Spring Overload?
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been noticing a trend. Is this the busiest time of year? or is it just me?
First off, I’ve got a firm wide portal project set to roll out over the next few weeks (again, maybe just me, but it seems like there’s always a major spring project).
Add in the fact that it’s planning and budget time, that I’m prepping a presentation for the BCLA conference next friday, and the CALL Conference is coming quickly there after — and then, woh-and-behold — I should come back just in time to welcome our third child into the world. And we all know that’s going to be restful & stress free. :-)
This is purely anecdotal, but from talking with other ‘law firm’ types, I don’t think I’m the only one who overloads in the spring. There’s just something about mar-apr-may that seems to sneak up on me. Oh well, at least I’m consistent.
Anyone else? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
Freely quoting T. S. Eliot “. . . April is the cruelest month.”
I’ve been running non-stop since October, so who can tell? I figure I might be able to take a break sometime in August.
Sorry….gotta run!
2 presentations, 3 conferences, 2 websites, a blog, chair of ELLA, the kid, the research project, the summer hiring… and every week I get beat at squash by a guy 20 years older!
Connie – lol ;-)
Steven – It’s the SPRING, it unleashes creativity. So what portal has your firm selected? *curious*
In my case, I keep busy planning our future legal information environment (http://www.gov20.info/files/jag.html) / am also launching a new association called “Government 2.0 Think Tank” (or “G2TT” – see http://www.gov20.info) and maddly learning Drupal to deploy that Free and Open Source Content Management System to replace the temporary association home page (latter link). Between now and end of May, I’m making sure G2TT has a core team to officially launch in early June. :-)
Patrick – We are going to be a Drupal shop as well. There’s a large Drupal community here in Vancouver, which did help my decision process.
Overall, things have gone well. Most modules have had to be tweaked, some less so, and some with significant changes to make them work in a law firm setting.
It’s been a real learning experience for me too. I’m ok with the LAMP stack environment, but each OS community can be different. My biggest challenge has been selecting modules with significant community support, so that when things go side-ways, there’s a group of knowledgeable programmers to back you up.
To me, spring is all about spring cleaning – every year I am optimistic that I can organize and clean up the clutter of paper in my office and the mess of files in my DMS – on top of all the other projects in process!
Steven – What a coincidence! I’m currently reading “Building Online Communities with Drupal, phpBB and WordPress” by Douglass, Little and Smith. My focus is on Drupal. I am amazed how it can serve as a full content management system, multi-forum platform (forum module), multi blog platform (book module – even with trackbacks available ) and wiki style content management (with the book module). I admit that when I got through the part of the book dealing with Drupal, I sort of re-read the same part wondering, “is there anything this cannot do?!”
Are you using the CivicSpace distribution?
I would be very interested in following your progress with this deployment…