had excellent feedback both from colleagues and from publishers. While I don't have specific subjects planned going forward, I invite subjects for this series and hope to continue as, frankly, things stick in my craw. My plan is not to target specific publishers but to make general comments that I hope will be useful to all publishers and vendors in the legal industry. Here is the series to date:
  


• Desperately Seeking: RSS From Legal Publishers (February 17, 2006)


• Syndication 101 for Publishers (February 17, 2006)


• RSS Feeds From Publishers, a Reprise, and Reducing Catalogue Production Costs (March 3, 2006)


• Requests for Legal Seminar Publishers (March 10, 2006)

• My latest column on LLRX came out last week, this one on podcasting. Are You Ready for Podcasting? features an interview with Jim Milles. For all of my columns to date, check out The Tao of Law Librarianship on LLRX.com .

• I have had a great time as "Canadian Correspondent" on Jim Milles' podcast Check This Out! Most recently we taped my interview with Jim for the LLRX column, and he has posted the entire interview in Episode 17. This has prompted a friend to ask, "is that all you guys do, interview each other?" Which caused me to explain to him that what we are REALLY doing is creating some synergy and building expertise. Ahem--there is a difference!

• Sabrina Pacifici and I will be running a full-day pre-conference workshop on blogging for the enterprise at SLA 2006 on June 10th in Baltimore. We are looking to make this a true workshop, allowing participants to work through ideas to help everyone already familiar with blogging to "push the envelope".

• Work on the Northeast Regional Law Libraries meeting to be held in Toronto October 17-20, 2007 has been heating up! I am co-chairing this conference with Stephen Weiter. We are close to having a preliminary website to give everyone some initial information and which will reveal our fantastic team putting this all together. Our theme has been confirmed as "Libraries Without Borders 2" playing on the title used at the last meeting held way back in 1996. If you have any questions about this, feel free to contact me at connieblog@sympatico.ca -- put "NE2007" in the subject line.

• And despite all these projects and exciting accomplishments, the thing that still gave me the biggest thrill was getting a nod from vlog Rocketboom on March 23rd when they used one of my story ideas again. Woohoo!

...not to mention committee work for CALL and TALL, projects in progress which I can't yet disclose and--oh yeah!--my day job.

And...always look on the bright side of life....

Namaste,
Connie

The Canadian Centre for Philanthropy Has a New Name

The Canadian Centre for Philanthropy (CCP) and the Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations (NVO) are pleased to announce that they have come together to create a new organization: Imagine Canada.

Building on the solid work of both CCP and NVO, we've launched a new organization to support Canada's charities, nonprofit organizations and socially conscious businesses and champion the work they do in our communities

See the Imagine Canada website.

They have subscriptions available to access the Canadian Directory to Foundations and Corporations which is also available in paper.

As well, there is the Imagine Canada-John Hodgson Library for your virtual research pleasure.

The Canadian Centre for Philanthropy has long been the best resource for information on charities and giving in Canada. Thanks to Vanessa for pointing out the change!

Sept. 17/07 Update: I have corrected the link to the main website. If you are looking for the press release that announced the change back in 2005, it is on this page under 2005.

Now You Are Two: Happy Birthday Little Blog!

Hard to believe we've been companions now for two whole years. It feels like I've just started blogging, and yet so much has happened since I first opened that wee Blogger account. I can't wait to see what the future holds!

I invite all regular readers of this blog to drop me a line, either as a comment to this message or to my email connieblog@sympatico.ca .

Cheers,
Connie

The Indefatigable Sabrina Pacifici!

Sabrina Pacifici, editor and publisher of legal research e-zine LLRX.com and blog beSpacific is the subject of an article in the Library Journal, "Indefatigable - Sabrina Pacifici" (March 15, 2006).

I have had the extreme pleasure of getting to know Sabrina over the last several months, and can vouch for the assertion that she does all these projects in her spare time, getting little sleep. On a personal basis, she has been an inspiration, and has given me an immense amount of moral support and encouragement.

She is speaking at the Computers in Libraries conference coming up later this month, March 22-24, 2006, in Washington, D.C.:

• Free Cybertour: "Blogs for Managing Content" - Thurs. March 23, 12 - 2 pm


• Post-Conference Workshop: "Mining Blogs & RSS for Research" - Sat. March 25, 1:30 - 4:30 pm

In addition, she and I will be co-presenting a pre-conference workshop on blogging for the enterprise at this year's Special Libraries Association conference in Baltimore, June 10, 2006.

It's Alive!!! The CALL/ACBD 2006 Conference Blog

I'm pleased to be one of the admin group, along with Michael Lines and Steve Matthews, helping put together CALL's first ever conference blog! Thanks to Michael Lines for all his hard work setting it up and putting together a fabulous design. When you visit the blog you will see we have retained all our "work in progress" discussion so everyone can see what went into creating this blog. While blogs can be very quick to set up, a lot of thought went into this one. It has quickly become my favourite place to post as far as ease of posting goes.

I really hope CALL members, other delegates, and those who are unable to attend the conference, will participate as bloggers and as commenters leading up to and during the conference. This is going to be a lot of fun. Do let us know if you would like to try out blogging!!

Here's the official announcement from HQ:

Dear member,

This year, for the first time, the annual conference will be complemented by a collective blog: CALL Blog 2006 http://www.callacbd.ca/conferences/2006/blog/.

Bloggers from all regions, as well as those new to blogging, are invited to contribute.

We hope to offer descriptions of and reactions to the conference sessions and social events, as well as other aspects of the Edmonton experience, including weather updates and travel tips. Two of Canada's top law bloggers, Connie Crosby and Steve Matthews, are already on board. If you are interested in contributing, contact Michael Lines at mlines@law.ualberta.ca.

The conference planning committee would also like to remind all those planning to attend the upcoming conference in Edmonton that early bird registration rates are available until the end of the week.

New York Times Link Generator

From Simon Fodden in a comment on Slaw:

Connie, apropos of your NYT link, you might take a look at the New York Times link generator: http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink. It’s a way of generating a permanent link for a blog entry, and, moreover, one that non-fee-paying people can use. It depends upon the NYT RSS feed, I gather. And it seems that the Times doesn’t object. See also: http://backend.userland.com/2003/06/16#a265

I had no idea this was available. Now I can link to articles I find when I search New York Times as a registered user, and not worry about whether others will see it nor not!

PALINET Podcast: Technology Conversations

PALINET Podcast: Technology Conversations - interviews with leaders in library technology. I haven't listened to these yet, but looks great!

SirsiDynixInstitute.com - Greg Schwartz speaking on podcasting in May 2006

The SirsiDynix Institute Web Seminar Series! - Greg Schwartz speaking May 17 and May 24

Carnival of the Infosciences

Carnival of Infosciences - I've been wondering why there wasn't a "carnival" for librarians. Well, looks like one has been running for several months but I just hadn't hit upon it. Don't know what a blog carnival is? Well, it is when various bloggers take turns writing reviews of other blogs. They will be within one industry, and it is not unusual for the reviewer to use a metaphorical device or structure to cleverly pull the reviews together. Sound a bit strange? Well, you just have to read them a bit to get the idea. I have been reviewed in a law blog carnival before, but I have yet to put one together myself. Perhaps soon! Um, as soon as I get a quiet moment or two. 8-)

CNN's Next Net 25: 25 startups that are reinventing the web

This is important stuff! CNNMoney.com recently put together a list of Web 2.0 companies that are emerging as the vanguard. Some of them I have heard of and even used; others are unfamiliar to me. They are grouped in categories: "Social Media," "Mashups and Filters," "The New Phone," "The Webtop," and "Under the Hood."

