So I'm very proud to announce the re-launch of this website, and would like to invite everyone to drop over for a little housewarming and to see the renos! Fifteen years after it first launched, the references to CD-Rom products are long-gone, but you will be able to check out Catherine's new Canadian Legal Research Blog, the new "Step-by-step legal research process" chart, and follow updates via social media.

This was a great project to be a part of! And a big tip of the hat to Catherine Best for all the great work she continues to deliver!

Here's a screen capture of the new homepage:

The second piece is from Rich McCue's recent presentation at UVic on Flipped Classroom Benefits. The preceding link routes to a summary of Rich's presentation, and his prezi slides are embedded below:

I would consider both Matt and Rich advocates of integrating technology in the classroom; and yet both (sensibly) felt the need to look at the physical setup of these environments. Different perspectives of course: Matt is concerned with effective CLE learning, and Rich with higher education. But it was interesting to compare these pieces side-by-side, and consider each of their visions for the future.

Pew Internet has maintained a category dedicated to digital library trends for a few years now, so the site hosts a reasonable volume of material. It also includes a blog. The new site's About page is unfortunately a copy-over from the main website; but with any luck, someone will add that background context soon.

If you don't regularly visit Pew's work on Internet trends, I highly recommend it. And for the law library crew here at Slaw, a new dedicated section on library trends should make accessing these materials a touch easier.

A new group of settings under Google accounts will allow for these directions, called the Inactive Account Manager. Users will have the choice of destroying their data after a set period of time, or to pass along their data to a trusted contact or contacts. Google will also try notifying you by text or your alternate email address (in case you were simply inactive virtually; not physically), before initiating any of your inactive account directives.

Techcrunch has an excellent review and set of instructions for activating these instructions. I will add two observations of my own:

1. My Google Apps business account is not currently qualified. This seems to be a trend with Google products. The innovations happen outside of Google Apps, and then are introduced later. It's frustrating, as I'm sure more than a few business owners would appreciate access to this functionality.
2. I don't think releasing a deceased person's passwords is a terrible thing, or a sure fire method for attracting account abuse. However, this 'data only' option sure seems like a step in the right direction for the treatment of a deceased person's virtual accounts. It won't take unauthorized account usage out of the equation entirely. But it won't make it as easy as clicking the send button on someone's email either.

I think we'll see other web services move in this 'data only' direction.

4.4.2 Teaching, speaking at conferences, and other personal engagements

On occasion, LAC employees may be asked by third parties to teach or to speak at or be a guest at conferences as a personal activity or part-time employment. Such activities have been identified as high risk to LAC and to the employee with regard to conflict of interest, conflict of duties and duty of loyalty.

Librarians wouldn't be the first, of course. That honour would go to this country's scientists who want funding.

Following CLA's criticism of the code, CALL has since thrown in its support. A move that happened earlier this week, and one that makes me proud to be a member.

Usually I'm pretty even keel with this kind of stuff. But this is insane… Teaching? Speaking at conferences? Librarians?!? For crying out loud, we need to be better at the basics here: freedom of speech, public scrutiny, intellectual freedom. These are the people who maintain our Country's visible heritage, who are being asked to cull their services, and then (insert a 'gulp' sound)… told to shut up about it!?! Welcome to True North Strong and Free-ish.

Shameful move. I hope it gets more coverage in the press.

What I'm finding troubling is the lack of trust I now feel for Google and their commitment to "free". Google was supposed to be the safe bet, but it clearly wasn't. And now we're forced to question what's next? Gmail? Analytics? Apps? Feedburner? … We may just be a "spring cleaning" away from losing something else we depend on.

I'm not the only one. Om Malik has his own critique, and why he won't be using 'Keep'; and Adrian Kingsley-Hughes at Forbes has admitted "Google trust issues".

Part of this is simply my faith being shaken, and the risks that go along with "free". Companies and products go away. That's a fact, and we all keep our data well protected for that reason. I've been a big believer in free Google services over the years; but I've also known its limits. Google has killed services before. This time… it just happened to be a service I considered important.

Marketers often talk about branding. Some use the term to refer to logos and colour palettes, but the smart ones know branding is about the impression you leave. Evoking a feeling from customers. If Google doesn't think this kind of 'start and stop' product turnover doesn't have an impact on their brand… they'd be mistaken. User trust? Having faith that a product will be around tomorrow? Brands are built around stuff like that.

Many readers will recognize Connie as one of our founding members here at Slaw. She also has a long, successful track record working in Canadian law firm libraries; including more than nineteen years working in-house. Connie has been a past-President of TALL, served in a variety of roles for CALL, and has taught in most of Ontario's universities.

I also think if you say her middle name really fast, it kinda sounds like "early-adopter" (or something close). She's been at the forefront of most new web technologies; and not just in the legal space, or in Canada, but globally. From blogging, to podcasting, to social media, Connie has led the way.

The CALL leadership role is a wonderful opportunity for her, and big job. But I'm positive that Connie is more than up to the task!

We're all very proud of you, Connie!

Over the past year, Google has made a number of significant changes to its delivery of search engine rankings. In light of those changes, law firms that employ various aggressive search marketing tactics need to reconsider them. In this column, I want to highlight some of the major web-spam filters that Google has created and offer some important (and ethical) lessons for maintaining a strong search engine presence.

Let’s start by discussing a couple of those changes.

Penguin and Panda

Major alterations to Google’s ranking methods tend to be given nicknames, kind of like hurricanes — but for some businesses, these “filters” on search results can (at least virtually) be just as devastating. In 2012, Google used Penguin and Panda to cull from their search results a number of websites that used questionable methods. Occasionally these filters also caught a few high-quality websites; but for the most part, the new search results were an improvement.

The first of these tweaks, Penguin, went after sites whose inbound link profiles were built around artificial or low-quality links — websites that had few or no real incoming links or signs of engagement. A firm that built its website marketing around links coming from thousands of unattended (spammy) websites, for example, would be at risk for a Penguin-driven removal of their domain from the search results. Even more blatant examples might include a site that constructed its own network of “empty” linked websites, or purchased links to such a network from a third party.

The Panda filter, to describe it simply, targeted websites that published (in many cases, mass-published over a short period of time) too much low-quality content — pure web-spam. These are websites that have been overtly replicated: often built in an automated fashion, with repetitive or mildly tweaked messages. Publishing the same copied material on multiple-domains owned by the same business can now push those domains out of the search results.

Few law firms employ the tactics targeted by either of these filters, but there are still some lessons lawyers can learn:

• You still want fresh inbound links to your website, but buying them is never the answer. Don’t do it.
• Avoid re-publishing the same articles on multiple firm-owned domains. Instead, create a customized summary for each particular audience, and link over to the original piece.
• Websites with unique content that generate a variety of engagement styles (links, comments, social media conversations, etc.) always paint a positive picture with Google.
• Find out who exactly is linking into your firm website. If those links look like spam, they probably are. Reconsider how those links came to be, and whether you’re marketing to the right audience.

Dialed-up Anchor Text Filters for Homepages

One of the hallmark signals for search relevance has long been the words or phrases we make into clickable links. For the past ten years, websites in competitive markets have battled to acquire the most links that utilized their target search phrase, building up what’s called “link text”.

Abuse and spam? You bet. So Google alleviated the problem by filtering out those sites with excessive “commercial” link text profiles. But for those firms flirting with the edge of “optimization”, this kind of filtering remained somewhat rare, and it still worked — at least until the second half of 2012. Google has now turned up the dial significantly.

Firms that chose to swap and build links with marketing-oriented link text (in some cases, with almost nothing but) have watched their search rankings dip in recent months. Probably the worst affected were new websites under a year old and without any other search signals to offer Google (reflecting a lack of “domain trust”).

The homepages of some law firms, in my view, could be at a similar risk, and should beware of the link text running into their homepage, because it sends mixed signals to Google. Firm homepages are normally branded around the firm’s name, which is reasonable; but if the links coming in all say “DUI lawyers” in the link text, those two pieces don’t match — at least, not in Google’s eyes.

Here at Stem, we’ve been advising our clients to steer clear of commercial link text directed at their homepage. Branded links — linking on the firm’s name, “Smith LLP”, for example — are performing much better. And while pointing some commercial link text at the homepage remains an effective (and safe) approach, and is even somewhat required in competitive markets, lowering the percentage of commercial link text aimed at your firm homepage is smart.

More search lessons for 2013:

• You need to understand which terms and phrases are considered “commercial” by Google. To do this, conduct searches for your firm’s services and observe the number of paid advertisements displayed.
• Sending mass amounts of commercial link text at a new or unmarketed website is a recipe for disaster.
• Domain age counts. New websites are fragile, and they get clipped by over-optimization filters faster than their older counterparts.
• Build search trust around your firm’s name and your lawyer’s names; then let your practice pages and content deliver commercial search term exposure.

Exact Match Domain Names

I wrote a piece here at Slaw a couple years ago that discussed, among other topics, the effectiveness of commercial keywords in domain names. That approach of registering two or three commercial terms in a domain name, and getting instant results with little effort, is drawing to a close. Those domains targeting commercial search phrases have recently become less effective, and when Google deems domains to be “low quality”, they may even be filtered out of the search results.

These domain names aren’t necessarily “dead”, but other measurable signs of engagement are also now required. Simply having a great domain name, alone, is no longer enough to jump to the top of the search rankings. At the very least, having social media presence, and a regular flow of original content (and deep links flowing into that content) is going to be a requirement before these types of sites can rank well. Or, put another way, the playing field has been leveled: there are no more shortcuts to top placement.

More lessons?

• Reduce the number of commercial terms in microsite and blog domains. A maximum of two seems sensible. (avoid: toronto-vancouver-drunk-driving-lawyers.com)
• No hyphens in domain names; this has always looked “spammy”, and still does.
• Keep the quality signals high: good links come from established organizations who publish on the same topics as your firm does. PageRank isn’t always the best measure, but avoid links from sites with a “PR0” or “PR1”.
• And an optional personal tip — I avoid online press releases for new websites. These releases often get scraped and published as ‘instant content’ for scam websites, sending a high volume of low-quality links into your new web property.

Conclusion

Remember, Google’s role is to index your website and then measure its relevance against the rest of the web. With billions of websites competing against each other, sites that can demonstrate their audience’s engagement are going to be considered stronger.

