Take An Expansive View

Knowledge managers around the world can learn a great deal from the example of the Hon. Judith S. Kaye, Chief Judge of the State of New York, whose tenure ends on December 31st. Besides being the first woman to hold the state's highest judiciary office and author of some landmark decisions, she will be remembered for her reform of the judicial system in New York. Chief among these reforms was expansion of the jury pool by eliminating the automatic exemptions that excused far too many from serving on a jury. Prior to the repeal of these exemptions, you could be excused from jury service if you were, for example, a doctor, a lawyer, an embalmer, a maker of prosthetic limbs, a wearer of prosthetic limbs, etc.

Chief Judge Kaye tells an amusing story about why expanding the jury pool was necessary: her daughter discovered that it was "a great place to meet guys." As any loving mother knows, you increase your daughter's chances of making a good match by increasing the number of potential mates in the pool (regardless of the real purpose of the pool).

What works in matchmaking works in knowledge sharing as well. The bigger the pool, the greater the available knowledge on which you can draw. Users of social media are discovering that by interacting more regularly and transparently with their social networks they are able to learn and share more than ever before. In the process, the pool grows and the participants themselves grow. Despite this reality, finding a way to bring the power of the bigger pool inside enterprises via social media tools continues to be a challenge for knowledge management.

In 2009, look for more ways to take an expansive view -- not only in how you work, but in the tools you provide that help make the pool bigger for everyone. If social computing has taught us anything, it is that this generosity is returned time and time again.

In Vino Veritas

We just spent the evening at the home of friends who are in the wine importing business. As you might imagine, we didn't drink much water. There is an old proverb: "in vino veritas." It simply attests to the fact that there is an inverse relationship between the amount of wine consumed and the degree to which one can edit one's conversation. In fact, you learn the most interesting things when your companions are under the influence...

With the advent of social media, teetotalers and imbibers alike now have multiple opportunities to converse online without editing themselves. In case you have blindly assumed that it doesn't really matter how you behave online, you should know that lawyers are now beginning to think about the e-discovery implications of Twitter.

To be fair, if you've ever thought that your activities via social media are entirely private, you've been deluding yourself. Google owns your personal archive. Facebook knows who you know. And millions of folks like you are surfing in and out of your online life. Now more than ever, you need to manage your web presence like Hollywood agents manage movie stars. You no longer can limit your image to the four corners of your resume. Now, every time you hit the Web you add to the world's understanding of who you are. And your digital profile can be powerful -- particularly when it doesn't square with your resume. Be aware and be careful.


[photo courtesy of Rob Bieber under a Creative Commons License]

Shall I Tell You Where to Go?

Do you know where you're going to?* That's the critical question Mark Gould asks in his recent post on social media, in which he makes the fair point that there really isn't a one-size-fits-all social media strategy. Each person and each organization has to figure it out for themselves. And it all begins with knowing what you're trying to achieve. Then you choose the tools that will get you to your goal.

That said, I know folks are always looking for the silver bullet, the one sure-fire way of achieving success. Putting to one side the fact that I don't know how you define success, let me make a suggestion: Go where the conversation is. In the brief time I've been using social media tools, I've been struck by how well they facilitate conversations that cut across status, age and geography. Above all, I've been impressed by the richness of those conversations. But don't be fooled by the fact that they can be brief, casual and, on occasion, banal. The reality is that these online conversations build relationships, and those relationships enrich your life. In fact, they can even be profitable in your professional life.

There was a time when the critical business conversations happened on the golf course or in particular private clubs. Increasingly, they are happening online. So if you want to participate, find a social media tool that works for you** and then use it to go where the conversation is.



[*When I first saw the blog title, "Do You Know Where You're Going To?" I thought Mark was joining me in my series of blog posts based on popular songs. Unfortunately, it was not the case. However, for those of you who don't mind a trip down memory lane, here's the song I had in mind.]

[**And, for those of you who have read this far, here's a small bit of advice: try using Twitter for three weeks and then let me know what you think. There are great conversations to be enjoyed there. If you wish, you can find me on Twitter using the tag @VMaryAbraham.]

Straight Talk About Social Media

It's been fascinating to watch the reaction of law firms to social media. Some firms have jumped right in and experimented enthusiastically with the new tools. Others have tiptoed around the edges, exploring their options, but not really diving in. And then there are the firms that aren't going to "do it" until all their peer firms "do it," or who believe that social media doesn't offer them anything they don't already have the old-fashioned way.

For the firm that is skeptical about the usefulness of social media, here is some straight talk (not snake oil) from Kevin O'Keefe, who has been equipping law firms all over the country to participate effectively in the Web 2.0 world. When asked which three social media tools deliver the most bang for the buck, his answer is very clear: blogs, Twitter and LinkedIn.

In his typically direct fashion, here's how he describes the value of these tools:

Blogs? Got to have one. How else can you develop a central place where clients, prospective clients, and the influencers (bloggers, media, and social media hounds) pick up on your passion, philosophy, reasoning, and skill? How do you get seen when people search for info? You think I'm picking a pig in the poke by reading a lawyer profile on a website or Martindale? That's nuts.

