With the holidays approaching, your office will be abuzz with lots of activities, many of which may fall under your supervision. You may be planning activities ranging from your office holiday party to overseeing the mailing of holiday cards to the coordination of gift giving. For busy people such as yourself, this can be a particularly stressful time of the year but you can overcome many of the organizational headaches that come with these tasks by turning your Microsoft Office Suite into your Virtual Holiday Elf!

For instance, you can use Microsoft Word or Publisher to help you create the perfect newsletter, holiday card, party invitation or firm announcement. If you are in the mood for something fancier, Microsoft PowerPoint can be used to create a unique and innovative electronic holiday card or announcement that can be easily emailed to recipients for a more dramatic effect. Try using PowerPoint’s rich graphics, sounds and animation schemes for something that’s sure to make a great impression.

Microsoft Word and Excel can be extremely practical for tracking all the back-end details such as spending, budgets, checklists, and gifts received as well as those given. Microsoft Outlook can be useful in keeping track of important dates, times and deadlines as well as leveraging tasks to other employees and keeping track of milestones with your party planning etc. For example, meeting requests in Outlook distributed to all users within your firm can easily add items to everyone’s calendars to remind them of holiday milestones such as the Firm holiday party, holiday card deadlines, etc.

And then there are the holiday cards, you can combine the power of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Word to efficiently address labels or envelopes for your card announcements or newsletters. See detailed instructions on one specific scenario for doing this.

In this case, a Public Contacts folder has been created in Microsoft Exchange to serve as your Firm’s holiday card mailing list. (For large organizations or firms each department or practice group may have its own public contacts folder.) Any employee within the firm can copy existing contacts into this list for inclusion in your mailing. This reduces the need for manual data entry and allows for a faster and more efficient collection of data. Microsoft Word will then be merged with this list in order to turn your contacts into data that can be printed directly onto envelopes or labels. The resulting merge document can also be saved for future uses. And as a reminder, the steps outlined may vary slightly depending on your version of Microsoft office, integrations, etc.

"Without Objectives, You Don't Have a Disaster Recovery Plan," an article by SAGE President George Nicholson, appears on the front page of the May 2009 ALA Capital Connection newsletter. In the article, George gives strategies for jump starting any disaster recovery plan that has been languishing in development for years (and there are a lot of them!) George tells firm adminstrators and management to focus on realistic recovery objectives rather than falling into the trap that "everything needs to be available immediately." There is much more in the full article, including specific strategies for developing recovery time and recovery point objectives.

Let us know what you think of the article in the comments below!

SAGE will be hosting webinars this Summer on a number of hot topics. These webinars are free and all are welcome to participate. Each webinar happens between Noon and 1 P.M. EDT, so please spend your lunch with us.

First up is our popular Metadata 101 webinar, "Your Documents, Your Undoing" (7/15) which discusses the risks from metadata and sensitive content in your documents. We discuss methods and strategies to mitigate those risks using tools like Workshare Protect and best practices.

Next is our webinar on Getting the Most From Your IT Budget (7/23). In it, we provide some benchmarks for what your IT budget should be, and how to stretch it to extend your capabilities. During the webinar, we discuss where IT provides maximum value to a firm and how to balance user support, projects, and regular maintenance.

MS Office is more than just spreadsheets and documents. In August, we debut a new webinar on Doing More with MS Office (8/19). For this webinar, we describe new uses for accounting, CRM, and HR from old standbys like Word, Excel, Access and Outlook, and illustrate what can be done with newcomers InfoPath, OneNote, and Groove.

Sign-up for SAGE Wisdom webinars on our web site. If you have any topics that you would like to learn more about, let us know in the comments or drop us a line.

Silence from users about IT is a sign of trouble rather than success. In a sense, IT should be invisible, where it fades into the background. But is the system really running great or are people just making do? Here are some probing questions to determine whether your IT system really is computing nirvana or a sleeping dragon.

Is your team actually preventing IT problems, or just more efficient at solving a recurring problem?  Kudos to the team for getting the firm back up and running quicker after that pesky outage that happens at least once a month, but what are you doing to prevent the outage from ever happening again? Sometimes in IT we get caught up in solving the problem, rather than preventing it in the first place.

What workarounds are users creating to deal with IT issues rather than complain? We had one client who was amazed at how fast their systems booted after an image refresh. Why had no users been complaining of a slow boot process?  For one, they didn't have a standard to compare against, so they just assumed it was normal. Also, they adjusted their work schedule to accommodate the quirks and failings of the system.  So before the image refresh, our client's employees started the login process and then went to the break room for 10 minutes for coffee and kibbutzing. When they returned, the computer would be booted up.

Are you asking them? Despite the many complaints that IT professionals hear, most people will silently bear minor inconveniences. They may not know how to explain the problem or think the time to solve it will be greater than the small dings on their productivity. They may not even see the cumulative costs of those productivity hits personally, but have tremendous effects when viewed from the firm's perspective.

Today brings black clouds for the IT department in the form of a new book by noted IT critic, Nicholas Carr.  Mr. Carr, who made his bones last year with an article contending that corporate IT departments don't provide any strategic advantage, has a new book where he predicts that future IT departments will be operated by one person sitting at a computer issuing commands to outsourced providers via the Internet. Alas, the lonely system administrator gets even less respect and will be the Maytag repairman for this century.

This seems to overlook the fact that software and systems have not evolved to be intuitive and easy to use for the end-user. So who will have the skills to help people with IT, freeing them do whatever it is they do best? As a managed service provider (in other words, outsourced IT provider) we know the value of having great technical staff directly aid our customers whether it is with a question about a word processing program or troubleshooting their messaging system. We provide site visits to facilitate interaction with our customers and build relationships of trust and mutual respect.

Now if that is the evolution of the IT department -- a greater focus on the end-user and better customer service -- we are all for it.

We are conducting a survey on IT and Litigation Support and would like your input!

In our experience, there are many ways that IT and Litigation Support can work together for the overall benefit of the firm. There are a variety of ways that they can learn from each other and share ideas that would benefit them both. This brief survey (10 questions) asks about IT and Litigation Support issues and a forum to discuss them.

We would value your input, whether you are IT, Litigation Support, or Administration.

Please follow this link to take the survey: Click Here to take survey

Thank you in advance for your feedback. We will post the results in about a week, so please check back soon.

Growth happens, sometimes in spite of all our actions! Many small firms rely on individual IT consultants or large IT companies specializing in small firms. So what are the signs you are outgrowing your current IT provider? We list the indicators below, focusing on moving from one person IT consultants to larger IT consulting firms with a broader array of services. In a future post we will discuss the decision to bring IT in-house.

One obvious indicator is that they can’t keep up with your demands for services and support. Your growth places increasing demands on them that they may not be able to meet. In the case of large IT companies catering to small firms, you may simply outgrow their targeted services. A growing firm’s technology also becomes more sophisticated, broader, and more specialized all at the same time. A wider array of services in litigation support, message, VOIP, DMS, web sites, and enterprise level applications are required. At the same time, law firms have very focused software applications that require careful setup and support. Larger IT firms with engineers, application specialists, and programmers can provide the breadth and depth of expertise to meet these demands.

Finally, a surefire giveaway that it is time to move on is if you as a firm manager or administrator are leading your IT firm or bringing trends to their attention. If so, time to start looking for a partner knowledgeable in the latest trends in IT like mobile computing, virtualization, online services and others.

This blog post over at 37 Signals about the preoccupation with the number of features in software development made us think of the flip side: the allure of a multitude of features in purchasing software for a firm. Rather than focusing on benefits to the users, we are guilty of tallying up the features added since the last release. Other pitfalls include:

Different features appeal to different constituencies. When looking at putting software on everyone’s desk or expensive enterprise applications, justifying the large expenditure means getting majorities on management committees to sign off. So we play to our audience, touting different features to different principals to get them to sign-off on the purchase.

Even incredibly smart people fall for the “more is better” argument. Quantity is viewed as value when the price is similar. That value is completely lost if the software becomes too complex or confusing to use. Microsoft’s latest release of Office is notable for its rethinking of the interface after market testing found that users were requesting “new features” that were already in the software but hidden behind menus.