Some law firms (and some search consultants) will look at those measurable search signals (links, likes, +1s) and ask, “How do we get those attributes? At all costs, how much, and how fast can we make that happen?” Not only is this the wrong approach, but it’s the type of manipulative behaviour that Google is now trying to eliminate.

The better approach is to treat these signals as the aftermath of your marketing. SEO, based on long-term thinking, can be truly effective when we make good choices: on publishing, building audiences, coding, classification, proper description, and most important, connecting with people. Many of the issues mentioned in this column are simply the result of short-term thinking and poor marketing choices.

Next column, I’ll turn the tables and look at some of the best SEO investments for 2013.

These video clips are obviously targeting the capture of lifestyle moments, but with respect to lawyers, I've been wondering if there could be any value in the courtroom? In particular, whether enhanced "team communication" could be had when larger teams are involved. We sometimes see the second chair role using laptops, exchanging email, text messages — so in the same vein, would Google glass have anything to offer? Also, consider the analogy of the football quarterback's helmet now having a headset inside. Perhaps there's some use in terms of courtroom lawyer training?

What we have here is a device that can:

• send and receive outside communication (email, texts);
• through voice recognition, launch and display different prepared media;
• capture video of present moments, for future playback;
• display documents or notes – either for personal use, or display to a larger audience.

As a presenter, I can see value in all these items. So I'd be very curious if any of our litigators here at Slaw could see a courtroom potential for Google Glass?

The website is only partially finished at the moment, with all departments expected to be integrated by April, 2013. Like any large portal, the arrangement of information — along with a dysfunctional site-search functionality, which Holmes touches on a few times — are going to be major hurdles to overcome.

The interesting issue for me, however, is whether they are trying to accomplish too much on a singular domain. Unfortunately, that's a difficult question to answer. Any large portal site is very dependent on its information architecture, and the ability to create a browsable offering. Doing this across multiple ministries, sounds like a lot of conflicting search concepts, and a lot of content to cover. Plus, if Google, as Holmes indicates, is out performing your own in-site search functionality, it sounds like a troubled project from the outset.

On the other hand, if sleuthing government information in Canada is any kind of guideline, then the endless circles of clicking may be a problem for both approaches. It's not uncommon with the cross linking between government websites in this country, to click off of the domain you originally started with. Especially if the ministry in question has multiple domains in play. A well considered site-search functionality, or a quality federated search product for multiple site coverage, would seem in order.

Two facts I don't know (but would like to) are: 1) how many official domains does the government of Canada manage? (thousands?); and 2) Do we have any kind of federated search product covering those websites for our own country?

The troubles begin when you look at the Cup's origin; and consider that the Cascadia Cup:

• Was created by the three SGs, none of which are affiliated with MLS or the franchises they support;
• Was first given out in 2004 when all three teams played in the USL, not the MLS;
• Was not given out to any of the three MLS franchises until after Portland and Vancouver joined the league in 2011.

The SGs are, in turn, organizing their response, and one would assume a claim of opposition. They've also a created a new entity – the Cascadia Cup Council – to ensure the Cascadia Cup name remains under joint SG control. Which doesn't seem that far fetched, when you consider that the Stanley Cup is owned by the Stanley Cup trust.

So, David v Goliath, what's the little guy's concern here? Proper ownership to begin with, I'm sure; but in these days of branding everything (including the grass) — the bigger danger is this. Admittedly, I'm not a TM lawyer, so I don't claim to be able to judge the dispute on proper merits. But as a fan.. something seems wrong, so I find myself rooting for the Cup's founders.

It’s become my December routine. First, get the Clawbies season started: check. Then, turn my attention to legal web trends and predictions for the upcoming calendar year.

Now, yes, I am the guy who told you in 2012 that Twitter was going to become a Facebook acquisition, so you know I’m not afraid to take a shot in the dark. (And that I’m going to have a little fun in the process.) No guarantees that I’ll be that creative this year, but your mileage may vary….

So, let’s see what law firms might have coming to them in the new year.

Massive rise in video conferencing. One of the biggest game-changers for me in 2012 was Google Hangouts. We adopted Hangoutsfor our monthly scrums at Stem and have been really pleased by the addition of visual feedback to our communications. If we factor the influence of Apple’s FaceTime technology, Skype, and video-VOIP calls generally, the tipping point for video conferences seems close.

I think a lot of business communication will be video-driven in 2013. Clients and business partners are going to request it — and interestingly enough, I think solos and smaller firms are going to be the change agents here. Larger and mid-sized firms have been tinkering with video conferencing for 10+ years, but for mainstream adoption to happen, it’s going to require simpler consumer technologies and smaller firm buy-in. The stars seem to be aligning for both pieces in the coming year.

Lawyer ratings close the feedback loop for matter management. We rate everything these days, and the numbers we generate provide quantitative feedback (and process improvement) for a wide range of industries. In 2013, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a private, web-delivered ratings service applied to matter-level legal engagements.

This could be driven by corporate counsel, but an outside company would be far more interesting. That company could later anonymize the data and use it to deliver a public-facing lawyer rating that would be grounded in substantive work product and could showcase legal services for lawyers, practice groups, and firms alike. I predict that a high-quality work product rating service will arise in 2013.

Google fixes its local search mess. Mike Blumenthal recently called Google’s local search a train wreck, and I can’t imagine anyone connected to the SEO industry disagreeing. Firms and businesses continue to be confused about whether to transition their Google Places listing to Google+ local. Most are concerned about reports of lost ratings and testimonials and few understand the dashboard administration arrangement between the two services.

Firms know how important local search is and will obviously need to keep on fighting through this. But in 2013, I hope and expect that Google will get its local search services fixed. My prediction is for a universal company dashboard that would centralize control over brand information across all Google services. Many smaller firms and solos are terribly confused by how these services are currently operating, and would be grateful if Google could deliver a clearer picture going forward.

New legal gTLD domain registrar gets rich! 2013 should see the approval of a handful of new legal-oriented domain name options. ICANN is currently considering a wide range of alternatives to having a .COM, including new top-level domains such as .LAW, .LAWYER and .LLP. Once this approval process is complete, the shakeout will begin. We will see new dedicated business units, or entirely new companies being created based on those approvals.

My 2013 prediction on this topic is that someone will conduct a quick flip of their winning domain application and walk away with the cash. There’s no predicting how Google will value these new domains, or that the number of registrations will even warrant a business venture. But it is new, and should make for some exciting experiments in the year ahead!

The multi-device law firm employee. I have little doubt that we will look back on 2013 as the year we mobilized legal information. Firms will bring in more iPads and Android tablets and will work feverishly to make consumable content available to lawyers and employees outside the office. I expect firms to go beyond the provision of basic IT support for tablets, and move into the realm of purchasing and providing dedicated mobile work devices. Implementations will be optimized to limit data exposure, and effectively rebuff the concept of BYOD.

Why? Because the cost of tablets isn’t all that prohibitive, and because mobile security will be a huge topic of discussion in 2013. The rise of private enterprise apps, and even enterprise app stores, will only push firms to further control the mobile environment they provide.

Responsive design, HTML5 and Parallax Scrolling. Expect the web design ecosystem to change dramatically in 2013. Not necessarily in terms of what firms do, but in terms of what’s possible. 2013 will see many traditional companies (law firms included) roll out Windows 8, accompanied by IE10. Even firms that aren’t rooted in this upgrade path will be using browsers like Chrome or Firefox. This all adds up to a big upgrade in HTML5 capabilities for the average business user.

Mobile-responsive websites will continue to draw firms’ attention, and rightly so, but perhaps the most interesting development I see for 2013 is how our attitudes will change towards vertical scrolling. I expect website homepages will trend much longer, and that technologies like “parallax scrolling” will change our expectations entirely. Check out this shining example from AHBL here in Vancouver; or these design examples. Regardless of whether firms opt for more visuals or more information, the end result will be less clicking and more communication.

Happy holidays to all my Slaw friends, and best wishes for a prosperous new year!

Cheers,

Steve

Please head over to the Clawbies.ca site for the complete details, but here’s a quick summary of how the awards work:

• Everyone is invited to nominate three of their favourite Canadian law blogs by tweeting (#clawbies2012), emailing, or blogging their choices. And we're saying it clearly this year: don't nominate your own blog.
• Our judging panel is back, including myself, Jordan Furlong, and Simon Fodden.
• We’ll be creating (and updating) a big list of your nominations over at the Vancouver Law Librarian Blog, starting in about a week's time.
• The final cutoff for nominations is Thursday December 27th, with the winners being announced on New Year’s Eve at www.clawbies.ca

The best part of the Clawbies season has always been seeing "who reads who", and their explanation why. Some nominations will endorse peers, some bloggers will cite those who influence their academic reading, and some are more industry focused. Approach really doesn't matter, so please participate in your way. And have some fun with it!

Well, leave it to the EFF to point out where things went so terribly wrong. Take a look at this tutorial released yesterday, on how to create an anonymous email account.

Some of the suggestions include:

• Using the Tor Browser Bundle;
• Signing up for webmail with a throwaway email address;
• Use a webmail account with https protection;
• Using Hushmail as the webmail provider;
• A strong password;
• Never mention anything that could give away your identity;
• Encrypt your email correspondence using OpenPGP; and
• Setup pseudonymous PGP/GPG in Hushmail.

The EFF, of course, has a vested interest in supporting anonymous speech online. The conclusion at the bottom of the tutorial was a good reminder why. And the tutorial, I thought was a fun presentation of the materials woven into a highly publicized story. Very well constructed (marketing?) if you want to have your message widely read.

Here's a clip:

It's called the Harwell Dekatron (aka 'WITCH' — 'Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computation from Harwell' ). The NMOC website describes its original purpose:

"The Harwell Dekatron computer first ran at Harwell Atomic Energy Research Establishment in 1951 where it automated the tedious calculations performed by talented young people using mechanical hand calculators. Designed for reliability rather than speed, it could carry on relentlessly for days at a time delivering its error-free results. It wasn't even binary, but worked in decimal — a feature that is beautifully displayed by its flashing Dekatron valves."

Storage capacity? It could "store up to 40 8-digit numbers". And was it fast! In around 5 to 10 seconds, it could multiply two numbers. But a machine that could work around the clock, in 1951? That must have been impressive.

There's more on this story at Extreme Tech, BBC News, or at the NMOC website where the 'WITCH' will be open for public viewing.