Twitter? Single biggest learning, brand building, network expanding, and reputation enhancing tool for me this year.
...
LinkedIn? LinkedIn has won the professional social networking/directory space. The race is over. I get invites from professionals inviting me to join their network elsewhere. Other than LinkedIn and Facebook I ignore them.

So there you have it, straight talk from a man who has been at the forefront of law firm social media deployments. Now, let's hear your questions and concerns. What's holding your firm back from engaging fully with social media?

Sending Out an SOS

Help! Woman drowning!

That's increasingly my reaction as I consider the Herculean task that social networking presents to time-strapped people. It started with this blog. Then LinkedIn and a little Twitter action. Now I'm told I've got to invest in both Facebook and FriendFeed, not to mention several social bookmarking sites.

In a recent post, Chris Brogan laid out a personal social media strategy. It's filled with great tips, however, I need something more: clear guidance on how to engage with social media while still holding down a job, spending face-to-face time with family and friends, and taking care of the mundane chores of life.

If you've got some useful advice, I'd love to hear it. Just toss that life preserver in my direction soon, please.

KM vs Social Media: Give Peace a Chance

A few weeks ago the blogosphere was hopping in response to the KM vs SM generational war piece Venkatesh Rao launched on an unsuspecting world. I responded at the time that declaration of war was first published, as did other thoughtful folks. Now Venkat's piece has been republished in Social Computing Magazine, alongside Jeff Kelly's rebuttal.

Jeff argues that while some resistance to change is inevitable among human beings, it is unfair to characterize all knowledge managers as resistant to change. In Jeff's personal experience, there are "many more eager adopters than resistant dinosaurs." In fact, many knowledge managers I know have been excited and energized by the possibilities for KM offered by social media. To be honest, much of the resistance to social media that I've observed lately has been exhibited by managers who were skeptical about KM in the first place. This isn't so much about age as it is about outlook and experience.

I'm inclined to agree with Jeff that there is much more constructive peace than destructive war between the generations on this issue. His prognosis of the current situation rings true:

Our technology and society will continue to evolve; people will continue to be resistant to (but finally adapt to) change; youth will continue to disdain their elders until they become tempered by wisdom; and the opportunities to learn and prosper will continue to grow for those wise enough to do so.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Ask and You Shall Receive via Enterprise Microblogging

A lot of electronic ink has been spilled on the possibility of adapting microblogging technology for use behind the firewall. As with other social media tools, the ability of many to imagine enterprise uses for microblogging (or microsharing or microlearning) has been constrained by their encounters with the microblogging tools some of us have learned to love in our leisure hours such as Twitter. A casual visitor to Twitter sees lots of social interchanges and some downright inane ones, and wonders in their skepticism if this is a plague that should be inflicted on their law firm. (Included in the mix is plenty of useful work-related information, as well as recommendations for reading** and for life, but a casual observer may not notice those right away.) Others will say, given the existing worries about of information overload, we should not add to the pressure by exposing law firm employees to loads of trivia.

As with most things, we know what we know and don't know what we don't know.

For those of us in need of having our vision expanded a little on this topic, I'd recommend you take a look at a terrific piece in Fast Company by Marcia Conner entitled Enterprise Micro-Learning. In it she provides lots of examples of how these tools could improve social conditions and business productivity within an enterprise. For knowledge management folks, there is a gem in that article that is worth thinking about a little further:

Too frequently organizational knowledge-sharing mirrors the news-cycle society around us, in which we share the highs and lows, ignoring the ordinary stuff in the middle. It's in that middle ground people make sense of the work done around them, understand how we can play a part to help fulfill the vision, and know where we can turn to find the help we need. It's the middle stuff that's truly interesting and helps us connect with one another.

She is absolutely right. For many, law firm knowledge management is about capturing and sharing the "high value items" such best practices and models. In most cases, we don't have the time or tools to handle the items from any other part of the spectrum and allow requests for those to clutter e-mail or go unfulfilled. Yet, it is those requests for the "ordinary stuff" that actually allow folks within the law firm to work more easily and productively. Enterprise microblogging could fill this need.

And what about the information overload issue? To begin with, unlike e-mail, the user can choose with laser-like precision from whom they would like to hear (or "follow" in Twitter speak). So, you get to put together your own cabinet of advisers: perhaps the partner from the capital markets (or bankruptcy) practice to shed light on current economic conditions + the savvy junior associate who is completely plugged in + the person who makes great recommendations regarding what's good to eat in the law firm cafeteria. In addition, there are technologies emerging (such as TweetDeck) to help you filter what could be a constant stream of inputs. With these tools, you can decide whom you'd like to follow and how you'd like to group those folks. So each user could create, for example, a practice-focused group, a client or matter focused group, an economy alert group, a firms news group (including your cafeteria advisor), a collection of lawyers in your affinity group, etc. With this structure in place, you could then follow at any particular time the group that is most pertinent for your work or life.

Microblogging presents lots of possibilities for productivity and for building community within your law firm. Don't make the mistake of discounting this technology just because you haven't yet had an opportunity to broaden your experience and vision with social media tools.