See: The Next Net 25: 25 startups that are reinventing the web (March 3, 2006)

Thanks to Marty for pointing this article out to me!

U.S. Newspaper Company Knight Ridder Being Sold

Word is spreading quickly via news sources that Knight Ridder is being sold to McClatchy, a smaller newspaper industry rival. Knight Ridder is the former owner of Dialog (now owned by Thomson). In 1994 KR created a joint venture with Canadian media company Southam to create Infomart Dialog (now FP Infomart). See: Knight Ridder history.

Confessions of a Server

This is one of the most amusing error messages I've ever seen on the 'Net:

Confessions Of A Server

OH MY! Life is so unfair! What did I do wrong to be born a server in this day and age? I could have been a nice simple bicycle that people happily rode around on all day. But no, I'm stuck inside this metal case serving web pages instead. I never even see the light of day and all I can hear is the rush of the air-conditioning!
Well, no more! I'm relaxing here with a cup of tea and a biscuit until someone shows me some love and attention.

It never takes them long to fix me when I kick up a fuss so check back in a few minutes and I'll be chugging along merrily again.!

Signed,
The WordPress.com web server
(WordPress.com - where even the machines have life!)

Librarian bloggers survey

CW (Constance Weibrands of the Curtin University of Technology's Library and Information Service) is contucting a librarian blogger survey for her presentation to the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) conference in September. She asks for responses by March 20th. Link courtesy of Jessamyn West.

Bibliocasting listserv announcement

My new word for the day!

Bibliocasting = podcasting for libraries

and there is even a listserv on the subject:
Introducing Bibliocasting list

Greater Toronto Area Podcasting Meetup (Saturday, April 22, 2006)

There is a Greater Toronto Area Podcasting Meetup at Imperial PUBlic Library on Saturday, April 22nd. Thanks to Jim Milles for pointing this out (I have to hear about happenings in my own city from someone in Buffalo, apparently!). I'm a podcaster wannabe, so am seriously thinking of attending.

Peter de Jager at Information Highways / e-content institute 2006

I'm signed up for the Information Highways conference coming up March 28 - 30, 2006, now branded as the e-content instititue 2006. I am going to glean as much as I can for my web management group at the firm.

In particular, I have signed up for the full-day seminar on change management being conducted by keynote speaker Peter de Jager . He has already contacted me with a series of questions about change projects in my organization so he can prepare the content of the seminar to the participants. Fabulous!

He also sent a link to his website, and I found these
Peter de Jager - Publications which look helpful. I haven't clicked through to read them yet, but thought I better post something here so I can find them again later.

Cheers,
Connie

Dow Jones Reorganizes, Promotes Clare Hart

Dow Jones Reorganizes, Promotes Clare Hart. Clare Hart was previously with Factiva, and she has now been moved ("promoted") to Dow Jones.

Let's Get Together in Toronto - Blog Conference in May

News flash! Big blogging event coming to Toronto in May! See Mark Evans' blog Let's Get Together in Toronto.

Thanks to one of the founders of this event, Rob Hyndman, for the tip. I only hope it runs when I'm back from the CALL conference.

New School of Information Studies at University of Ottawa

According to this job posting for Director, the University of Ottawa is planning to open a new School of Information Studies in its Faculty of Arts. According to the ad:

We are soliciting candidates with the vision, energy and commitment to lead North America’s first bilingual graduate program educating library, archives and information professionals. This challenge offers the opportunity to contribute to an innovative interdisciplinary program characterized by a management perspective and an accentuated adoption of new information technology. In collaboration with the Deans of the Faculties of Arts and Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, other university colleagues, and representatives of major employers of information professionals, the successful incumbent would actively participate in designing course content for on-site and web-based delivery, recruiting new faculty and students, and organizing allocated financial, personnel and physical resources in order to achieve proposed strategic initiatives and business plan outcomes.

One can only imagine other positions will follow. And this at a time when the Faculty of Information Studies at U of T is still conducting its faculty search for five new members.

The additional qualification of bilingualism may just make this new faculty a little difficult to get off the ground....

A Special Day

It's a special day in the Connie Crosby household. We are celebrating because, well, I actually had a story suggestion picked up by my favourite vlog Rocketboom. I brought to their attention the very important chicken limbo recall.

JUSTICE ROTHSTEIN briefing material released by Law Blog

JUSTICE ROTHSTEIN briefing material released by Law Blog

February 26, 2006

Toronto: In time for today’s pioneering parliamentary hearing to meet Supreme Court of Canada nominee Justice Marshall Rothstein, Weblog SLAW (http://www.slaw.ca) today released in-depth information regarding the nominee selection process and the candidate.


On Monday, February 27, 2006, 1 p.m. EST, CPAC will broadcast the interview of Mr. Justice Rothstein by the Ad Hoc Committee to Review a Nominee for the Supreme Court of Canada. SLAW has assembled a comprehensive set of links to key news, commentary, government websites, and extensive court decisions by Mr. Justice Rothstein. "The Marshall Rothstein Pages" (http://www.slaw.ca/marshall-rothstein-pages) marks a first in Canada: SLAW’s page is the most timely and comprehensive resource on any Supreme Court candidate.

SLAW has included a list of ten qualities the nominee brings to the Supreme Court and a break-down of how some of his decisions at the Federal Court level fared later at the Supreme Court level, whether upheld or overturned. Readers across Canada have been invited to submit questions they would like to see asked of Mr. Justice Rothstein in Monday's session.

SLAW is a co-operative weblog about Canadian legal research and technology. SLAW was founded by Simon Fodden, Professor Emeritus at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. Contributors include lawyers, law librarians, law professors and legal researchers from across Canada. For further information, visit the website at http://www.slaw.ca .

Contact:
Simon Fodden
sfodden@osgoode.yorku.ca

Simon Chester
Schester@heenan.ca

CBC Radio Podcasting

CBC.ca - CBC Radio Podcasting

Podcasts coming soon--sign up to receive the newsletter. Also there are resources for locating podcasts and getting started on podcasting.

Online Reference - Library Success: IM Wiki

I think it was last week that I mentioned chat reference being out, and IM being in. Michael Stephens on his Tame the Web blog, has pointed out this Online Reference - Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki that specifically covers IM: applications people use, libraries using IM, and links to articles on IM.

Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers: Books: Robert Scoble,Shel Israel

New book: Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers: by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. You must check out this episode of RocketBoom for the, um, most interesting book promo I've ever seen: RocketBoom, Thursday, February 23, 2006

OSALL - Organisation of SA Law Libraries

The Organisation of SA Law Librarians, based in South Africa, have a list of some fantastic South African resources on their website:

OSALL - Organisation of SA Law Libraries

I was emailing back and forth with their listserv manager today, and was delighted to discover she has been following my column on LLRX. It's a small world!