An interesting software solution from NC State Engineers looks to be on the horizon. It's called WiFox and based on tests of 45 concurrent connecting devices, reported a 700% speed improvement, and a 30-40% reduction in network latency. The performance increase comes from stopping the WiFi router from giving equal channel priority to both incoming and outgoing data. When congestion levels get high, the device focuses almost exclusively on local requests, which clears out the backlog before addressing the inbound data traffic.

Perhaps the best part is that this technology can be rolled out within your WiFi router's firmware. Not that it's available right now, but because it's entirely software driven, it shouldn't take very long to come to market. And it won't require you to purchase a new WiFi router.

I think most of us recognize that good writers can make a difference; occasionally generating that 'homerun' sound bite out of nothing. Even in the examples MacEwen uses, I can sense a little wordsmithing at play with a phrase like "getting into client's heads". But the critique here is sound. Just because you write something on your website, doesn't make it true. And whether intended or not, a lack of accuracy in your website's message can be incredibly destructive.

Destructive because it creates mixed messages. What does it say to existing clients when a firm has significant history and standing in a smaller community, yet their website claims to be a national provider? Or perhaps the website claims the firm is "full-service", despite having spent decades developing a boutique status.

It happens… And when I've encountered it, I would almost always classify it as unintentional, and rarely deceptive. Firms are simply (and at times aggressively) projecting who they want to be, rather than who they currently are.

So why does this happen? The business of 'firm building' (like most businesses) has a strong element of ambition. Lawyers are often ambitious people, and if you're going to dream… dream big! The problem with dreaming big, however, is the tendency to be blind about the firm's brand — as it stands, right now. Mix in the expertise of marketers who are often gifted at embellishing, and we end up with an inaccurate message — based on a firm's future dreams, and spun to be more than originally intended.

Strategic plans help firms know who they are, what they want to be, and how to get there. Having that context as an input for the development of a website's message would be fantastic! Is your website's message better served being driven by the firm's overall strategy? In many ways, yes. But it is only an input, and there's more work to be done beyond working directly from a planning document.

Adrian Lurssen’s recent piece, “Are We Heading to a Post-Blogging World?”, made waves last month, and I’ve been mulling it over ever since. In short, Adrian discusses the growing trend of writers foregoing their own blogs to publish under branded media platforms such as the Huffington Post. He cites the presence of a built-in audience and the ability to piggyback on brand reputation as answers to the problems of “how to be read” – reasoning that “how to publish” has never been easier.

Adrian is spot-on in his assessment of the value of developing a targeted readership. I agree that creating a blog without consideration for your intended audience is a critical error. But this, of course, is not new. Since the earliest days of blogging, there have been two groups: those who treated “web logs” as a solitary journal-writing experience, and those who invested heavily in two-way conversations.

Both strategies have their success stories, but I think most would agree that solitary publishing has consistently been the tougher road. Even with thought-provoking ideas and fantastic writing, bloggers who don’t build the requisite channels to push their message “off the blog” tend to lag in terms of exposure. It’s hard to fault anyone for being tempted by the promise of an immediate, wide audience. But it many ways, that’s taking the easy way out. It's easy to inherit an audience. The much harder route, the one that contains all the value, is earning an audience.

Writing for branded media platforms may be the “the future of blogging”, as Adrian suggests, but there’s absolutely no reason for lawyers to kill their blogging aspirations. The two pieces support each other quite nicely. If you truly want to build reputation, create a self-controlled domain where you can direct readers who want to know more about you, read more of your writing, and even reach out to you for business. Don’t get me wrong, audience is an essential element. But lawyers are not journalists, and exposure is not the only value factor here. Having a self-published professional blog creates significant added depth to lawyer’s online persona. Blogging also goes a long way towards helping lawyers be found for their name in the search engines — a value delivered to both lawyers individually and their firms.

 Writing for Someone Else vs Writing for Yourself

The point I want to drive home is that we just can’t ignore or downplay the value of self-publishing: publishing in a venue that we have complete control over. Being your own publisher means that:

• you have complete control over the display of secondary messages related to your writing: your byline, disclosure of what you do or where you work, your social media networks
• you can maintain brand control (you control the company you keep)
• you get final say on editorial decisions; there’s no topic too small or too controversial to cover
• you can include your own professional disclaimers and make sure they are properly placed
• you have the flexibility to cover far more than articles (which is the nature of most publisher-controlled writing gigs) with a blog
• we don’t retreat back into a world where institutional publishers make all the final decisions

Every set of benefits comes with its own costs. In the post-blogging scenario that Adrian ponders, writers are provided with an immediate audience, but that comes at the price of reduced editorial and publishing control. Personal publishing is more of a “diet and exercise approach”: you have to market your own blog in addition to writing it, and as Adrian points out, that’s an additional chore. But diet and exercise is also the only way people lose weight and keep it off; get-thin-quick programs rarely pay off.

Another important factor to consider is which method has a greater impact on building your professional reputation. For me, personal publishing wins out every time; but luckily, we aren’t forced to make a choice between only publishing on our own platform or only publishing on someone else’s. We can do a little of both.

Most well-respected bloggers are taking this kind of “multiple channels” approach: they publish their own blog, maybe write a column for a newspaper or magazine, possibly write for their firm’s blog, and do guest-posts for others. Generally, writing begets opportunity. Write a remotely good blog, and doors to other platforms will open for you.

From my perspective, there are clear benefits to having multiple distribution channels, writing from more than one online publication, and for more than one audience. Locking into any single platform or audience, even if it’s a fantastic fit, can limit the exposure of your brand. Also, each audience brings its own agenda to the table, so you can tailor your message on each platform to fit each one. For example, if you were writing an article for distribution within your own referral network, you’d likely use a very different style (and potentially, topic) than if you were creating an article expressly for clients.

Since SEO is my bread and butter, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also point out the enormous risk of essentially handing over your online footprint to another entity. If you opt to sign on with a branded media platform, I recommend that you also purchase your own name as a domain, even if you already have a firm website biography, LinkedIn account, etc. You don’t want to lose all your hard work if that media platform goes belly-up, or if you decide to end your relationship with them. In the midst of writing for another channel, you should be building a portfolio of your best work, where you can provide additional context, not to mention a far more in-depth bio than HuffPo will ever give you.

Obviously, getting your content in front of target audiences is a boon, but that doesn’t have to mean the death of self-publishing. The two concepts are not mutually exclusive. Self-publish on your own blog first; then look to expand your publishing efforts elsewhere. Outsourcing your web presence entirely to third-party websites is a dangerous game.

I'd like to share a couple of random observations here, as a non-lawyer who has worked at firms in both Ontario and BC, and with Articling students directly in both provinces. I pass no judgement, as both possible directions seem to have their points of merit, and this will be no easy decision for Ontario lawyers.

• First, I have seen some amazing in-house lawyer training programs – both for Articling Students and Associates. I can't imagine those programs going away without formal Articling; but for a profession that is self-regulating, the loss of input into those programs by the law societies can't be entirely positive.
• 'Articling' is one of the best things that some firms do to give back to their profession; and a number of them do it very well. For every horror story out there, there are firms that invest hundreds of hours on their in-house curriculum. Good programs delivering varying work rotations, providing a wide range of experience; and more importantly, a chance to be supervised while producing work product — lawyers should never discount the value of that kind of one-on-one training.
• Law schools graduating more candidates that the profession can train is simply wrong. This partnership is broken, and practicing lawyers have a right to be frustrated.
• Having both Articling and the LPP may cause a two-tier system. But is Articling not already a two tiered system? As mentioned above, not all programs are built the same.
• Articling is part of the young-lawyer job hunt ecosystem — Big firms recruit students and train them for a year. Hireback announcements all come out around at the same time; and smaller firms then make private inquiries about which people are available. Those students get called, move on to new positions; and if larger firms are smart, they keep in contact and make these students part of their alumni network. Killing articling entirely will have an impact on this 'circle of life'.
• Firms made an error in trying to compete on Articling student salaries. Remember when student salaries were capped? In BC, it was around $24K in the late 9o's. Then the TO firms said they were losing students to NYC, and the BC firms were losing their best students to TO. And then boom! The economics of training salaries, and value they offered, was finished. I'm not saying the 'caps' weren't set too low given the cost of law school, but as training costs escalated, the number of student positions became a budget cut target as the economy eroded. Articling lost its value proposition.
• Law Firms benefit economically from Articling. Smart firms call it 'the life blood' of their firm. Growth happens in many different ways, and no disrespect to lateral hires (definitely part of the mix); but a firm culture built on training and mentorship is different than one built on acquisition. Many firms should question internally whether the removal of formal Articles will have an impact on their firm's commitment to recruiting and training young lawyers.

Some of these assumptions may seem false or misguided. It's only my personal experience. But trust me when I say that Articling in Canada has a lot to be positive about. Even proud. But it is broken, and kudos to the LSUC for trying to fix the issues at hand.

I thought it was pretty funny. That the judges would dictate the actual font and font size that must be used; and that Apple, of all companies, would be forced to use a font considered terribly 'uncool' among their legions of fans (and especially those designer types;). Insult to injury? Or maybe the Judges were having a little fun… Either way, it was a good chuckle.

But after looking at the actual decision, I'm thinking that Gizmodo has simply misread things. Here's the passage in question:

"Within seven days of the date of this Order [18^th July 2012] [Apple] shall at its own expense (a) post in a font size no smaller than Arial 11pt the notice specified in Schedule 1 to this order on the homepage of its UK website … as specified in Schedule 1 to this Order, together with a hyperlink to the Judgment of HHJ Birss QC dated 9^th July 2012, said notice and hyperlink to remain displayed on [Apple's] websites for a period of six months from the date of this order or until further order of the Court (b) publish in a font size no smaller than Arial 14pt the notice specified in Schedule 1 to this Order on a page earlier than page 6 in the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, The Guardian, Mobile Magazine and T3 magazine."

In both instances, the reference to Arial is used as a reference for sizing. Stating that the "font size" must be "no smaller than Arial xxpt"; and not specifically that the font used must be Arial. Given that fonts differ so greatly at varying pt sizes, the idea of using a common typeface as a frame of reference makes sense.

That's unfortunate. I was having way more fun when Gizmodo was in charge.

However, I would say this: if this was my site, I wouldn't have let that topic would go live. Partly because of professional courtesy, and partly because of the uneven nature of the coverage. It seems inconsistent to ask people to consider the virtues of DIY real estate services, and then trail the piece off advising readers to "contact a residential real estate lawyer". Either you give credence to value provided by those that deliver professional services, or you don't.

