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The Law Firm CIO of 2020
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13 July 2010
I want to give credit where credit is due, so I apologize for the length of my initial setup. I’ve been talking recently with some of my peers in preparation for a panel discussion at the annual International Legal Technology Association (ILTA) education conference in August. The session is entitled “The CIO in 2020: The Business-Savvy Strategist” and will be ably handled by Marsha Stein, Peter Westerveld, Todd Corham and David Rigali (and myself if my situation permits). Then Matthew Stern asked the question in the LinkedIn group CIOs.com: Chief Information Officer Network “How do you describe what a CIO does?” As part of that discussion, Sudhir Wadhwa, posted his blog chart of what makes a “complete” CIO.
I don’t agree with the all Sudhir’s items (or where he placed them) but I thought it was an interesting way to lay it out. I’ve written him that I think there are also a few key missing sections to his “complete” CIO. After thinking about it some a bit, in addition to the five he outlined, I think there should be three others: Business, Clients and Organization.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat
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01 March 2010
It’s a simple set of instructions, really. I suspect you can find it on bottles in every household around the world. They are easy to follow (so easy apparently they actually don’t even appear on the shampoo bottles we use for the children - I checked) they vary slightly (on my wife’s bottle they recommend you follow on with the high end conditioner by the same company) One might even say they are timeless. Which in turn, begs the question, when do you stop? If you take them literally, you’d run out of shampoo every time you washed your hair. Of course, common sense tells you to stop sometime before you empty the bottle, but when exactly have you reached your goal? When have you solved your problem?
Lions and Green Headed Ducks
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10 February 2010
A friend of mine related this story from her son’s school. Apparently when he showed up to class there were Beanie Babies all over the place. His teacher then explained:
“Her group of second graders had come in earlier in the day and needed ‘something’ to do basic matching. She asked the second graders, out of the animals represented by the beanie babies, to each pick two that were the same.
Everyone started to make their pick and one of the little girls picked a lion and a duck. All the other children picked zebras and zebras or bears and bears. After their selection, the kids had to say why they picked their pair.
“Reboot” Your Knowledge Management Program
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20 November 2009
(Or Three lessons KM programs can learn from the Hollywood movie making machine)
Most of you will know that in computerese, reboot means to turn (a computer or operating system) off and then on again; to restart it. Of course if we’re applying this definition to a failed knowledge management program simply restarting the OS will produce the same results - not what we are interested in. So what if instead of the technology definition, we applied the Hollywood definition of “reboot’?
Hollywood has always done adaptations of books for TV and movies. To me the classic Hollywood basic reboot or remake is one in which you try to take everything that's iconic about the series/movie and try to weave it into a new story with a new and modern style. In some cases you toss out a lot of the old and simply start over - or “reboot” the franchise.
Everything I need to know about Social Media, I learned from the Boy Scout Law
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05 October 2009
As part of my ongoing social experimentation in Twitter, I will periodically tweet out random words to see who takes an interest and will start following me. That is, in itself, a fascinating subject but not overly germane to today’s post. It was on such a #randomwordthursday that I tweeted out these twelve words: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, Reverent. @billvann responded “My kinda list” and @jbtrexler tweeted back “:) haven't seen those 12 in a long time. Eagle Scout?” While I do not have the honor of having earned the rank of Eagle Scout, I happened to pick those words because I am actively involved with Scouting. Former Cub Master, now Assistant Scout Master, my oldest son, a Tenderfoot Scout in Troop 1158, is an aspiring Eagle Scout. And yes as any Boy Scout can tell you, “A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.”
"A common vision for control and governance of email and documents that will satisfy legal requirements and address cost and feasibility concerns from the IT department is slowly emerging. The publication of the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM) has helped a great deal by codifying the common components that the legal department needs and that IT must provide." 
"The persistence of temporary backup files for four days presents obvious security and privacy issues. If such files contain sensitive, confidential, or otherwise privileged information, their existence can expose a law firm to malpractice risk, court sanctions, or other serious problems / penalties
"The UK Legal market is certainly not a leader in Social Networking but one or two firms are using some of the tools such as Linkedin, Blogs, Twitter and a couple are experimenting with Facebook as a consumer facing marketing tool. " 