[**I discovered Marcia Conner's article through a tweet by noted social media industry analyst Jeremiah Owyang.]

Our Social Media Romance

Every so often, the rhetoric gets so heated that you might be forgiven for thinking you were reading a romance novel where the swashbuckling hero is a web 2.0 tool. Far too many consultants, vendors and KM bloggers have become so enthused with the potential of social media that they seem to be viewing it through a vaseline-coated lens.

However, at some point even the biggest romance novel fan has to acknowledge the differences between fictional romances and the gritty reality of a relationship -- dirty socks and all. And now, it appears that we've arrived at that point courtesy of two recent reports on web 2.0. The first is the McKinsey Global Survey on Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise in which we learn that

... after an initial period of promise and trial, companies are coming to understand the difficulty of realizing some of Web 2.0’s benefits. Only 21 percent of the respondents say they are satisfied overall with Web 2.0 tools, while 22 percent voice clear dissatisfaction. Further, some disappointed companies have stopped using certain technologies altogether.

If that isn't a sufficiently shocking piece of reality, take a look at the recent Gartner report on the failure of social software projects:

...many IT organizations fall into the trap of following "worst practice," installing social software in the expectation that productive communities will emerge spontaneously. Gartner's discussions with clients suggest that the "install and they will come" practice rarely succeeds; about 70 percent of the community typically fails to coalesce. Furthermore, of the 30 percent of the communities that do emerge, many revolve around interactions that planners didn't envision, that don't provide business value and that may even be counterproductive.

Now that reality has intruded on romance, what should we do? Gartner suggests that we pay more attention to ensuring that the right social communities exist (or are formed) to support the use of the software. In Gartner's view, the right social community will have a well-defined purpose, which should be front and center when designing the implementation of web 2.0 tools for that community. According to Gartner, there are seven characteristics of a well-defined purpose and, by extension, a successful social software implementation:

- Magnetic -- draws people in, explains "what's in it for me"
- Aligned -- with the business
- Low Risk
- Properly Scoped -- start with minimal scope and then scale up as warranted by the community
- Facilitates Evolution -- the purpose selected must be one that can be built on as scope broadens
- Measurable -- the business and community value should be measurable
- Community Driven -- the value must come from the community

Lest you think all is doom and gloom, the McKinsey report does contain some good news. Notably, the firms that have implemented social media tools successfully are discovering that they are able to increase their use of these tools, and leverage them to change their own management practices and organizational structures in fundamental ways.

So a relationship with Web 2.0 is possible, as long as you keep your feet firmly on the ground.

Trust But Verify

In one of the articles that accompanied the AmLaw Tech Survey 2008, Alan Cohen reports on a conversation he had with Bob Craig, chief information officer at Baker & Hostetler. According to Craig, the next big challenge is to change the way the IT department relates to the lawyers of his firm. He likened the current relationship between the two groups to the relationship between "a teenage driver ready to hit the road and a nervous parent wary about forking over the keys." Under the current model, "all new technology gets controlled, vetted, and often limited by the technology department." In Craig's view, that approach is untenable with the advent of the new web 2.0 tools. Instead, he wants to change the way IT departments work with lawyers, by implementing a "trust but verify" system that allows users to install the tools they need without permission, provided that IT can check to make sure "no harm is done."

Bob Craig's vision of the IT/Lawyer relationship is laudable:

We want IT to inspire lawyers to unleash their creativity - not lock them down. ... The fundamental concept of Web 2.0 is to empower users to contribute and collaborate. If we're going to take advantage of Web 2.0, there's a whole mind-set shift that has to take place in IT. "Trust but verify" is the precursor.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

KM and Ad Hoc Communities

National Public Radio is experimenting with new ways of using social media tools to involve their audience in the creation of live radio shows. One of the most recent examples is their effort to form ad hoc communities, as demonstrated by the new wikis related to the Brian Lehrer Show's 30 Issues in 30 Days series. This is how these wikis are described:

Each Friday throughout the series, we're doing a "30 Issues Wiki." For these six segments, we've created an easily edited page where you can collaborate with others to help produce the segment. On this page you'll be able to suggest angles; do research; write copy and questions; suggest guests; and suggest audio to be included in the on-air segment. In other words, you'll do everything a normal Brian Lehrer Show producer does every day.

Through social media, listeners of this popular talk radio show were invited to collaborate in the creation of specific broadcasts. For example, a group of listeners spontaneously came together in an ad hoc community to consider how best to frame the issues for a broadcast entitled "Drill Baby Drill?: Oil vs Alternative Energy." In the days leading to the broadcast, they edited a wiki page that reflected their concerns and points of view. Then the collaborative work of this group was transformed into a radio show that was broadcast on October 10 and is available for you to hear now. These folks may never meet and may never collaborate again. But for a brief moment in time, they came together to create something useful.

