Web-Tones

Google Office

As the Future Lawyer notes here Google has begun its assault on the Microsoft Office monopoly, although they are down playing the obvious head on competition. I don't think anyone is really fooled. Google's strategy is to erode Microsoft's MS Office monopoly power a little at a time. Their offering will quickly mature into a robust offering for small to medium size companies and startups. It will leverage the momentum building around Web 2.0 and might grow even faster if it makes it easy for developers to build add-ons and mashups. The "everything on the cloud" computing strategy is nascent but inevitable. That said, Microsoft sees the writing on the wall and will respond with a vengeance. Let the game begin!

Innovation Strategy: Think, Play, Do

Think, Play, Do captures an interesting approach to innovating. But I haven't read the book yet so this is not necessarily an endorsement but it does seem to capture the essence of what I wanted to say and the review on Amazon seems like it is on point.

I have been recently exploring/troubleshooting the VOIP services of Skype (www.skype.com) and after some frustration with the service I decided that it was time for serious play. So my partner and soulmate (aka WebGoddess) and I setup a SkypeCast and started "fooling around." We were joined in our SkypeCast, through pure serendipity, by someone from Belgium and someone from Tulsa.

We were all exploring/testing the service and spent about an hour troubleshooting and discussing various issues. The WebGoddess resolved an echo problem related to 1 open mic (mine) that was causing echo feedback for all other callers. We also jointly figured our how to setup a private conference.

The point is that when we want to climb a learning curve often the best thing to do is "play"...this is probably one of the principal reasons that inventors are often tinkerers. Serious work often gets done while when we drop all pretenses of being "smart" and allow our curiosity to guide us.

It is the little things...

As always the Future Lawyer is finding tools that improve his law practice and yours. If you ever have spent a frustratingly long time searching for an app you will appreciate this tip.

Law Tech, BS Free Zone

The Future Lawyer, Rick "Saint" Georges and the law tech policy wonk (yours truly) will be hosting another Law Tech BS free SkypeCast on Friday 12:00 EST. You can download the Skype client here. It is a free one time painless install. Be sure to check out all the other "cool" things you can do with Skype once you have the client installed.

To participate in the conference go here. You will need to login to your Skype account before you can join the SkypeCast. Your account is setup when you install the client (userid & password is required for login). In the top right hand column you will see a heading "Find a SkypeCast". Click on "Starting soon" or type in FutureLawyer (all one word) in the search box. You will will see a link that says "Conversation with the FutureLawyer" click "Join this SkypeCast" and you're in.

You can also go to Rick's Blog scroll down the right hand column and look for the SkypeCast "box" and click on "Conversations with the FutureLawyer." However, I had trouble getting in this way. I get a browser window that "hangs" and that is the reason for the alternate instructions above.

Trust, Seth Says That is All You Need

Seth Godin says that Trust is the Only Piece of Advice You Need to Sell. This might be a bit of an oversimplification but not far from the mark. Just like the parables of a certain Jewish carpenter, the most relevant "memes" are simple to understand and difficult to execute!

Follow the link above to a free eBook and quality insights from some of the best in the business of marketing professional services. The reading is easy and there are some powerful ideas. Besides you can't beat the price!

Mom's Cell Phone & the Universal Luddite

My Mom, bless her heart, was brought kicking & screaming into the 21st century. She has often railed against gadgets, gizmos, controllers and other complex, but useful devices that we find indispensable in a post post modern world (whatever that means, it just sounds cool when people say it). She survived Katrina but not without the trials and tribulations associated with being rescued from the rising water. Her world, like many others, was turned upside down. In addition to losing her house and worldly possessions, she lost her ability to effectively communicate with friends and family since the cell phone was one of those infernal contraptions she eschewed.

Luddite no more, she now confidently wields her cell phone and is happy to have it. The initial learning curve and fear and trepidation of dealing with a new device is over. She has not yet mastered the built in rolodex, but in time this wall will be climbed. She has proved to herself that can learn to use these gadgets because they are useful to her. In many ways her fears were similar to executives that initially refused to use email & now wield Treos and Blackberry's.

Truth be known there is a Luddite in all of us. Every time we face learning a new technology, we initially resist. We are comfortable with the status quo (our PC's or Mac's or Ipods or whatever) and fear and loathe the initial wall, until necessity or a friend help us over it.

Bookmarking Yes-Social Bookmarking, Yeah Maybe

I finally broke down and got a del.icio.us account and started collecting
"important" bookmarks. I am writing a paper: "Search, Knowledge Management & the Practice of Law" & it occurred to me that my bookmarks were a kind of research trail, one I didn't want to lose next time (not when) my (new) laptop crashed. My primary motivation was the ability to have bookmarks available 24/7 from any computing device I happened to be using & I wanted to Katrina proof them (i.e. same reason I am moving to Gmail from Outlook Express). Although I am fairly diligent about backups, IE favorites & Outlook Express files never seem to get the attention that they deserve. Del.icio.us & Gmail solve this problem permanently in addition to providing anywhere/anytime access. I will, in the not to distant future, rent space "somewhere in the cloud" & virtually all my backups will reside there--everything from personal work product to digital mementos. It is time to focus, with a vengeance, on using enabling technologies instead of wasting precious cycles playing systems administrator, something that I am happy to outsource to the pros.

Now the "social" part of this, the ability to share bookmarks, while not my primary "driver" is certainly a "nice to have". I can definitely see the utility of sharing bookmarks with like minded knowledge mongers, especially if it requires little or no effort to do so.

Related Tags: del.icio.us, social bookmarking

Honesty: The Next Killer App

Stand for something and communicate it effectively. These are the cornerstones of the Internet's next killer app as succinctly and brilliantly (I think) articulated by JP Rangaswami in his piece Building Society for the 21 Century (via the good doctor Searls). Enabling Web 2.0 technologies can help with the second part but you are on your own for part one.

Honesty, integrity and collaborative value creation (with partners & clients) are so refreshingly & uniquely novel (brand you as Tom Peters would say) as to be a compelling market differentiator. Authenticity is the key because there is just know way to fake the real deal.