LegalIT.net has updated its website today with a few articles of interest...
In VendorSpeak, Chris Knowles (managing director at Vrisko, an independent developer of specialist search engine software) writes in Doing Your Homework that UK law firms are missing out on the benefits to their KM systems that could be achieved by more effectively leveraging external content (through paid web- or paper-based subscriptions, for example, or free over the web) against their existing or developing internal KM and/or CRM applications. Why? "Firstly ‘big technology’ has been better at marketing in this area than ‘big publishing’. It is surprising how many people still spend large sums of money on the basis of seductive demonstrations, only to find, as is always the case with KM, that the devil is in the detail and the systems prove more difficult to implement than originally anticipated." (Emphasis mine.) No kidding.
Their top-billed story (The Big Push for Closer Relations) is partly penned by blogparent Rick and addresses issues related to CRM in law firms. My favorite quote (alas, not from the section of the article attributed to Rick--sorry!) is "[...]knowledge management (KM) and CRM, which are not technologies per se, but largely owe their existence to dedicated IT platforms and solutions, tend to create alternating waves of positive and negative sentiment. For whatever reason, CRM has been tipped as the 'next big thing' many times and a substantial number of law firms have all but given up on the concept, only to bounce back into the field with a new strategic approach the following year." We are literally in the midst of creating our new strategic approach as I type, and I will be busy with its implementation (from the technical side) over the next few months.
And, just for fun, The IT Woman talks about New Year's Resolutions, including increasing IT staff attendance at training seminars. How? "[A] series of bribes and incentives are being offered. These include ‘how to get a racy picture through the firewall’ and ‘Websense and how to avoid it interfering with your browsing activities.' " hehehe I too am having trouble accessing TalkLeft in the office (Websense blocks it for "sex"). I should take that seminar!