An ad hoc community can also be triggered by breaking news, such as catastrophes. This is another instance in which the news media can use its natural strengths to initiate greater participation by its audience, thereby turning that audience into a group of citizen journalists. In the post The Power of Portals: Ad-Hoc Communities we learn,

Ad hoc communities primarily emerge for the purpose of information dissemination; thus, news portals are the perfect environment to foster such communities.
[...]
Ad hoc networks need to be low involvement and facilitate information exchange. As they are short lived and focus on time sensitive events, ad hoc communities could be a great way to extend the reach and increase the value of content.

Now let's take the concept of ad hoc community and translate it into the environment of law firm knowledge management. During the economic upheavals of the last few weeks, how has your law firm's KM group or IT department responded? The press has reported that lawyers in various firms have formed ad hoc communities to act as economic crisis response teams. Have the KM departments in those firms provided adequate tools to support those response teams? Are there RSS feeds to supply the latest news and commentary? Are there wiki pages to collect each team's analysis and learning? Are there blogs to record their Q&A and market updates? Or are these teams struggling to get by on e-mail and static HTML pages on their firm intranets?

The beauty of social media tools is that they are wonderfully flexible and easy to use. Once the platform is in place, the users can dive right in to create and organize the content in a manner that is useful and appropriate to their needs without much (if any) administrative support. For knowledge managers looking for an opportunity to demonstrate the power and utility of social media tools, you may not need to look any further than the current economic crisis.

The Futility of Bottling Knowledge

Are you trying to bottle knowledge? If you view knowledge as a "thing" to be captured, packaged and delivered, you're trying to bottle knowledge. How's that working for you?

Knowledge management gurus will tell you that bottling knowledge is a very KM 1.0 approach and ill-advised. Experts from the school of hard knocks will tell you that trying to bottle knowledge is an exercise in futility. You'll never ever bottle enough to really make a difference; even if you bottle some good stuff, your customers will always want more; and when you're in the bottling business you run the risk of creating bottlenecks.

Not convinced? Consider this:

Fish : Water ~ Humans : Information/Knowledge

In other words, fish swim in water and we swim in information. Trying to bottle information/knowledge is as difficult as trying to contain our environment.

So what should you do instead? Switch metaphors.

Instead of viewing knowledge/information as a "thing," think of it as water. Rather than trying to bottle all that water, think about channeling it. Think about creating small reservoirs as necessary. Think about distilling it. Think about broadening access to it. If you're not convinced, consider how very difficult it is to contain water over the long term. It goes where it will. Why fight its natural tendency to flow?

Viewing knowledge/information as water will lead you to some fresh new ways of handling law firm knowledge management. Less about command and control, more about channeling and collaboration. It will also inexorably lead you to social media tools. They are far better equipped to help broaden access to knowledge than the KM 1.0 tools we've been working with.

And, if you really want to broaden your perspective, switch metaphors again. How about this metaphor: try thinking about knowledge as "love." If you're curious about this, read Is Knowledge Stuff or Love?

Age is a State of Mind

It was so common, that it was a joke -- celebrating one's 39th birthday for the 10th time. However, now we're seeing Baby Boomers who have worked and worked out in order to beat Old Man Time. Their birth certificates may say one thing, but their energy levels, flexibility, physical strength, mental agility and willingness to innovate say another. Finally, the stars are aligned so that your age need not entirely be defined chronologically. Now, it really is plausible to say that age is more a state of mind.

These changes in society have important implications for knowledge management. While some may say we are doomed by our chronology, the reality is that more and more enterprises are finding that the facile assumptions they had at the beginning of a social media implementation are being disproved by their users. Take, for example, Intellipedia, the online wiki for federal intelligence information sharing. According to KM Experts Dispute Age Gap, Intellipedia's actual usage patterns "do not always fit standard expectations."

Chris Rasmussen, social software knowledge manager at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (and a top contributor to Intellipedia), recently reported on how the users of Intellipedia have defied the generational assumptions lots of experts make:

For example, people assume Intellipedia users in their 20s would be the most prolific, but that is not necessarily the case, he said. One of the most active editors is in his 60s. Of the two-dozen most active editors, most are in their 30s and 40s....

(Just for the record, Rasmussen is 33.)

While GenY/Millenials may come to work with greater ease with social computing and more hard computing skills, they don't always have the substantive knowledge or inclination necessary to make valuable contributions at the office. By contrast, Gen X and Baby Boomer employees have the edge on substantive knowledge, but may not have the skills or confidence to try social media tools. Thankfully, most of these tools are intuitive and easy to use. If we can just get them into the hands of these information and experience rich older workers, we should see huge gains in knowledge management programs.

Don't write off your Gen X and Baby Boomer users. Instead, get to know them. You may discover that they are much better candidates for your social media tools that some of their Gen Y/Millenial counterparts. In either case, ditch the generational stereotypes and focus on the individuals. They are only as old as they act and feel -- age is a state of mind.

Social Media Undercover

Since social media tools became impossible to ignore on the internet, knowledge management folks have been worried about how to introduce something "social" behind the firewall. Most are beginning to realize that it takes an unusual senior manager to understand the value of creating strong communities within the enterprise. To be fair, many managers do get the value of strong teams within specific units or departments, but try asking them to transplant that success to a more macro level and they get lost.

