Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration

2009 Update Version of Our Collaboration Tools Book: Want to Review It?

Dennis Kennedy — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 11:31:08 -0600

We've updated our book, The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies, for 2009 with some new material that is included on a CD with the book. The CD includes a new chapter on tips, an article on trends, forms, audio and other updates. The CD itself can be ordered through through the ABA Web Store via this link (the book itself is here). The book is also available through Amazon.

We're also looking for a few people with a strong interest in the the book and a good audience for the book that we can send review copies to. If that might be you, please get in touch with us and tell us about your interest and audience. We can then work with our publisher to get you a review copy. Of course, we'd hope that you would then publish a review. You can get in touch by using the form on our contact page, leaving a comment to this post, emailing us personally, or contacting us through Twitter (@collabtools, @denniskennedy or @tommighell).

Document Collaboration in Second Life

Tom Mighell — Sun, 24 May 2009 13:17:22 -0600

I joined the virtual world Second Life a couple of years ago, but never really got into it -- I mostly just flew around looking at things, and the only people I ever saw were playing casino games. I'm always amazed when I hear how people are using the virtual world to collaborate and work with others.

Did you know you can also collaborate on documents in Second Life? Here's a great video on EtherPad Real Time in World Text Collaboration from the Second Life English Blog. EtherPad is one of the new document creation sites that literally allows you to see changes to the text in real time; it's not a full-featured document editor -- it's pretty much just text -- but it's great in terms of collaboration possibilities.

Why use it in Second Life? A couple of reasons; first, your group can discuss the document as it's being edited, via the Second Life chat feature. You can also invite an unlimited number of people to review the document without giving them actual editing access. All they need is a Second Life account.

And I think that it's not just EtherPad that allows this functionality -- it's any site that publishes a URL for its document. While Google Docs don't have their own dedicated URL, Google Spreadsheets do -- so you can probably work on spreadsheets within Second Life as well.

Editing Web Pages

Tom Mighell — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:05:02 -0600

I know, I know -- we need another document creation tool like we need...another wiki tool, right? There are a ton of document creation tools, and chances are you have chosen your favorite and are sticking with it. So am I. But here's a site that takes the document creation idea a step further, in a pretty cool way. Shutterborg is a pretty basic word processing tool, one that I would never trade for Google Docs. But it does offer one option the others don't -- the ability to open and edit a web page.

When you first go to the site, Shutterborg gives you three options: New Document, Open from Disk, and Open from Web. Click Open from Web, and enter a URL. Voila! The web page opens in your browser, but in editable format. You can edit this page and then save it as a PDF or Word Doc, or even in HTML. I personally don't have the need to edit web pages all that often, but who knows -- maybe you do.

Using Collaboration Tools to "Face the New Reality"

Tom Mighell — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:12:49 -0600

We at Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools love the writings of Michael Sampson, and a couple of weeks ago he posted a great piece titled: How to Manage Your Business in a Recession: "#1 Reset Priorities to Face the New Reality". In this new age of budget cutbacks, businesses are looking for new ways to help its employees work together, or work with others. He mentions two specific items that resonate with me:

Expense Management for Meetings. With the new fantastic video and web conferencing programs available, remote meetings are becoming a more attractive - and economical - option for businesses. As Michael says: "[r]emember, it's the cost of telepresence in comparison to the alternative that signals whether it's a prudent financial investment, not the out-of-pocket cost per se."

Get Out of Managing Projects in Email. As we state in our book, email is a necessary communications tool, but it's a lousy collaboration tool. If you're managing your projects (or lawsuits, or transactions) through email, starting thinking about whether tools like Sharepoint, Basecamp, or Central Desktop might make more sense.

Mike's article is a great read -- give it a look.

Free Podcast Interview on Collaboration Tools and Technologies

Dennis Kennedy — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:06:01 -0600

We have recorded a roughly 14-minute podcast in which we talk about some of the main themes of our book and add a few new insights into the subject of collaboration tools and technologies. You can download an mp3 (right click on the link and click on "save link as . . .") of the podcast here

We also wanted to remind you that we have also created a Twitter identity for the book. If you follow us at @collabtools on Twitter, you'll get regular reports with links to helpful articles and blog posts, tips, and pointers about collaboration.