Out of the Jungle: Library Salaries

In a recent rant on blog Out of the Jungle, Betsie McKenzie calls for action in getting student workers (and, subsequently, law librarian) salaries up. See: Out of the Jungle: Library Rant. She says:

I do not believe that librarian salaries will significantly improve. I am royally pissed off. I do not see any significant or effective action from AALL. They are piddling around making tiny tempests in tiny teapots lest WE violate antitrust talking to each other about student worker pay levels (the student workers are not competing with each other for the positions, how can this be anti-trust?), while the salary survey shows year after year, clear evidence that university pay levels are within pennies in the same region. Isn't that how the baseball players' union busted the owners' chops for collusion? I'd like to see some action here!

She also talks about the need to negotiate hard for the best salaries possible since our subsequent salaries are based upon these first salaries. As are the industry's salaries, since everyone looks at what everyone else is paying vis-a-vis salary surveys.

Trackback

LLRX.com - New articlesI

The February articles have now been posted on LLRX.com
I'm very pleased that my column The Tao of Law Librarianship - Do-It-Yourself Professional Development, Part II has been posted. In it I talk to colleagues Louise Tsang, Danielle Brosseau, and Le Dieu Tran. I have been truly inspired by these intrepid women and hope you will be, too.

Also in this issue Katherine Thomas (better known to many of us as Katie Thomas) has given us a reprise of the resources she put together for a past CALL conference in Job Swaps and Library Exchanges

Jim Milles on Law Library Administration

In this week's episode of podcast Check This Out!, Jim Milles talks at length about the law libary administration course he is teaching at the University at Buffalo. He goes into detail about the purpose of the course, how it has developed, and the content. He also sets out some ideas of how he would like to see it develop. Very interesting stuff!

He's also got some fun clips including 9 minutes from a knitting blog that really talks about starting out in a new vocation. One of the best lines, on getting frustrated: "put the knitting down and step slowly away!"

This is a must-listen episode. Heh, and I'm not even in this one.

Cheers,
Connie

P.S. If you do check it out, add a pin to the Frappr Map so we know you've been listening!

Chat Reference Out, IM Reference In

I am hearing that chat reference died a while back, but the way to go for direct electronic connection to the client is IM (instant messaging). Amanda Etches-Johnson shares her presentation PowerPoint and materials from her Ontario Library Association Superconference presentation here on Blog Without a Libary.

Desperately Seeking: RSS from Legal Publishers

Today on Slaw I look closely at Canadian legal publisher websites for RSS feeds in Desperately Seeking: RSS from Legal Publishers.

I was surprised to find that, despite a number of recently redesigned websites, not a one has incorporated RSS feeds into their sites. Surely feeds would be the perfect way to provide their information-oriented customers with notice of new products.

And I bet, once they get started, the publishers will find some fabulous new uses for RSS and feeds!

Re:Generations - Canadian Library Association blog

I was poking around the Canadian Library Association (CLA) website and found this co-operative blog: Re:Generations . From the Canadian Association of College & University Libraries (or CACUL), a division of CLA, the blog's aim is to dialogue with young academic librarians and re-energize the profession. I'm not overly surprised to see FIS library student Stanislav Orlov as one of the contributors. Our friend Stan is everywhere!

Check This Out! Episode 15 - on podcasting and new logo

Jim Milles has released his latest episode of podcast Check This Out!, my second installment as Canadian correspondent. I am just in the process of listening to it, so don't have any specific comments about my own performance. I tried to bring more variety and shorter bits this time. Your feedback greatly appreciated!

I'm also interested to note that Jim recorded the opening in an "undisclosed location". He talks about some interesting developments regarding podcasting over at SUNY. As well, he interviews Matt Lubniewski, law student, about his Shady Law podcast available from iTunes as well as his blog site. They have a terrific discussion about the implications of podcasting, as to how it is so wide open for anyone to broadcast now. Key quote: "It reminds me of the Internet ten years ago."

I should also point out the terrific new logo created by Nina Cascio, International Law Librarian at University at Buffalo Law Library.



and take a look at all the cool merchandise with the logo at Cafe Press

Making Law Firm KM Smaller - A Reprise

It's interesting how a message has different meaning to us at different times. When I first read this post by Steve Matthews back in April: Vancouver Law Librarian Blog: Making Law Firm KM Smaller I just found it interesting in a cursory way.

Now I have re-read it, and wonder to myself, "How can I do that?".

What he has suggested is that we must make lawyers feel connected to any content collections we have. One way to do that is to allow them to track the content they find useful. And, I think from his post he is also implying we should be able to see that and use that to guide the use of the collection and future development of it.

Given that I am using InMagic software (DB Textworks and WebPublisher) I wonder what my options to do this are? Wouldn't it be nice for the user to have a flagged area in which they can have a list of books, research memos, websites links, they found most useful? And wouldn't it be nice to have another flagged area showing the communal wisdom on most popular items--papers, memos, websites, books, etc.?

Is this all sounding a little like Amazon to you? Just as I thought our physical libraries could use some inspiration from Starbucks or Chapters/Indigo a while back, I'm now starting to think we need to look at popular online sites for our online inspiration.

Lexis Nexis Wooing Customers Worldwide

Legal information industry blog House of Butter is back up and running (they were on a short hiatus for the month of January). Today they report that Lexis Nexis Australia is working hard to convince their jurisdiction that the new global interface will be suitable for their needs. HOB reports: "Lexis have already flown a select group of Aussie law libs to Dayton ... we presume to lay their minds at rest about the new system/product."

We'll wait for the follow-up report on what they learn.

Michael Stephens on Weblogs & Libraries

I have posted more extensive discussion about the talk by Michael Stephens onto SLAW entitled Weblogs & Libraries - A Talk by Michael Stephens. Take a look, especially for these new phrases (at the bottom of the post):

- biblioblogosphere
- ref grunting
- Technology Evangelist
- wiki whacking

Bills, Blogs and Water

I had a very interesting day yesterday, in many ways. I spent the day as an audience member and really learned a lot:

• at the TALL luncheon, John Gregory, Mariam Leitman and Tamara Kuzykm, all counsel from the Ministry of the Attorney General, spoke about Bill 14, the Access to Justice Act, especially the proposed Legislation Act, 2005 contained in Schedule F which, if passed, will make e-Laws an official source of law in Ontario.



• at University of Toronto's Faculty of Information Studies, I attended a talk by fellow librarian blogger Michael Stephens called "Weblogs & Libraries: Communication, Conversation and the Blog People" which outlined the results from the survey he did of blogging librarians in November for his PhD thesis. (I remember taking that survey!) He was in town as speaker at the OLA Superconference. [Thanks to Ted Tjaden for pointing out this talk on Slaw]



• the movie "Water" by Deepa Mehta. I had not expected the Romeo and Juliet references, nor the heavy influence of Ghandi. It was a very moving film--I recommend it if you have the opportunity to see it.

I hope to talk more about these, either here or elsewhere.

Check This Out! Episode 13

Well, my podcast debut has hit the 'Net! See Check This Out! Episode 13 in which I talk about last week's federal election and Chinese New Year.

I am very pleased with how it turned out. My goofy laugh is a bit too much so I'll try to turn down the jollity in the future. And I was a bit (!) long. Oh well, a couple of things to work on!