The devil is in the details. Next to lawyers and politicians, sales people are great parsers—saying less to portray the product as delivering much more. Once in users hands, features that looked great on the spec sheet and the tightly scripted demo do not work as promised or their benefits are not as great as expected.

The end result is usually confusion and never-ending calls to the help desk. As consultants, administrators and IT managers, we have to manage the purchasing decision much better. We must frame the purchasing discussion around critical features, not an accounting of a myriad nice-to-have ones. Software purchasing decisions should focus on benefits to the firm rather than appealing to building coalitions through feature-“pork.”

This Tuesday, we spoke to the Small Firm Management section of the ALA Capital Chapter on IT trends for small firms. What we encounter is that small firms have many of the same IT challenges of large law firms, just not on the same scale.

Both small and large firms alike are paying close attention to these IT trends:

Getting more for your money – Everyone is looking to stretch their IT dollars, so small firms are looking to managed IT services and large firms look to outsource basic tasks like daily server checks and monitoring. Firms are also looking at application services providers (Internet providers) for critical systems like time & billing, backup, e-mail and spam filtering.

Virtualization of desktops and servers – flexibility and ability to recover from disasters quickly makes this one of the hottest trends to watch.

Data vaulting – whether the firm administrator is tired of bringing back-up tapes home every night or an integral part of a disaster recovery plan, data vaulting—online backups—are the way to go.

Mobility – Including remote access, laptop and handheld computing, staying in the office is so last century.

Security – While constant struggle against malware rages on, now everyone should also pay attention to stopping data breaches that can cost your firm both money and its reputation.

What are the IT trends where small firms are sitting on the sidelines? WANs; desktop management and software deployment; and Storage Area Networks (SANs).

A common question our clients ask about IT in law firms is how much they should be spending and on what? While the specific answer varies greatly by firm, at the very least you should be spending 3-6% of gross revenue on your IT needs. Then we talk about getting maximum value for that money based on their business goals. For many companies, managed IT services can be a way to get more in the way of service, support, and productivity while spending the same amount.

We put together our thoughts in a white paper called "Getting More from Your IT Budget." It discusses where IT provides the most value to the firm and whether managed services are the right fit for your organization. In it, we cover the many different ways managed services are provided, and what it means to manage your IT provider. Throughout are tips and ideas on how to maximize your IT dollar.

Download the sample, or get your complimentary copy of the complete white paper, a 25 page, full-color PDF.

We have been booked for a number of speaking engagements in the next few months, and it seems they all want to know about IT trends for law firms. We thought it would be fun to crowdsource our reader’s thoughts on some of the trends we see. This is what we are following:

Server Virtualization (also tied closely with disaster recovery). Virtualization technology has matured and makes real sense for firms of many sizes. Most important, it facilitates disaster recovery and business continuity efforts that many firms are implementing today.

Data-vaulting. The future of back-ups are online. Time to throw away those back-up tapes you forgot to swap anyway.

Managed IT services. Remote monitoring and management of IT for 24/7/365 coverage. Small firms get experience, expertise, and the complete package for maximum value for their IT budget, while larger firms can get preventive measures like daily server checks that would otherwise be neglected.

Online Services. Work is moving to the web. Many applications have already moved online like accounting, IP, and CRM, and more are coming. Meanwhile, newsfeeds (RSS) and search are revolutionizing information like e-mail revolutionized communication.

Outsourcing. The timeless sturm-und-drang of in-house vs. out-source extends to practically every corner of the firm, including litigation support, facilities, and even secretarial.

Paperless. Ah, the holy grail. The paperless office seems closer today than ever, but it means some drastic changes in workflow and a rethinking of your equipment and IT.

Vista/Office 2007. From the meat-and-potatoes department, the shift will eventually happen, although no one seems very excited about it.

Give us your feedback on the comments. How would you expand on our points? What are we missing?

Here is a quick update on where you can find SAGE experts speaking on IT topics of interest to the legal and professional services communities.

A Mighty Outlook and PowerPoint 2007 – September 19, 2007 at Noon: SAGE’s Dave Carns and Tony Buffkin wrap up our three part series on Office 2007 for the Information Services and Technology Section of the ALA Capital Chapter. The focus this time is on the latest version of PowerPoint and whether Outlook 2007 is up to the daunting task of managing our email, information, and contacts.

IT Solutions for Small Law Firms – September 25, 2007 at Noon. The Small Firm Management Section of the ALA Capital Chapter is hosting this event. The question for small firms is always how to do more with less? Outsourcing, web services, and mobility provide exciting opportunities for small firms, letting them act big while still maintaining their agility. We will look at these opportunities in detail while also discussing “bread-and-butter” issues like Windows Vista and Office 2007.

We are also firming up speaking engagements on disaster recovery and other topics in October and beyond.

(At least not about your network.)

SAGE OnSight monitors your firm servers and vital systems 24/7/365, alerting SAGE’s crack team of engineers and support certain staff in the event of critical failure. Should something happen, SAGE will know about it within minutes and often can have the issue corrected remotely within an hour. In not, we will dispatch an engineer to your site to get you up and running as soon as possible, hopefully before the managing partner notices anything is amiss.

Check out our demo on this page (Click on "Time is Money Saved..."). In most cases, we will be alerting you that there is a problem with your network, rather than the other way around.  And once it is fixed, you can report to the managing partner that everything has been resolved.

This translates into very real cost savings for your organization. Under the old “break-fix” model, most problems were discovered when people arrived in the morning.  By time an engineer arrived on site and resolved the issue, it was early afternoon.  All the while, your people are idling and billable hours are being lost. With OnSight’s 24/7/365 remote monitoring, level 1 alerts can be resolved in 1-2 hours, meaning your people are back to work and billing much quicker.

We have mentioned before that employees are bringing the technology they use at home or on the road into the firm, a reversal from a few years ago when most people were exposed to new technologies at work. New technologies facilitate new ways of working. This article at Law.com discusses the ability of the “Internet Generation” to multitask and take on responsibilities that were once offloaded to support staff.

“…I inquired whether they were using their secretaries to type letters, make edits to briefs, enter time, etc. The response we got was not unexpected. Why would they give work to somebody else when they could do it just as fast, if not faster, themselves?”

The flip side is whether our support staff and IT are keeping up with them. Supporting staff should keep lawyers and professionals as productive as possible. What could be accomplished if those multitasking capabilities were not wasted on typing and entering time? What can the most connected generation teach the firm about online collaboration and building community using the Internet and digital tools? Of course, the mythic ability of young workers to multitask is a stereotype (like the other stereotypes that they require praise just to do what is expected of them), but can we afford to ignore the ideas of a generation that grew up with computers and the Internet?

In the past week, the first reviews of the IPhone have come in and Apple has released videos, FAQs,and press releases almost daily. So the days of speculating about its features and functionality are finally over. Only wild speculation and misinformation has matched the mammoth hype, especially when in it comes to how the iPhone may fit into business. So here is our balanced opinion on the iPhone in a business setting (we have Mac and PC fans here who work together quite peaceably).

Why Should We Care? In the past few years, consumer technology has been the primary driver of new technology into the workplace. While the iPhone is primarily aimed at the consumer, there are a number of compelling features appealing to business users: ability to select a voice mail rather than listen to all in sequence; ease of use; and full web browser with wi-fi, to name a few. Throw in the iPod features and don’t be surprised a partner walks in with one.

Following are issues where the iPhone is not quite ready for business. The caveat is that Apple is treating the iPhone as a software system and has vowed to push out software updates upgrading its features and functionality. Just because it doesn’t have it now, doesn’t mean it won’t in the future.

Email. Push Me, Pull Me. The killer app for business in mobile phones is e-mail, and to a lesser extent calendaring, which is why Blackberry rules the roost. Blackberry, Good, and Microsoft’s ActiveSync are “push” technologies, sending the e-mail to the mobile device when it is received on the e-mail servers. The iPhone has push e-mail, but only from Yahoo! mail because it uses “push-IMAP,” a protocol MS Exchange server doesn’t support. Otherwise, the iPhone “pulls” e-mails using IMAP, where the iPhone periodically checks in with the e-mail server to see if there are new messages.