So what should a conscientious knowledge manager do when they realize that social media tools are exactly what their enterprise needs?

Jack Vinson suggested recently that the best approach was simply to stop calling these tools "social" and focus on specific real world uses such as "inferred" expertise, real-time status indicators, easy-to-use file sharing, etc. And then, in a response to comments to his post, he wrote: "Our friend Mary would jump... It's NOT the tools."

Our friend Mary. That would be me.

And, Jack was right. I'm jumping.

We should just give up on finding a label for these tools. The decision-makers within our organizations don't care what these tools are called as long as they work. If you want to avoid a losing argument, removing "social" from "networking" doesn't help as much as you might hope. From a decision-maker's perspective, networking (social or not) is something you do to land your next job. Now tell me, why would a manager who is not in lay-off mode want to spend corporate resources assisting you with that? As for building social or business networks within the enterprise, many managers view that as a "nice to have" rather than a "need to have."

So what's the better strategy? Jack pointed to it in his response. Here's the fuller quotation:

Our friend Mary would jump... It's NOT the tools. Maybe this is one of the other problems with calling it social networking - that sounds like a tool looking for an application.

In my ideas above, I was attempting to suggest problems or issues that business people might actually be interesting in solving, rather than specific tools.

Jack is right -- focus on the problems or issues that decision-makers are interested in solving rather than specific tools. As I wrote in an earlier post, don't fall into the trap of finding business problems to justify purchasing the tool -- look for established business processes that people know should be improved. And then deploy the tool knowing that it will have a much greater impact because of its secret "social" weapon: by building community, these tools facilitate and expedite information sharing.

Yet, there is a caveat here that needs to be raised: We know there are lots of processes that could be improved by social media tools. However, most business managers don't care. Unless they are charged with squeezing every last of ounce of productivity out of each process, they tend to focus on the squeaky wheel. Therefore, you should too. Find a good way to fix that squeak and the manager will provide the grease (i.e., cash) -- even if it's for purchasing a web 2.0 tool. And, you won't even have to beg.

Again, the key here is to focus on processes that, from a business perspective, must or should be improved. Not could be improved. When your solution lines up neatly with the decision-maker's problem, you've reached the sweet spot. And, in that sweet spot, even social media tools are welcome.

So listen to your users. They don't have the time or energy to listen to you tell them all the ways you think you can help them via social networking. All they want is a simple solution to their pressing problem. And, if that solution happens to be fun and easy to use, that's all the better.

As Mary would say: It's NOT the tools!

Using the Right Map

In these days of Google Maps and Mapquest, it can be hard to remember that you actually do need to use different kinds of maps for different kinds of journeys. Members of my family have on more than one occasion rescued sailor wannabees who made the mistake of renting a boat for the day and then tried to navigate with the assistance of only a road map. (It's true. You can't make this stuff up.)

A similar situation has sprung up around the conversation Venkatesh Rao started regarding what he viewed as the Social Media vs Knowledge Management battle for the soul of users. He used a specific map (generalizations about generational differences) to navigate the discussion. This map led him to his desired destination: KM is doomed to fail because it is championed by the rapidly aging and completely misguided Baby Boomer generation. By contrast, he believes that SM will prevail because it is championed by Millenials, who are as we speak defining the new dominant ways of interacting online.

Venkat has posted a response to the reactions of this blog and others. I suspect this discussion isn't over yet, but I would make the following observation: generalizations about generational differences are just that -- generalizations. It's like using the map the car rental company provides when you really need a detailed road atlas. The generalizations can help orient you (maybe), but you're unlikely to reach your destination without the necessary detailed analysis.

In the case of law firm knowledge management, it's probably fine to start your analysis regarding your chances of launching social media tools with the generational map provided by Venkat. However, generalizations set in abstract situations are no better than that car rental company map. You need to know the topography of your particular firm. How exactly do the employees in your firm fit within the generational boundaries -- as determined by date of birth AND by preferences? Despite the chronological facts, do you have a firm culture that is adventurous when it comes to technology? Despite the generational distribution, does your firm have a tightwad culture, making any investment in new social media tools difficult? Has your firm taken on so many financial obligations that it doesn't have the necessary economic cushion to weather the current market turmoil, much less launch a new way of working online?

As you can see, most of these questions have very little to do with the age of the employees of your law firm, but the answers can have a profound influence on the discussion and ultimate decision regarding social media in your firm. As you head down this path, be sure you are equipped with more than generalizations. Otherwise, I can virtually guarantee that you will get lost.

Virtual Water Coolers

In times of high anxiety, people seek ways to get information, commiserate with fellow sufferers, test rumors and gain perspective. Traditionally, this happened in the office around the proverbial water cooler. However, in this new age of BYOBW (i.e., bring your own bottled water), there are fewer water coolers in offices. And, with the recent uptick in telecommuting, there are fewer hours in a shared physical space.

So where do you go during regular business hours for companionship, comfort and anxiety-busting info when there's no water cooler? E-mail is a possibility, but it's a poor way to build community. Google is another option. It provides access to lots of information, but no personal interaction and little context.

