Food for thought

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending Ark Group’s KCUK event in London – and it was nice to see a few law firms represented among the delegates!

Chaired by KM ‘guru’ and knowledge café enthusiast David Gurteen, the conference featured presentations from heavyweights such as Dave Snowden and Richard McDermott, with topics covered including storytelling, intranet management, training, communities of practice and – of course – Web 2.0. In fact, many of the attendees spent a significant amount of time updating Twitter, which led to some interesting conversations around the room and also enabled the producer to do lots of brainstorming for next year’s event.

There was quite an interesting split among the delegates, with relative newcomers to KM scribbling away furiously throughout, while more ‘seasoned’ knowledge workers debated the demise of ‘KM 1.0’ and attempted to pinpoint its failings.

One interesting theme that came out of a highly motivational speech by storytelling consultant Tony Quinlan, was that of best practice. Namely, how can following ‘best practice’ inspire learning and innovation? As he put it (somewhat more eloquently than I am about to), surely the most useful lessons that we learn are those that follow failure – an understanding of what went wrong, why, and how to prevent it in the future? All thought-provoking stuff, and I would be interested to hear some of your views on the subject.

For me, another great presentation was delivered by Nick Davies of the Really Great Training Company (some of you may recognise the name from his work as a barrister, stand-up comedian and presenter – although he doesn’t do golf, apparently). In some ways, Nick drew the short straw – delivering his presentation in the final time slot of the second day, as delegates prepared themselves for the inevitably horrific journey home thanks to the Tube strike.

Thankfully, this didn’t put him off. Instead he made us all shuffle to the front of the room and provided some insights into effective training that truly engages people. His advice: don’t use PowerPoint; make training personal; get emotionally connected to your audience; leverage the pitch, tone and pace of your voice; and, once you’ve turned on the mic or stepped up to the front, it’s your responsibility to ?be engaging’ and motivational – not your people’s to ?be engaged’. Plenty of food for thought, and it’s been great reconnecting with people following on from the event. I look forward to 2010!

As always, do get in touch if you would like to write for the magazine, or have any feedback. In the meantime, I hope that you enjoy this issue.

Kate Clifton
Head of Editorial

Features

Question time This article is for subscribers only
Mills & Reeve has set out its stall internally and in its public profile as a firm ‘renowned for its collaborative culture’. We have recently taken the time and trouble to articulate the firm’s values, one of which is ‘working together’. We did so as a result of extensive discussion and not lightly, but what does it really mean? How does it manifest itself in everyday Mills & Reeve life? Where it happens, what are the beneficial business consequences? What happens when it is lacking? What are the inhibiting factors that get in the way when things go wrong? If we can understand those, we should be able to spread best practice, leading us to even better performance.

Could law libraries be more social? This article is for subscribers only
Unfortunately, there is a widespread misconception that social media is about poking people, throwing sheep and generally wasting time. This is certainly an element of social media usage, but in the context of law libraries, social media could mean so much more than this. For a law library, social media could be about harnessing some of these tools to improve productivity, knowledge sharing and creation, and to streamline existing workflows and processes. Increasing productivity has never been more important than in the context of the current recession, especially where law firms are looking to make significant savings.

Making a difference This article is for subscribers only
Before thinking of how to add value, it is crucial to determine what the goals are for an intranet and its tools, plus what value is already there. In the context of a new application, how can we try to provide additional value to the user community? The real goal is in creating new and useful tools that people can use every day, as well as linking them together so that the intranet stays simple and easy to use. Similarly, the user interface should not have to be reinvented every time something is changed.

Advertorial: Justis Publishing Free
What links Westlaw, LexisNexis and Justis? And BAILII, Casetrack and Informa Law? And PLC, Canada Law Book and Australia’s RMIT Publishing? Oh, and the Singapore Academy of Law, CUP, OUP and Blackwells? (Don’t think the list doesn’t go on, but an 88-item roll call does not make an enticing start to a feature).
An obvious answer is that they’re all legal publishers with collective content that represents a gigantic chunk of recorded common law worldwide, along with legislation and journal articles.

Joining it all up This article is for subscribers only
Capitalising on your unique information and knowledge is one of the remaining untapped opportunities left for firms to remain competitive in the current economic climate. Understanding how your knowledge can be used as a critical asset to improve business performance relies on confidence in the underlying data and may require a new information culture at your firm. Those that kick off with this focus on information really can deliver the long-term benefits in search, automated personalisation and more powerful business intelligence.

Regulars

The last word This article is for subscribers only
Crystal-ball gazing can be bad for you. But it is too easy to get so stuck into the day-to-day that the future suddenly overtakes you. And, to paraphrase the old adage, while predictions of the future are risky, inherently uncertain and so always to be viewed sceptically, planning for possible futures is good business management. It’s in this sense that spending some time thinking about the potential evolution of knowledge management within the law can help us in planning and directing resources – and career development – for the future.

Where are we going? This article is for subscribers only
One of the most significant recent developments for knowledge-based organisations has been the rise of online networking – how legal professionals can use online social networks both within and beyond their firms to augment offline relationships, build reputation, learn from peers and improve communication, current awareness and work processes. The growth of online networks is set to be a significant evolution in the practice of law because, in many ways, the network-centric view reflects its traditional way of working. Before considering the future of social networking, it is instructive to reflect on some of the lessons to date.

Thought leader This article is for subscribers only
Individuals and organisations store their most important information on computers, personal digital assistants and other devices – even MP3 players. Virtually all communication and business is now conducted electronically and most organisations have experienced a steep increase in the use of technology. Yet, when it comes to disposing of information or devices, it is often a case of ‘out of sight out of mind’.