Rumor has it that Apple has licensed ActiveSync from Microsoft, meaning it would have push e-mail compatibility with MS Exchange. If so, the iPhone would be on par with Blackberry and Good.

Control Issues and Remote Erasure. Blackberry and Good are corporate darlings because of configuration, control, and the ability to remotely erase the data on handhelds. So far, the iPhone lacks these features. Controlling the configuration allows the IT department to ensure quality service because they do not have a myriad of different handhelds with different software and settings configurations. And the ability to remotely wipe data on a smartphone is priceless when the employee leaves the phone with confidential e-mails in the taxi or the plane.

The Slippery Slope of iTunes. iTunes is required to sync not only songs, photos, and video to the iPhone, but also contacts and calendars as well. This raises the question of whether putting iTunes on business computers will invite streaming music over the Internet, which iTunes allows, or employees putting personal music files and videos on firm equipment. Who is then responsible for backing up their personal music? These issues may be resolved with an “Acceptable Use” policy and disclaimer, but the implications should be thoroughly considered.

So, if you need justification for turning away iPhone toting members of your staff, these are:

• no "push" e-mail functionality compatible with our e-mail infrastructure.
• no ability to wipe data remotely to protect sensitive data in the case of a lost iPhone; and
  
• iTunes is not sanctioned software for a computer that IT will manage.

Remember, however, that the iPhone is in its infancy. Should Apple repeat its runaway success with the iPod or merely match Blackberry’s initial acceptance, it may be a wave that IT departments can’t resist. If that is the case, IT will be tasked with figuring out how to accommodate it rather than dismissing it.

You could accuse us of trying to make bank on the iPhone hype, but don’t say this scenario is implausible: In a couple of weeks, the superstar partner walks into IT with her brand new iPhone. And after surfing a few web pages on the firm wi-fi and watching a clip from The Office, she then says, “I want to get my work email on it.”

So what do you do? Can you really suggest the bare bones Outlook Mobile Access (OMA) after she demonstrates flicking through her GMail? Are you forced to enable IMAP after all these years?

Now, the iPhone won’t be replacing Blackberries in the law firm any time soon, but the point is personal technology encroaching on “work” tech. Like instant messaging and wi-fi, these days new tech is being introduced in the law firm from attorneys and staff bringing it from home rather than from the IT department. You probably went with Blackberry back in the day because a hot shot partner saw a colleague's device and wanted one for himself.

To quote a Zen saying: “the only constant in life is change.” In IT and administration, your job is to maintain a consistent, high-quality level of service. Sometimes that means saying no. But the other mandate is to provide tools that make the firm and its employees more productive and effective. That means saying yes and using a little ingenuity. The iPhone promises a very easy user experience for calling, voice mail and others beyond e-mail, which is Blackberries forte. Should it deliver (a very big if), then it is time to reevaluate the firm’s policy—and embracing change.

If not the iPhone, it will be something else.

As you may know, yesterday we did a couple of short presentations on the many flavors of managed IT services at the ALA Capital Chapter’s Spring Expo. Well, before we could talk about the variations, we made the case for how managed IT services like SAGE OnSight provide more value for your IT budget dollar. In fact, we have a chart that illustrates the case.

The chart compares the functions typically performed in a small to medium sized firm against what a managed IT solution like OnSight provides. The chart depicts a real world scenario, where preventive measures like daily server checks, patch testing and monthly maintenance aren’t performed, usually because of special projects that eat into time that should be devoted to operations. With a managed IT service, you also get the preventative measures, strategic direction and access to expert resources.

Now keep in mind that we are talking about working with the same IT budget. And it’s not a situation where you have to fire your current IT staff. Often managed services complement existing staff. Taking all of the above into account, managed IT services provide tremendous value. We just needed to make the chart to really drive home the point to ourselves as well!

Across the pond, a study of IT claims that UK businesses lose 31 days from poor IT management. Of course, that’s the attention grabbing headline [it works, doesn’t it?], and the findings are not nearly so catastrophic. The lesson learned is that IT is a great asset, but like any asset in an organization, it requires time and money for maintenance and upkeep. Failure to do so has dire consequences, like diverting resources and lowering productivity.

The culprit is not the hardware or software, but management and maintenance. In fact, any gains in productivity, efficiency, or quality degrade over time because of poor upkeep. In the survey, 77 percent cited that insufficient upkeep wasted an estimated 13 percent of their investment in IT.

Why? Projects are high profile while operations are considered monotonous and ho-hum. Smaller firms offer divert resources from operations for projects, and service suffers and gains aren’t fully realized. Operations, however, are what keep people productive and work going out the door.

So besides giving operations its due, split IT staff along projects and operations responsibilities if your organization is large enough, or call on outside help for projects when necessary.

Sure, we like to think some relationships will last forever, but they are really the exception to the rule. People change. Companies change. Industries change. Things, umm, change. When SAGE got into the managed IT services arena with OnSight, we recognized change as a given. That is why we built in quarterly technology reviews, for instance, but we also made it easy for clients to quit if circumstances changed and the relationship no longer worked.

OnSight doesn’t lock in clients the way other managed IT services do. Clients own their own equipment and infrastructure, so if they decide to go in another direction they don’t face sticker shock of “rebuilding” the network from the E-mail server to the Citrix box. And while we work with lawyers, we didn’t get a team of our own to write draconian contracts that lock in clients for long periods of time. If OnSight isn’t providing the right service for a client, than a document should not be the only glue binding us together.

We like to pride ourselves on our integrity here at SAGE, but we can't blame you for thinking that touting the advantages of managed IT services seems a little self-serving. (SAGE OnSight is our take on managed IT, one that seems to work great for our clients).

So don't take our word for it.  PC Magazine has a complete rundown on what constitutes Managed IT Services and what small and medium business can expect.  Points the article covers are:

• What to expect in terms of service and capabilities;
  
• The advantages in terms of improved operations, technical expertise, and allowing the company to focus on their business;
• Whether your small and medium sized company is a candidate for managed IT services; and
• Tips on implementing managed services

Well worth a read if you are considering testing the waters or just learning about it.

There are many different flavors to managed IT Services. SAGE OnSight falls into the category, but managed IT services come in many flavors and it is important for each organization to find the service that best fits its needs. Following are some more subtle points to consider when looking at managed IT service providers.

Personal Factor. Trust and confidence in your IT provider is vital in managed environments. You want someone on the other end of the line who is not only knowledgeable, but also responsive and trustworthy. It’s also nice to see them in person too.

Lock In—or Barriers to Exit. These can be contractual or monetary. Contracts can range from a few months to three years or more, and according to many lawyers we know, some are rather ironclad. Good service providers will require only a one month termination notice if the relationship is not working out after the initial contract period. Also consider the cost of creating a network if you decide to separate from a provider that completely outsources your IT. The infrastructure you once had now has to be rebuilt, from the E-mail server to the Citrix box, and it all comes with a price tag.

Speed and Responsiveness. While the Internet is great for working over great distances, network latency can affect the speed and responsiveness of your systems. Slow systems mean frustrated users.

Turnaround Times. How quickly will the service provider turn around new user accounts or have workstations set up for new employees? Good service providers know your time is valuable and people need to be productive as quickly as possible.

Control Issues. Many administrators who once lorded over the domain are sometimes locked out when the outsourced IT provider takes over. Instead of rolling up the sleeves and figuring out the problem, you are sending a service request. Many service providers monitor your systems and often know of a problem before you do, but you want prompt service if you are no longer in the driver’s seat. Also, having eyes into the system only increases your confidence if you can verify what the service provider is telling you.

So much of today's technical news focuses on when technology fails us.  Security breaches, lost laptops with social security numbers and emails that contains "too" much information are on the minds of business people around the world. Law firm clients are acutely aware that poor technology management can lead to unintended results and they are asking their firm's to take note.

Here are some of the steps that firms can take to avoid being in the headlines:

• Require that each Blackberry has a four character password at minimum.
• Each Blackberry should prompt for a password after an hour (or less) of inactivity.
• Ensure your IT staff knows how to remotely "wipe" a Blackberry.  That lost goldmine traveling around in the back seat of a cab can be erased from the Blackberry server to mitigate data loss.

