Web-Tones

Cyberlaw: Copyright is the 800 Pound Gorilla

Link: Google, Microsoft-backed group ready to Defend Fair Use. What is cyberlaw? That is not an easy question to answer because it touches so many areas of the law including: contract, torts, First Amendment (i.e. con law), trademark, patents, domain disputes, spamming, and the list goes on. But the 800 pound gorilla is copyright law. Much has been written about the "copyright wars" and the battles continue to rage between big media incumbents (movies, music, news,etc.) on the one hand and the new kids on the block (Google, Microsoft, et. al) on the other, AND everybody else (i.e. you and me) thrown into the mix as well.

Here the new kids on the block appear to be taking a populist stand in order, no doubt, to serve their own self interest, but nonetheless this might be the best hope for the rest of us to get the benefits of Fair Use that we are entitled to. The doctrine is well established, but strong arm tactics and litigation costs have blunted its practical application.

Game on!

Legal Practice Niches & The Long Tail

Link: Legal Business Development: How to define your niche. Good post here about practice niches. Given the long tail  of Internet search, it would seem that more and more profitable niches will emerge in the legal ecosystem than perhaps was once thought possible--however, attorneys still face the daunting challenge of getting the word out and will, of necessity, have to become fluent in search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. While this may sound like super high tech "stuff," and there is a learning curve to be sure, it is well within the reach of anyone willing to put in the time. Lots of great resources on the net and here is one of the better ones SEOmoz.

Feed the Network & the Network Feeds You

Link: The Digestion Phase: How We Got Here And Where We Are Going Next. I like this metaphor of the "digestion phase." We are regrouping and the next wave is coming just as surely as night follows day. Although it may be possible that we head the other way, another bubble and another implosion, however these are just bumps in the road. Call me an eternal optimist (and the alternative is?). The status quo will be disrupted, followed by a new status quo, followed by more disruption. This march is inexorable. It always has been. The only difference now is that the rate of change is happening much faster that it has in the past--stay tuned because the change is happening on the wires, and this medium will swallow everything that has come before it.

Whence the law in all of this? Depends on what you mean by "the law." The law will try to keep up, but it will always lag--it always has, maybe now more than ever since the rate of change is accelerating.  The practice of law is likely to be impacted much more than "the law," and significantly sooner than one might expect. The "long tail" will rule as the network serves up economically viable niches for those willing to explore and nurture them. The wires represent the new evolving economic ecosystem. Many ships have already set sail, stand on the shores at your own risk.

Law Firm KM Paradox

Link: Strategic Legal Technology :: Knowledge Management and Social Tagging and Bookmarking. This article "points to" technologies that may, or may not, be useful for law firm KM initiatives, but it does highlight the paradox that is law firm KM. Lawyers use (and create) knowledge on a daily basis yet many law firm KM databases are "knowledge landfills." They either contain "garbage" or not very much at all.

Why is that? Because there is something so conceptually formal about how KM is presented that it appears to be too much work to create useful "content." However, out of all the resources that we use on the Internet, some subset of that represents useful content--and it is content what we need not create but simply link to. Here the "content creation process" resembles something more akin to aggregating knowledge, perhaps adding our own "secret sauce" as opposed to re-inventing the proverbial wheel from scratch. Useful knowledge bases can be built this way in short order with just a little extra effort. It is a recognition that knowledge tends to grow organically from "miscellaneous pieces loosely joined."

eDiscovery: Projects 'R US

Link: Strategic Legal Technology :: Why Specialists Should Manage E-Discovery: 

Ron Friedman has an excellent post regarding eDiscovery and a related white paper that provides several key insights. My, mostly from a distance, watching of this space led me to conclude the eDiscovery was a wicked problem that was in desperate need of agile project management methodologies that have worked well in other disciplines (e.g. software development & knowledge management).

It seems that firms are starting to tackle this issue with a combination of project managers and lawyers. While they may not be using agile techniques, this combination of resources appears to be a step in the right direction. As Ron aptly points out, eDiscovery is as much a process problem as it is a technology problem. Producing high quality results will require a combination of people, process and platform.

Anywhere/Anytime Computing

Link: Futurelawyer: Citrix to Enter Server and Desktop Virtualization Markets with Acquisition of XenSource. Rick Georges  (aka Futurelawyer) has a great post about happenings in the "virtualization space" and the ability to get to his "stuff" anytime he needs or wants, and for Rick that is often and always. But that is something we ALL want and need.

My good friend Chris Saah calls this "PC 2.0" as a play on "Web 2.0" because, like it or not, most of us are still drinking the MS Kool Aid and probably will be for quite some time. As we become more and more wired we feel a constant need for access to our computing resources on demand--anywhere/anytime. That's where Citrix and VMware come in. Expect for things to remain "hot" with respect to these offerings as companies continue to look for ways to satisfy the need.

It's the Apps Stupid

Link: Director Magazine—for business leaders. By all means consolidate servers and outsource commodity infrastructure by buying it "off the grid," BUT to argue that IT doesn't matter anymore is just plain stupid. Now granted, it depends on how you define IT, and if that definition only includes "speeds & feeds" then, OK, the argument is plausible.

But those that make this argument often believe that the "speeds & feeds" is all there is to IT--that is, they completely ignore the power of applications. Name any innovative company, in almost any industry, and it is a safe bet that they have developed their own "killer apps" within the context of what they do. Likewise, there is all this talk about industries being disrupted by new entrants, name a disruptor that has not innovated in the apps space. You can't because it's software that is driving the disruption.

IBM A Portrait of Disruption

Link: IBM Report on "Media's Mean Streets". This IBM report paints a portrait of disruption about to be visited upon the media industry. While most observers of the legal industry might find little, if any, parallels, I am not among those. The enabling technologies and devices that will wreak havoc on the media industry will also have transformational effects on other industries, including the legal industry. Why? Because the changes signaled by the report are manifested by changes in consumer behaviors, what they expect and what they will pay attention to.