In our never ending pursuit to cut costs, a lot of us lose sight of valuing people's time. It's an important consideration, even in the face of a down economy, with numerous downward pressures on the price of human services. And it's a lesson that goes two-fold for anyone that sells professional services. As routine tasks formerly conducted by professionals are increasingly replaced by faceless 'solutions', the drag on the value of human service is already there.

So it stands to reason, any lawyer who advocates for DIY solutions in professions such as real estate or accounting, is destined to receive similar treatment from those professionals in return. A little mutual respect is not just desirable, but necessary. Right?

Despite what I do for a living, I don't believe that 'online services' are destined to replace 'professional services'. There's considerable room in the ecosystem for everyone. But the competition provided by these solutions requires a very human response from professionals. There are many aspects to this, but one of the critical ways lawyers can protect their turf is to nurture existing professional relationships. Advocating for DIY solutions in other industries isn't going to win you any friends.

If you’ve been paying any attention at all to the zeitgeist of legal web marketing the last couple years, you know that producing and publishing content is the best possible way to grow your online reputation. But “content, content, content” is so much easier said than done. Firms need specific strategies for building an internal publishing culture. Here, I’ve assembled a list of ten tips to do this.

1. Think inside the firm, but make it smaller

If your firm is bigger than say, a dozen people, the idea of coordinating publishing across the board is pretty daunting and not likely to be successful. The idea of “the Firm” is great for branding, and being seen as a cohesive group, but probably shouldn’t be micromanaging subject or practice expertise.

That’s why delegating content production to smaller groups within the firm — usually practice groups — is the most efficient and practical way to go. The number of people/egos/agendas is smaller and therefore much more manageable. Among his or her many other responsibilities, the role of the “practice group leader” or manager must be to identify and harness the expertise of group members; and then move that effort towards tangible publishing.

Practice plans should include ‘publishing’ as an annual planning deliverable, and revisit these numbers regularly. Consider adding these routines:

• Highlight successes and praise group members each month by including them on an agenda item during planning meetings.
• Get writing objectives into the practice plans. Review and grade those objectives annually.
• Benchmark the previous year’s numbers and then utilize them — not just in terms of tracking volume, but identify all the publishing locations that hold your audience’s attention. Location matters!

2. The more the merrier

Not people, but ideas. Lots of people have no problem writing. The problem we hear time and time again? They get stuck on what to write about! Group-based writing scrums (a.k.a. brainstorming sessions) can be a fantastic way to build lists of topics or article ideas that serve writers well in those “I have to write something…” moments.

Worthy tip: Make these meetings enjoyable. Put the coffee on and set a challenge: “Once we get to 50 blog post ideas, we’ll crack open these doughnuts”. Get someone to write the topics on a whiteboard or flipchart. (No one’s allowed to shoot down anyone else’s ideas.)

3. Play it up

Internal marketing of writing success is critical, and plays a couple of key roles. First, it keeps everyone informed and in the loop on what other practice groups are writing about; second, it encourages a culture of recognition, which most people find encouraging. If someone’s not already tracking firm-authored external publishing (they should be!), assign someone in marketing or the library the role of internal publishing curator, and have them assemble weekly or monthly roundups of firm-authored articles to run in the internal firm newsletter or intranet. This data can also be used for external marketing, for instance, in topical client newsletters or alerts.

When it comes to print vs. web publishing, err on the side of inclusiveness. Media really doesn’t matter much these days anyway. More and more publications are adding online-only columns, and you’ll find many print publications with exclusive content too. Put it on the list! Same goes for blog content. If a particular blog post gets lots of play in the social media or gets a ton of comments, that needs to be mentioned.

4. Keep it fresh

It’s a given that students are tasked with a lot of writing assignments (if memory serves, mostly memos and ghostwriting articles for partners for which they’ll never get credit). I encourage you to take advantage of their cheap time and eagerness to build profile by getting them in on as many publishing efforts as possible.

Students have the distinct advantage of lacking an in-depth and nuanced understanding of many legal topics. That’s right, I said advantage! There’s a good number of similarities between your students and your more sophisticated clients — which is obviously a prime target audience. Think about that: students think like your clients do! While your vision is blurred by the details, your students might just help steer you towards subject clarity!

Don’t forget to get students in on topic brainstorming too. Create a positive tone where there are no “silly” ideas. One way to approach writing may be to have a student interview a more experienced lawyer on a particular issue, then write the article and share the byline. The result will likely be a client-friendly article, free of presumed knowledge. And the lawyer has imparted valuable expertise to the student.

5. Invest in Youth

Yes, another item on students, or perhaps more relevant: your younger associate lawyers. Recognize that your long term goal is “to build a firm culture that supports regular writing and publishing”. Like so many other changes in law firms, that won’t happen overnight, and requires years of investment. The next generation of publishing lawyers, especially with respect to building online profile, starts with encouraging the regular routines of authorship early.

Hopefully we’re past the days of “associate blogs” being off-grid and anonymous for fear of job security. In fact, I would hope and encourage most firms to do an “about face” with respect to their associates’ writing: Your rising stars had better be blogging or writing online these days, or else! The firm’s market perception will be at serious risk of declining otherwise. Or from another angle, your “rising stars” aren’t going to stay without the firm’s support.

6. Pencil it in

For a bird’s eye view of the group’s publishing efforts, use an editorial calendar to keep tabs on who’s writing when, what, and where. Include details like target length and whether the assignment is a routine one, such as a magazine column. Make sure everyone’s got access to the calendar, whether it’s in Outlook, Google Calendar, the intranet, or some other platform that all writers can access. (Bonus points if you can use the calendar to send reminders, too!)

Editorial calendars are a great organizational tool but they can also help to identify opportunities ahead of time. For instance, say amendments to important legislation will come into effect on a particular date down the road. Marking those details down now allows writers to prepare, gather supporting materials, and think about what approach they’ll take to writing about the amendments.

7. Keep it SMART

We’ve all heard that goals are no good unless they’re SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely. So just saying “We will produce more content” isn’t going to cut it. There are all sorts of “smart” goals you can identify with regard to publishing. A few examples: create media targets, set publishing objectives, and identify where your competition is publishing (and question how effective that has been for them).

Make sure your firm has a great answer to the question: “Where do you want to be seen?”. Because it does make a difference.

8. Make a list of the questions!

This is a common piece of advice for bloggers, but it serves well for any sort of writing. Have lawyers (and staff, for that matter) keep a list of questions they are frequently asked by clients. Create a fluid, shared document among your in-house team and schedule yourself a time to review and add to it.

Always ask yourself:

• What issues are keeping clients up at night?
• What are the hot topics related to your area of practice?
• Which fundamental questions get repeated every week (or every day)?

9. Keep your enemies closer

Lawyers should get to know their individual competitors at different firms who write regularly on the same topics they do. Even better, get to know the out-of-jurisdiction lawyers who practice in the same areas that you do, but aren’t in the office down the road!

Here’s why. Good writers monitor their subject area. In much the same way that it’s easier to write when you’ve got a topic, it’s also sometimes easier to riff on a piece or post that someone else has written, especially if you’ve got something different/more helpful/insightful to say. Is there a tangent you can take and develop something new from?

There’s truth in the saying that to be a good writer, you need to be a good reader.

10. Make it a team effort

There’s no need for lawyers to work alone on publishing efforts. Don’t forget to get help from all the non-lawyers at the firm. They’re called “support staff” for a reason. Both the marketing group and library services are a natural fit to provide media monitoring services, or use web technology like email alerts or RSS to track key publications. And when it comes to actually drafting blog posts or articles, the law library is particularly well suited to help with citation checking, and if they’re not doing it already, doing current awareness on new decisions and legislative changes.

Putting even just a few of these tips into practice should make a big improvement to your firm’s publishing efforts. I’d love to hear others’ thoughts on this — if your firm already has a creative, supportive, and productive law firm publishing culture, how did it get there, and how do you protect and preserve it?

[Lastly, a small note of thanks to my colleague and co-author of this piece Emma Durand-Wood. Each of us took a couple passes at the narrative, and the original list of ideas was generated during a great brainstorming session! Cheers!]

Case in point, Mitch's post below shares a wonderful vision for how KM can evolve to be more effective, more business-centric and drive new innovation. Simply fantastic. Please don't take the rest of this post as a critique of Mitch's ideas.

One difference I'd like to bring to the table, however, is how we value and describe information collections. While Matthew Parson's book, and many other KM visions do consider them "information landfills", or dumping grounds, I have a very different take. I like to think of these collections as the foundational pieces on which the types of innovation Mitch is advocating for, get the support they need.

I base this vision on a number of biases. First of all I am a librarian; and probably more relevant, have a 'technical services' bent. I appreciate the nuances of indexing and abstracting, faceting, controlled vocabularies or a good retrieval language. When things are properly structured and considered, we can develop great collections. And from that background I know that great collections make a difference. They get used! People develop a connection to them, and come to rely on them. Bad collections? Yes they have the potential to become a 'dumping ground' in the worst sense of the phrase. BUT, information that gets used regularly, that is reliable and current; those collections can become invaluable to professionals.

I was also lucky enough to start one of the early law firm KM programs back in the mid-to-late '90s, and continued to dabble for the next 10 years. From that experience, I have firmly come to believe that information collections can become the backbone of the most sophisticated and innovative products. Not just any information, of course. Again, information that is truly useful and valuable, giving it the potential to evolve. Quality counts here, in spades.

Sometimes I wonder if the appreciation for good information collections comes from a difference in approaches: top-down vs. bottom-up. Visionaries like to approach things looking at the big picture. That's an important talent, and one that not everyone has to offer. But especially within the legal industry, we must stop ourselves and recognize that innovative products are also built on a foundation, a foundation of detail — the devil if you will. Without it, products rarely deliver. Worse, it's an oversight that people can't always see. Products with huge potential are simply seen as 'flat' with their prospective user base, and few people can understand why.

Great products, at least in my view, depend on both approaches.

This new digital rendition will be available as both a member benefit (free) and to non-member subscribers for a $20 per year. For current LPM section members, gaining access was as simple as typing in your email address registered with the ABA. The interface has a simple page-by-page finger slide to navigate, and is built on the Texterity platform.

Count me as impressed. The look and feel of the App's execution seems solid, and as long as the thing doesn't start crashing in the coming days, I'll probably make this version my primary method of reading Law Practice magazine.