• PGP WDE (Whole Disk Encryption)
• Voltage Secure Disk
• PointSec
• Guardian Edge
• Microsoft Vista's BitLocker Technology

This Wednesday's SAGE Wisdom Webinar is about improving network performance through proactive maintenance, namely daily server checks.  A tool we developed, SAGE Sentinel, can cut the time spent on daily server checks in half, as well as provide accountability and network monitoring through an easy dashboard. To learn more about Sentinel and how to keep your network running at peak performance, please join us this Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 pm EDT.

If you are interested,  sign-up online here.

The Wisdom Webinar schedule can always be found at this link and is updated monthly. Upcoming SAGE Wisdom Webinars will cover managing tech migrations for minimal disruption to the firm, and using extranets like SAGE MindPort for internal projects as well as external ones. Future webinars will cover topics like virtualization, Windows Vista and Office 2007, Exchange 12, and managing newsfeeds.

Many of you reading the title are probably chuckling at the perceived paradoxes in it. Who would think “network administrators” and “creativity” would appear in such proximity? This blog post makes an excellent case for constraints as the engine of creativity for technical folk like system engineers and network administrators, and why they gravitate to “emergencies” because they have clearly defined boundaries rather than blue-sky projects that do not.

In the post there is a fun little thought experiment that makes the point about creativity and constraints. Other notable points and suggestions include:

• Everyone wants a stable network and network engineers would like to initiate projects and proactive solutions, but tend to work on the fixes and emergencies since they have clear problem to solve.
• To overcome this, managers should challenge network engineers with “specific forward-looking issues” and ensure they spend time on it.
• Don’t be afraid to throw “business” problems to the engineers (if there really is such a distinction between IT and business these days) along with constraints to focus their efforts on longer term network performance.

People in traditional “design” disciplines like architecture, art, industrial design, etc. have long known the vast power that constraints have to spark creativity. Constraints like budgets, materials, and time have led to more innovation than a blank check and no deadlines. Even in the business realm, Wal-Mart attributes their success in creating the world’s most efficient distribution system from the fact that they had to build everything from scratch in the Arkansas backwater. They had hundreds of constraints—mostly lack of resources—which they eventually found elegant solutions that lead to business success.

So many of you are pondering whether to make the jump to Exchange 2007 and all it entails, like the fact that there is no upgrade path since it requires a 64 bit server. You are weighing the pros and cons, deciding whether it’s worth precious budget dollars or trying to justify it to upper management. We already mentioned that the new Outlook Web Access (OWA) is one in Exchange 2007’s favor, but here are a few more if you are looking for justifications, or even rationalizations.

Replication and Disaster Recovery. Exchange 2007 allows the duplication of information stores for offsite clustered servers making replication and disaster recovery easier. Also, users can have mailbox functionality while database recovery is occurring, getting people back to work faster.

Different roles in a clustered environment. Different servers in an Exchange 2007 cluster can take on various roles, such as one sitting in the DMZ as an Edge Transport Server. Other roles include Mailbox, Hub Transport, Client Access and …

Unified Messaging. Integration with your VOIP system to allow voice mails to be stored in mailboxes and the ability to listen to e-mail messages on a mobile phone.

We will be featuring more useful features that make the upgrade worthwhile in upcoming blog posts. A full list of the new features in Exchange 2007 and other propaganda is available on Microsoft’s Exchange 2007 evaluation site.

We describe our OnSight service as “Managed IT Services,” but this means different things to different people. So we figured we would be clear on our vision of managed IT service, especially because we think it is a bit unique.

SAGE approaches OnSight from a value perspective first and foremost, not just a cost perspective. You will still save money compared to managing your IT assets yourself, but you really get maximum value when you factor in our site visits and proactive approach like daily server checks, monthly maintenance, and quarterly technology reviews. We feel that the personal touch is essential. That’s why SAGE application specialists and engineers make periodic visits; interacting first-hand with users and management and seeing any problems and opportunities at the ground level.

We also insist on client independence. Our clients own their servers, workstations, and other equipment, we just keep it running in top shape and help them plan to meet business needs. While you may want to give up some responsibility when it comes to IT, you don’t want to feel like you are giving up control. We don’t live up to your expectations, the cost to switch is minimal. We like it that way. It pushes us to keep providing outstanding service; that means outstanding value for clients.

So when we talk about OnSight managed IT services, we mean you manage us. We don’t manage you.

Taking stock every now and then is important for performing better in the future. Problem is, there never seems to be the time! Whether your firm is small with no dedicated IT director or a large firm with many on-going projects, many don’t stop to check to what technology path they are on and where it is leading. The difference is anticipating demands in IT and proactively addressing them or simply reacting under tight time pressure.

As part of our OnSight service, we conduct quarterly technology reviews with our clients. This is invaluable for them since many don’t have personnel focused on strategic IT issues. However, a periodic technology review is good for organizations of any size. Our OnSight technology reviews cover four areas:

Feedback on current service. How are users needs being met? What areas need improvement? How stable is the network? What are users requesting?

Business issues impacting technology needs and infrastructure. How will the firms growth (whether organic or through a M&A) affect IT needs? If not growth, is the mix within the firm changing that could affect where and what IT resources are available? When are leases on equipment coming due? Are their tax implications about equipment purchases that need to be considered?

Project management requirements for upcoming technology projects. For upcoming IT projects, do you have the staff and are they qualified to perform the project correctly and on-time? If you need help, is there money in the budget and extra help scheduled?

Survey of technologies that could have positive impact. What technologies are out there that can benefit the firm, such as VOIP, document management, or server virtualization? What alternatives do you have to your current technology and infrastructure.

Technology reviews are integral part of developing a technology plan that keeps firms ahead of their technology needs rather than always putting out fires and playing catch-up. How many firms out there perform periodic technology reviews and what do you look at?

We could fill volumes in this blog about everything that went wrong with creating a workable technology solution for the change in Daylight Savings Time, but less than a week out here is the harsh reality: any technology fix at this point will be a cure that is worse than the disease. For the three week span between the new and old DST, the best fix will be a decidedly low tech approach, calling or emailing your meeting attendees to confirm the time of the appointment.

This is not to say that network administrators will get a free ride. There are still servers to patch and workstations to upgrade so that each computer will recognize the time change. But each of us must not rely on a technology solution to make sure your calendar appointments will display the correct time.

Changing the date is a surprisingly complicated problem given all the ways calendar events are created and shared. What device created the event? In what time zone is the person who created the message? What state is the person in who created the event (like Arizona that doesn’t do daylight time)? How many people inside and outside the organization are on the appointment. Changing the correct time in one platform like Exchange could lead to a myriad of meeting update requests that are readily ignored by users deluged by update requests.

One suggestion is to include the start and end times for appointments in the subject lines. We would add picking up the phone to confirm the time. That has the added benefit of the personal touch.

When Congress changed the date for Daylight Savings Time last year, few could foresee the problems, hyperbole, and misinformation it would produce in tech circles. In its infinite wisdom, the IT world couldn’t fathom the possibility that Congress could ever change the date for Daylight Savings Time, even though it is convention among humans and not a fundamental law of nature. Thus followed the very faint echoes of fear and loathing we heard during Y2K.

Here is the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly about updating computers for the new date for Daylight Savings Time:

The Good: The available patches work and are stable.  Do not fear using them.

The Bad: The patches aren’t a 100 percent fix. Some calendar entries will be off during the interim period between the new date and the old. Plan accordingly.

The Ugly: In a head-scratching move, Microsoft decided to make a big deal about not supporting Windows 2000 Server and older operating systems. So they made a patch available for the older OS’s, but charged thousands of dollars rather than make it freely available. Needless to say, this caused a brouhaha in the tech world, with many looking outside Microsoft for a fix for the older operating systems.

Here are a few gems from the World Wide Mind that should interest you on a Wednesday morning.

Businesses Could Thank YouTube One Day. Nowadays we enjoy our T1s in the office and broadband connections at home, and perhaps pine for some more bandwidth when you can't get your e-mail because your co-worker is watching a video on YouTube. Don't rat out your mate just yet, because YouTube just may be making it worthwhile for telecoms invest in bandwidth and up your connection speed. It seems you have Napster to thank for what you have now, but the real payoff comes when the online document review with co-counsel in three different states moves at light speed.

