LawLibTech LawLibTech  A conversation on law library technology and knowledge management  November 04, 2008Today's the Day!Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 12:13 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkSeptember 04, 2008 Searching Twitter - Everybody's TalkingI've got a Twitter theme going here, so I might as well run with it!In blogging's early days, blogs weren't recognized as a valuable information source but as time went on, researchers acknowledged that there was some good content out there. Now, perhaps it's Twitter that's underestimated, especially if you're looking for what's being said about a company or product.That didn't occur to me until I ready this LawyerKM entry, Twitter as a Knowledge Base and Expertise Resources, and I started searching Twitter. You could be excused for not realizing you can search Twitter. There is no link to the Twitter search that I could find on my Twitter home page. But go to http://search.twitter.com and give it a whirl. I searched for a fairly unique company name, which is how I found out that Bloomberg has a Twitter, as does Singapore News. Since I'm researching rumors about said company, I added an RSS feed to Google Reader so I could continue to monitor new tweets on the subject.Here's another example for you. I'm was quite enamored with the Roomba I purchased last year. However, after months of diligently cleaning up after my dogs, the little guy just couldn't take it any more and Roomba was retired to the trash bin. I'm in the market for another one, but am hesitating because I don't want to pay $300 for a cleaning device that is just going to choke on dog fur. I searched Twitter to see how others like the cleaning robot and cool, someone mentions a new version of irobot's Pet Series Roomba has just been introduced. Life is good.There's an advanced Twitter search in addition to the basic if you need more specificity. If you want to know what web pages Twitterers are talking about, try Twit(URL)y, as recommended by Stephen Cohen in Top Tools for the Twittersphere, (Information Today, June 2008). I'm adding this one to my RSS reader. When I visited, a video of a couple of Repulican pundits talking on MSNBC about Sarah Palin when they thought the mic was off was at the top of the list. Now I'm watching Jon Stewart's take on Sarah Palin. Okay, I could do this all day. Everybody's talking...Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 10:28 AM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkAugust 25, 2008Twitter Status Report - Hey, This is a Conversation, Not a MonologueThis is day 2 of my Twitter experiment and I must say it's not really what I expected. I thought I'd be throwing isolated tweets out into Twitter-space, similar to blogging. Blogging is generally a solitary endeavor. You write a blog entry and publish it. If you're lucky, you get some comments and some interaction, but often not. Twitter is a big group conversation, and it just keeps going and going.... As jbnann said "It's evolving into a gigantic party with brief conversations with interesting people. You swoop in and trade and move on." Of course, there's a certain amount of pressure. People are following me! I should I think of something witty and intelligent to say! Ummm, yeah, well, some days are better than others in that area. :-)The tool I'm using to monitor Twitter, Twhirl, was recommended in Stephen Cohen's article "Top Tools for the Twittersphere" in the June 2008 issue of Information Today. I have a twhirl window open right now on my second monitor, and the tweets just stream on by. It's a little ironic. I've been working hard this month to get some control over my email. I'm diligently unsubscribing from the inevitable spam in my inbox. I'm creating filters to direct email to the proper folder. I'm trying to reduce email distractions. So now I can concentrate on the distraction that is Twitter. I probably need to ration my Twitter-ing. So, this is fun, but is it useful? I actually CAN see some benefits in an enterprise environment. Maybe you're on a project team, and you follow your team member's Twitter stream, so you know exactly what they're doing, what they need help with, etc. It definitely has potential as a collaboration tool.If you want to know more about Twitter you can hear Jim Milles talk about Twitter with Richard Leiter on BlogTalkRadio. He also wrote about Twitter and Online Community on his blog Buffalo Wings and Toasted Ravioli.Only time will tell if I end up with a Twitter hangover. :-)Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 08:15 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkAugust 24, 2008Trying to Twitter - Communicating Value in 140 Characters or Less?I've always considered myself a practical person, especially when it comes to technology. I didn't warm to computers right away, until I started to see real benefits. I don't really "play" with technology. So, that brings me to Twitter. I've been struggling with the idea of Twitter for a while now. I have to admit, I don't really get it. For those of you who don't know, Twitter is a social networking tool that let's you log very short (140 characters) entries. Your friends can subscribe to your Twitter, and know your every move, should you be inclined to post updates regularly. Many Twitter'ers (?) use cell phones and PDAs to post tweats wherever they might be. Similar to blogs when they first became popular, Twitters are known for being fairly banal. Have a good dinner? Send out a tweet to all your followers. Bored? Let the world know. I noted my favorite useful application of Twitter during the last fire season. I can see some uses at work, for example, you could use a Twitter like application to let your co-workers and/or boss know where you are and what you're doing every minute of the day. Hmm, that has its downsides, too.I'm making an effort to revisit Twitter