My "allowable blogging attention" (how's that for a new self-disciplinary PKM term?) has been immersed lately in the fascinating discussions of PKM going on at the AOK list (Association of Knowledgework - join for FREE!) and various blogs (see my last three posts for links, comments, and track-backs).
But I do want to add my congratulations to Matthew Parsons for his prolific output recently on legal knowledge management.
Readers of Joy London's excited utterances blawg may have seen the announcements of his 2004 Global Legal Knowledge Management Survey, which he has generously posted online for free access and downloading. The 39 page report is filled with, not merely statistics, but also pages of quotes from the more than "120 participants in 12 countries ... including Managing Partners, Chief Operating Officers, Directors of Know How, Knowledge Managers, Directors of Technology, Librarians, Partners and Lawyers." The executive summary alone deserves careful study.
In a section called "Law firm KM interest remains high" we learn that 82% of the firms surveyed either have or are planning KM programs. But we also discover that of the firms NOT pursuing a KM program, 80% are US-based. This theme of US-based law firms lagging behind, particularly UK-based firms, runs through other findings, such as the figures on annual budgets for KM and the length of time KM programs have been in place.
One thing that struck me was the report that in US firms that do have KM programs, annual budgets run up to $2-3 million and average over $1 million. These numbers seem to support the recent observation by Ron Friedmann over at Strategic Legal Technology,
UK and Australian firms have been doing it with pretty good success for quite some time but not US firms. It seems to me that US firms recognize that they should be doing KM, hence the interest in automated solutions (e.g., Westkm, Recommind, or LexisNexis TotalSearch) if not in more staff-intensive approaches.Too many US law firms still look for the "magic bullet" KM "solution" that they can install on a server and not have to worry about the hard work required to develop the social networks, culture and reward structure changes, and most of all, individualized PKM support (there we go again!) necessary to make KM work.
What they might need is Matthew's new book, Effective Knowledge Management for Law Firms, pubished by Oxford University Press. I'm anxiously awaiting my copy and will post more about it when I've read some. But judging from some of the chapter titles:
Story: The Lawyer’s Life in the New WorldMatthew's advice seems very much in tune with my own views of where legal KM must begin.
Personal Knowledge Strategy: Tacit is King
Interpersonal Knowledge Strategy: Creation and Projection,
Let me know what you think, if you get into the book before I can get a chance to post about it.
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