Don't Go Changing, To Your Clients, Customers...In another great example of pushing a metaphor to the limits without jumping the shark, here is great post on not letting your client-firm relationships become like a bad marriage by changing. Everyone one is so attentive and considerate while dating (selling), but then don't listen or send flowers once the deal is sealed. Avoid this by paying attention to detail, really listen to what they are saying, and behave like you want to marry them all over again. (Where was this post on Valentines's Day?)

You Told Me to Do It, So It's Not Going To Happen? Ever wonder why clients and customers don't take the advice for which they paid us hard money? The psychological terms is called the Principle of Reactance: reactance: a person's tendency to resist social influences that they perceive as threats to their autonomy. This explains why many people act contrary to good advice, even if they commissioned it, and can occur unconsciously. The anecdote is to couch the advice in terms that doesn' appear to encroach on their freedom, but expands it.

Don't Practice Law, Be A Manager. This post discusses the pros and cons of using non-practicing lawyers in management positions like CMOs and CIOs. While they bring business and management experience and skills practicing lawyers often lack, often it is hard for them to fit into the culture and be accepted in it.

…or IT Director, or Administrator whose duties include IT. It sure can be a thankless job: No one notices when everything is running smoothly but one little thing goes wrong like the Blackberry server crashing, and everyone points their finger at you. Here are some more professional hazards from both the top and bottom…

Are you leading changes in technology and how your company uses it, or are you just setting “acceptable use” policies? There is a tension between innovation and operations that IT Directors, CIOs, et al have to manage. Leadership wants a tight ship, but at the same time might want a few more suggestions out of you for productivity improvements. In a recent Forrester survey, 60 percent of CEOs like their CIOs, but less than a third of the time viewed them as leading the charge in innovation or process improvement.

The Young Bucks think you are the Dinosaur. Another tension is between generations within companies, between those who have learned IT on the job and those that have grown up with it. Those young people who grew up with Instant Messaging question why that port is blocked and why they can’t Skype their friend in Europe. They just don’t understand that to ensure a consistent experience for everyone, certain limits need to be set which means locking down the desktop.

So the lessons learned from these criticisms: keep the lights on but be proactive about have to help the business improve through technology; and be a little more open to ideas from the young ‘uns. So to manage all that you will probably need a little help every now and then from vendors and consultants unless you already walk on water.

Last week, Microsoft matched its record of fixes in its monthly security update.  With all the updates coming from Microsoft, “Patch Tuesday” is getting up there with “Hump Day,” but still lagging way behind “Manic Monday” and “TGIF.”

With all these patches, here is a corollary to the law of unintended consequences: test any patches before deploying them to servers and workstations on the network. This is now become one of cardinal rules of IT. Don’t expect Microsoft or any other vendor to have exhaustedly tested any patches they have released. Patches themselves are often rushed fixes to vulnerabilities and exploits, where speed is generally more prized than quality or stability. To be fair, accounting for every possible computing environment is impossible. Microsoft will even push the envelope on what is considered a “critical patch”: like releasing Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) as a critical patch. IE7 broke many web applications due to changes in its architecture.

As part of our SAGE OnSight service, we test all patches before deploying them to the networks we manage for our clients. This practice has been instrumental in the high degree of up-time, stability and reliability our clients enjoy.

When Interwoven updated its WorkSite 8.2 Resource Kit late last year, they made some enhancements to the WorkSpace Generator that are real time-savers for people administering Interwoven DMS. We only wish we had these tools earlier for a few prickly projects.

• Greater flexibility in creating or modifying workspaces from templates, such as creating or deleting certain folders to tailor the workspace – this is really if you initially set up the workspace incorrectly or the requirements change. Before there was no easy/low cost way to change existing workspaces before this. Now, you can change the template, then go back and adjust workspaces based on that template
• Additional wildcard fields in folder meta data that permits dynamically building different types of workspaces. For instance, if the folder structure is the same for different practice area workspaces, but the names of some folders is different, you now only need one template and the wildcard fields can be used to customize the name
• Repopulating the content of existing workspaces: important in rebuilding corrupted or accidentally deleted workspaces. The catch is that the original workspace needs to be created by the 8.2 version of the WorkSpace Generator.
• Use existing workspaces as a template for new workspaces.

These improvements make managing and administering workspaces in Interwoven much easier and address some very tough problems we have encountered in implementations for many of our clients.

Mark Chandler, the General Counsel of Cisco Systems, Inc. threw down the gauntlet to big law firms and rising rates in a recent speech. He asserts that law firms have not changed their practices while the technology has changed the ease of access, acquisition and use of information. As a result, law firms have become roadblocks because they restrict access through the inefficient “billable hour.”

“The legal industry has spent millions on IT to up speed access to information. But the only way I can get that information is through an individual billing me by the hour. My in-house team often has more sophistication than the associates who mine the knowledge management system to generate a memo. We’re just not allowed to access the information without paying for someone’s time.”

In his eyes, this failure to make information more accessible to clients, will be the downfall of big law firms unless the remedy the situation. Chandler warns that standardized legal information systems like Google Patent Search will spring up to challenge the current model of “one-to-one consultative advice.”

The driver is cost. Chandler says that when law firm’s raise rates, they are oblivious to the cost pressures corporate America face every day, and misperceive the value of their services.

“From the law firm think perspective, “sales” too often means a one to one relationship with a lawyer who bills by the hour. As a client, I can tell you what I want to buy is access to information, strategy, and negotiation, and, in the case of litigation, to courtroom skill as well.”

Think he is crazy? Cisco does almost all of its legal work on a fixed fee basis, and has been paying less each year rather than more. He works with law firms in a number of ways to reduce costs, create efficiency, and improve service. Now how are you going to respond to his model before someone else does?

We have exhorted the use of simple sketches and mock-ups to help clients and users better imagine and comprehend complex systems or new ideas of which they do not have a common ground in which to relate. We uncovered an article from the June 2005 issue of Fast Company magazine that discusses how “design” in the broadest sense, helps form and communicate business strategy.

“People need to have a visceral understanding -- an image in their minds -- of why you've chosen a certain strategy and what you're attempting to create with it. Design is ideally suited to this endeavor. It can't help but create tangible, real outcomes.”

In other words, people need concrete examples to grasp the meaning and import of the strategy being pursued, whether that is the advantages of a virtual server room, or a new way to provide service internally. It clears any confusion over competing interpretations of however you explained the strategy in words. With that grasp, people not only can get behind the strategy, but also are better prepared to participate and advocate on its behalf. And it is a process—essentially a prototyping process—that unlocks ideas and suggestions in your people who otherwise would be unable to give feedback.

“Once you spot a promising idea, you build it. The prototype is typically a drawing, model, or film that describes a product, system, or service. We build these models very quickly; they're rough, ready, and not at all elegant, but they work. The goal isn't to create a close approximation of the finished product or process; the goal is to elicit feedback that helps us work through the problem we're trying to solve. In a sense, we build to think.”

The next time you find yourself proposing a new strategy to a client or internal group, a simple diagram or mock-up may be the difference between your plans being understood and supported, or withering away in obscurity.

After our post about how the upcoming Apple iPhone could start a sea-change toward handheld computing, we are reminded that technology can be used for good or evil. The simple fact that there are nearly 1 billion cell phones makes them a tempting target for all sorts of malefactors. There have been a few cell phone viruses, but they haven’t done any real damage.

The real threat comes from theft of PDAs, laptops, and portable media, according to this article. The kicker is that an estimated 60 percent of laptops and PDAs contain unprotected sensitive or confidential information. That means potential liability if that information is customer or personnel data.

So lock down your portable devices, using physical locks, data encryption, strong passwords, and a harsh glare if necessary. We have more than a few horror stories of clients calling us to do audits because they think some computer equipment has gone missing. Usually, their intuition is correct, but the problem is even worse than they thought.