as a result of a couple of blogs on the topic of Twitter and KM: LawyerKM has a Twitter. Kevin at Lexblog claims that there are actually law firms on Twitter in his entry, Twitter use among legal professionals is growing. He claims Twitter grows on you. Okay, well, we'll see.I'm going to try to Twitter for a week. I promise not to tweet about missing my train, or the sandwich I'm having for lunch. But I WILL try to note various and sundry thoughts that cross my mind about topics similar to the ones covered in this blog. It is probably inevitable that I include a few dog-related tweats. I'll embed my Twitter stream here, and you, my fair readers, can tell me if you think Twitter is a useful tool, or a waste of time. follow cchick at http://twitter.comIf you know nothing about Twitter, and are wondering how to get started, here's a Common Craft video, Twitter in Plain English: Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 02:44 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkJuly 05, 2008RSS Readers - I Want it All and I Want it Now!There's no shortage of news content on the web. But finding just the news you want isn’t always easy. As a practical matter, it's close to impossible to create a search that finds only the pearls and not the junk. That's why many libraries are offering news monitoring and filtering services for those times when human intervention is required. RSS readers/aggregators are great tools for collecting content from disparate sources together into a central workspace where you can review a large volume of news relatively quickly. Free content from the web and search feeds from premium services such as LexisNexis, Llesiant and Factiva can co-exist side by side in your reader. You can choose to view your feeds in Outlook (Newsgator Inbox), on the web (Google Reader, Bloglines, Newsgator Online) or in a separate application (FeedDemon, RSS Bandit). Some readers offer ways to customize your reading experience by letting you choose the colors, skins and layouts that you prefer. That’s all well and good, but if you’re monitoring topics for others, how do you take the news from your reader, and deliver your finely filtered results the people who need it?Certainly, many desktop RSS readers, such as FeedDemon, have “clippings” folders into which you can drag, drop and store the stories you find. Newsgator Online, FeedDemon’s online cousin will allow you to create an custom RSS feed for the contents of such folders. It's also easy to create your very own RSS feed with Bloglines and Google Reader. But these are public feeds, and besides, how many of your attorneys regularly read RSS feeds? I'm thinking not very many.The feature that I find lacking in the readers I've looked at is the ability to export selected articles to an attractive and customizable report format that can be cut and pasted into an email. The closest I’ve found so far is a reader called Awasu. As you review your feeds, you can move any feed items you want to save to a “workpad." You can set up as many workpads as you want, and create reports from these workpads. That's a start. But the report formats (templates) provided are fairly basic. While you can customize them, it's not quite as straightforward a process as I'd like.  My most recent experiment involved Newsgator Inbox and Onenote 2007, installed on my home computer. With the "Send to OneNote" feature, I can review RSS items in Outlook (Newsgator), right click on an item, click "Send to OneNote", and the entry is nicely copied to the OneNote Sidenotes tab: I like the format. But each entry is saved on a separate page. You can easily email individual items, but consolidating them into one list would be cumbersome.RSS Bandit has a Send to OneNote plugin that works in a similar way. I don't like the format quite as much as the "Send to OneNote" feature above, though. Do you monitor/filter news for people in your organization using RSS? What tools work for you? Related articles by ZemantaShare Your NewsGator/FeedDemon Clippings with ReadBurnerA Desktop Based RSS Reader For Your Google Reader Feeds Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 03:54 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkJune 08, 2008Wikis for Procedure ManualsNobody really LIKES writing procedures manuals. You know you should, you know it would be helpful if you did, and when it comes time to train a new employee, you're always sorry that you didn't do a better job of it. But what if everyone could collaborate on a procedures manual, writing down specifics as they do them, or even as they learn them. It sounds like a job for a wiki!If you're having a hard time getting you and/or your staff started on such a process, take this tip from Anne Welsh's article "Internal Wikis for Procedures and Training", in Online Nov./Dec. 2007. "one colleague...asked me to set up wiki pages for each of the topics I would like to know about, with prompt questions. Having read these, they worked through the procedures "live," stopping every 10 minutes or so to document what they'd done. Then we used their notes as the basis for a walk-through of each task. I added any additional notes I thought I'd need.." What a brilliant way to encourage staff members to detail procedures in a wiki!Procedures can change on a daily basis. A wiki is ideal for creating a "living" procedures manual that can be easily edited by whomever you choose. Just think, start a procedures wiki and next time you get a new employee, you'll be ready! Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 05:21 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkMay 18, 2008Facilitating Self Serve - Could the Best Training/Customer Service be None at All?Sometimes when I give a presentation, something comes out of my mouth that even I don't expect. At TRIPLL it was, "Sometimes the best training is no training at all." You may think that this comment is nonsensical, but hear me out. What I meant was that we'd all be better off if we could figure out ways to help people do what they need to do without the necessity of training. Can we deliver content to our users via the Intranet that will give them the help they need, when they need it? Can we create tools using blogs, wikis, etc. that allow users to share information and help each other? And ultimately, can research tools be so intuitive that training isn't necessary? Yes, I know, we're not there yet, but we're certainly closer than at any time in the past, and considering how difficult it is to get users to attend training, we need to think about other ways to reach our customers.Shortly afterwards, I spotted a book review in the L.A. Times for a book called, The Best Service is No Service: How to Liberate Your Customers from Customer Service, Keep Them Happy, and Control Costs . I haven't read the book, but according to the review it discusses how companies can try to avoid the need for customer service, thereby providing a better experience to their customers. For example, Amazon carefully tracks the kinds of customer problems that require customer service, then they focus on fixing those problems so that a customer support call isn't necessary. As a consumer, I for one would much prefer not to experience the problem to begin with! As a librarian, I've seen small, easily avoided technical problems eat into the time of our attorneys and staff with a kind of ripple effect that can be scary to watch when you start adding up in your head the cumulative billable hours being lost.Then, while catching up on my reading I found Darlene Fichter's article, "Put the 'Service" in Self-Service." (Online Jan/Feb. 2008). She points out that we "often equate and value "high-touch" service with face-to-face relationships. That's not bad, of course. As librarians we typically take pride in the personalized service we provide. But along the same lines as the above book, Darlene states: "We have not fully embraced designing excellent self-service experiences. Many colleagues don't perceive our library websites as 'real service.' Is your default response to self-service difficulties, "Have them call or come in?" Valid responses perhaps, but a better first response is looking at what caused the problem in the first place. What online tools, information or functionality could address it?"Whether it's training or customer support, in the coming years we'll need to look at providing service of all kinds, in the ways that our customers want it, both in-person and virtually. Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 02:39 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkApril 28, 2008The WebetteWhile researching my TRIPLL presentation, I found a great article in the May 2007 issue of Peer to Peer, the journal of ILTA entitled "The Webette: A Simple, Effective Training Delivery Approach."The author, Randall Farrar, talks about the use web conferencing tools to offer quick, live, web based training sessions, on very specific topics.While he suggests that webettes should be hour-long, I'd suggest that in most cases you'd want to keep them even shorter, perhaps 15 minutes or less.Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 05:39 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent LinkFree Desktop SharingIf you don't want to pay for a desktop sharing tool, don't despair. Tom Mighell over at Inter-Alia found a free one that allows you to share your desktop with up to 15 participants called Microsoft SharedView. It requires a software download for both the host and participants, and you'll need a Windows Live ID. Apparently, it includes desktop sharing and chat, but no audio. SharedView isn't the only free tool out there. Yakkle offers instant messaging, voice and desktop sharing. You start by initiating an instant messaging session. Once you've connected, you can opt to share your desktop. I haven't tried either of these out yet...if anyone else has, let us know what you think.Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 05:19 PM | Comments (2) | Permanent LinkApril 14, 2008Getting Attorneys into the Classroom - Why Would You Want Them There?I'm just back from TRIPLL where we spent some quality time talking about ways to deliver point of need training to attorneys and staff using such tools as webinars, remote desktop sharing, videos, etc., in addition to finding ways to make ourselves more visible and available by walking the floors and doing personal follow-up to training. It's obvious that formal, longer training sessions simply don't draw our intended audience, regardless of the quality and abundance of the food provided. Considering the fact that attorneys aren't coming into the library as often as they once did, we have to figure out how to take training to them.So I'm very interested in this ILTA webinar called "Getting Attorneys into the Classroom - Why Would You Want Them There?" and I thought I'd let you know about it as well. There's a lot to be learned on this topic from the technology folks, since they experience the same problems we do, but on an even larger scale! You'll have to pay a bit more to register if your firm isn't an ILTA member, but it's probably worth it. Maybe I'll "see" you there.P.S. Attending and speaking at TRIPLL was a great experience. I learned a lot, enjoyed exchanging ideas with the group, and ate way more than I should have. If you're involved with training, and ever get the opportunity to go, take it! Thanks very much to the group at Lexis Nexis for continuing to offer such quality programs.Posted by Cindy L. Chick at 04:37 PM | Comments (0) | Permanent Link  Search Search this site: Cindy's Shared Items Subscribe Enter your EmailPowered by FeedBlitz        Get RSS ButtonsWhat IS RSS? Recently PublishedToday's the Day! 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