Thanks to Jim Milles for the fabulous opportunity, and picking out the groovy indie music by the All Girl Summer Fun Band, a song called "Canadian Boyfriend".

My next interview will probably be in a couple of weeks.

Cheers,
Connie

Check This Out! - A New Canadian Correspondent

I've been admiring Jim Milles' blog and podcasting work as he has been developing new communication ideas. Back in October I was delighted to be a guest host in the Out of the Jungle blog.

Well, this morning was a thrill--I had my first conversation with Jim over the phone, which he recorded for his podcast Check This Out! He has asked me to be a Canadian correspondent every couple of weeks to talk about news in libraries and culture in Canada. This time around I spoke primarily about the Canadian elections. Hopefully I didn't embarrass myself too much, as I'm no political expert! Heh. Jim usually edits his podcasts over the weekend, so expect it to be posted Monday or Tuesday.

Cheers,
Connie

Dove Lane: Grassroots Knowledge Management

In her KM/gaming blog Dove Lane, Kaye Vivian recaps her presentation from the KM World and Intranets 2005 conference Grassroots KM: Learnings from the Front Line. I didn't get a chance to attend this session, so I appreciate her posting her notes.

I like that this is a discussion of starting KM up informally, from the bottom up. Some great, pithy ideas. My favourite quote:

Scale down your grand ambitions and get specific. Don’t try to boil the ocean.

Bonus tag: KMWorld

Irwin Law is Moving on Friday, January 27, 2006

Irwin Law Inc. is moving from Bay and Adelaide to make way for the upcoming Bay Adelaide Centre. Our new address will be:
Suite 206
14 Duncan Street
Toronto, ON M5H 3G8

The closest major intersection is King and University. The move is taking place Friday, January 27th. Phone and fax numbers will remain the same:

Tel: (416) 862-7690
Toll-free U.S. & Canada: 1-888-314-9014
Fax: (416) 862-9236

The address for book returns will also remain the same:

Irwin Law Inc.
c/o JAG Business Services
1675 Sismet Road
Unit 1
Mississauga, ON L4W 4K8

For the notice with map see the news release.

If you haven't signed up for their email list, you can do so from the bottom of their main webpage (the grey bar).

[Jan. 27/06: I had the map included in this post, but it was causing a problem for the blog, so I removed it. - Connie]

Gung Haggis Fat Choy

Back in December I wrote about an exciting website I stumbled upon called Gung Haggis Fat Choy, in which Todd Wong (or "Toddish McWong") of Vancouver, pulls together Chinese and Scottish culture in a uniquely Canadian way.

Well, Sunday night he ran their big event, the Robbie Burns Chinese New Years party, and there are some spectacular photos now posted on the website.

When I first stumbled on this site, I had no idea that Todd Wong works in the Vancouver Public Library. Well, I realize now I had no idea how big an event this party was either! It looks like a lot of fun and perhaps even a little educational to boot.

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Missed Rick Mercer on Election Night?

Rick Mercer was hilarious on election night. If you missed this special edition of the Rick Mercer Report, it is being rebroadcast tomorrow as follows: CBC-TV on Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 7pm (7:30pm Newfoundland).

Tonight they are showing a special "Best Of" edition of the Mercer Report on at 8pm (8:30pm Newfoundland) with all the best clips of last season, including the classic Pierre Berton's How to Roll a Joint (which I missed the first time around).

For those of you outside the CBC viewing range, there are currently clips from the election night show on the website (top right of the page).

Slaw: New Slawyers Lawford, Lines and Acton

Slaw welcomes new contributors John Lawford, Michael Lines, and Heather Acton. See the announcement: New Slawyers Lawford, Lines and Acton.

CLA Member Bulletin - Federal Election Alert Review of Party Platforms

The Canadian Library Association has put together this handy Review of Party Platforms for anyone still trying to who to vote for.

Election Coverage - Canadian Federal Elections - January 2006

Canadian voters are out to the polls today to vote for a new federal government! Here are some links for your amusement:

• Yahoo! Canada Election 2006 coverage



• Google News coverage



• CBC Canada Votes 2006



• CTV 2006 coverage



• Elections Canada Online

Remember, Canadian bloggers cannot post "rolling" election results tonight as the country exists in 5 (or is it 6?) time zones, and the theory is that results too early from part of the country would affect the voting in the rest of the country. This year, however, voting times have been adjusted across the country to reduce this window of "opportunity".

I wonder what our country will look like tomorrow?

Rob Hyndman 2.0 (or is it 3.0?)

Congratulations to technology law expert Rob Hyndman who has recently launched a new web design for his self-named blog, robhyndman.com. The new site gives lots more information, including a tag cloud (to show you which tags are used the most), some side-bar thoughts (here called "Scribbles"), recent comments listed in the *other* side-bar, and, on a separate page, a list of his media references and comments. Have a look--he is getting some pretty good exposure these days.

On Slaw: The Elusive Search for Historical Canadian Stock Trading Prices

I've been thinking about writing about this on Slaw for some time, the challenge Canadian librarians face (in particular law librarians, but likely others as well) with regard to locating historical trade data for Canadian companies.

See my full post: The Elusive Search for Historical Canadian Stock Trading Prices

LLRX - January 2006 Column: Do-It-Yourself Professional Development

New on Sabrina Pacific's LLRX e-zine is my January column called Do-It-Yourself Professional Development. This is Part I of two parts. Part II, slated for February, is my favourite part of the two since it covers interviews I conducted so (for me) is more interesting.

All my articles to date listed here.

Library Book Rate Safe

I also reported this earlier today on Slaw:

There was a rumour going around recently that the special Canada Post rate for mailing library books which some institutions enjoy would soon be discontinued. TALL President Wendy Reynolds has contacted the Canadian Library Association about it. She has confirmed this was just a rumour, that the book rate is continuing.

Moreover, Canada Post, the Canadian Library Association and l'Association pour la science et les techniques de la documentation (ASTED) launched a new tool for shipping library books with the Library Book Rate in late November 2005. Press release.

If you have any questions regarding the Library Book Rate or the Library Books Shipping Tool, contact the Canadian Library Association at lbst@cla.ca.

Welcome Cherniak Readers!

I am somewhat amused at the number of Cherniak on Politics readers heading over to this blog. I am flattered to be listed as one of Jason's friends on his blog. With the election heating up, everyone's looking to find something to squabble over, so they are heading over here to see what political views I espouse. Unfortunately you won't find a lot in the way of overt political discussion here. But, nevertheless, I hope you find something of interest!

Here, I will give you one little political tidbit: I live in Jack O'Layton Land. Which means I either support the guy who is going to get in anyway, or put in a protest vote. Maybe I'll check out what the Green Party has to say....

Anyway, I should mention Jason is also one of the pundits blogging coverage of the election for CTV.

Don't forget to exercise your right to vote! Advance polls are open tomorrow, Saturday, and Monday noon to 8 pm your local time for your voting convenience. No line-ups!

Think!

In answer to beststelling author Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink!, there is a new book coming out later this month called
Think! by Michael R. LeGault. From the Book Description on Amazon.ca:

This isn't the time to Blink.

It's time to

THINK!

-- before it's too late.