The subscription fee may be seen as a mild deterrent for non-members; and cutting the price in half would probably have generated new readers and more exposure. On the flip side, giving it a reasonable value up-front establishes the App as a true member benefit, and hopefully encourages new members to the section.

Congratulations to everyone at LP magazine, EIC Sheila Blackford and Section Chair Tom Mighell. Fingers crossed that others have my positive experience.

This type of insider knowledge has always been a bit of a balancing act. On one side, this information is incredibly valuable to the websites that collect it. Heck, it's a core element of Linkedin's paid account service — seeing who's viewed your profile over the last X number of days. As a user, my interests are divided. It both intrigues me to know who's viewed my profile, and at the same time, drives me crazy knowing that my own name is showing up on other people's 'viewed' lists.

Web users have had a long tradition of being able to freely lurk; and unless you engage somehow or contribute content under a registered account, you could use the web without leaving much of a trail. Like it or not, online culture isn't going to drop that tradition easily. My guess is that Quora will lose users over this feature, or rescind the service in the months ahead.

But this balance goes the other way too. Google Analytics has stopped tracking keyword searches that are carried out under a secured connection (https://), which is now default on both Google's Chrome and Firefox. The problem here, in my view, is that it pushes too far in the opposite direction. Keyword search data has never been tied to specific individuals usage in the past, and has been aggregated and reported back to website owners since the very first web servers. We parsed the server logs with scripts back in the '90s, so as much as things have changed, they really haven't.

I see this divide from both viewpoints, frankly. I'm a user of the web who enjoys my privacy. I don't want Quora, or LinkedIn for that matter, putting my name and face to my online activity without my consent; and especially without any active engagement. But I also see anonymous contribution to marketing data as part of that tradeoff. The websites that I visit, or Google even, give me a lot of value for free. Publishers disclaim this type of data collection in their terms of use, and in my view, deserve this small amount of usage feedback from their visitors.

User group and demographic profiling is set to go off the charts. With social networks and people registering A LOT of personal data on these sites, it makes sense that these companies are going to want to monetize this data. Given the lack of usage fees, that's the price of admission. So I'll deal with it, and select my online tools accordingly.

I just wish they'd leave my name and face out of it. Doesn't seem that much to ask.

Susan is the latest VALL lifetime member to be announced, and I'm very pleased to see the Association make this recognition. Here are two of the great quotes included from her colleagues:

“Susan was an excellent and proficient legal researcher and probably the best for many years, she was never acknowledged as that and perhaps should be now.”

“Susan is one of the few law firm librarians in Vancouver whose photograph and a description of library services appeared in a firm marketing brochure and newspaper advertisement created for client use.”

Both statements are very accurate. Susan was the 'go to' resource for Government and legislative reference questions. There were only a handful of others with comparable skill, and many of them would still use Susan as a sounding board. And full credit to Alexander Holburn on the second quote. Susan's expertise, and legal research services generally, were deemed valuable enough to include in the firm's marketing materials. That inclusion spoke volumes to many non-lawyers working in the Vancouver legal market, and to the respect the firm had for Susan.

Emma Durand-Wood, who worked with Susan for many years at AHBL (now with us at Stem) remarked that the biography made her a bit teary reading it; and I must admit that I was touched too. Susan was one of the most encouraging and friendliest law librarians I've had the pleasure of knowing. She should be proud of the contributions she's made to the profession, and the career she leaves behind.

It’s a fundamental marketing decision for many law firms: How much content should we publish outside our website? For many years, the answer always seemed to be: none. Firms tried to serve and address every audience and every interest in one location. The predictable result was an incredibly cluttered website, both in its message and in its presentation.

The law firm website was never intended to be a single-subject, single-audience, publishing powerhouse. Fortunately, many firms have realized this and have wised up. Over the last decade, we’ve seen the rapid transfer of “commentary” from firm websites, pushing that content outward to other online locations in order to gain better exposure. I call this “distributed publishing”, a term I probably didn't coin, but first started using at ABA TECHSHOW back in March.

Distributed publishing is all about developing carefully targeted, highly relevant, single-subject websites that respond to the interests of a law firm’s clientele (or potential clientele). Blogs, microsites, and topic portals are all examples of publishing initiatives that fall under the distributed publishing model.

For a host of reasons discussed in this column, firms can create a clearer message by building these sorts of content-focused “destinations”. Search engines understand the intended topic of publication better, while audiences are directed to a subject- or issue-dedicated website to which they might actually be interested in returning.

Many firms invest significant time, effort and money in their websites, and that’s a step in the right direction. But unless your firm is a single-service boutique practice, there’s a good chance your website already addresses too many audiences with different interests.

Smart firms with diverse practices realize the necessity of strategically expanding their publishing beyond the firm website by establishing a distributed publishing model. They isolate each target audience’s commentary on a dedicated website, with the authorship (and marketing message) closely tied to a single sponsoring industry group or practice group or two. The firm website remains the hub, but it’s the blogs, microsites, and portals extending from that hub that establish the powerful, interlinked network of the firm’s online presence.

Sounds like a lot of work, right? Well, yes, it is — but it’s worth it! Google richly rewards single-subject focused websites, and here are a few reasons why:

• Single-subject websites often embed subject-targeted keywords within their domain names, chosen to accurately fit the topical theme of the website.
• They repeatedly apply the consistent subject theme within each webpage’s title tag in the underlying page code — a factor still heavily weighed by the search engines.
• They reinforce this hyper-focus on a single topic with a network of incoming links that originate from similar websites — often publishing on the exact same topics.

Add in the social networking benefits, and you can start to see why blogs have become a cornerstone of legal web marketing over the past six to eight years. The outward-bound signals of these sites, from a search engine’s perspective, are incredibly strong.

Besides audience segmentation, there are many other advantages of maintaining a wider digital footprint including:

• Increased search engine visibility, exposing content to new audiences and building readership;
• A stronger connection to practice group or industry group branding;
• The elevation of important and timely content to the most prominent positioning on the content website’s homepage — all the reader needs to remember is the domain name, creating easier navigation and repeat visitors;
• Each website’s target audience is directed to the most appropriate practice page on the firm website — since the firm owns both web properties, it can establish this type of linking relationship between websites; and
• Tight subject-focused links between the content website and the practice page help increase search-engine rankings for the recipient practice group webpage.

With a growing number of firms moving towards this niche-subject, audience-focused approach, you might now be wondering whether it’s even possible for a law firm website to compete for top search engine rankings? It is, but unless the firm in question is operating from an aged domain with thousands of authoritative incoming links, it won’t be easy. For many smaller firms, a subject-focused publication on a dedicated domain might be their best chance to compete with larger competitors.

Fortunately, there are a number of methods to accomplish this. If I’ve convinced you that distributed publishing is the way to go, stay tuned.… I’ll be kicking off a series next week at Law Firm Web Strategy that gives specific advice on tactics to diversify your firm’s web publishing.

We've orchestrated a few design changes to celebrate our country's 145th birthday! Canadian-ized the place, if you will; planting a couple of dozen easter eggs — Terrance and Phillip would be proud!

I'll even start you with an example: Fodden's Beer Fridge (formerly Simon's Canadian Law Blogs Google co-op search) has a 'Crack a Cold One' button — you'll want your speakers 'on' before you click.

Happy Canada Day from all of us at Stem! And if you don't find us funny, we're very very very sorry. Cheers!

I remember choosing Zoomerang because I thought the lack of a "monkey" in the name would be mildly more acceptable to business audiences. Feature wise, the two products were pretty much on par; so the next best differentiating factor I could come up with was how business friendly the name was.

In hindsight, I did later realize that "zoomerang" wasn't all that conservative of a name either. Not that the online survey industry was producing any better alternatives.

And now here I am… back with the monkey. Must be fate. :)

Admittedly, the necessity for this kind of comparison is still in its infancy in the legal market. But probably not for much longer; higher percentages of mobile visitors may be here in as little as 12 to 18 months! The amount of traffic on many law firm websites, for example, is on the verge of rising above single digits. Here are some instructions if you're interested in finding out your own firm's mobile visitor numbers.

So watching what's happening with digitally-focused companies like Twitter and Facebook makes some sense. The issues faced by law firms won't be nearly on the same scale, of course; or as well publicized; but a little insight into 'what not to do' is always valuable.

Most recently, I was interested to learn that Twitter makes as much revenue on mobile as it does on the web, and that nearly 60% of its traffic is mobile delivered. That's impressive, considering the frequent critique of Facebook (and many other web companies, frankly) being unable monetize mobile traffic. Mobile advertising conversions and CPM pricing have tended to be much lower in mobile than on the web.

So what is Twitter doing right? It could be that Twitter is just a simpler service, and easier to render on mobile apps. Facebook's mobile apps are still very buggy, in my experience, and I often retreat to using the mobile version of Safari, rather than anything coded by Facebook. There are also tasks in the web environment that are difficult to replicate on your phone or tablet. Ever try muting a post on a FB app? It's not easy.

Twitter, by comparison (and again, in my experience), has very reliable iOS applications. They arguably jump-started their mobile learning curve through the acquisition of Tweetdeck; and today, deliver a very usable mobile experience for both their apps, and on the mobile web.

So when analysts compare the ability of the two companies to generate advertising revenue, it could be that Twitter has better advertising delivery methods. Or, it could be that Twitter understands their mobile experience and usage better. And rationally, with Facebook being the more sophisticated product, it makes sense that Twitter would arrive at the finish line first.

Session topics covered include:

• Litigation Management on a Global Scale
• 360° Review Management
• Technology Assisted Document Review
• Cloud Computing for the Legal Profession
• Social Media: The New ESI Frontier
• Data Reduction and Culling Techniques
• Shifting Technology Paradigms

Visit their website — technologyinpractice.ca — for full session details, speakers, and conference pricing.

The numbers are pretty interesting; and the site is probably worth a bookmark for anyone involved in IP law. You can see, for example, that BPI made 5X more copyright enforcement requests than the RIAA last month. You can also identify which domains are being taken offline, or which file sharing services are receiving the most attention.

An interesting window inside Google…

If you're using any kind of structured data or rich markup — extra classification on "site search" functionality, for example — you can also engage filtering by attribute to restrict the search results even further.

It's great to see that Google hasn't been forgotten their CSE web service. It's easy to use and very flexible. The fact that it's being improved on and moving forward… even better!

