Knowledge Aforethoughttag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-157852005-12-09T14:29:33-05:00Thinking about how legal knowledge workers collect and then connect the dots.TypePadInformation sharing just keeps getting (cooler? easier? more complicated?)tag:typepad.com,2003:post-78576032005-12-09T14:29:33-05:002005-12-09T14:29:33-05:00I'm experimenting with TypePad's new video blogging tools. This post comes to you through the TypePad/VideoEgg tool, which lets us insert existing video clips into blog posts. I make no promise that this one will stay up, since I didn't get permission to use Yvonne's clip.Tom CollinsKatrina's Lesson - Can Networked People Make Government Irrelevant?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-63074402005-09-04T20:23:02-04:002005-09-04T20:23:02-04:00This is not a political message. I am going to make a point about how technology can help us collect and then connect the dots. Really. Read on. ... Indifference. ... Inaction. ... Incompetence. ... Irrelevance. ... The government response to the catastrophic natural disaster in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast has been an embarrassment to all Americans and an added injury to the people left for days to fend for themselves. It's not enough that those who claim to be public servants are running around telling us they couldn't have begun delivering food, water, and security forces to the center of New Orleans the day after the storm, while we watched news media and local workers reach the scene within hours after the eye of Katrina passed. No, those same indifferent, incompetent "public servants" are preventing private organizations from doing the work for them. Here's the politically necessary explanation from the American Red Cross website: Hurricane Katrina: Why is the Red Cross not in New Orleans? Acess to New Orleans is controlled by the National Guard and local authorities and while we are in constant contact with them, we simply cannot enter New Orleans against their orders....Tom CollinsYeah!: Visual Writingtag:typepad.com,2003:post-61100432005-08-23T15:20:44-04:002005-08-23T15:20:44-04:00I just had to stop what I was doing and post when I had the latest CIO magazine stuck in front of me, open to an article entitled, "Needed: Good Writers" (available online). The article makes a number of good points about the importance of writing skills in work settings. But the one that jumped out at me noted the finding in a study by the National Commission on Writing that ranked "e-mail as the number-one form of writing in America, followed closely by presentation/ visual writing." Visual writing. As I've written before, adding graphics to writing can greatly enhance both the clarity and the brevity of the text. I hope this isn't too "male" an example, but think back to sandlot football and how much it helped in getting the play called quickly and clearly to have the quarterback diagram the play in the dirt.Tom CollinsWhere did you see my proposal?tag:typepad.com,2003:post-50384422005-06-05T22:13:22-04:002005-06-05T22:13:22-04:00I know, I know, I've been neglecting this blog terribly. Most of my professional and blogging time has been devoted to helping Yvonne (see my last post) launch WME Books, the Author Services division of her business. The related blogs are A-ha!: Authors helping authors and Business Blogging Boot Camp. But, speaking of Yvonne, I've been meaning to follow up on the serious side of the semi-serious/semi-playful post in which I asked her to marry me. The information design point I wanted to make related to the power of images to connect to the emotional side of the reader's brain. Take another look at the picture in the post and think about where you envision it happening. If you're a sports fan, I bet you're in a stadium. If not, perhaps a park, or an ocean beach. The point here is that the words alone might reach the emotional level for those who've experienced a marriage proposal personally, but have less impact on others. By adding an image, we can both expand the range of people who have some experience with the kind of message and to some extent direct their attention toward the kind of experience we intend --...Tom CollinsGetting the Message Acrosstag:typepad.com,2003:post-38804632005-03-10T20:50:01-05:002005-03-10T20:50:01-05:00I'm going to use a personal example/experiment to test my contention that adding graphics to your writing helps your audience understand the message better and faster. The Story Recently a good friend came up to Yvonne and said she'd just heard that congratulations were in order. Yvonne was puzzled as to which recent event the friend had in mind (we've been pretty busy starting a new business, a new blog, and so on). So Yvonne was even more puzzled when it turned out to be our engagement. We've been engaged for more than a year. So, to clear up any confusion or failure on our part to tell any of our other friends, I thought I'd do the whole thing over: The Message Now, because we're both bloggers I can easily go to Yvonne's blog and pick one of her recent posts, Female-Friendly at Home (which I certainly try to be :-)) and use the track-back link to send her a "ping" and get her attention. Just in case, though, feel free to send her an e-mail or comment on her blog to let her know you saw something here that she ought to take a look at. Once she...Tom CollinsBlogs and KM: an Invitation to Chris Harris-Jonestag:typepad.com,2003:post-34419232005-02-03T16:05:11-05:002005-02-03T16:05:11-05:00I got an introductory copy of the newly re-titled Inside Knowledge (formerly Knowledge Management magazine) and was enjoying the new design and the familiar, high-quality articles (with KM luminaries like