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?

With the official release of Windows Vista and Office 2007 today, here is our round-up of news you should know from around the Web:

• The new Office Ribbon user interface that debuts in Office 2007 will be heading to other MS Office applications such as Project and Visio.
• In case you like a lot of opinions, here is a round-up of all the Vista reviews.
• More details are emerging on the first Service Pack (SP1) for Vista, which will be security updates and hot fixes, but no improvements like the WinFS file system.
• Stories are already appearing on how to disable Vista's User Account Control (UAC). They don’t mention the bad things that will happen if users do this, just lots of fuss about how annoying UAC is.

And now for something completely different…

An effective search is all about using the right keywords. This article focuses on e-discovery but the great searching strategies—frm knowing your synonyms to checking for misspellings—will work in any search environment.

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.

We have mentioned Acrobat for Legal Professionals (ALP) blog that Adobe runs about using Acrobat in the legal arena. Two recent posts discussing archiving documents and e-mails for the long hail that are worth a look.

PDF/A is an internationally-recognized standard for archiving documents based on the Acrobat 5 format. It is designed so that even if you need to open a file created today 20 years from now, you can. The trade off is a more limited feature set. If you have archival documents or want to create ones using PDF/A, ALP has a couple of articles and resources to get you started.

• Background and overview of PDF/A; and
  
• Creating PDF/A documents and conforming them to the standard, complete with step-by-step instructions.

Also, archiving e-mails is a huge issue these days (or not archiving them so they are not discoverable!). The new version of Acrobat introduces "e-mail packages" for archiving e-mail. Adobe's e-mail packages boast a number of nice features, such as the inclusion of all attachments and full-text searching. ALP discusses potential uses and limitations, as well as instructions for creating an e-mail package.

The question surrounding the impending release of Microsoft’s Office 2007 is whether it is worth the price of upgrading. The “old” version makes documents, spreadsheets and presentations just fine, and the documents are compatible. Office 2007’s most compelling feature is the “Ribbon,” an new interface that replaces the menu system that has become unwieldy from years of plugging in features that few people used.

The new interface alone is worth the upgrade, but only after you get over the learning curve. Other benefits include some cool integration between Outlook and Exchange, and an overall streamlining of what had become badly bloated software. (If you want a second opinion, check out this review.) Learning the new interface means investment in training on the front end, which will get returned in greater productivity on the back end.

Also be aware that customizing toolbars in Office 2007 will require a higher level of technical expertise than in previous versions. Customizing the ribbon interface will require knowledge of XML and/or COM add-ins. This means that getting a developer involved may be necessary, but certainly will help speed the process along. If you have a highly tailored Office installation, development time and costs should weigh in the upgrade decision, but not if your setup is largely out-of-the-box.

We are thrilled to announce that for 2007 we are sponsoring ALISM, the Association of Legal Information Systems Managers. This deepens our support for the IT and legal community in the Washington, DC metropolitan region, as we already sponsor ILTA and the ALA Capital Chapter, as well as our membership in the LFVA. We are fully behind ALISM's mission to facilitate learning and communication among its members.

We'll be attending ALISM's meeting this Wednesday, January 24, 2007.  Also look for SAGE experts at ALISM meetings throughout the year.

In ALISM's own words:

ALISM facilitates the exchange of information regarding the technical and management problems peculiar to the legal automation environment, and to improve the standards and qualifications of information systems managers and their staffs. ALISM provides an environment where members share their experience with other members of the legal IS community and learn about new technology trends. ALISM members learn what other firms are doing, how other departments are run and networking with colleagues.

We are glad to be on-board and look forward to a great year with ALISM.

Are the days of classifying knowledge over? Are the days of the once might taxonomy numbered? Upstarts like desktop and enterprise search, folksonomies and tagging are gaining the limelight, and overturning old ideas about ways to classify data. When Microsoft Vista’s becomes widespread and everyone has desktop search, will we really care about a myriad folders and subfolders? Given the proper meta data, a folder for just the client-matter may not even be necessary.

Zappos, the online shoe-retailer, is embracing search and taxonomic messiness in the physical world: their warehouse. Instead of complex organization schemes, Zappos is just filling in the next empty rack and recording where the merchandise is located in a database. The warehouse employee fulfilling an order simply queries the database and grabs the shoes wherever they are.

If Zappos can make it work in a warehouse, then with maturing search tools, the proper metadata and new ideas like tagging, certainly a little messiness in the file server can actually be an advantage.

So who will speak up for old-fashioned taxonomies? Let us know in the comments.

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.

If the Apple iPhone’s innovative “multi-touch” interface stands up in real world use, it may usher in the shift in computing from desktops to handhelds. Laptops are already poised to overtake desktops the business world in the next few years, and sales have surged for smartphones like the Blackberry and Treo. The iPhone promises to overcome the last hurdle to widespread adoption of handhelds for most computing tasks: the interface.

We’ve discussed handheld devices and the supporting “information cloud” of data, information, and reference material that Blackberries/Treos make possible. Even laptops cannot compete with the mobility afforded by fitting snugly into a pocket. High speed cell networks and Wi-Fi have solved the bandwidth bottleneck, so the last hurdle to accessing the information in the cloud on a handheld was the interface: the stylus, small keyboard, and small, low-resolution screen. According to one tech pundit:

“[Apple CEO] Jobs is breaking the tyranny of the keyboard and trying to break the tyranny of the cursor as well. We've been able to get computers into our pockets for a very long time, but the issue has always been, 'what do you do with it?' You don't have a keyboard, you don't have a stylus and your thumbs are too big to type. This is the first serious attempt to break the tyranny of input. Until now, everybody's always focused on output -- is the screen big enough or sharp enough -- and the screens are high-resolution and bright. We've conquered that. Now the limiting factor is input.”

Simple input, fully capable high-speed web browsing, and reading documents on a widescreen display are all major advances in handheld computing. So whether you think the iPhone is the real-deal or over-hyped, if you or your employees want to be unchained from the desk, you should be rooting for the iPhone to succeed.

Did you know you can view the conversation threads in Outlook? Many of us here at SAGE didn't either, but our great application support folks on the OnSight Support Center did. As always, they were nice enough to share.

Outlook 2003 lets you view messages by thread, which is a convenient way to scan your in-box much faster. To accomplish this:

Select View … Arrange By … Conversation to see your mail arranged this way.

If you have the reading pane on the right, you can get to this setting faster by clicking on Arranged by at the top of the message list. You'll find that if each message contains the earlier messages, you can read just the latest message in the thread instead of working through each one, so you can easily clean out your in-box by deleting earlier notes and keeping only the latest one.

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.