While law firm knowledge management programs tend to focus on projects that directly affect client services, you might consider creating an effective virtual water cooler as a more general means of improving the business of your firm. The obvious way to do this is to deploy social media tools behind the firewall to strengthen a sense of community, enhance employee morale and provide an easily accessible forum for the exchange of information. While this information may not always relate directly to any specific client matter, it can go a long way to containing and diminishing anxiety levels. This, in turn, allows employees to focus better on client services.

Imagine a blog that allows practice group leaders to broadcast information on the new client work they are doing despite the economic slowdown, thereby signaling the economic viability of the firm? Or a wiki that enables community members to post links to resources for coping with a collapsing client or a collapsing 401(k) account? A microblog that distributes one of the best antidotes to anxiety: humor. Or RSS set up to provide a client team with the most recent news about the client and its industry so that the team is well-prepared to identify business opportunities and respond to client overtures?

Social media tools behind the firewall can help bolster employee morale and strengthen the fabric of your firm. This in turn helps the employees of your firm deliver better client services. Better client services lead to greater revenues.... You get the picture.

Go ahead and prepare that business case for wiki pages to manage client matters. But while you're at it, include a proposal to build an employee facing site as well. It may well turn out to be the better investment.



See also, Coping with Anxiety: Change What You Can, Accept the Rest

Laughter: Geek & Poke and the perennial favorite for office humor, Dilbert

Web 2.0 Resistance in Law Firms?

Penny Edwards at Headshift characterizes the 2008 AmLaw Tech Survey as a "disappointing read from a social software/organizational change perspective." Alan Cohen, who reported on the survey in Law.com's Legal Technology section, admits that while there's lots of talk within law firms about social media tools, relatively few of those firms have deployed many of these tools given the ubiquity of these tools on the internet. And, those that have attempted to take a walk on the wild web 2.0 side have limited themselves to "ho-hum stuff by internet standards." The survey reports that 43% of the firms have at least one blog and 24% have internal wikis, but I suspect that much of this has happened because these tools were bundled (albeit imperfectly) with the SharePoint platforms these firms have deployed. With a few notable exceptions (see Penny Edwards' post), we haven't heard about many truly transformative deployments of social media tools within law firms.

Why?

According to Alan Cohen, law firm CIOs and IT directors are definitely thinking about web 2.0, but in the following terms: "What emerging technologies are worth investing in -- and which aren't ready for prime time? " Prime time? When folks all over the world are diving into social computing with remarkable enthusiasm, can you really treat these technologies as experimental? Perhaps the real issue is that law firms have not yet identified uses for these technologies that feel like incremental rather than revolutionary changes to current business processes. So, to the extent you can use a blog or wiki to do something that is already done by e-mail, it's a safe option to propose to your firm -- provided you can convince folks to leave their Outlook cocoons. For law firm knowledge management programs, the usual approach is to identify and implement these incremental uses of social media tools and then coax your colleagues a little further out of their comfort zone with more ambitious implementations of these tools. Unfortunately, this "substitution innovation" does not take advantage of what Penny Edwards considers the greatest asset of "new technologies like RSS, micro-blogging, social tagging and networking tools, [which] offer possibilities for radical change in the way in which things are done."

The other significant challenge that results in what appears to be law firm resistance to web 2.0 is that for quite some time now the big IT issue for these firms has been electronic discovery. And, eDiscovery has led to a whole host of new tech problems that law firm IT departments are forced to tackle. Therefore, while web 2.0 tools may be the latest wave to sweep the technosphere, law firm CIOs and IT directors believe that they have more pressing issues to handle, such as ... data storage.

Add the inevitable slowdown in IT spending that is emerging in the current economic environment, and you have yet another reason to decide that web 2.0 is not yet ready for law firm "prime time." To be honest, however, is the real issue that law firm knowledge managers and their IT counterparts are not themselves ready for web 2.0?

[For other helpful analysis of the IT Survey, see Ron Friedmann's Strategic Legal Technology blog, which reports, among other things, that the survey provides "good confirmation for those struggling with these issues daily."]

War Between Social Media and KM?

Connie Crosby pointed me to Ralph Poole's post, Social Media vs. Knowledge Management. In it he discusses Venkatesh Rao's assertion in the Enterprise 2.0 blog that there exists a generational war between the proponents of knowledge management and the proponents of social media. In Ralph's experience, this rings true:

I have seen it in the way Microsoft SharePoint, with minimum Web 2.0 capabilities, is embraced by IT departments while open source web 2.0 are shunned.

For Venkat, the combatants in this battle are the Boomers (born 1946-62) and the Millenials/Gen Y (born 1980 -). Here is how Venkat draws the battle lines:

Inside organizations and at industry fora today, every other conversation around social media (SM) and Enterprise 2.0 seems to turn into a thinly-veiled skirmish within an industry-wide KM-SM shadow war. ...KM and SM look very similar on the surface, but are actually radically different at multiple levels, both cultural and technical, and are locked in an undeclared cultural war for the soul of Enterprise 2.0.