[Tip of the hat to Phil Bradley]

• "One-fifth of American adults (21%) report that they have read an e-book in the past year" — up from 17% in mid-December;
• "Readers of e-books stand out in almost every way from other kinds of readers."
• "They are relatively avid readers of books in all formats: 88% of those who read e-books in the past 12 months also read printed books."
• ^"They read more books. "
• "They read more frequently for a host of reasons: for pleasure, for research, for current events, and for work or school."
• "They are also more likely than others to have bought their most recent book, rather than borrowed it"
• "They are more likely than others to say they prefer to purchase books in general, often starting their search online."
• "A majority of print readers (54%) and readers of e-books (61%) prefer to purchase their own copies; while "just one in three audiobook listeners (32%) prefer to purchase audiobooks"

The metrics with respect to digital reading habits are useful, at least for gaining a better understanding of our shifting preferences. More interesting, however, was the perception of e-book sharing; with the report showing most users thought paper was "easier to share with other people". See this accompanying graphic:

I find it hard to believe that those numbers won't flip-flop over the next 12-18 months; especially as both e-book sharing becomes easier, and various public and private e-lending programs become more widely publicized.

But even with those aspects coming into play, "user education" seems to be an important factor going forward. For libraries and organizations looking to share e-book resources, the Pew numbers indicate that users will not only need to understand "how to" borrow; but also be sold on the utility of lending over buying.

It’s no longer new or innovative for law firms to use Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn as elements of their public web presence. Social media tools have become sufficiently standard that we can probably declare 2012 the year firms finally “buy in.” 

While early-adopter firms continue to fine-tune their offerings, what I’m really noticing these days is the critical mass of firms now playing catch-up. Lawyers who used to ask, “What’s the firm across the street doing?” are now wondering “Why aren’t we doing that?” Social media buttons are sprouting all over law firm websites, all over the web. The tipping point may finally be here.

I touched on these themes in my 2012 predictions column, leading to some thought-provoking questions from Slaw’s resident tech-scholar John Gregory. John correctly notes the high volume of Twitter entries in law firm accounts, including the additional “noise” of self-congratulatory firm news, events, and other PR spin.

“Why,” he asks, from a potential reader’s view, “would one follow a law firm on social media? Compared to the focused commentary delivered by individual lawyers, what possible additional value can firms deliver?” And looping back to my original column’s predictions of “social media failure,” does this perceived lack of value qualify as a #fail?

Before we can talk about law firms’ social media failures, we weed to know what exactly we mean by “success.” Experience has taught us a few things about successful participation online for both law firms and their lawyers. Success follows law firms that constantly consider and plan their substantive message and focus on bringing that message to an audience where it can resonate.

So what does failure look like? Here are three common examples, plus one that is often miscategorized as a failure, but that I don’t think really qualifies.

A Little Too Social

Social media-driven relationships that are initiated or enhanced on substantive grounds have a stronger connection to the firm’s business interests than those that don’t. Some firms (and lawyers) stray too far from the business side of things in their Twitter accounts, reveling in online relationships for their own sake – they become blindly social. That’s not to say friends and family don’t have business value, but the best “business” relationships have focus. Lawyers need to consider the demographics: who sends them work; who influences commentary; who shares industry “know how”; and who has common academic interests. Otherwise, as business people, they’re looking at a definite social media #fail.

The Right Place…at the Wrong Time

A worrying trend is the number of lawyers and firms new to online participation that fall into the trap of doing nothing but social media. Professional reputations are built on two critical pieces: personal relationships and demonstrated expertise (more on that in a minute). While the social networks shine at relationships, they fail miserably as delivery vehicles for original commentary. To make up for that weakness, in my view, firms need to get the order right. Substantive materials should first be published outside of social media – preferably on a firm-owned website with proper disclaimers, establishing ownership of the firm’s intellectual investment and expanding the firm’s base of authorship. Once these publishing routines are established, then those materials can be shared within social media. Of course, as we’ll see next, it’s impossible to do things in the wrong order when there’s…

Not Enough Substance

After personal relationships, developing a professional reputation online demands a commitment to writing commentary (demonstrated expertise), and I fail to see how social media escapes this element of necessity. Lawyers make varying choices in how to accomplish this: writing blogs, publishing articles, writing books, or developing CLE programs, to name a few. A reputation is built upon a body of work. For social media to play a supporting role, it must be grounded in substantive content created by an individual lawyer, or somehow connected to a lawyer’s practice. Lawyers can’t simply be linking machines, sending readers everywhere but to their own website; becoming nothing more than a distributor for other people’s content. As a business tool, social media without substance to back it up does indeed #fail.

Lack of Lawyer Involvement

I’ll spend the most time on this one, because I think it’s the part that’s so misunderstood and missed as an opportunity. There’s a line of thought that says law firm Twitter accounts fail when they do little but promote the firm: brag about awards, circulate press releases, and congratulate lawyers on their publications or achievements, but I’m going to differ here.

While it’s true that firm accounts are frequently cluttered, I’m not convinced their focus should be on communicating with clients and prospective clients. In my mind, the firm account is better suited as a homing beacon; as content infrastructure. Why? Because, as John Gregory’s comment suggests, people don’t follow law firms, they follow individual lawyers. And lawyer social media accounts, I would argue, are where firms develop and enhance relationships.

Think about it for a moment: unless a law firm has a very narrow, niche practice, it’s virtually impossible for a firm Twitter feed to be engaging and relevant to all clients, who potentially have hundreds of areas of interest and concern. But who knows, on a much more accurate level, what clients would be interested in? Who is perfectly positioned to generate a stream of relevant, useful tweets? Individual lawyers, of course. As the old saying goes, people don’t hire law firms, they hire lawyers.

I see the firm Twitter feed as a pool of abundant, high-quality, yet controlled, vetted messages about the firm, from which individual lawyers may cherry pick, passing along only the best to their readers, interspersed with their own tweets.

Add to this, the fact that an essential aspect of social media is reciprocity and interaction, something that corporate Twitter accounts often neglect entirely. But individual lawyers are more apt to develop the types of social networking relationships that aren’t just one way, replying, retweeting, and passing along information and links from outside sources.

In summary, clearly, it’s not healthy for any firm to be unidirectional in their approach to social media; we do, however, need to see the bigger picture – firm accounts and lawyer accounts must be considered collectively, not as separate entities.

The “official” firm Twitter account must play a number of important roles, each with inherently different audiences, including:

• Informing and enticing media coverage
• Recruiting new lawyers and staff
• Developing and enhancing overall market presence
• Supporting and seeding the Twitter accounts of individual firm lawyers

I suspect that if we start to recognize that law firm Twitter accounts have more than one audience and more than one goal, we will stop being so quick to say their social media attempts #fail.

What do you think?

Case in point, a recent study that came out of Wake Forest comparing pupil dilation response on left-side vs right-side photos (for those interested — your left side is always golden according to the research).

Let's start with the PubMed link above, and look at the title: Emotive hemispheric differences measured in real-life portraits using pupil diameter and subjective aesthetic preferences. And of course, the abstract is equally riveting. But, it's specific, accurate and factual. All the things we expect from academic research. And for its intended audience, a perfect presentation.

As we move outside of academia, however, the message surrounding this research gets noticeably more sensational.

To begin, a site like Psychcentral.com will re-write this study for practitioners or educated consumers. The level of detail drops only slightly, but the illustrative applications and practical stories are already starting to emerge. As a bit of a side-note, many Academics react to the sensationalism of research in a manner similar to how some lawyers do for legal topics. The dismissive phrase 'pop psychology' isn't uncommon.

Next step down, we see coverage in local media and magazines. To illustrate, here's a Time article titled, Which side is your good side? Here comes the Science; or similar coverage in Forbes.

And finally, we end up… well. Here:

Different strokes for different folks? Indeed. But the question I keep coming back to is this: How do we benefit as a society, if our Universities bury their research among a closed group of two to five thousand academics sprinkled around the globe? Not very much, I'd say.

Message counts. So does presentation. And ultimately, visibility is an incredibly important factor. If we have to sensationalize, or make something fun — and tell me you didn't enjoy Telling Vic Everything — then I'm fine with it. Important messages might otherwise get swept under the mat.

I did some sleuthing and I found very little in terms of outraged optometrists. Perhaps it's too early. There were a couple of blog posts, and I also found this fox news story that came out back in February. Most made references to Computer Vision Syndrome, or CVS, defined in the story:

"CVS is the stress and fatigue we experience on our eyes when we use a digital device for a long period of time. Pixilated images are hard for our eyes to focus on, so when these images are so close to our eyes, our eyes have to turn in towards each other – what is known as convergence – which can cause that same type of eye fatigue.”

The symptoms included "eye irritation, an inability to keep objects in focus, and sometimes – seeing double." That's a relief! I was sure parenting was the root cause.

I think how we interface our bodies with technology is incredibly interesting. The use of hearing implants for the deaf has been a real miracle in the last 10 or so years (see this – it's touching). But our eyes are sacred, in my view; we are so dependent on them. When technology is wearable and supplements our natural senses, I think we need to consider the impact. What are we asking our eyes to do beyond what they were naturally intended to do?

I suppose it's possible that humans will want to bypass their eyes entirely at some point in the future. Directly connecting our brains with digital inputs? That's a scary proposition for those of us afraid of laser vision correction. I know I won't be lining up!

[hmm. There must be a goofy Star Trek NG reference to be had here...] Given my hair stylist, let's just say that this is the look I'll be trying to avoid:

Voice recognition technologies have been around for many many years now. In the legal space, because of lawyer dictation technologies, we know better than most about the slow rates of adoption. For 20+ years, there's been a small community of lawyers dedicated to voice recognition; balanced by both a younger generation of lawyers who type proficiently, and (yet) another technological direction – simple digital voice recordings.

Of course, voice recognition is much more than recordings, and many see it as the future for interfacing with our tech-devices — both personally and professionally. Siri is often held out as the shining example of that future, and it may still be. But if there's something the "legal community" can tell the "technology community", it would be this: if users don't trust voice recognition technologies, they will quickly shy away from using them. And it can be very difficult to bring them back.