These same consumers will eventually, many of them, be in the market for legal services. Consider how they are likely to respond to firms that are not prepared to communicate with them in the manner to which they are accustomed. Can't happen you say because the legal industry is so much different than other industries? It is precisely this cavalier attitude that will prevent many incumbents (i.e. big law) from "seizing the day." They will be slow to act as the ground around them starts to shift, creating opportunities for some "new kids on block."

Stay tuned...

Forget the "e"--lets just call it commerce!

Link: Online Ad Sales Growing, But Not At 'Premium' Sites. Online ads are poised to out pace print ads by 2011. This is NOT e-Commerce any longer, it is simply the way business is done. We didn't give phone-enabled commerce a different label because it didn't make sense to. While at one time the "e" may have been relevant, it no longer is.

That said, the legal industry is still woefully behind the curve with respect to the changing business landscape. How many firms leverage PPC? A few, but not very damn many. Still fewer understand SEO and the ability to generate organic traffic. Most don't feel a need to, but that will change. There are legal platform based businesses out there for the taking and you can bet that some of the more enlightened firms are starting to target them--however, don't expect any ABA Journal articles on topic any time soon, at least not while the getting is good!

Can't Buy You Love?

Link: The angst of Silicon Valley (Scripting News). We die. Those were the two words that made the cluetrain manifesto the great read that it was/is--markets as conversations yes, but within the context of our own mortality. It is only through recognizing our own mortality that we begin to get a perspective on the important issues in life, only a subset of which have to do with what we do for a living and the benefits we derive therefrom.

If you believe, as I do, that all good things in the universe happen through divine grace, then you will have no problem understanding why those among us (see link above) with north of a million dollars (or several million) in net worth do not feel secure with such a pittance. There is no amount of net worth that will make people feel secure. Security, if it can be had at all given the "heartaches and the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to," comes from what we believe in and the way that we live.

There is nothing wrong with material wealth, only a fool would believe that there is. However, the Beatles had it right: "I don't care too much for money, because money can't buy me love" nor much of anything that is really worth having! I would rather spend my days doing what I love and earn a modest living than to be a "fat man in the eye of a needle."

The Billable Hour Under Pressure

One of the "dirty little secrets" of the legal industry (and the consulting industry) is that the way lawyers get paid does not always align with client objectives (understatement). In this month's ABA Journal Scott Turow has an interesting piece entitled "Why the Billable Hour Must Die". While that may not happen any time soon, it is fair to say that the billable hour is coming under intense pressure in certain circles. The general counsel of Cisco fired the shot heard round the legal world in this speech (also featured in this month's ABA journal, see "New Routes to the Corporate Door) and the ideas articulated there are starting to gather momentum.

The bottom line is that inefficiency in the delivery of legal services will no longer be rewarded, at least not vis-a-vis sophisticated clients. You can be sure that most clients worth having will become more and more sophisticated over time and that the legal industry cannot escape the economic realities that are driving the global economy. The "change or die" mantra will leave no industry unscathed, and particularly pure knowledge-based industries such as the law.

It's All Beta, All the Time!

By now it is more than just cliche to talk about "competing in Internet time." But just because this meme is prevalent doesn't mean that people actual grok the implications.

Let's analyze this concept by way of the following mathematical expression:

S = k log W;

“S” stands for entropy; “k” is a universal constant known as Boltzmann’s constant;   
“W” has to do with the number of ways in which parts of a system can be arranged.

When starting development of any complex system, the number of possible ways that the system could be arranged probably approaches infinity (i.e. it is a really big number). The “W” is quite large; therefore, the system is in a state of maximum entropy. Order is imposed, and entropy is reduced, by reducing the number of decisions in progress (DIP). By making intelligent, methodical and relentless decisions, constraints are imposed. As constraints are imposed, the number of possible arrangements are reduced, order increases, and entropy decreases.

BUT, the above makes it seem as if the DIP is managed in some sort of linear manner, but the opposite is actually true. By making "methodical and relentless" decisions fast, the "rabbit holes" and other "dead ends" are found that much sooner, allowing the organization to backup and quickly take another path. This is really nothing more than what Tom Peters refers to as "failing fast" but it is a process that big firms are extremely uncomfortable with, and therefore they delay making strategic decisions at all.

Such is likely to be the case vis-a-vis law firm KM initiatives and the reason why (similar to the tech space) real innovation is likely to come from unexpected challengers.

Big Law Failing to Jump the Curve

Link: Strategic Legal Technology :: Alternatives to Law Firms for EDD Document Review. Here we have an example of where law firms' business models, and lagging technology strategic thinking, prevent them from taking advantage of a market opportunity. Presumably a growing number of non-law firm players see this as a profitable line of business and the big firms appear willing to give up a potentially interesting revenue stream.

The Good 'Ole Days Weren't All That Good

Link: New Freedom Destroys Old Culture: A response to Nick Carr. Many-to-Many: I love Clay's piece and I also enjoyed Nick's, despite the fact that they (presumably) take different sides of this argument. Nick's piece did not strike me as nostalgic when I read it (it has been awhile) and I will have to revisit it in light of what Clay has written. It just appeared to be a well researched and eloquently articulated post. His argument appeared plausible and, like I said, I enjoyed reading it. I seriously doubt that re-reading it will change that, even if I find it to be "nostalgic."

That said, I have little patience for the kind of nostalgia that Clay describes. I wrote about it in What Comes After What Comes Next? When someone waxes nostalgic about the "good 'ole days" (e.g. the 1950's), the first thing that comes to mind is "good for whom?" Change happens, deal with it.