We are garnering a few interesting insights into the miscommunication that often happens between IT and users from reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. The thrust of the book is that behind people’s locked unconscious is a whole range of pattern recognition and cognitive abilities that allows people to make snap judgments and decisions. More often than not, according to Gladwell, these snap, unconscious decisions are correct. How this applies to the interaction between IT and users can be demonstrated through the common refrain “It just doesn’t work right!” and “I can’t explain it, but it’s not right.”

So what does this mean to unlocking the secret code of user feedback to IT:

• Don’t discount a user’s "gut reaction". Just because they cannot describe their reaction doesn’t mean they are wrong.
• Be able to interpret their reaction: People react to new and different as “bad,” so those first gut reactions may need interpretation. Is the user being presented with something different from the norm, causing some discomfort? Or is there something intrinsically wrong that really needs to be addressed?
• Find a common language. IT has a specialized language to describe their world, something users do not. They do not have the words to describe their “feelings,” and when we try to give them IT’s jargon, it has no meaning for them. Try to find a middle ground you can both understand.
• People are ignorant of the things that affect their actions, but they rarely feel ignorant. When confronted with a feeling but no clear rationale, they will create one. This plausible explanation takes the place of the real pattern their unconscious saw or took exception.
• Try and Try Again. It just may come down to trial and error. Go back, change a setting, rework the interface, or explain the concept in a new way. Then see how the user reacts. Not terribly efficient, but could mean the difference between satisfied and disgruntled users.

Here are few items that peaked our interest on the web today (including one that sucked us into Apple hype machine).

• Inside Legal Opinions has a great post about innovative lawyers and law firms that is well worth a read. Industry pressures, technology, and plain old unconventional thinking are pushing these law firms and lawyers in new directions, even proposing to get rid of the partner-associate structure.
• Say what you will about Apple in corporate (or business) environments, you have to give them credit for pushing the envelope. Today they unveiled the much anticipated iPhone and appear to have exceeded people's unrealistic expectations for the device. Sporting a new “multi-touch” interface that does away with physical buttons, the iPhone rethinks the whole mobile phone/mobile computing experience. Plus you get an iPod. We’ll watch the initial previews of the new interface, but if the phone lives up to its promise, Apple and Cingular could find people clamoring for these phones in June.
• Microsoft’s new Office 2007 releasing Jan. 30 also comes with a new document format, the clumsily named Office Open XML (or OOXML for smooth-sounding acronyms.) Problem is, it will not be backward compatible with earlier versions of Office unless an upgrade pack is applied to those pre-2007 versions. Still it remains unclear how the document conversion will happen between Office 2007 documents and older versions of the software.

We found some validation in ILTA’s 2006 Salary Survey today. SAGE has always focused on finding experienced people with great communication skills and an attitude to learn, investigate, and dig deep. Education and certifications have always been less important as they are no substitute for experience in the field and real world problem solving. This has run counter to many who have placed a premium on certifications and education levels.

No longer are we the lone wolves, according to ILTA’s 2006 Survey. According to law firms surveyed, this is how their ranked the criteria in hiring IT staff:

1. Personality and attitude
2. Technology experience
3. Experience in the legal world
4. Training and certification
5. College degree and formal education.

We would probably substitute “excellent communication skills” for “personality” as a criteria. For SAGE, excellent communication skills mean excellent client service, and the rest should naturally fall into place.

There it is. A blatant plug for one of our services. You knew it had to happen eventually. But we also want to boast about our great people here at SAGE.

Tech salaries came up the other day when talking with a client. Just so happens, E-Week ran a story yesterday on the shortage of specialized IT skills is pushing up salaries. That reminded us that an advantage of SAGE OnSight is that we provide the expert IT staff or augment your current staff. Our clients don’t have to fight for scarce tech talent and their consummate high salaries, because we already do that.

Our OnSight clients rave about the service because of the staff. Our Application Specialists manning the OnSight Support Center have the unique combination of extensive knowledge, great communication skills, and happen to be some of the most considerate people you will ever meet. Then our crack engineers are some of the most intelligent thorough and creative around. Frankly, there isn’t much they haven’t seen in network design and support. Not only are they terrific at troubleshooting issues, but they can explain it in laymen’s terms. We have already done the hard work to identify great IT talent, so you don’t have to.

First off, Happy New Year. SAGE wishes you the very best in 2007.

The New Year always brings out the fanatics, a strange sect that passionately awaits its annual gathering to speculate, spread rumors, and prognosticate over what the coming year will bring.  I’m referring to "MacHeads" and their annual confab of MacWorld. So why talk about Macs when almost every law firm runs on PCs?  While everyone uses a PC, few love them the way Mac users love their Macs, and in that is a lesson for providing customer service.

What if your users were as fanatical about the service they receive from the IT department? Your annual review with the managing partner or firm management would certainly better, and your reputation among the legal and professional services IT community would certainly rise. Increased trust between IT and the firm is welcome; not to mention the better communication and feedback you would receive that would start a virtuous cycle of new ideas and even better service.

The trick is becoming one of them, breaking down the barriers between IT and the employees. An attention to detail and viewing the world from the users perspective are ways Apple and others have created passionate customers.  Don’t expect to win over everyone, because if everyone loves you then a few hard decisions aren’t being made. (Look at Apple’s small, but growing market share). Winning over just a few brings the benefits of user advocates. Honesty and a true ear for their concerns can easily create a fan base.

If you would like to make “creating fanatical users” as your resolution, be our guest.

We have to stick up for our own kind today and take exception to the article “Five IT Blind Spots That Shut Lawyers Out.” It regurgitates all the worst stereotypes of IT workers to give the impression that IT departments have gone rogue and care nothing for the lawyers and staff they serve. Even worse, the article suggests that IT is off in its own sandbox, using the partners’ well earned money to play with its shiny toys.

No one, in whatever profession, is the sum of their stereotypes. The “assumption” here is that this is the modus operandi of your average IT worker. Sure, we have seen instances of parochial thinking, poor service, and insensitivity, but this is more often the exception rather than the rule. The article makes a number of good points, but by compiling a laundry list of IT faults, it makes an incorrect impression that stigmatizes the industry and law firm’s own employees.

We work with IT staff in many law firms and know their commitment to the firm and their users. Everyday we see the IT staff that work hard to explain difficult technical concepts to laymen; who know the business goals and work hard to align IT to them; who make the added effort to create simple interfaces to complex systems; and who refuse to buy non-essential software or upgrade to non-compelling versions. Maybe the default assumption lawyers and staff should have is that IT is here to help, not to make your life miserable.

Here are a series of posts over at The Wired GC about law firm rate increases that ends with a harrowing set of conclusions for law firms:

• Profit motive appears to be the primary factor; and
• Customers are getting the same thing as before, only it costs more. That means the customer is getting less value.

Click on the blog post to comment on the merits of the author's argument, but we will point out that perceptions quickly become reality. Are your firms offering extranets, easier access to files, or other services to offset the negative value of rate increases?

Internet and digital technologies remove many of the constraints to providing niche services and reaching audiences across much wider geographic areas. For small and medium-sized law and professional services firms, especially “Boutique” firms that specialize in niche areas, this means that the advantages many large firms and their superior resources once enjoyed are diminishing.

Broadband Internet, Wi-Fi, and VoIP allow small firms to communicate easily with customers that may be half the world away. Collaborative technologies like extranets, web conferencing, and Skype makes servicing far flung clients practical and efficient. Using social networking services like LinkedIn, the cost of acquiring a customer drops dramatically, eroding another advantage of large firms. As access to information and other resources becomes cheaper, the resource advantage large firms once held is shrinking daily (think of the Google vs. Lexis/Nexis subscription for basic research, or RSS feeds compared to costly clipping or news aggregation services).

The phenomena rapidly attracting the public’s attention is “The Long Tail:” large numbers of small sales and niche services that looks like a tail when viewed on a graph of demand. The point is, the Long Tail rivals the “hits” at the head in revenue and profitability. Apply this idea to law and professional services firms, where big firms are the “hits” at the head, and small and medium firms are the long tail. Before the Internet, that tail was much shorter, and couldn’t rival the big firms for revenue in the aggregate. But now, that’s changing.