Why is that? Here's my theory… It's one thing to type instructions (sometimes repeatedly), and fail to get the desired response. It's quite another to verbalize those instructions, repeatedly, and get an error message. Programmers will hit their head against an error message for hours, and keep trying until they get it. But if we ask Siri how the traffic is on Robson Street in Vancouver? Or, you try to initiate a hands-free call to your mother while driving, and Siri can't understand or complete the instructions — you give up trying. If there's another human being within listening distance, you give up trying even faster. Simply put: we're embarrassed. Not after twenty requests, not after ten. But two tries. Maybe three.

Users don't care if Apple has access to Canadian maps, or whatever the excuse is that's propping up Siri's incompetence. We just stop using it.

For the legal community, this means lawyers and firms will continue to spend time manually sharing content. Considering the limited time we all have to invest in any one social network, Google certainly isn't making it easy. It could also be argued that focusing people's time and energy on the mundane efforts of manual publishing is taking away from online conversation.

The lack of write access within the Google+ API is stifling the network's engagement, in my view. And worse, I can't help but think Google is doing this intentionally — forcing users to write substantive material inside of Google properties, forsaking control over their own content, and further destroying the public web.

Google's always said it supports the open web. It's time they backed up their words; starting with their social network's API.

Having a person on the other end of the phone to solve problems? Unfortunately, that is not part of the Google toolbox. And when it works, few of us are likely to complain. We respect the idea of thoughtfully engineering activities to the point where human support isn't required. It sounds good, at least in principle.

One of the problems that strikes me about this model, however, is that the company hasn't engineered humans out of the equation. Instead, they've re-created the business concept from scratch; which makes sense if your goal is to create an innovative offering, but it also creates unfortunate gaps. Not fully valuing the service elements formerly delivered under the human model.

Take business directories, as an example. A topic more than a few of us here at Slaw can identify with. Google's local business directory Places has become incredibly dominant, very quickly. But for the business owner trying to claim their listing, there are a host of problems that could be cleared up with a single phone call:

• Google crawls other directories across the web, frequently causing duplicate records — isolating your company's official record, and getting Google's algorithm to recognize that decision, is painfully slow;
• Google pulls reviews from other business directories, downloading the responsibility for quality control;
• Claiming your business listing outside of the US market (still!) requires a snail mail postcard to confirm ownership.

Not having a fail-safe contact point, like a 1-800 number to call, makes this vending machine approach to service very frustrating. The business model may be profitable, but it also fails to deliver the levels of consumer service that most of us have grown to expect.

All this makes me ask two questions:

1. How long before other mass-market vendors move towards mimicking this low-service, but profitable, model? Think: telecommunications, gas companies, and electricity.
2. How long can web companies conceivably get away with diminished service levels, before they (again) are forced to change their business?

The instinctive response is to say they've got us 'over-a-barrel', but think long term here. Web-supported business services are less than 20 years old (at best). Engineering will obviously get better; but so will the competition levels.

It's tough to believe that customer service for mass-scale companies can be ignored forever.

PaidContent.org has a post up describing how publishers are banding together to fight against book piracy, similar to the battles the RIA has fought over the past decade. The piece also correctly notes how this takedown was conducted without any new legislative powers, such as those in the failed US SOPA bill.

But perhaps the best read of the bunch (at least for me) came at the end of the AAP release, where the Association summarized the background and challenges behind the chase. The number one challenge? Actually identifying who owned the websites and tracing their physical whereabouts, summarized here:

"Neither website contained any form of legal notice with information as to the operators’ identities. The WHOIS entries on the domain holders were partially modified several times. In some cases, fake company names without registration were used. In other cases, the registered offices of well-known Irish banks or names of people were used, although it was highly unlikely that these individuals or entities had any relationship with the operators of the platforms.

E-mails to the domains were answered with the intent to mislead prosecutors; when replies were secured, these came with varying contradicting responses, without any contact information and under pseudonyms. The services' top level domains led to Italy and the southern Pacific coral island of Niue. The servers were initially based in Germany, then relocated to the Ukraine. Additionally, the operators used very sophisticated technical systems which immediately detected and repelled higher access rates to the platforms from outside. The necessary securing of evidence – during which software which had been specifically developed by IT specialists for this purpose was used for the documentation of the infringements – was significantly impeded by this technical blocking."

Another notable difference between this and other online copyright enforcement situations is the fact that the website operators are being accused directly, rather than simply routing blame to the website's user base. See:

"One positive outcome from this complicated process is that the platform operators themselves are now being held responsible as perpetrators for the copyright infringements on their sites and will therefore not merely be liable for the illegal conduct of their users. All four copyright chambers at the LG of Munich who dealt with this issue and who promptly issued the 17 interim injunctions were in agreement on this matter."

CANSIM is Statistics Canada's key socioeconomic database, receives periodic updates daily to its various tables, and "provides fast and easy access to a large range of the latest statistics available in Canada."

They've also added a screencast video tutorial, which would have been a nice addition to the 4 videos StatsCan currently has on its Youtube channel. It seems rather odd, I must say, when an organization's youtube channel is used exclusively for marketing fodder, and isn't made available to showcase a core product — like, say, a newly available free statistics collection.

Too bad. An embed code to would have come in handy, and would have allowed me to share the tutorial video here on Slaw.

The impress.js library offers similar effects, but without the flash technology. Developed by Bartek Szopka, it is also open source, and utilizes CSS3 3D transitions found in newer webkit supported browsers — which means you'll need Chrome or Safari to see the effects in this demo.

It's interesting to see some of the Prezi presentation experience recreated in webpages. It also demonstrates how far web presentation on open web standards has truly come.

If the geeky webby code-mongering doesn't bother you, please drop by The Greenhouse for more in the future! :)

Creating an annual roundup of legal web technology predictions was never on my personal "to do" list. Rather, it was an accidental offering started here at Slaw a few years ago. Now, much like repeated broadcasts of "It's a Wonderful Life," it's somehow become a holiday tradition.

Some of these predictions pick up on current trends, and extend my own perspective of how that trend might play out in the legal market. Others ideas are clearly more "blue sky," my honest attempts at swinging for the fences (or more accurately, my emulations of the Mighty Casey). Either way, this is always a fun column, and one I now look forward to writing each December.

So enjoy the 2012 forecast attempts, and please consider lobbing in a couple of your own predictions in the comments!

Responsive Web Designs:  I believe 2012 will be the year firms do something to respond to the question: "how mobile friendly is our law firm website?" Cross-browser testing must now include smart phones and tablets; and firms will respond by detecting media and screen size, and delivering a customized design for each interface. Fixed-width and minimum-width designs are finally dying! And the application of fluid grids will allow firms to maximize their website's presentation for all mobile devices.

Layering of Cloud Tools: In 2011, we saw many cloud services announcing their integration or compatibility with different complementary online products. I see this as a trend that will only accelerate in 2012: more companies will offer APIs to their services, transferring data between cloud products will become easier, and most important, newer layered products will emerge. On a bigger scale, companies like Google are already layering services. But in the legal market, you can anticipate products like integrated client dashboards, or accounting data merged with CRM. Integrations that took place behind the firewall in law firms over the past 15 years will emerge in 2012 as part of the public web infrastructure.

Firms Abandon Content, Blame Subsequent Failures on Social Media: Jumping into a trend midstream has never been easier, and law firms will demonstrate this in 2012 with their social media tactics. Expect more critical mass adoption, with many firms passing on blogging and other forms of professional commentary in hopes that their offline-reputation translates to the web. Few will succeed! We can also expect to see those same firms blame their failures on Twitter and Facebook. Having 'original commentary that resonates' may be an old school concept for many of us, but if 2011 was any indication, there’s a boatload of social media failures coming in 2012.

Google-Facebook Bidding War Over Twitter: I'm taking a flyer on this one. Facebook and Google are obviously going toe-to-toe in the social media platform space. Twitter, on the other hand, continues in its simplicity, emerging as the place to grab an immediate pulse on pretty much any topic. This makes me see Twitter as a tipping point agent, the catalyst to being the market leader in social media – a position that Facebook has, and Google wants badly. So my prediction is this: 2012 will see a very public bidding war between Google and Facebook to acquire Twitter. Especially after Facebook IPOs in early 2012, there will be just too much money, too many egos, for one of these companies not to pay dearly.

Non-Lawyer Web Services Will Rise: In the North American market, 'grey area' legal services like LegalZoom and Rocket Lawyer are growing rapidly. And in the UK, non-lawyer Alternative Business Structure (ABS) firms are about to start incorporating businesses in the back of supermarkets and drugstores. These waves of change have already been felt online, but we can expect the competition level to spike further in 2012. More notable, however, is the new approach these companies will take to online legal services – it won’t be standard fare! These companies don’t have the same ethical guidelines that direct lawyers to behave professionally. And while some will get their knuckles wrapped for UPL, still these services will be more aggressive, more consumer focused, and better able to delve into tactics (e.g. referral marketing) most firms avoid.

Google Search Will Be Driven By Local and Social: In case anyone hasn’t noticed, Google is transforming itself to compete with Facebook. Changes can be seen network-wide, but we can point to Google+ and the new navigation bar as prime examples of what's coming. While it's hard to believe Google's homepage, long admired for its simplicity, could be at risk, I would say the groundwork is being set for many dramatic changes in 2012. As for my predictions, I'll pick two. First, the dial on social circle engagements will be turned up even higher with respect to Google's search results. Each person's social network is already showing a growing impact [A related tip here: if you register with Google Webmaster Tools, Google will show you the impact all those +1s are having]. And secondly, local search (Google Places) will become even more important, be embedded in more places, and deliver far more exposure than it ever has in the past.

Happy holidays to all my friends here at Slaw!

Cheers,
Steve

The Clawbies website design is now updated, and the season opening post is up. Yes, it's time for the (6th!) Canadian Law Blog Awards!

Whether you're a blogger or blog reader, the month of December has become the time to shine a light on your favourite Canadian law blogs and bloggers. And if you're new to the Clawbies tradition, please make careful note of 'the humble Canadian rule' — don't toot your own horn! Your blog gets automatically nominated when you nominate and link to other bloggers! Yes, it's a wink-wink, nudge-nudge concept, but take a look around at the nomination posts from prior years for examples. Or search for 'Clawbies 2010' or 'Clawbies 2009'; you'll get a clearer picture — our goal is to have fun with it!

Once again, I am honoured to have colleague Jordan Furlong on the Clawbies judging panel. I am also extremely pleased to announce that Slaw's Simon Fodden has also agreed to lend a helping hand in deciding the (virtual) hardware.