Outraged by the downward spiral of American intellect and culture, Michael R. LeGault offers the flip side of Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling phenomenon, Blink, which theorized that our best decision-making is done on impulse, without factual knowledge or critical analysis. If bestselling books are advising us to not think, LeGault argues, it comes as no surprise that sharp, incisive reasoning has become a lost art in the daily life of Americans. Somewhere along the line, the Age of Reason morphed into the Age of Emotion; this systemic erosion is costing time, money, jobs, and lives in the twenty-first century, leading to less fulfillment and growing dysfunction

Canadian Law Blogs List - Is It Growing?

I was just working with the Canadian Law Blogs List maintained by Steve Matthews on the Vancouver Law Librarian Blog. Is it my imagination, or is this list growing by leaps and bounds? I love the niche practice groups who have come forward as bloggers, and many doing a very professional job of it.

Thanks for keeping this current for us, Steve! Perhaps when you update it, you can somehow mark it on the posting, such as "Last updated on __" or the like?

Cheers,
Connie

Winterlicious Returns to Toronto - Jan. 27 - Feb. 9, 2006

Torontonians like to try out some of our best restaurants during Winterlicious, this year January 27 to February 9. See the Winterlicious home page. Click on "List of Participating Restaurants" at bottom of this page to get to most of the good stuff.

Prix fixee lunches - most $20; prix fixee dinners - most $35. Many of the upscale Toronto restaurants. Reservations taken starting January 12 unless you have Amex which gives you Front of the Line, you lucky devils. 8-)

This is the "big sister" to the summer's Summerlicious event.

Inforumed - The FIS Inforum Blog: Field report from Mexico

University of Toronto Faculty of Information Studies (FIS) student Stanislav Orlov was recently on library tours in Mexico and has shared his experiences in two postings at the FIS blog Inforumed:

Field report from Mexico (December 1, 2005) and
Field report from Mexico 2 (December 4, 2005)

The Well-Organized Enterprise - Search Engine Industry Overview

Here's an excellent recent article giving an overview of enterprise search engines from IT Architect: Well-Organized Enterprise: Google-style searching has become an addiction for many Internet surfers. But does it belong in the enterprise, or are other alternatives more suitable? by Penny Lunt Crosman(January 1, 2006).

Increasing Online Service Usage

From Factiva's InfoPro Alliance newsletter, here are some tips on increasing usage of Factiva, many of which can be applied to increase usage of other online services as well: Skill Builder: How do you achieve over 80% password utilization? Put an InfoPro in Charge!

It is interesting to note we've now been cut off from our Factiva account, and yet I'm still receiving the promotional bumph. Ah well, will glean what I can from it.

Sorry! Can't Talk! I'm Too Busy Reading Your Blog

Jumping around to various colleagues' blogs, seeing what they are doing, I realized this is slowly starting to replace my need to actually talk to them just to chat and see what they are up to. After all, hasn't this given me an intimate look into the details of some of their comings and goings? It's bad enough that email has replaced my need to call people. Gee, my mother hates that I've replaced calling her to some extent with emailing my father.

Oh, where is this leading? I think I need to take care not to give away too many details of my personal life here, or no one will ever invite me to lunch or call me up again! Heh.

U.S. Law Research Resources from Westlaw

I was just checking out TWEN (The Westlaw Education Network) and came across this page of U.S. law research resources which looks helpful.

The Legal Research Basics page has the following:

Interactive Map of the Federal Court System Our interactive Federal Court map allows you to click on a state and see the complete federal judiciary for that state, including organization and judges.

Map of the National Reporter System
Go to the National Reporter System map and see exactly where your state falls in the NRS.

Legal Research Pyramid
The Legal Research Pyramid is an interactive tool to help you research more efficiently

Glossary
The Glossary allows you to view definitions of common legal terms.

Description of the "Primary Research" section:

Primary research is the "law of the land" that is created by case, statutory, and regulatory law.

Finding Case Law
Finding Case Law explains what a case is and how West enhances the case for more efficient and effective research.

Finding Statutes
Statutory Research explains what a statute is, how and where to find statutes, and how to interpret statutes.


American Documents
American Documents includes tips on finding and searching the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and other important American documents.

Citation Research
Citation Research describes KeyCite, the most current, accurate, comprehensive, and easy to use citator service. KeyCite is a Westlaw exclusive.

West's Topic and Key Number System
West's Topic and Key Number System is the premier index and outline of American case law. Key Numbers allow you to move from case to case with similar issues in any West National Reporter.

In additions, there are sections on "Basic Search Strategies", "Secondary Research" and "Topical Research", mostly concerning ways to search Westlaw.

Thomson to Acquire Quantitative Analytics, Inc.

Yesterday Thomson Corporation, owner of Carswell, Westlaw and others, announced it has signed an agreement to acquire Quantitative Analytics, Inc. QAI provides financial database integration and analysis solutions for data such as that which Thomson compiles. See the Thomson press release:
Thomson to Acquire Quantitative Analytics, Inc.

From yesterday's Toronto Star website (from Canadian Press): Thomson buys financial analysis firm

Wall Street Journal's New Law Offerings

The Wall Street Journal has a new Law Blog, part of the slate of its new law offerings. From the blog:

WSJ.com's law blog focuses on law and business, and the business of law. Peter Lattman is the lead writer. Peter joined The Wall Street Journal Online from Forbes Magazine. Before becoming a journalist, Peter worked on Wall Street and as a litigator at a New York law firm. The blog also includes contributions from reporters and editors at The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires.

Thus far the blog has a number of postings over the last couple of days, but the focus isn't there yet. No doubt Lattman is just getting his blogging feet wet...

The link is courtesy of Sabrina Pacifici's blog beSpacific . Other WSJ law offerings include a Law Page with links to various resources, and a new column called FLaw on law firm management. The WSJ Law Blog appears to be publicly available; the other content available by subscription. I have only had a look at the Law Blog myself.

CALL/ACBD 2006 - "Cool Things" Session - Call for Presenters

Today Josette McEachern sent out a renewed call for presenters, both live presentations and poster presentations for the "Cool Things I am Doing in my Law Library" session to be held at the upcoming CALL/ACBD conference in May. See her notice posted at: Canadian Association of Law Libraries - 2006 Annual Conference. They are in need of more presenters to make this session fly!

CALL/ACBD members: let's keep this tradition going!

Last year I had a lot of fun putting together both types of presentations about my blog. Anyone who would like tips on putting together a poster presentation, do ask me.

Here are some ideas I posted today to the CALL-L email list which might trigger some great ideas for presentations:

- student / lawyer / professor training
- marketing library services
- team-building ideas for library staff
- library contributions to intranets
- negotiating vendor contracts
- alternatives to the usual library newsletter
- use of RSS feeds
- "cool" knowledge management ideas
- internal use of blogs or wikis

I look forward to seeing what people come up with.

Cheers,
Connie

Biz360 & Feedster Launch Competitive Intelligence Tool "BlogView"

Feedster, my favourite feed reader, and Biz 360, a company that creates market intelligence solutions, are joining together to create a tool to be used to search through blogs and wikis to compile CI. Feedster will provide the access to the various feeds, and Biz 360 will provide the analysis aspect. Supposedly their new tool, "BlogView", will allow one to clear away all the replicated postings (especially from "splogs") and access the main postings from content-rich blogs. Primary users will be marketing departments and communication professionals.