Verna Allee, Leif Edvinsson, and Karl-Erik Sveiby). [Full Disclosure: I've also been published (book review) in the former Knowledge Management magazine and the Ark Group's sister publication for law firms, Managing Partner, but please don't hold that against them.] Then I came to the Trend tracker article Blogging (full text online for paid subscribers only), by Chris Harris-Jones, who is described as the "research director, information management" at Ovum. As a blogger myself and given the focus of this blog, I dove in with enthusiasm. I was please to find confirmation that Chris is seeing blogging used in corporate environments. He asserted that "collaboration vendors" are beginning to include blogging software in their suites. But as I read on, I began to wonder if Chris, or the vendors he wrote about, have ever seen a real blog. Here's the killer paragraph that still has me wondering what sort of "blogging" tools he's been exposed to: The big problem with blogs, at least as they are currently defined, is that they...Tom CollinsA better kind of wavetag:typepad.com,2003:post-30973092004-12-31T11:04:36-05:002004-12-31T11:04:36-05:00As we end 2004 and start 2005, it's heartening to see how quickly people in general and Americans in particular have responded to the disaster caused by the tsunami in India, Sri Lanka, and all around that region. According to the American Red Cross, by Wednesday it had received about $18 million in donations to its International Response Fund in the three days since the waves struck. From all I've read and seen, a lot more will be needed. The American Red Cross, with its links to local Red Cross and Red Crescent organizations in the affected countries, seems like one of the best ways Americans can get the right kind of aid to the people who need it. You can help by making a donation and selecting the International Response Fund. This link will take you to their donation page where you can use the online form or click on the "Donate by phone" or "Donate by mail" links for other methods. Let's send them a wave of relief!Tom CollinsBefore you go paperless ...tag:typepad.com,2003:post-30309702004-12-21T10:12:30-05:002004-12-21T10:12:30-05:00Last week's USA Weekend magazine ran an interview entitled Computer Counselor featuring Kelly Chessen. She's a psychologist now working as a "data crisis counselor" at DriveSavers in Novato, California. Kelly used to work at a suicide prevention hotline ... and maybe she still does. An article posted on the DriveSavers site describes her job as comforting poor souls whose computers have been melted in fires, dropped into rivers, run over by cars and in one case, shot. "Sometimes people will threaten to throw their computers out the window," says Kelly. "Hard drive failure happens every day, but it doesn't happen to everybody every day," she continues. While DriveSavers can do a lot with severely damaged drives (visit their Museum of Disk-asters) and Kelly exudes confidence that most such disasters can be fixed, she states the success rate as 90%. For the other 10%, the implied advice might be longer term counseling. The lesson for knowledge management professionals all starry-eyed about technology "solutions" for storing and retrieving important information comes in Kelly's Final Answer: Q: Where do you keep important data? A: My trusty yellow pad of paper. I hear horror stories all day. Do I want to lose all of...Tom CollinsMaking the Top 10!tag:typepad.com,2003:post-28947862004-12-06T06:12:00-05:002004-12-06T06:12:00-05:00Thanks to Joy London for including Knowledge Aforethought in her list of favorite U.S. "blawgs" (those are blogs written by, directed at, or somehow related to lawyers; I confess I'm one of them) in an article just posted in the December 2004 issue of Legal IT. Actually, she lists nine U.S.-based blawgers, but if you place her in Allen & Overy's NYC office and add her own blog, I've made a Top Ten list! (See how that lawyer training comes in handy, when you need to rationalize a result?) And what great company she's put me in, too! The article itself provides a very good summary of the evolution of both blogging and one of the very best blawgs online. Joy's excited utterances has been one of my favorites since I first heard of blogging (back in pre-historic 2003). For anyone concerned with knowledge management, organizational learning, and the like, especially in relation to lawyers and law firms, her blog and its rich treasure of archived material are an essential resource.Tom CollinsWay, Way Beyond Crayonstag:typepad.com,2003:post-28946142004-12-04T18:33:00-05:002004-12-04T18:33:00-05:00Wecome to new blogger, Nick Duffill and his Beyond Crayons blog, which focusing on "mind mapping" tools for visualizing information. His tag line is "Businesslike visualization for late adopters." Nick's initial post, Time for reform in mapping legislation, compared common problems seen in PowerPoint presentations to similar information design issues in mind mapping. Here's a taste of his excellent insights: ... the threshold at which decoration interferes with content is quickly reached, and you find yourself wondering if the decoration is a substitute for content. ... ... decoration must pass a simple test - does it carry any information? If it doesn't, then don't be tempted to use it. Visit Nick's blog and you'll likely add it to your link list and RSS subscriptions, as I have. The only thing I'd like to see him add are some visual examples of his mind mapping ideas. The MindJet software site (which Nick uses and recommends) gives some examples of mind maps, but it would be great to see just how Nick uses it in his own thinking about improving the information design of mind maps.Tom Collins