As many of you already know, we'll also be speaking on collaboration tools at ABA TECHSHOW 2009. We hope to see you there, especially since one of the sessions we'll do is a roundtable "unconference" session where we'll let the audience set the agenda to cover the issues they most want to learn. Be aware that there's still time to take advantage of the $200 "early bird" discount on registration for TECHSHOW.

Eating Our Own Collaboration Tools Dog Food

Dennis Kennedy — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:58:16 -0600

Last night, Tom and I were finishing up work on a new project (that I now realize as I write this, I might not be able to disclose quite yet).However, it is definitely related to our book and collaboration.

I thought it might be instructive to describe the tools and techniques we actually used as we worked to finish this project.

We were working, simultaneously, on several articles, a list, some forms and an audio file.

First, we exchanged emails to confirm our to-do lists and the division of labor.

I had the job of preparing a couple of first drafts. I went first to Google Docs to do those.

We also opened up a Skype instant messaging session so we could send quick messages back-and-forth, especially to get quick answers to questions.

When I finished a first draft, I'd share the document with Tom so he could access it in Google Docs.

By the time, I had finished drafts, Tom had emailed me Word versions of other documents he was finishing up with revisions marked with Track Changes.

We used Skype to alert each other about areas to pay special attention to or questions we had about the documents, as well as share some ideas.

I marked my changes to Tom's documents in Word with Track Changes and emailed the documents back to Tom to finalize so he could submit them as Word documents.

We were also using Skype to make decisions about going forward with preparing an audio file from a recording of one of our presentations and making a last-minute decision to add another list to our set of materials.

Tom took my first drafts out of Google Docs, put them into Word documents and used Track Changes to show his edits.

While he was doing this, I used Audacity to do some clean-up and light editing of the audio file.

Tom then sent me the edited Word documents, which I checked and made minor revisions to, again using Track Changes. I also used Skype instant messaging to discuss a change Tom made that I thought made a different point than the one I had intended. We discussed that and decided on the final wording. I then emailed the Word documents back to Tom to finalize (Tom was taking charge of submitting all of our materials.)

Once I finished the audio file (approx. 50 megabytes), I used YouSendIt to transfer the large file to Tom, who received notice that it was available and downloaded it.

We then compared noted and checked our lists using Skype IMand determined that we we were done.

Tom then assembled all of the files and used Drop.io (which he prefers for its ability to handle multiple files) to send all of the files in, beating our deadline by a day.

We then used Skype IM to get caught up on other things we had been doing.

Some takeaways:

1. We actually use the collaboration tools we write and talk about.

2. We like having a tool box of collaboration tools for different purposes rather than being concerned with a single all-purpose collaboration tool.

3. Different tools work well for different purposes.

4. Even in the same project you might use a number of different tools to do the same types of thins.

5. We really like the way you can open a constant communications channel to help you work by using instant messaging.

We invite your comments.

No "Reply-To-All" -- Making Email Better?

Tom Mighell — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 16:26:13 -0600

The "Reply To All" function in an email is at once the most useful and most horrible of email collaboration features. The ability to communicate with your entire team with the click of one button is incredibly appealing But at the same time, replying to everyone can be a huge time and resource waster. Indeed, it can also create an "email storm," which recently occurred on U.S. State Department servers. According to the Death by Email blog, here's what happened:

A blank email was sent to many people on the department's global address list
Some used "reply-to-all" to demand to be removed from the list.
Others used 'reply all' to tell their co-workers, in often less than diplomatic language, to stop responding to the entire group.
Some then compounded the problem by trying to recall their initial replies.
The recall generated another round of messages to the group.

Yikes! As a result, the word went out that any employee who used the "Reply to All" function would be subject to disciplinary action. The Nielsen company went one step further; they completely deleted the Reply to All button from the company's messaging software!

As much as it pains me to say it, email is still useful as a collaboration tool -- mostly because it's a tool everyone uses. But it strikes me that limiting the use of Reply to All as a policy matter, while harsh, has the potential to improve the use of email in collaboration. What do you think about Reply to All?

Some Great Online Notetaking Tools

Tom Mighell — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 15:02:43 -0600

Regular readers of this blog have probably figured out by now that we are big fans of everything Google; so it was very disappointing to me to discover that the company decided to stop development of the great Google Notebook. I used to use Google Notebook all the time -- it was a great way to capture snippets of information from the web and keep them all in one place, with different notebooks for different topics.