See the press release: Biz360 Launches BlogView

Youth Show Important Leadership in Speaking Out Against Violence

Shootings in Toronto this year have increased significantly, and it seems no one really has a solution. Politicians all talk about how they will "do something" to put an end to illegal guns on the street, but it turns into a political campaign point and there is little they really do or perhaps can do.

This week a senseless "shoot out" took place on a crowded downtown street as shoppers were attending Boxing Day sales. I have been amongst them on that same city block in past years, so this one really hit home, so to speak. A 15 year old girl was killed, and several more people injured.

The one group who have, in my estimation, really stood out during this tragic time are a group of youth who stepped forward by holding a press conference and speaking out against violence. They are courageous young people, showing true leadership and making a whole lot more sense in their suggestions for a solution than many of the politicians. Moreover, I think we cannot put an end to all of this until the youth of the city embrace the need for change and make their peers see the need for change, so their stepping forward is extremely important. I applaud them in their bold actions.

Here are some related items from Tuesday, December 27, 2005 to check out:

CTV News article: Youth group demands anti-violence action

Video: CTV Newsnet Live - Toronto youth issue 'plea for peace' (9:59 min)

Video: CTV Newsnet Live - Youth leaders take questions (7:41 min)

Toronto Star Removes Registration From Website thestar.com

I saw reference in another article that the Toronto Star had recently removed registration from its website, the start of a new trend that is good news for readers and encourages bloggers to link to articles. I managed to hunt down this December 13, 2005 article: Toronto Star removes registration from thestar.com.

If you haven't looked at thestar.com lately, you should. They have added links to blogs by columnists, a "podcast" section where some of their writers post one-off audio segments, they have RSS feeds for various types of news including headlines, and you can also register for alerts (probably the same as the RSS feeds, for those not yet using them).

They've got the right idea. I wish the Globe and Mail and National Post would follow suit with making articles more accessible! I have long felt requiring registration has alienated readers and discouraged people from citing their publications.

Happy Holidays!!!

Canadian Law Blogs List

If you haven't seen it yet, do check out the Canadian Law Blogs List by Steve Matthews (Vancouver Law Librarian Blog). As far as I know, this is a definitive list. If you know of any other blogs that should be included, pass along the info to Steve (or, in a pinch, to me).

It's one of those things I wish I had thought of doing. Steve has received some well-deserved accolades for the compilation.

Connie Crosby's New LLRX Column: The Tao of Law Librarianship

I am excited to announce my new column on LLRX, the electronic magazine on "Law and technology resources for legal professionals" created, edited and distributed by the inimitable Sabrina Pacifici. I've gone with the column title "The Tao of Law Librarianship" and this first article is called "Invite Your Librarian to a Client Event". More on the column title in a future post. 8-)

Thanks to Clare Lyons, Ines Freeman, Lenie Ott and Mary Saulig for allowing me to use their comments and names in this first article!

If you have ideas you would be interested in seeing me explore in future columns, please do pass them along. And of course I look forward to any comments about what I've written.

Cheers,
Connie

Celebrating Scottish Canadian and Chinese Canadian Culture and Politics

I was researching city counsellor blogs and came across this very, very interesting blog out of Vancouver:

GungHaggisFatChoy celebrating the intersection of Scottish Canadian and Chinese Canadian cultures. Notably, it is home of the upcoming Gung Haggis Fat Choy: Toddish McWong's Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner (being held Sunday January 22, 2006) and the Gung Haggis Fat Choy dragon boat team.

The blog covers a range of local cultural and political events and issues. Lots on local issues surrounding the upcoming federal election. I bring it to your attention because it shows how a blog can create a real synergy between subject matters to create a bold, exuberant energy.

I can only imagine what their January 22nd celebration will be like, falling the night before the Canadian federal election!

Now Blogging! Wendy Reynolds @ KM Librarian

Wendy Reynolds, one of my fellow members on the executive committee of the Toronto Association of Law Libraries (TALL) has taken the bold step of setting up her own blog, called KM Librarian. She has a new position at the OSC, doing KM, and is now blogging about her evolution from librarian to Information Manager.

Congratulations on all counts, Wendy! I look forward to reading about your excellent adventures.

Got My Big Hair On, and I'm Ready to Party!

A big tradition in Toronto law firms is to hold big, fancy parties at year end called the "Season Party" or "Festive Party". Much money is spent on food, wine, venues, and glamourous outfits (at least, for the women). This year I opted for something relaxed-but-dressy already in my closet, but spent a little time on my hair, fingers and toes (yes, I've opted for open toe shoes).

I came back to the office from lunch and had a lot of amusing smiles. I'm in jeans and a sweater, but I have the big "whoop-de-do!" party hair. My hairdresser Roland really out-did himself--it's all flippy and fun. It will be difficult not to have a good time with this hair. If this goes well, perhaps next year I will splurge on someone to do the makeup. One of these days I really will be the "complete package"! 8-)

Cheers,
Connie

CTV.ca - Election 2006 - Community Blogs

CTV has a number of bloggers talking about the election campaign over at CTV.ca - Election 2006 - Community Blog. My favourite articling student blogger, Jason Cherniak, is one of the invited bloggers espousing the Liberal view. See Cherniak on CTV.

Canadian Association of Law Libraries - 2006 Annual Conference

2006 CALL/ACBD Annual Conference - the website is now up! I am just checking out the draft program (looks great!). Hotel rooms are now available for booking, plus they have made space for a conference blog. Can't wait!

Cheers,
Connie

Project Gutenberg Fears No Google

Wall Street Journal has this free feature: Project Gutenberg Fears No Google (December 10, 2005), an interview with Michael Hart who created Project Gutenberg, a book digitization project that was started in 1971. Thanks to beSpacific.com for the tip.

Law Via the Internet 2005

Law Via the Internet 2005, a Pacific Rim/Australian conference, was held November 17 to 19, 2005 in Vanuatu. A number of speakers from Canada took part including Janine Miller, Karl Charbonneau, Marc-Andre Morissette, Daniel Poulin, Eric Pare, Ivan Mokanov and Pierre-Paul Lemyre. Jim Milles of the University of Buffalo Law School was also a speaker.

Currently there is just pre-conference information on the website plus the final programme (although it is still listed as "draft programme", it is the final one).

It would be nice if they could post some of the papers or presentations that came out of this! Papers from past years of this conference reside in this AustLII database so presumably they will eventually be added here.

Going Mobile - FP Infomart Mobile Review

Today on Slaw I review the new service from CanWest, FP Infomart Mobile. See my post Going Mobile for the full review.

Jeff's KM blog: Notes from KM World 05

Some nice key ideas and quotes from various speakers: Jeff's KM blog: Notes from KM World 05.

This particularly captured my imagination:

Watching vs. searching/RSS readers (Darlene Fichter) – The new trend will to get notification of information sent to you as it is being produced. RSS readers get information that’s coming out now vs. Google searches that historical content.

Rather than telling lawyers and articling students that we are going to show them how to use RSS, we should tell them we are going to show them how to monitor what is being added to the web as soon as it is posted so they can have the latest information before anyone else. A sexier spin, n'est-ce pas?