So please consider taking part: explore lawblogs.ca; see the Clawbies winners from prior years; and read the great legal content from bloggers who work and write about the law in Canada. Write a blog post with your nominations (or tweet with the #clawbies2011 hashtag) by December 28th, and we'll announce the winners on New Year's Eve!

Congratulations to everyone involved in making CanLII happen. It's quite a milestone!

Most law firms have a history of using Adobe’s Portable Document Format (PDF) to distribute their brochures, papers and longer written pieces. That practice matches what web usability experts have long advised: “PDF is great for distributing documents that need to be printed,” but not much more than that. The well-traveled rule is that if a document contains more than five pages of text (hint: that excludes lawyer profiles), then PDF format is worth considering.

Now, let’s throw a wrench into this. As we approach the end of 2011, many firms and their their clients are moving toward paperless offices. Clients are consuming law firm publications on a variety of devices, including smartphones, tablets, e-readers, and large multiple-monitor desktop environments. So how likely is it that we consume a PDF on printed paper? Not very.

We can now presume that PDFs will be read almost exclusively on electronic devices — and that changes a lot of our previous assumptions. The “need to be printed” rule is close to becoming as obsolete as the printouts upon which PDFs were once routinely produced. In light of this digital evolution, we need to revisit the usage of PDF and how firms integrate this file format within their online properties.

The Impact of Tablet-Consumed PDFs 

No recent technology change will impact the PDF file format more than tablet computing. Tablets can do many things, but for most of us, their dominant use has been as a content consumption device. For all forms of longer written work, including substantive and marketing-based communication, the tablet will rule much sooner than any of us expect.

Most tablet devices do a reasonably good job of PDF visual display. In fact, it could easily be argued that what Apple has taken away from Adobe through the absence of Flash compatibility, the iPad has given back (in spades) for its PDF handling. Reading PDF documents is a reasonably pleasant experience, and the rich selection of available applications to capture, modify, and annotate documents may well preserve the file format’s future.

With respect to the smallest mobile devices, smartphones, PDF should also continue to have a place. Many smartphones capture and share well, and although they’re not an ideal environment for reading a longer document, PDFs do no worse (or better) than many web pages when it comes to reading on the ‘small screen’.

PDFs for Publishing Are Still A Problem

The PDF format will likely be around for the foreseeable future. But a number of usability disadvantages have traditionally kept law firms from using PDF as a publishing format. Here are two of the most common drawbacks.

PDFs and search engines don’t jibe, so PDF is a less “findable” format. Now, to be fair, any web-readable file format has an opportunity to rank in the search engines. Point enough links at your file and the search engines will raise your PDF to the top of the results. In my experience, however, when we compare the performance of the average PDF file against a comparably structured webpage in HTML, the webpage does continue to be the better performer. This may simply be because webpages can utilize a descriptive title tag, while PDFs cannot.

PDFs kills web navigation. With PDFs, users are placed in a “toggle state”: they’re either inside or outside the document. Designers can add links throughout a PDF, or additional contextual documents as appendices (such as an author’s biography); but ultimately, this remains a legitimate complaint. The absence of reader distraction can be a good thing, especially once you’ve convinced the reader to invest his or her time in your document. But in the end, moving your reader to the next point is key. Online travels are just that: travels. Website architecture must always consider the next point in the user’s path.

Continued Best Practices

Many firms have created “workarounds” that allow them to publish PDFs – specifically, papers and longer publications – to their websites, and that probably won’t change much in the short term. Some of these best practices will continue to include:

• HTML Landing Pages (a.k.a. “gateway pages”) – These are especially helpful for search engine marketing. Creating a dedicated landing page allows firms to optimize around the title, author, and abstract of a publication. This “surrogate cover page” is then marketed, leading readers to the full-text PDF download.
• Removing PDFs from the website’s architecture – As mentioned above, PDFs aren’t “an endpoint” to your reader’s travels, but relying on PDFs for any key navigation will frustrate your website’s visitors. For example, PDFs should never be used for lawyer profiles or practice group pages.
• Deep-linking into PDFs for increased navigation. Most Acrobat users know they can generate a navigable Table of Contents from within their PDF generation software. Usability can also be aided by deep-linking from web pages into specific areas (or pages) within a PDF document, re-orienting the initial view and screen-size for their audience.

Most of us probably expected or sensed that our consumption of PDF files is moving from paper to electronic format, and it is a bit of a cultural shift. But will our longer publications eventually move from PDF format to something new, like HTML5? It’s certainly possible, especially over the longer term; but it won’t happen overnight.

Like ‘em or not, PDFs will be part legal web publishing for at least another five years. Fortunately, readers converting to e-devices won’t change the fact that PDFs remain a content delivery vehicle with limited expectations. As long as we simply want the user to “sit and read,” the tactics employed by law firms won’t change much, either.

The article also has an interesting portion at the end on the relationship of Amazon's Prime lending program to its library lending program:

At the Seattle public-library system, e-book borrowing rose 32% in the month after Kindle books became available, said Seattle's electronic-resources librarian Kirk Blankenship. E-book borrowing had typically been rising 10% or 15% a month, he said.

Mr. Blankenship said he isn't worried about Amazon starting its own lending service.

"There's a lot of people that can't afford Amazon Prime," he said. "We also want to be a resource for people looking for other things beyond the best-seller list."

Followed by a statement from Arthur Klebanoff, chief executive of RosettaBooks LLC, on the value of making titles available via a flat fee arrangement:

"I'm attracted to the incremental promotion/visibility for participating titles," he said. "All site promotion, especially of backlist titles, drives sales in the Kindle Store." Mr. Klebanoff said that he's providing about 200 titles in all.

I find the intersections between these two programs interesting on two counts:

1. Loss leader remains a good strategy for publishers. Libraries have traditionally provided this value to the publishing industry, and it won't disappear in e-formats.
2. It doesn't matter whether Amazon is providing the lending program or a library system. The ease of access to related titles, and the subsequent sales, should make publishers open their eyes to the exposure e-lending services can provide.

Now, I recognize the reduced circulation of law library titles, but that's not much different than any other low-demand item sitting in the stacks at a public library. When Publishers need to tap into smaller audiences, gaining exposure with these readership groups is going to remain a critical challenge.

My point would be this: law library e-book lending may not only be important from an altruistic, educational standpoint – in my view, a required contribution from every publisher. But that in the future, these programs will be fundamental to connecting with readership, provide a 'proving ground' for secondary source materials, and will define each product's reputation and the demand for associated products (author & subject). Publishers must figure out which products to give away, and which to sell; but the question of whether or not to participate in e-lending programs? Doesn't seem like much of an option.

Libraries and librarians (legal or not) have a much stronger role in the book industry than most people recognize.

More:

• GG Speech: 100th Anniversary of the Appointment of the First Canadian JAG
• Office of the JAG
• Current JAG: Brigadier-General Blaise Cathcart
• JAG Role and Responsibilities

The British Columbia Legislative Digest: A Brief History

The British Columbia Legislative Digest (BCLD) was conceived of in 1979 by librarians at the BC Courthouse Library, now Courthouse Libraries BC, who needed a timely way of tracking changes to provincial legislation. They developed a tool that allowed the user, at a glance, to determine who introduced a bill, what stage it was at, whether it would have consequential amendments, and when and how it would come into force. Library staff issued weekly updates that subscribers would incorporate into their BCLD binders so that they always had the most current information. It must be noted, pre-dating the age of the Internet, this was no small undertaking.

Soon the BCLD, well-thumbed in its signature burgundy binders, could be found in libraries and law offices across the province. Over the next 30 years it would become an invaluable source for anyone responsible for monitoring or researching current laws, or conducting historical legislative research in British Columbia. The Canadian Legislative Index (CLI), the BCLD's federal counterpart, was equally well-used.

But by 2010, the legal information landscape had changed drastically. More information than ever was available online, and the cost to publish the still paper-based BCLD and the CLI collections had become difficult to justify. In light of this, and the growing demand for staff time on more public-facing digital initiatives, the Courthouse Libraries made a change to their strategic direction. The resulting, and very difficult, decision was made to discontinue both titles.

The fallout would soon come from legal researchers across B.C., including many members of the Vancouver Association of Law Libraries (VALL), who were disappointed with the decision. Nimble as ever, law librarians made do by piecing together information from various alternative sources, but the ease of use and trusted, comprehensive data the BCLD offered were sorely missed.

A Second Chance

Enter Quickscribe, the Victoria-based provider of hardcopy and electronic legislative information, which has developed a number of innovative products throughout its 25 years of business. Seeing an opportunity to revive and integrate the BCLD within his web-based legislative service, Quickscribe president Mike Pasta reached out to Courthouse Libraries BC with his proposal. The response went beyond expectations. He not only received the Library’s blessing to redevelop the product, but found integral group of supporters who would help guide the BCLD towards digitalization.

Over the coming months, support of the BCLD project continued to grow. In August, Mike Pasta appointed an Advisory Group of experienced law librarians, including several former BCLD caretakers, to help consult on the integration. Members of this support group, including Thea Schmidt (Borden Ladner Gervais LLP), Ana Rosa Blue (WorksafeBC), Gillian Crabtree (Edwards, Kenny & Bray LLP), and Tracey McLean, Alex McNeur, and Kat Siddle (all of Courthouse Libraries BC), continue to advise on the BCLD’s ongoing digital direction, and help ensure it remains a comprehensive and relevant research tool. Needless to say, Quickscribe is extremely grateful for the advice it has received.

The New BCLD

The new BCLD is now being relaunched as a digital product available to subscribers of Quickscribe Online. It offers a weekly Digest (similar to the Highlights, Proclamations and Regulations sections of the print edition), a dynamic "status checker", and a hyperlinked progress of bills chart that provides an overview of the year's legislative activity and chapter/bill concordance.

The BCLD also offers an email alert service for tracking bills as they progress from first reading though Royal Assent and into law. A subscriber can sign up for customized alerts that include all legislative changes; changes to topical groups of legislation; or changes to selected bills, acts, or regulations. Subscribers may also create multiple email alerts for the benefit of groups or individuals within their organization.

Ultimately, the goal of the new BCLD is to honour the spirit of its predecessor publication, while establishing itself as a new, invaluable tool for legislative monitoring and research in British Columbia.

To see the British Columbia Legislative Digest in action, see the video tour posted on the Quickscribe website. For those interested in having a look at this new resource, Quickscribe is also currently offering a two-month free trial just in time for the upcoming legislative session.