I've since moved on to using Evernote as my primary notetaking tool -- I like it better because it allows me to access and take notes from three different locations -- a web browser, a stand-alone software application, and an iPhone application. That's why I was glad to see that Evernote was all over the Google Notebook decision, and is offering users of the discontinued service the opportunity to import all their notebooks over to Evernote.

Over on Twitter, people were asking me why I used an online notebook. Here are the five top ways I use Evernote:

As my personal web archive -- rather than bookmark a page, I simply clip it to Evernote and keep it forever.
As a research tool -- I create a notebook and throw all my research snippets (whole pages, excerpts) into it.
Travel planning -- when I visit a city, I create a notebook for restaurants, hotel and sightseeing information.
Meeting notes -- I keep notes from all of my meetings within Evernote.
As my digital filing cabinet -- I keep lists and all sorts of other information there. It's all searchable!

Perhaps Evernote is not for you. No worries -- there are many other options, including these 17 Noteworthy Alternatives to Google Notebook. No matter which tool you use, I think you'll find that an online notebook is a good way to have access to your important thoughts and notes no matter where you happen to be.

Sharing Your Google Docs with the World?

Tom Mighell — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 15:06:15 -0600

At its core, Google Docs is really a wiki tool. It's essentially a web page that anyone with access can edit. What makes it different from other wikis are the more powerful word processing features, as well as the ability to save your documents to multiple types of formats.

To make sure you don't turn a Google Doc into a wiki that the entire world can edit, it's important to make sure you use the right sharing options. Wired wrote about it this past week (Google Docs Design Flaw May Fool You Into Making Your Docs Editable by Anyone), and I figured it was worth an explanation over here. Head over there for the full article, but the gist is this: when you share a Google Doc with someone, make sure you select the right options so that you don't grant "edit" access to the whole world. The "Sharing" interface could be a little bit confusing, leading users to unintentionally make their documents visible -- and editable -- by anyone, just like Wikipedia.

The Wired folks say (as do I) that this may not be news to anyone -- but in the event someone reading this blog may get confused when choosing privacy options, we've done our part in passing the message on.

Help Us Create a Big List of Collaboration Tips - Collaboratively

Dennis Kennedy — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 19:57:54 -0600

We're working on creating a big list of tips for collaboration projects, collaboration tools and collaboration technologies. It currently runs about 150 tips.

We'll use the list of tips for handout materials for our upcoming presentations at the ABA TECHSHOW and for some other ideas we have in mind that we'll share later. We'll post the tips you provide as well.

However, since the tips are about collaboration, it only made sense for us to do the list, well, collaboratively, as an experiment in crowdsourcing.

Here's the idea: If you wan to participate, send us your favorite tip or tips (let's try to keep it to a sentence or two each) in one of the following ways:

1. As a comment to this post;

2. Via Twitter to @collabtools, either as a direct tweet (start tweet with DT) or as a reply (start tweet with @collabtools). You can also add a hashtag to the tweet, either #collabtips or #collaboration; or

3. By email to either denniskennedyblog @ gmail . com or tmighell @ gmail . com.

Please be sure to provide your name, so we can give you attribution.

If you have any questions, let us know.

A Collaboration Thingy for Your Own Website

Tom Mighell — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 10:56:56 -0600

Interested in a project management tool, but also want to take advantage of your own firm or company website? Check out Project Thingy, an interesting tool that embeds itself on your own website. Just enter your domain name, and you'll get the HTML that you can literally cut and paste on your website to manage your projects. The data still resides on the Project Thingy servers, but it's an interesting twist to access the project management from your own site. The service is free for one project, up to $139/month for unlimited projects.

Google Docs -- Still a Risk for the Casual User?

Tom Mighell — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 16:28:55 -0600

How secure are your Google Docs? If you use Gmail, you may recall that a few months ago Google turned on SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption -- the protocol that encrypts connections to prevent your email from being hijacked. So, great -- your email is reasonably safe from hackers. But what about your Google Docs? According to ReadWriteWeb in Your Google Docs May Be Open to Hijacking, not if you have a basic account. If you happen to be using the paid Google Apps Premier or Education editions, you have SSL encryption. SSL is not, however, an automatic option for users of free Google Docs.

