M P A Implementing blogs and wikis - web 2.0. Matthew Parsons & Associates

Web 2.what?

Tim O’Reilly. Conference 2005 Web 2.0?

Read-write web. User generated content.

“ Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means. If Web 2.0 for you is blogs and wikis, then that is people to people. But that was what the Web was supposed to be all along.” Tim Berners Lee

“ if Web 1.0 is symbolized by Encyclopaedia Britannica and similar expert organizations, Web 2.0 is about Wikipedia, and content generated by users who may or may not know what they are talking about.” Tom Landry, CTO Adesso Systems

User generated content.

web ^ User generated content.

Reusable v web ^ User generated content.

Reusable v web ^ User generated content. in perpetual beta.

Are the tools and approaches relevant for law firm KM?

Wikis | Blogs

Wiki 101

Magic... Anyone can create Network effects with large numbers of people Organic growth Ease of creation and use Folksonomy But not without governance and weeding.

Wiki’s - a lightweight tool that enables rapid content build and may be vastly simpler than the organisational “intranet”.

[[new pagename]]

Ease of creation can easily create knowledge landfills.

Ease of creation Low High High Low Web enabled content intranet Accuracy Trust Currency

Accuracy Trust Currency Low High High Low Web enabled content Security Governance Social Emergent Silo intranet Ease of creation

Low High High Low intranet Security Governance Social Emergent Silo Web enabled content Accuracy Trust Currency Ease of creation

Meetings Trusted content “ Wild West” Web based collab DMS content

Enduring KM is demand led.

Great value as content publishing tool for PSLs and allocated governance. Lawyers are predominantly consumers not authors. Great for building, where that fits culture, but cannot depend on network effect for accuracy. Clearer fit in back office where less risk and baked into jobs.

Need to address relationship with other internal web content.

Success conditions Technologies Tools are intuitive and easy to use Tools are egalitarian and freeform Borders seem appropriate to users At least some of the tools are explicitly social The toolset is quickly standardized Support for the Initiative Incentives exist, and are soft Excellent gardeners exist Patient and dedicated evangelists exist Energy and activity are primarily bottom-up Effort has official and unofficial support from the top Goals are clear and well-explained Andrew McAfee Associate Professor Harvard Business School

Success conditions Culture People are trusted Slack exists in the workweek Helpfulness has been the norm Top management supports lateralization There are lots of young people There is pent-up demand for better information sharing Andrew McAfee Associate Professor Harvard Business School

Forrester "What we recommend is to start with a very specific problem and work your way up from there. For example with a wiki, you can't have everyone try to use it at once. You should start on one team individually and then move on when that team is successful." "Web 2.0 not critical 'must have' for any company at this point, but it's more than likely that your competition is using it and is showing faster results because of it,"

Blogs.

Primer... Reverse chronological stories Tags for easy findability Search

Reverse chronological stories

Tags for easy findability

Search

Major values... reputation building, content findability, thought provoking for a domain.

So what?

Should lawyers blog internally?

Blogging takes time and thought.

Answer relates to the knowledge needs of the team.

Experiment and review. Avoid proliferation of low quality.

Sense of community - better method for news distribution.

Enduring KM is demand led. and requires gardening

In web 2.0, old KM learnings still apply... Content takes effort and investment to create and to maintain. It is more about practice leadership than tools, but the tools are getting easier which may change priorities. KM people are essential to helping with what’s possible, good practice and the importance of governance.