Web 2.0 Tools for Knowledge Management

Presentation summary from
Boston Knowledge Management Forum Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge
What is KM 2.0? Is it real, or just vendor hype?

Mark Frydenberg, Senior Lecturer, Computer Information Systems Department, Bentley College

Recent years have seen a shift in how people have used the World Wide Web as it evolved from a tool for disseminating information and conducting business to a platform facilitating new ways of information sharing, collaboration, and communication in a digital age. A new vocabulary has emerged, as mashups, flickr, YouTube, del.icio.us, twitter, and WikiPedia have come to characterize the genre of interactive applications collectively known as Web 2.0. This session will provide an overview of Web 2.0 tools and concepts, and describe how they may be used to create, share, and manage knowledge.

Mark started off by showing a video, The Machine Is Using Us. Mark sees difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 is that Web 1.0 is about linking documents and Web 2.0 is about linking people. Web 2.0 is more about applications than webpages.

Most of his presentation was an introduction of Web 2.0 technologies and websites.

It was interesting to see what he was making his students do as part of his classes. One thing I notices was that his students did not take full advantage of the tools. For example, he made his students collaborate using Google Docs to write a research paper. In one example it was clear that the student wrote the paper somewhere else and just pasted into the Google Doc. In another example, one student did all of the writing. I think we may be overestimating how proficient college students are with Web 2.0.

Mark was very interested in Mashups. One of the features of Web 2.0 is the ability to easily pull information from different sources. My personal mashup is my transactions map. This turns a list of the real estate transactions I have closed and converts it into a visual map display. (I have not updated it in a while.) There is also the lifestream I created in Yahoo Pipes.

One of the things that strikes me is the ability to view and find information in different ways. In looking at the list of subscribers to this blog, Feedburner shows over 40 different ways the subscribers grab and view the content. I see one of the keys of KM 2.0 is giving people the way to find information in a variety of different ways and view the information in a variety of ways.

UPDATE: Mark has posted his slides. Web 2.0 Tools for Knowledge Management

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Boston KM Forum Symposium: KM 2.0 – Real or Hype?

I am spending Wednesday at Bentley College for Boston Knowledge Management Forum Symposium on Leveraging Knowledge.

What is KM 2.0? Is it real, or just vendor hype? How does it relate to Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0? And – the bottom line – how does KM 2.0 help us to leverage knowledge?

The Agenda:

Web 2.0 Tools for Knowledge Management - Mark Frydenberg, Senior Lecturer, Computer Information Systems Department, Bentley College

KM and Web 2.0 - A User’s Perspective - Ray Sims, formerly Director of Knowledge Management at Novell

Enterprise 2.0 = KM 2.0? - Dan Keldsen, Director, Market Intelligence, AIIM

Case Study: The Siemens BeFirst Portal - Jeff Cram, Co-Founder and Managing Director, and David Aponovich, Content Management Strategist, ISITE Design

Moving Beyond Web 2.0 Resistance - Jessica Lipnack, CEO and co-founder, NetAge Inc.

Wrap-up: KM 2.0 - Why We Should Care - Larry Chait, Chait & Associates

When To Use A Blog and When To Use A Wiki

As we are working on deploying wikis and blogs inside The Firm, we have been working on ways to explain these tools. Most of the lawyers have heard the terms, but are not familiar with the tools.

One question that arises in the difference between a blog and a wiki. The distinction between the two becomes less clear inside the enterprise.

Mark Miller at endusersharepoint.com put it beautifully when he said:

Blogs are great when one person is trying to communicate to a team or group. Think of a blog as pushing out information from a single source to anyone who is willing to listen, “one-to-many”. The listener has the ability to participate in the communication through comments, but the main direction of the message is controlled by the person writing the blog posts. . .

By the very nature of wikis, many people will be adding content and that content can be consumed by any number of readers, “many-to-many”. At first, it seems like a free-for-all, but in an intranet situation, it is extremely useful for letting content experts participate by contributing in their area of expertise. In general, someone sets the basic beginning structure of the wiki by creating a table of contents and some starter pages. From there, user generated content drives the expansion of the wiki, based upon the needs of the participating audience.

Simple test: one or two people providing content, use a blog; many people providing content, use a wiki.

InnovAction Awards from 2007

In working on our application and entry for the InnovAction Award I looked back at the winners from 2007:

• Private Equity Matchmaker by Foley & Lardner LLC
• ClientShare RFP by Foley & Lardner LLC
• New Perimeter by DLA Piper US LLP
• XONEX™ by Balbi & Company Legal Centre

InnovAction Awards

The College of Law Practice Management is looking for entries for its 2008 InnovAction Awards.