Now that's not entirely true -- if you're a free Google Docs user and you want to encrypt your documents, all you really need to do is type in HTTPS when entering the URL for Google Docs; that will give you an encrypted connection. Also, according to ReadWriteWeb you can also get a secure connection if you click to other services from the Gmail navigation menu (at the top left of the page). However, for most of you this probably isn't the best solution.

Again, another reason why, at least for now, Google Docs (the free version, anyway) is not quite ready to permanently store your legal documents.

Online Documents Still Only for Casual Use

Tom Mighell — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:00:43 -0600

In September, I posted Is Online Word Processing on the Rise?, which included a poll asking readers what tool they primarily use for word processing. Microsoft Word won hands down, with 58% of the vote. Google Docs came in near the bottom with 12%, and there were no votes for other online word processing tools. These results are similar (if not a bit higher) to the findings of Compete, which measured traffic to Google Docs; the results are summarized here. It found that although traffic to Google Docs grew 158% in the past 12 months, only about 2.4% of the adult online population was using the service. Even more interesting is the statistic that the average user only spends about 5 minutes per month on the site.

What can you do on a Google Docs page in only 5 minutes per month? Certainly not create a full-fledged document. Whatever is going on during those 5 minutes, the Compete study demonstrates that Google Docs attracts primarily casual users, and that online word processing services still aren't ready for enterprise use.

The Case for Collaborative Tools

Dennis Kennedy — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:42:15 -0600

Lucie Olejnikova and Jessica de Perio Wittman have written an excellent article, The Case for Collaborative Tools: Long-distance teamwork on a shoestring budget.

Their summary of the article:

"This article shares a bit of our experiences (the exciting and the frustrating moments), and outlines how we used free online collaborative tools to make the long distance seem short. This article also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of long-distance collaboration and how to apply the same tools and principles to a variety of work settings, such as law firms, firm libraries, court libraries, public libraries, and academic libraries. In addition, we mention the psycho-sociological aspects of a long-distance, Web-based communication, as well as its impact on project administration and budget."

Of special interest is the survey they took and the results they obtained about use of collaboration tools. I also like the focus on free collaboration tools and the way they tested out the ideas we have in our book.

Excellent insights, important conclusions and highly recommended. Excellent work. It also helps confirm our belief that law librarians will be the leaders in the early stages of adoption of collaboration tools.

A Four Part Report on SharePoint in the Real World

Dennis Kennedy — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:18:28 -0600

Bill Ives has posted a great series of posts on real-world experiences with Microsoft SharePoint. He characterizes SharePoint as the "most common platform for enterprise 2.0."

The posts cover a set of four sessions at a conference on “Real World Sharepoint Experiences”sponsored by Knowledge Management Associates.

The four sessions covered:

Dispatches from the Front Lines

Training Approaches

Sharepoint Best Practices Conference

Upcoming Sharepoint Investment Areas

Doug Cornelius also liveblogged the same conference at his post "Dispatches from the Front Lines - Themes and Trends in SharePoint Use."

Both posts give you access to great information about the ways people are using ShaprePoint in the real world filtered for you through the eyes and ears of two very knowledgeable experts.

Vyew and the Hazards of Web 2.0

Tom Mighell — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 23:38:33 -0600

In our collaboration tools wiki, we mention dozens of new and interesting sites and utilities that make it easy for people to work with each other online. Although we don't use all of these tools, we've tried a lot of them, and Vyew is one of the tools I really wanted to like. After all, it's one of the few online meeting services that offers free meetings for up to 20 participants.

Two weeks ago, I wanted to use Vyew to give a presentation and demo to my co-workers, so I set up my Vyew meeting room -- it allowed me to personalize the room name, which was great. It also had all the features I needed for my meeting. The morning of the presentation, I tried to log in to Vyew to make sure everything was ready for the meeting -- only to find that I couldn't get in. For some reason, Vyew had suddenly realized that I had a firewall, and wouldn't grant access to my meeting room.

No big deal -- when you're working with Web 2.0 tools issues like these happen from time to time. Usually they are easily resolved. So I emailed Vyew support and asked for some help with my problem. Because my meeting was only a couple of hours away, I was not completely surprised that I did not hear from Vyew before the meeting started. However, it has been nearly two weeks since the meeting, and I still haven't heard from Vyew. Needless to say, I was forced to use another meeting service, which turned out to be much more reliable. Now, I was using Vyew's free service, so at least I wasn't out any money -- but what if I had purchased a Plus or Professional plan? Would I get the same level of support?