Reputation and quality of service become deciding factors over sheer resources in many cases. There are still instances throwing lots of people at a problem are warranted, but that’s is becoming less so everyday. As part of the “Long Tail,” small and medium firms can often rival the giants.

This post over at Legal Blog Watch talks about some reasons why lawyers and law firms don’t collaborate to the extent that Corporate America does. Citing culture, training, and nature of the work, the authors suggest the command-and-control structure of firms discourages intra-firm collaboration. We would add the conservativeness of the legal community toward new technology.

We don’t see law firms as the dinosaurs the post suggests. Law firms are slowly adopting extranets like MindPort for collaborating with clients, co-counsel, and experts. But if the deck is stacked against lawyers themselves, collaboration should be widely encouraged for other firm employees like paralegals, practice support staff, and other professionals and support personnel. As we have mentioned on the blog before, sharing knowledge and information is vital to productivity and work quality. Demolishing silos where information and expertise is locked up in practice areas or functional groups should be a top priority for any law firm administrator and management.

While many firms have been down the Intranet route (often poorly), extranets that are so successful externally can be applied to many projects and situations internally. New ideas in collaboration such as Wikis, social bookmarking, RSS, and more are coming to the forefront that are often inexpensive and easier to implement.

Here are a couple of ideas to get you motivated for another work week. This article on O’Reilly Radar discusses the importance of an ideal or mission in motivating your team. If your team believes in something more than just working for a paycheck, higher quality, better ideas, and more productivity will follow. Whether the ideal is “outstanding customer service”—our mantra here at SAGE—our “we do it better than everyone else,” there are a host of ideals for your team to aspire to. By giving your people something to believe in, your organization will get higher customer service, quality, and greater involvement. The trick is making them believe, but that stems from the management’s sincerity and adherence to the ideal itself.

So now that you have a motivated team, when was the last time you had a blank check on a project? Yeah, we have never had one of those either. While we like to bemoan the shackles time, money, and management place on us, Chris Anderson of “The Long Tail” fame talks about something we have known for years but too often forget: those constraints can be the source of inspiration. Ingenuity is about overcoming challenges, and IT and ingenuity should go hand-in-hand. So before you complain about a small budget or a small team, think about how your constraints can be a source of inspiration. Just one example: SpaceShipOne—human spaceflight on a shoestring team and budget.

Today brings a number of thoughtful blog posts from around the Matrix. Each probably deserves some commentary—but since we can’t decide which—today we will just point you to them. Hint: Look for these topics in upcoming posts.

People Search for Yahoo using Google. Many users don’t know the difference between the browser address bar and the Google search box, so they get to Yahoo by typing it in Google’s search box and clicking on a result. This is emblematic of IT’s inattention to users work habits and failure to guide and instruct them properly.

Following up on that thought, little things make a big difference in people’s perceptions. Malcolm Gladwell first popularized the “Broken Windows” theory of crime enforcement, where importance was placed on cleaning up small details (like broken windows) before they contribute to larger ills and everything spirals out of control. This post equates that approach to web site and software development, and stresses the importance of momentum. We would suggest that in applying “broken windows” to IT, such as fixing quirks like slow login scripts that annoy users, is about improving user and management perception of performance. Not to cover up bad performance or quality, but combat negative perceptions when performance and quality are really quite good.

A grassroots movement of using personal e-mail and IM accounts like GMail and AIM rather than corporate accounts appears to be gaining momentum. The boon for the user, not having to learn new software or deal with bugs each time a new client or back-end server is changed, plus more storage.

Finally comes this report that small and medium enterprises down under are balking at the high price of Windows Vista and Office 2007. Evidently the Australians believe “they got all they really needed from earlier versions…” What say us Yanks?

All these links are saved on the del.icio.us/sagesol network open to all our readers.

Virtual computing environments are one of the most exciting developments in IT in years. Recently, SAGE hosted a seminar on virtual computing with the Capital Chapter of ALA.  The seminar was a big success, and now we are taking that seminar to you.

The session starts with an overview of the technology and its applications, and provide a survey of configurations, products, and platforms. We share our insights into the best applications for virtualization, and the various platforms and software currently in the market. The session delves into the costs and benefits of the technology, addressing the often touted myth of large cost savings. Based on our experience, We will also share the pitfalls to avoid when going virtual, and where virtual environments are heading in the near future.

The seminar covers:

• What is virtualization? Common configurations, products, hardware platforms and system requirements.
• Uses for virtualization, including development, consolidation, disaster recovery, etc.
• Pros and cons of virtual server environments.
• Maximizing performance in virtual computing.
• Myths and realities regarding the economics of virtualization.
• Real costs of going virtual for firms of various sizes.
• Complementary technologies for virtual server rooms like SANs, and remote power control.

If your firm is interested in learning more virtual computing, please contact Karin Magness at SAGE and we will bring the roadshow to your company.

Here’s an idea we have been kicking around since the elections last week… No matter what your political stripes, one clear lesson from the razor-thin margins in the last few U.S. elections is that each vote counts. Voting is just another form of feedback, whether the medium is an election, or user input about IT support. In the United States, there are significant elections every two years, because the world is a dynamic place and people and policies need to adapt. Generally, IT matters are decided by a single vote, (or executive fiat!) that are set in stone and never revisited until the next upgrade cycle.

Information Technology is just as dynamic as American politics (if not more so), not to mention changes in the business environment. Encourage your users and staff to constantly “vote” on the state of your IT resources, whether it is network performance, custom applications, or how you are providing support. Furthermore, let them know that their “vote” matters in the choice of technology or chosen course. Dynamic systems require constant feedback to perform optimally, so make sure to continually encourage voting on your IT resources and practices.

With the upcoming launch of Windows Vista, the operating system replacement for XP, here is a sampling of news and opinion from around the web.

• Vista will reportedly have highly restrictive, some say draconian, licensing restrictions: a one-time, and one time only, transfer of the license to another device, but you can run the same copy virtually on the same machine.
• MS will also be taking a hard line against piracy, reportedly crippling machines with unauthorized versions of Vista. This presents a problem, since there are complaints that its watchdog program, Windows Genuine Advantage, produces too many false positives
• A few people have put together a wiki of third-party applications that are not working or have significant issues in Vista RC2; Although Microsoft’s Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 may be a workaround for legacy systems, if you are brave enough or have mad skillz.
• Then there are the many existential musings about whether Vista is worth the upgrade, including Great Britain's The Inquirier, and from Windows evangelist Paul Thurrott. That leaves some to ponder where is the business case is for upgrading?

We will weigh in on the Vista upgrade issue soon, but give us your thoughts in the comments.

We are still ironing out some of the details so the formal announcement hasn't gone out yet, but we can let you know of a new seminar. SAGE’s Doug Daniel will be giving an overview of virtualization technologies for the Information Services and Technology Section of the ALA Capital Chapter on October 25 from Noon to 2:00 PM. 

Doug will guide attendees through the virtual computing landscape. He will provide an overview of the technology and its applications, and provide a survey of configurations, products, and platforms. Furthermore, he will share his insights into the best applications of virtualization, and the various platforms and software currently in the market. Doug will delve into the costs and benefits of the technology, addressing the often touted myth of large cost savings. Based on his experience, Doug will also share the pitfalls to avoid when going virtual, and where virtual environments are heading in the near future.

The seminar will cover:

• What is virtualization? Common configurations, products, hardware platforms and system requirements.
• Uses for virtualization, including development, consolidation, disaster recovery, etc.
• Pros and cons of virtual server environments
• Maximizing performance in virtual computing
• Myths and realities regarding the economics of virtualization
• Real costs of going virtual for firms of various sizes
• Complementary technologies for virtual server rooms like SANs, and remote power control.

The venue is still not set, but will likely be hosted at Wilkinson Barker Knauer, LLP office in Washington, DC. For more information, or if you are interested in registering, e-mail Peter von Elling at SAGE, or Kenny Mitchell at Wilkinson Barker Knauer.

By the end of the year, SAGE will be making available Sentinel to all OnSight clients, letting them view the status of their network and us as we perform daily checks on their servers. OnSight clients will have their own user names and passwords and can see everything SAGE engineers and managers can see for their own network. This provides IT managers and firm administrators the means to monitor their network and our performance.