"This is a worldwide search for lawyers, law firms and other deliverers of legal services who have invented and successfully applied totally new business practices to the delivery of legal services. The goal of the InnovAction Awards is to demonstrate to the legal community what can be created when passionate professionals, with big ideas and strong convictions, are determined to make a difference"

Entries are due by June 2, 2008, with an early bird deadline of May 1, 2008 (for a reduced entry fee).

We at The Firm are working on our entry.

Wikis and Happiness

Over at the Wikinomics, the Blog, Anthony Williams published this picture of the process comparing email collaboration versus wiki collaboration: Wiki collaboration leads to happiness.

One point of contention was whether the faces on the email said should be happy faces or frowning faces. Anthony goes on to say in Wiki collaboration leads to happiness:

"Are occupational spammers blissfully overflowing your email inbox with overweight word documents and seemingly ignorant of the rising tide of wiki enlightenment that is bestowing happiness on a growing legion of devout followers? Or, are emailers painfully self-aware of the tragic cycle of email misery that obscures their path to wiki salvation?"

Higher Productivity Increases the Bottom Line at Law Firms

I am one the speakers on an upcoming webinar: Higher Productivity Increases the Bottom Line at Law Firms.

In the document intensive world of corporate law, one of the fastest ways to achieve higher productivity is by providing immediate access to client information and automating the creation of corporate governance and ownership documents -- your firm's most tangible client deliverable.

In this presentation, seasoned veterans from Goodwin Procter, LexisNexis HotDocs, and Capstone Practice Systems will provide the information you need to quantify the value your firm can derive by implementing browser-based, hosted document assembly that can increase attorney and staff productivity, standardize best practices, streamline document production, ensure accuracy, and eliminate IT systems support.

The webinar is sponsored by International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) and Two Step Software.

UPDATE:
You can access a replay of this webinar on the Two Step Website: Higher Productivity Increases the Bottom Line at Law Firms

Avvo Revisited - I am a 23% Better Lawyer

In my previous post on Avvo.com I expressed concern about their use of a numerical rating. I feel even worse about it now. Last night after I signed up for the service my rating was a 6.5. Now, a day later my rating has shot up 23% to 8.0.

I guess I became a 23% better attorney today, going from "good" to "excellent."

Doug Cornelius on Avvo.com.

Avvo's Online Ratings For Lawyers Come To Boston

The controversial Avvo.com has come to Boston (and the rest of Massachusetts). I have heard about the reviews and the law suits filed. It looks like the early rating system had some problems with gathering information and weighting the information that Avvo was able to find. As of April 2, they have added Massachusetts.

Since I am a lawyer in Massachusetts, I figured I would check out my profile: Doug Cornelius on Avvo.
At first, I achieved the "No Concern Rating." There is a process for claiming your profile. After doing that, I got a 6.2 out of 10. That did not seem very good. So I added some publications, speaking engagements, employment, etc. That got me up to a 6.5.

According to their description of how the ratings work, if you add more information to your profile then your numerical rating should increase. I also jumped into the questions feature of the site and answered a few real estate questions. Answering questions got me a badge of Level 3 Contributor, but did not seem to help my rating.

I am all for public disclosure of information, especially public information like attorney discipline. I find Avvo to be an interesting exercise, but I am still not sure where it fits into my public profile. It certainly has a marketing twist to it. Is it any more useful than this blog on law firm knowledge management or Real Estate Space, my commercial real estate finance blog?

Personally, I find the numerical rating to be distasteful and somewhat random. (Admittedly, I might not take that position if I had a rating of 10, or at least above 9.) The information is clearly more robust than the rather sparse information in Martindale: Doug Cornelius in Martindale.

I will continue to keep an eye on it and see what happens.

Back to Work with a Present of SharePoint 2007

After a wonderful four weeks of paternity leave, I am back in the office working on our knowledge management projects.

As a welcome back present, the development team upgraded our intranet from SharePoint 2003 to Micrososoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007. Unfortunately, they are still working on a few permission and editing issues which is keeping us from starting our Enterprise 2.0 projects. (I feel like a dog with a bone on the end of my nose, just waiting for the boss to say go so I can snatch it and eat it up.)

The delay is giving me some time to prioritize my projects. I think first up will be "wiki-fying" my multi-state conveyance database. This was one of my first knowledge management projects on the first generation of our intranet. There is a certain poetry to it being the first Enterprise 2.0 project.

The multi-state conveyance database is our collection of real estate practices, procedures, forms, transfer tax, mortgage tax, precedents and previous matters for each state. Obviously some states have lots of information and some have very little information (Sorry Wyoming!). Its not really a database. Its a collection of webpages hosting the content. They have been notoriously difficult to edit and keep up to date. Equally hard has been letting interested people know about new and updated information. By converting this to a wiki, it should be easier for the entire group to add to and edit the content. It will also be easier to see the changes, verify information and alert the real estate group to new information.

Expect to hear more about our journey into Enterprise 2.0.