The lesson here: Web 2.0 tools are being developed every day, and the infrastructure of each will vary depending on how much funding/staff they have. Before you invest your time or money in one of these tools for your mission-critical work activities, make sure you can rely on the service to work as advertised. In Vyew's case, the technology worked pretty well -- it was the support that was sorely absent. Frankly, some of the Web 2.0 tools we mention in the wiki are not ready for prime time. Make sure you know what you're getting into before using a tool for something really important.

Mossberg Likes CrossLoop -- So Do We!

Tom Mighell — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 16:54:28 -0600

We've been singing the praises of screen-sharing program CrossLoop for some time now; I've been using it for well over a year now, and we included it as one of our favorite Web 2.0 technologies for screen sharing or simple online meetings.

And now Walt Street Journal technology guru Walt Mossberg agrees. In With CrossLoop, Users Can Get Help From Techie Friend, Mossberg calls CrossLoop a simple, effective way to help a relative or friend with a PC problem. In his podcast review, Mossberg describes CrossLoop as a "new" utility -- but we know better than that.

John Jantsch: The Telephone Doesn't Use Any Gas - Benefits of Online Meeting Tools

Dennis Kennedy — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:26:56 -0600

There's no question that concerns about fuel prices and travel costs, whether motivated by "green" thoughts or not, are and will continue to be a driving factor in the growth of collaboration tools and technologies.

It's not very complicated. Webconferencing and online meetings can reduce travel and commuting costs.

John Jantsch's post "The Telephone Doesn't Use Any Gas" offers a good primer on how you can benefit from using online meeting tools. Jantsch also emphasizes how small business like small law firms should make use of these powerful tools to save money and, especially, time.

He lists a number of the popular tools, some of which we discuss in our book.

He also provides a good list of practical ways you can use these tools for marketing and communication in additional to standard meetings:

1. One to one seminar

2. Peer to peer seminar

3. Live with you

4. Interview an expert

5. Co-branded panel

6. Sponsored show

7. Q and A time

The money quote:

"As you utilize web and other tools such as web collaboration tools and teach your customers to use them as well, your effectiveness and efficiency will soar. Now, I’m not suggesting that you never venture out and grab some face time, I’m just suggesting you can be smart about employing technology to help you get more done with the same 24 hours everyone has in a day."

Is Online Word Processing Use on the Rise?

Tom Mighell — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 15:22:27 -0600

What is your main word processing tool? According to a poll taken over at ReadWriteWeb, 49% use Microsoft Word, which is not all that surprising. But what is interesting is the number of respondents who primarily use an online word processor -- around 21 percent. Google Docs accounts for most of that number, with around 15 percent of the total. This is a six percent increase from ReadWriteWeb's poll last year.

We suspect that most lawyers are still using a desktop word processing program -- Microsoft Word, or perhaps that old standby WordPerfect? We'd like to ask our readers the same question: which word processor do you use most often? Please answer below:

What Tool do You Primarily Use for Word Processing? ( polls)

Carolyn Elefant's Review of the Book

Dennis Kennedy — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 20:19:11 -0600

Carolyn Elefant is one of our favorite bloggers and people. She's also the author of the excellent book, Solo by Choice.

We're thrilled to see Carolyn's review of our book.

Carolyn captures the heart of the book and how we wanted it to be a practical guide that gave lawyers practical information, practical steps and practical ideas to improve their practices and lives and also pointed out ways that lawyers can come up with their own creative ways to use these tools.

Carolyn gives some excellent ideas, with an emphasis of how these tools can help the solo lawyer. You'll benefit from Carolyn's perspectives and ideas.

The money quote:

But Tom and Dennis always tie the technology back to the purpose, recognizing that for lawyers, technology is a means to deliver legal services more efficiently and effectively and not an end in itself.

And were more than happy to take this compliment:

I'll just go ahead and rave: The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies is a book that opens huge possibilities for solo and small firm lawyers and will change the way you market and run your law firm.

Thank you, Carolyn. We hope that solos and small firm lawyers who read your book and our book will find the tools they need to change the practice for the better.