We don't mind the accountability that comes with the transparency Sentinel provides to our OnSight customers. When managing a firm's network, we have the responsibility for its continuous operation and optimum performance, and our customers need to to have confidence that is indeed happening. The way we look at it, providing Sentinel to customers gives them that assurance, which translates to peace of mind that their network is in good hands. Lastly, the more eyes present to spot problems whenever and where ever they may occur is never a bad thing.

Here is our inaugural entry into weekly survey of web sites: Surf's up. We start off this week with a community driven anti-phishing site, Phish Tank (http://www.phishtank.com/). Phish Tank is an online database of phishing sites that allows readers to submit entries and verify other readers entries. Best of all, they provide an API so developers and programmers can build applications using their database.

For those trying to tweak as much performance out of Windows XP to avoid an upgrade to Vista, this blog has a list of XP performance tweaks. Word of caution, some of those tweaks may not be advisable in a managed environment.  And speaking of avoiding an upgrade to Vista, XP Myths explodes some common myths about Windows XP concerning performance, reliability, minimum system requirements, and more. The best part of the page, however, is the section on bad tweaks that are supposed to improve performance but actually don't.

In Part 1, we discussed the many things IT has to “sell” internally. What makes selling IT particularly difficult is that those things we have to sell can be costly to purchase, implement, and maintain. This forces IT to argue on the basis of return on investment (ROI), rather than immediately realizable cost-savings or profits. Much more difficult, however, is that IT often has to promote behavioral changes to employees that aren’t necessarily beneficial to either the individual or firm in the short term, but are tremendously so in the longer term. Promoting proper e-mail management and document profiling often feels like trying to sell paying down the national debt.

Training in particular is the great bugaboo for attorneys and other professionals, who often cite the alpha excuse of billable time to avoid sitting in a training session. However, they think nothing of the lost productivity (i.e. billable hours) when they cannot use the application or have lost data because they did something incorrectly. IT also has to sell the value of “profiling” documents for DMS systems, which has negative value to the individual because of the time involved, but has tremendous beneficial value when that document is retrieved much quicker later on.

One suggestion: don’t just sell on the merits alone. Get allies. In particular, find a non-IT champion who is a partner or peer that has high credibility within the firm. Sell them, and others will follow their example. Your allies can also help translate the benefits into terms non-technical people can understand.

A number of articles recently have discussed the shift in innovation in corporate IT departments from being led by IT professionals to users who bring their home tech into the office. With the freewheeling experimentation and innovation happening on the Internet these days (mostly under the far-too-generic rubric of “Web 2.0”) and the widespread consumer adoption of WiFi at home before the office, are your users bringing new ideas and technologies to you, or are you still leading them?

Law and professional service firms tend to be even more conservative than corporations in adopting technology, so such an infusion of new ideas is more limited. Younger associates and new hires, however, have pushed web collaboration and handheld adoption into firms. There is nothing wrong with getting ideas from your users as they experiment with tech at home. This idea exchange often leads to thought-provoking discussions, like what can a web-based application like Netvibes give me for a portal solution that more traditional and entrenched players like BEA/Plumtree and SharePoint can’t? IT departments shouldn’t feel threatened that they are not bringing all the technology ideas to the table, but should embrace them. IT is better able to discern which ideas will work and provide value in the organization.

eWeek’s Baseline Magazine has compiled their Top 10 pitfalls to avoid in project management, based on over 200 case studies. While the list is geared towards large corporate projects, legal and professional services firms are particularly susceptible to these:

• #2: Processes and technology aren't synched up.
• #3: Poor data quality leads to increased costs.
• #6: Poor design results in data-entry errors.
• #8: A system is rushed into production too quickly, resulting in duplication of effort and bugs.
• #10: A system's interface is hard to use

The complete list and accompanying case studies are well worth the read. So if we were to compile a similar list for legal and professional services firms, what do you think would break into the top 10?

We in IT like to believe we are above the more “unseemly” jobs in business… like sales. Engineers also have this romantic notion that rational choice is people’s primary motivation, and frown upon activities based on irrationality and emotion… again, like sales. We cling to this unfounded belief despite the partners who won’t attend training but harasses the help desk with unending questions and the associate who profiles every document as “other” in the document management system (DMS).

Everyone, including IT managers and directors, has to “sell” something in life. In fact, IT is always “selling” professionals inside the firms on the value of IT’s role and the tools it provides, not to mention its budget! Some specific items IT has to sell within the firm include:

• Why an upgrade is necessary (or why it is not!)
• Need for more IT personnel
• Training
• Introducing Document Management or reinforcing its purpose
• Email management
• Pilot testing
• Drafting design specifications for custom applications or RFPs
• Participation in product evaluations

In Part 2 we will discuss why selling IT internally is particularly difficult. In the meantime: as IT, what in particular do you find yourself selling internally to your firm? What sales strategies are you employing?

When it comes to migration projects, especially large ones, there is some soul-searching regarding whether the firm has the resources in house to manage it properly. Following is a run-down of the pros and cons of outsourcing a tech migration.

Pros

• Expertise that would be too costly or time-consuming for in-house staff to acquire
• Specialized knowledge and experience in particular systems, knowing the nuances and idiosyncracies of apps and their installation
• Bring automated tools and proven processes
• Allows my staff to maintain support levels and timetables for other in-house projects
• Provide additional support and training
• Knowledgeable about coexistence issues
• Less disruption to my users
• Given the above, should be quicker and more efficient

Cons

• Cost
• I don’t trust outsiders
• No support after the project is over
• Usually left cleaning up mistakes after they have left
• Create systems so only they can make changes and updates, not my staff (Potential loss of independence)
• Never stay on schedule
• They work to cover up a problem, not to solve it (a corollary is that they work to a budget, not a solution).

So here is a question for everyone to start the week. What pros or cons would you add?

One of the dirty little secrets of IT is that anyone worth their salt knows that daily server checks are critical in avoiding crashes, outages, and poor network performance, but hardly anyone ever does it. There are only a handful of core items to check (memory, disk space, logs, antivirus signatures, and uptime), but either remoting to the server or physically checking it require a fair amount of time that is compounded by the number of servers. Logging in, opening the appropriate apps and recording the information for each server wouldn’t be so bad, were it not that there are users to support, ongoing projects, and a myriad other matters that require IT’s attention. So in the end, we “satisfice”: the servers are running, so nothing that bad could be wrong… um, right?

We’ve been there too, especially since client needs come before our internal firm needs. We looked into sophisticated monitoring software, but decided that all we needed was a quick way to check core items and log who did the check, when and what issues were found if any. In the end, we came up with Sentinel, which allows us to perform daily checks remotely in one “spot.” Sentinel has helped us shave at least 50% of the time we used to spend on server checks, and that savings increases with more servers. Best yet, the checks get done, which has significantly reduced operational issues overall.

If you are interested in how Sentinel works, we will be having an upcoming webinar next Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at 2 p.m. Follow the link to sign-up on the SAGE web site. We also posted screenshots of the Sentinal interface for viewing.

SAGE will be soon launching a new hosted service for clients that will allow them to easily perform daily checks on the servers, and then monitor there critical functions throughout the day. Sentinel has had a long gestation at SAGE, as we have internally struggled with the right mix of features and functionality, but we are soon about to unveil it to the public. Our OnSight clients will get it at no extra charge as part of the OnSight service.

We wrote an article about Sentinel's genesis in the last Wisdom Newsletter which is well worth a read as it describes how we face many of the same problems of our clients in keeping not only our servers, but also our many clients, performing optimally.  From this necessity Sentinel was born as we looked for ways to be more efficient and effective in performing server checks and monitoring.

Sentinel has some very exciting features and technologies.  Sentinel uses non-intrusive software agents to gather information on servers, that is flexible so we can ask them more probing questions about the health and operation of the software. We also worked a lot on the web interface so SAGE staff, firm IT staff and administrators, can know almost with a glance what the health status of the network and individual servers.

We will be having an upcoming webinar on Sentinel on September 13, 2006 at 2 p.m. Sign up for it if you would like a complete overview. So stay posted as more information comes out.