KM: Looking for a Name

Kaye Vivian in her blog Dove Lane wrote the thoughtful post KM: Looking for a Name as an overview of her impressions from KM World. She observes that the underlying theme seemed to be "KM is dead, long live KM" and she argues that the industry needs a new name to carry it forward.

Twenty-Five Years Later : We Still Need to Give Peace a Chance

Twenty-five years have gone by since the death of John Lennon. It is hard to believe, and yet so much has happened since then in the world. I wonder what he would think of us now? I was a teenager at the time of his death. While the Beatles were the voice of the generation that came before mine, my generation still very much idolized John, Paul, George and Ringo. John Lennon was more than just a musician--he was a leader, trying to lead us all to peace. His murder was therefore especially poignant. It has, however, raised him to mythical status in a way that has affected the hearts and minds of many people in our culture. A chill runs down my spine every time I visit Strawberry Fields, a spot in New York City's Central Park dedicated to his memory. Definitely a place for quiet contemplation and communing with humanity.

KM World and Intranets 2005: Cool Tools for Collaborative Teams (Panel)

KM World and Intranets 2005
Cool Tools for Collaborative Teams
Panel discussion
Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Connie's note: I thought all speakers were very interesting, but Bob Pierce's talk was exceptional. It is worth reading down to the bottom in these notes!


Panelists:

Whitney M. Tidmarsh, VP, Solutions Marketing, EMC Software
Tim Kapp, Principal, BayHill Group
Stacey Johnson, President, Zen Consulting
Bob Pierce, Interwise


Whitney M. Tidmarsh, VP, Solutions Marketing, EMC Software
Bausch & Lomb case study

Business problem for new product development:
- global teams without global tools
- lack of information accessibility
- no accountability
- missing project timelines
- no standardization in development process

New product development process:
- collaborative tools were key, but also needed secure environment as well

Requirements:
- 15+ people
- Many meetings, travel
- Many shared documents via email

With eRoom
- substantial ROI
- cut down on meetings – cut 1 meeting per week x 15 people X $150/hr x 4 weeks = huge saving per month
- = $76 K
- = $1 million of opportunity revenue

Tim Kapp, Partners and Co-founder http://www.bayhillgroup.com/index.html
tkapp@bayhillgroup.com

Management consultants, working to turn around companies

Why do collaboration tools fail? He has tried many tools in the marketplace, and many have failed.

Case study: Intercontinental Hotels (then known as Six Continental chain)
- after 9/11 lost revenues
- chain faced de-merger from its parent company.
- Threat of hostile takeover

Challenge:
- 20 distributed and mobile consultants
- 80 senior executives
- 8 teams on four continents
- Email-dependent organization
- 1 traditional document management tool
o Web-based
o 2 days train-the-trainer sessions for all consultants
o Strict compliance rules

Problems
- team created 3000 distinct documents in 6 months
o wasted money
o wasted time
o expensive risk mitigation
o high cost of coordination
- things spiraled out of control; people stopped using and went back to their original solution (email)
- full adoption was a pipe dream
- if you have 90% people adopting a product, you may have as little as 12% success – if an influential person drops out of the system, others will use it less, system drops down in usefulness (a cycle of failure). In this case the system failed in only 7 days.

Critical success factors
- has to be easy to use
- control duplication and silo effect
- support disconnected users
- don’t change the user’s behaviour
- embrace non-adopters:
o “round trip” documents – send it out to non-users, and have it come back again
o Allow participation purely by email

NextPage 2: document collaboration service

- ties together all document-based collaboration
- brings awareness to ad-hoc users
- provides real-time view of document status
- works on and offline
- doesn’t require an IT infrastructure
- has a version map that shows what has happened to various versions of a document (cool) – lawyers really like this to see who has changed things in their documents

NextPage 2 in Action with BayHill Group

- Small public company acquiring a private company
- 2 consultants
- 3 law firms
- 50+ supporting documents and presentions
- Result is 300 page SEC filing

How does NextPage benefit them?
- full participation without full adoption
- no more time spent “untangling” document versions
- familiar with their own tools (email)
- no more training users or setting up servesr
- can work anywhere, online or offline


Stacey Johnson, President, Zen Consulting Stacey@zen-consulting.com

[Presentation slides posted on the conference wiki - 8 pages PDF]

Boutique consultancy specializing in efficient custom solutions.

Case study
- global handset manufacturer based in Finland [can you guess who this might be?]
- new organization created
- worldwide (virtual)
- clean slate, nothing to go by
- software developers, so everything published was very technical; very specific audience
- 3 months to develop new website
- Reduce errors, speed up the time the content was published
- Hire a global team representative of the target audience to test final website

Focus on functionality - Collaboration solution must allow for:
- centralized document management
- workflow automation – wanted a calendar showing project
- automated reporting
- template & tool library
- real-time chat, document sharing, and knowledge sharing

Best practices
- presence management – someone available to them 24 hours a day
- security – key that content was secure, not available to competitors
- integration of key tools and functions
- buy-in methods – found unique ways to collaborate with other teams that weren’t happy with their involvement – some process diagrams showing how content authors got bigger bonuses the more they collaborated
- change management
- automation – make changes based on the system

Lessons learned – factors to consider
(full 90-minute presentation is posted on the conference wiki)
1. How will success be measured?
2. how will team members interact?
3. how will interaction occur?
4. where will team members be located?
5. how will the team access the virtual environment?
6. what existing systems will support virtual teams?
7. how will individuals be held accountable?
8. what tools are already in place to support day-to-day tasks?
9. how will projects be executed?
10. what will be done to support the culture change?


Bob Pierce, Director, Product Marketing, Interwise – bpierce@interwise.com


Introducting enterwise-wide conferencing

Cool trends in live collaboration
- moving from usage-based service to enterprise application, like email
- shifts from events-centred model of collaboration to user-centred model
- go behind the firewall for unmatched security
- increasing embrace of VoIP for audio, levering converged IP networks
- fixed price, unlimited use models
o set conferencing free
o cuts cost in half while increasing adoption
- “externalization” of collaboration
o Outsourcers, regulators, customers, partners, consortia
- Meetings as content
o Record, transcribe, manage

Case study: UK Dept. of Trade Industry (DTI) & their development of “Knowledge Transfer Networks”
- development of knowledge exchange to increase innovation performance
- create virtual environment to find partners, leverage investors, etc.
- lots of different networking groups need to come together to make this work, exchange complex information and ideas
- 1000 companies participating in just this network

What did they create and how did they do it?
- portal, personalized to your interest
- a number of tools: Vignette, Autonomy, Vivissimo, Stratagem (sp?), Interwise
- place to share documents
- once the meeting is over, process the recording of the meeting using Autonomy turning speech into text that is a searchable archive
o allows you to jump into the text at the point where the piece of info you want is being discussed, and to listen to that part of the meeting (cool!)
o runs in almost real time – transcribing may happen in 64 minutes; or send in batches during the meeting so that it is almost simultaneous, so that it is ready at the end of the meeting.

