From the Torys Speaker Series at the University of Ottawa Law and Technology:

Facing up to Facebook
A panel discussion on social media and social networking

Please join the Law & Technology group as Professors Jane Bailey, Jeremy de Beer, Michael Geist, Ian Kerr, and Valerie Steeves discuss legal issues arising from Facebook and related social media technologies.

Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Time: 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
Place: Fauteux Hall, room 351
Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa

Please RSVP to techlaw@uottawa.ca.
Join the Facing up to Facebook event page.

Note about this event . . . [more]

A 2.5 million dollar grant is being given to a group of 8 academic researchers by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Announced today, the grant is to be spent over seven years in the study of how and why average citizens are being watched by public and private organizations. The study is being titled "The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting." Part of the study will be to look at the flow of surveillance information that is now possible with computer use.

From the Queen's University press release:

The new project will examine

. . . [more]

Two weeks ago over on my personal blog I talked about taking part in My ooVoo Day, an event taking place in the new video chat platform ooVoo in which participants could sign up and talk to their favourite new media specialists. I took part in a talk with Joseph Jaffe of Crayon and Jaffe Juice fame.

Last week I participated in a workshop via ooVoo with Laura Fitton of Pistachio Consulting in Boston in which she taught us how to improve our presentations. I was doubtful how much I could get out of a one-hour session in . . . [more]

While researching articles discussing virtual worlds (including both Internet-based games and social networking spaces) I came across an upcoming conference on virtual law. The Virtual Law 2008 Conference is being held April 3 – 4, 2008 in New York City in conjunction with Virtual Worlds 2008 which is running concurrently.

You would think by now these things don't surprise me, but I have to admit being a bit "gob-smacked" when I came across this conference. Are there really enough lawyers practising in this area to build a whole conference to address it?

Digging a bit further, I learn that the . . . [more]

Tuesday night I gave a presentation to Toronto Wiki Tuesdays about the use of wikis in law firms. On Monday, to get some additional ideas, I posted a message to Slaw asking for any new examples of wiki use in law firms since I wanted to present more than just wikis I had a hand in myself. The next day a very interesting discussion ensued on Slaw about whether wiki use is suitable for firms. This was a fantastic discussion, starting to really get at the heart of whether a firm should be using wikis and what really works. So . . . [more]

2008 Canadian Association of Law Libraries Conference

The Academic SIG Chairs are very pleased to report that all three proposals designed by the SIG for the 2008 Conference have been approved!

We had prepared two proposals for sessions for the 2008 Annual Conference, and one proposal for a preconference workshop.

The first session is:

"Military Law in Canada, What it Is and How to Find It." We are pleased to announce that Brigadier General Ken Watkin, Canada's Judge Advocate General, and Andrea Belanger, Library Manager, Office of the Judge Advocate General, will be presenting this session.

The second is: . . . [more]

One of the richest sources of podcasts is the iTunes Store and particularly its iTunes U, where universities can make their audio and video materials available generally. ((The user guide is available in PDF format here.)) Yale is here, MIT, Stanford and a couple of dozen more — and from Canada there's Concordia and Queen's, with at least York to follow, I believe. Until recently this was great for a history lesson or that shot of engineering you found yourself craving after a hard day in court. But now New York Law School is on the board. There are more . . . [more]

I have been talking wikis with Doug Cornelius, KM and law blogger, senior attorney at Goodwin Procter and also part of their knowledge management team. He has been asked to put together a panel about wikis inside the law firm for the ILTA conference in August. He is looking for examples as well as panelists.

Tomorrow night I will be talking to my regular group, Toronto Wiki Tuesdays, about the same topic–the use of wikis (and other social networking tools) by lawyers. I, too, would love to hear examples. Or better yet, if you are in Toronto . . . [more]

If anyone not at LegalTech 2008 currently taking place in New York City is interested, Boston-based lawyer Doug Cornelius is blogging some of the sessions over in his KM Space blog.

For more LegalTech NYC 2008 blog posts, have a look at Legal Blog Watch. . . . [more]

The Canadian Bar Association Young Professionals International Internship Program is now taking applications for the 2008-2009 placements. The CBA administrates this program, which is funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) as part of the Government of Canada's Youth Employment Strategy (YES).

Through this program, young lawyers are placed in eight-month internships (they are overseas for between six and seven of the eight months) to work with human rights legal organizations on issues such as women's rights, labour rights, constitutional rights, children's rights and indigenous people's rights, in Latin America and the Caribbean, Southern and Central Africa and

. . . [more]

The McKinsey Quarterly's "Eight Business Technology Trends to Watch" discusses eight emerging technologies with the potential to transform companies and markets. They include:

• Using consumers as innovators: Involving customers in the design, testing and marketing of new products and services.
• Distributing cocreation: Make better use of the skills and ideas of workers located outside corporate boundaries, such as suppliers and independent contractors.

Also see the blog Portals and KM for a brief discussion of this article. . . . [more]

Sounds impressive, no?

I saw one of the millenium's trends in person: fewer live bodies at smaller symposia with more people attending electronically.

I spoke earlier today at a Law Society of Upper Canada CLE symposium. I'm told there were about 140 registrants. Only about 70 were there in person. The other 70 were elsewhere catching the webcast. I was able to get a "feel" for how the live audience was responding to the audibility, pace and content of the lecture. I haven't the faintest idea about the web audience. I'm assuming things were fine or those at the production end . . . [more]