Venkat sees top-down knowledge management as the product of the Boomer generation, while bottom-up social media is more reflective of Millenial values and aspirations. Caught in between are the Gen X folks (born 1963-79) who are not numerous enough to open a new front of their own, but may prove to be the perfect intermediaries between the opposing factions. According to Venkat, each of these generational groups approaches social media in different ways, which leads to the battles we're seeing in some workplaces regarding whether and how to adopt social media behind the firewall.

Venkat goes on to identify the 5 social dimensions of the war, and then the following 5 technological dimensions of the war:

1. Expertise locators are not social networks. For Venkat, expert idolatry is the fixation of Boomers who just love authority. By contrast, he finds that Gen Xers and Millenials believe in "situational" experts, a more transitional phenomenon.

2. Online communities are not USENET v3.0. Venkat draws the distinction between, for example, the Millenials' fondness for wide-open Facebook groups that nearly anyone can join vs GEn X LinkedIn groups that have gatekeepers.

3. RSS and Mash-ups are Gen X ideas. According to Venkat, they derive from the Gen X need "to reuse code and content to conquer overwhelming complexity."

4. SemWeb isn't Next Gen, it's Last Gen. In other words, SemWeb is the Boomers' revenge. For Venkat, "both KM and SemWeb set a lot of store by controlled vocabularies and ontologies as drivers of IT architecture." No more unconstrained folksonomies, thank you very much.

5. SOA and SaaS are Gen X; Clouds are Millenial. Venkat bases this assertion on his interpretation of the words used to explain these related concepts. For him Service-Oriented Architecture and Software as a Service are typically pragmatic (and, in his view, unimaginative and ugly) Gen X approaches to what Millenials describe more metaphorically (and imprecisely) as "clouds."

Venkat ends with the following prediction:

It takes no great genius to predict how the war will end. The Boomers will retire and the Millenials will win by default, in a bloodless end with no great drama. KM will quietly die, and SM will win the soul of Enterprise 2.0, with the Gen X leadership quietly slipping the best of the KM ideas into SM as they guide the bottom-up revolution.

The problem with this approach is that it under-rates KM and, perhaps, overestimates SM. In the conversations I've heard lately regarding social media, the KM folks have been working hard to find points of intersection and common interest with social media. They are treating this as an evolution rather than a revolution. Some have even gone so far as to say that social media is just the new marketing spin for KM. That assertion is likely to send Millenials running for the Maalox, but it appears that KM isn't ready to be declared dead quite yet. Rather, it's trying to transform itself from a purely archival discipline to a more dynamic and informal approach that puts people in direct touch with each other, without the obvious intermediation of a knowledge manager.

[Full disclosure: I'm a Gen Xer as far as Venkat is concerned. The previous paragraph could be read to confirm his contention that Gen Xers tend to pragmatism and compromise.]

Nonetheless, it's useful to be reminded from time to time that our preferences are shaped by more than our intellect or experience. Sometimes an accident of birth can dictate how you respond to complexity and innovation. For Venkat the Boomers, Gen Xers and Millenials have distinct and different approaches to technology, information and community. Think hard about how you fit into this generational view before you make your next decision about social media.

Update (12 Oct 08): Take a look at Mark Gould's thoughtful related post -- Oh good grief. He tackles the "generational" straw man relied on from time to time by advocates of the next new thing.

Microblogging: Private Conversations at a Live Mike

In ReadWriteWeb's report on microblogging at BestBuy, Laura Fitton (of Pistachio Consulting) writes about her conversation with Gary Koelling and Steve Bendt regarding their implementation of Mix. Mix (built on HeadMix) is described as an "enterprise microsharing application," which is intended to faciliate networking, problem solving and idea sharing among Best Buy's 160,000 employees. According to this report, Best Buy's deployment is the first of its kind at a large company.

In reading through the report, a couple of things struck me. First, Koelling and Bendt acknowledge the weird dynamic that gets going with microblogging: you're having quasi-personal conversations in a forum where you can be overheard by the world. While it's easy to forget that fact when you're in the middle of some witty Twitter repartee, none of this is private. Interestingly, a quick check on Twitter indicates that there seems to be a wide range of responses to this fact of microblogging life. Some users are extremely circumspect or even cryptic. Others appear to damn the torpedoes and blab full speed ahead, with little regard for the consequences.

When you transplant this issue to the work environment, you find the problem compounded. Here's how it's described in the Best Buy context:

There are what, 160,000 employees at Best Buy? It’s like a few of you are thrown into a dark room together. You don’t really know who anyone is or who to trust. You’re told it’s okay, they’re all employees, go ahead, talk. But trust is an issue. Who are these people? How do we know them? What can we say?

This is a challenging context in which to try to foster the open exchange of information. Unfortunately, the report doesn't explain how the system's designers plan to increase the levels of trust. As I've noted earlier, trust is a critical element without which collaboration is virtually impossible. And, in our KM 2.0 world, collaboration is key. It will be interesting to see what the adoption rate is at Best Buy and whether the quality of the information exchanges meets expectations.