What’s Cool
- new level of collaboration on a massive scale
- collaboration on everyone’s desktop at a unique address
- real interaction around complex problems, not just PowerPoint
- no more scrambling to find event ID
- no more per-minute charges
- record meetings and make them searchable
o jump information of interest to you
o turns it into a persistent knowledge asset
- cutting conference and collaboration costs in half


Q & A - All Panelists

No one mentioned Sharepoint. Is Sharepoint “not cool” as a collaborative tool?
- more of a toolkit than an out-of-box collaborative tool. That may change; mostly “for the masses” rather than for businesses.

Is Groove cool?
- Groove was cool. Cool graphics, but doesn’t fit in to the way people are doing business. When the novelty factor wore off, people went back to their previous solutions.
- Works best for one big project, not for a number of smaller projects. Creates a lot of icons on the desktop.

Governance?
- too important to leave just to the software; however, technology can really show who has touched what and track changes
- critical; leave it to corporate policy

Blogs and wikis here to stay, or just a flash in the pan?
- blogs definitely here to stay;
- a return to pre-1950s type of marketing when people built real relationships rather than broadcast marketing
- Google using wikis extensively internally
- Blogs and wikis a natural evolution for people to work together; will probably see a continuing evolution
- Key thing for change management to use these types of systems to allow everyone to participate and give their opinions, especially at lower levels
- Asynchronous; can take output of meeting and put it into a blog or wiki and allow it to be searched by others later – new thing that is coming

Knowledge sharing cultures - Intel slide

Knowledge sharing cultures - Intel slide, originally uploaded by ConnieC.

Screen shot: results of Intel survey re: obstacles to KM participation charted by job function.

Okay, I really just took this shot because of the attractive colours. 8-)

KM World and Intranets 2005: Creating a Knowledge-Sharing Culture

KM World and Intranets 2005
Creating a Knowledge-Sharing Culture

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Panelists:
John Gillies, Knowledge Manager, McCarthy Tetrault, Toronto
Luke Koons, Information & KM, Intel
Lisa Sokol, Technical Director, KM, General Dynamics

John Gillies, Knowledge Manager, McCarthy Tetrault, Toronto

Presentation notes by John S. Gillies - 9 pages PDF, including extensive bibliography and web links

750 lawyers, 8 offices; largest law firm in Canada.

He gave a profile as to how a Canadian law firm is structured, corporate culture, and persona of average lawyer. Notably:
- aging experts
- associates – high attrition rate

Barriers most likely to encounter before KM project "birth":
- lawyers tend to be visual learners; they need to see something in order to understand it; good to provide prototypes for them to look at
- risk aversion
- dominant importance of the billable hour. This is a real roadblock since the billable hour is the primary focus; something like KM is non-billable time and is outside of their focus
- disincentives to using “efficiency tools” as a result – would rather draft something from scratch for 10 hours instead of pulling from KM system and using in 2 hours [need to create an alternative reward system for using KM]
- tend to work in “silos”

Barriers most likely to encounter after "birth":
- need to restructure ways of practice – teams that did not work together before may be working together
- focus on questions that previously did not require resolution
- unrealistic expectations

Questions a law firm needs to answer:
- How do you reward lawyers for using the KM system?
- How do you bill back clients for work that took you 3 minutes? Or that varies from one practice group to another


Barriers likely to be encountered throughout the lifecycle:
- different law practiced in different groups = different needs
- personal insecurity re: having the quality of one’s work product judged by peers
- fear of drop-off in internal referrals
- different knowledge tools are needed for lawyers for different levels of expertise
- ... [I missed a point or two]

Landscape changes – need to adapt to changing paths

From Q & A:

- How do you get lawyers to participate in the KM system?
o They have 7 lawyers dedicated to KM across the firm; they actively go out and interview the partners to obtain their content after they have created it. Associates are sent messages to send out info.

- Any controls looking at quality of content?
o No. That would mean another layer of expertise. They rely on the contributors to ensure the content is correct and complete.

- Rewards given for using and contributing to KM?
o No specific rewards, but it is now affecting associates’ evaluations.


Luke Koons, Director, Information & KM, Intel Corporation (this was his previous title; he has been promoted)

Intel environment:
- more than 124,000 employees & contractors
- 294 intel sites in 70 countries
- 26 intel data centres
- Supply chain management
- Cultural factors
o Intel 2.0: high volume manufacturing, results orientation, meritocracy, business group autonomy)
o Intel 2.0 ended last year
o Intel 3.0: platforms, cross-production collaboration, knowledge sharing, end users
- Their KM initiative started in Intel 2.0, has to adapt to 3.0

Things are changing in Intel 3.0:
- try to optimize things (i.e. optimize their end product the way clients are actually using them)
- groups that didn’t have to collaborate before now need to work with each other
- focus on end users

Fitting KM into existing corporate strategy is how they are focusing, rather than changing the culture

What is the primary barrier to sharing knowledge?
- see his tables – broken down by age group of users; by job function
- people not rewarded for sharing knowledge
- don’t have the right KM tools
- don’t have the right KM processes in place
- people are not rewarded for using best known methods (BKMs)
- existing KM tools are too complicated

Lessons and Opportunities
- management practices that reflect the corporate culture are vital for effective KM sharing
- find ways to lower the “cost” of adopting and using KM tools. E.g.
o dynamic expertise profiling
o user-centred design and embedded training
o intergrated tools
o federated search – needs simple interface
o segment customer base and learn what they want through “grass roots” observation

From Q & A:

- How do you protect your content?
o It is a concern. Early ideas may not be protected in their system, but security is applied at a later stage.

- Rewards given for using the KM system?
o Reduces the hassle factor.

Lisa Sokol, Glenn Yeaw & Stephen Sickels – General Dynamics

Speaker: Lisa Sokol, Technical Director, KM, General Dynamics,
Lisa.Sokol@gd.ais.com

Customers – U.S. military

Do not use KM for everything – there has to be a reason

Most successful at creating a sharing culture is when people don’t sit together; difficult for them to connect otherwise.

A great collaboration system requires these stages:
- Define
- Design
- Integrate
- Adopt
- Sustain

How do you get there?
- Buying the right tools DOES NOT guarantee success
- Buying the wrong tools MAY guarantee failure
- Your organization must support collaboration

Challenges associated with virtual collaboration:
- cultural – who owns data? Who owns knowledge?
- Managerial – moving to a flatter, distributed organization
- …

Used technology to allow people to create their own parts of the KM system from a larger model; allow people to “vote” as to which parts they like or don’t like. They can use this to determine which are the best parts of the model.

From Q & A:

- How do you control versions of models?
o Each person has control over his/her own versions of the models
o On Windows system.

- Rewards given for using KM?:
o Used to take 2 days to get someone injured out of Iraq; now it takes 2 hours using their KM system.

Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (2005) [OCLC Report]

Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources (2005) [OCLC - OCLC Reports]

I haven't had a look at this report yet, but it does not bode well for libraries. I need to take a closer look at it to see whether it is talking specifically about public libraries, or generally about all libraries. From what I hear, it is apparent most people are ignoring library websites and starting their searches directly on the web (i.e. Google). The "Library" brand is connected primarily with books, not electronic information or websites.

Here is a "what if" question: what if we knew what types of search terms our people are searching with and, using SEO, we planted our own web pages in the search results so they would come up? This idea was suggested to me by someone else--if we have our own articles or blog postings that consistently come up when those people are searching, perhaps they would realize we are the experts and contact us directly? Another reason to blog....