The other striking thing for me was the basis on which the designers chose HeadMix. Besides liking the developer team and the flexibility of the application, the other positive attribute in their estimation was the application's ease of use:

We liked that it’s simple, but had the extra features when you wanted them. It sounds goofy, but we really liked the Outlook plugin — that’s where our employees live. That will make it easier to use.

Here, they clearly were trying to reduce the barriers to entry -- to the point that they allowed easy access from Outlook. These folks are not microblogging purists who insist that if you want to use the tool you too must be a true believer who is willing to leave the Outlook cocoon in order to microblog. Instead, they made the boundary between the two applications permeable. There's an important lesson here as we consider how best to integrate new knowledge management technology into existing work flow, calibrate it to user comfort levels, and thereby increase user adoption.

Koelling and Bendt established themselves with their implementation of Blue Shirt Nation, a social networking tool for Best Buy employees. It will be interesting to see how they overcome the trust issues to achieve a productive company-wide conversation via Mix.

When is a Wiki Worth the Effort?

Mark Gould has an interesting post on Enlightened Tradition entitled, Social software in law firms. In it he cites the rule of thumb regarding participation inequality in social networks:

- 90% read, but do not contribute (i.e., "lurkers")
- 9% contribute occasionally (i.e., "dabblers")
- 1% contribute regularly (i.e., "true believers")

Unfortunately, it does get worse:

- the participation inequality demonstrated in blogs is 95 - 5 - 0.1
- the participation inequality demonstrated on Wikipedia is 99.8 - 0.2 - 0.003

This level of participation may be tolerable for Wikipedia, but it won't make for a convincing argument when you're trying to persuade your firm managers that a wiki is essential for your law firm knowledge management program. Nonetheless, should you take the 90-9-1 rule as gospel? We're told it applies to voluntary social networks on the internet, but does it apply equally to social media tools deployed behind the firewall? Some have argued that it need not apply within the enterprise if you take a few strategic measures:

- make it easier to contribute
- encourage editing over creating
- reward contributions
- promote quality contributions

Above all, the measure most likely to increase wiki participation is to embed the wiki in your work flow. For example, if the partner in charge of a matter decides that all team updates must be posted in the wiki and may not be circulated via e-mail, you will see a significant increase in the rate of participation. This suggests that when introducing social media tools behind the firewall, you can't adopt a strictly laissez-faire attitude. While an "if you build it they will come" approach may work on the internet, it's a different thing within the enterprise where inertia and heavy workloads tend to keep busy lawyers from discovering your new tools. By inserting the tools intelligently in lawyer work flow, you give them a good reason to break out of established routines and try something new. If you've deployed the social media tools correctly, this should be all the incentive lawyers need to move from lurker status to dabbler or (better still) true believer status. Then I'd suggest you quit while you're ahead.

Collaboration -- All or Nothing?

In my prior post on Culture and Technology, I talked about the need to match carefully the social media tools you are offering in your law firm knowledge management program with the organizational culture of your firm. Now we need to go a little deeper. Many discussions on this topic treat collaboration in a binary fashion -- either you've got collaboration or you don't. And, if you don't, you get a free pass on deploying social media tools. In reality, your choices are not just wide open collaboration or nothing. As Andrew Gent points out in his post, The Alternatives to Collaboration, there are several ways of working that result in productivity. We need to be sure we take account of all of these and provide the appropriate tools.

Here's how he identifies two different modes of working that are alternatives to open collaboration:

Conspiring is very common among senior contributors within a team. Conspiring is simply a form of collaboration where the"community" is limited, usually to select members who the contributor trusts. Rather than speak out or agree during meetings, this individual will seek out others who they feel will understand and appreciate their contribution and work with those people to flesh out their ideas. They may even strategize privately about how to bring the rest of the team "around" to their way of thinking. (This is the conspiratorial part of the equation.)

[...]

Competing, on the other hand, happens out in the open. Competing is founded on two basic assumptions:

• Ideas reached by consensus are not necessarily the best ideas. Rather, they are ideas that sound most agreeable or that provide the least resistance to current conditions (in other words, ruffle as few feathers as possible).
• By openly pursuing multiple approaches in parallel, you can test more possibilities and (the key to competing) inspire each group to reach farther and develop a more complete and creative solution.

If you have wide open, top to bottom collaboration, then you're closest to the internet model of social networks and should be able deploy the standard tools (e.g., blogs, wikis, forums, distribution lists) with minimal adjustment for the realities of corporate life. If you have a significant number of productive "conspirators" then you need tools that allow wide open collaboration within this very small group of trusted colleagues (e.g., IM, limited access wikis and blogs). For competitors, you need to provide a forum where they can battle their way to victory (e.g., open access wikis, microblogging).

By acknowledging that collaboration may not be possible for all, you give yourself permission to identify other productive ways of working within your law firm. Once you understand how these other methods work, you're better placed to introduce effective social media tools that fit neatly with established modes of working. This requires moving from a monolithic view of organizational culture to a much more nuanced one. Done correctly, this should result in higher adoption rates within the various sub-groups that exist and thrive within your law firm. Do this with enough sub-groups and you'll have reached enterprise 2.0 nirvana.