Doug Cornelius–someone whose thoughts many of us have followed through his blog KM Space–is leaving his real estate practice at his law firm in Boston and with it his hard-core legal knowledge management work. That being said, I am still hopeful he will practice what he learned there about knowledge management and will continue (at least a little) to update his KM blog. He had me worried that he wouldn’t.

Doug has joined Beacon Capital Partners, a real estate firm also in Boston, as their Chief Compliance Officer.

In talking to Doug recently, I learned that . . . [more]

In the space of a week, “Joe the Plumber” from Toledo, Ohio has become a minor celebrity. Since he asked Barak Obama on the campaign trail about the effect of Obama’s tax policy last week, he was repeatedly used by John McCain as an example and archetype of a small business owner.

I think the story is a bit of an archetype of inadvertent celebrity and dirt-digging that just about anyone is vulnerable to when their private life is thrown into the prevailing media orgy. Dirt is dug with little concern about the effect on the unwitting subject.

So what . . . [more]

Sarah Bird at SEOmoz has an interesting post regarding the recent Jones Day linking law suit (link to EFF’s amicus brief), where the firm launched a claim against an ecommerce site for using its trademark, “Jones Day”, to refer to the firm in a headline, and link to the firm website, which could lead to confusion over the sponsorship of the site.

Specifically, I found this quote from Sarah’s post very interesting:

“Instead, Jones Day is suing over the use of its name as anchor text for a link to its website. It claims that its mark is being diluted

No this is not a pot about wine or beer although I often advocate for the use of beverages to facilitate to relationships.

This is a post for those of us who have difficulty coming up with just the right word to add pithy to the statement. Lifehacker informed me today about Tip of My Tongue.

In a post citing the effectively named digital inspiration blog, I read:

Free word search site Tip of My Tongue makes it easy to find that word that’s just out of your fuzzy mind’s reach. Type in parameters on the left—letters the word

Somewhat buried in all the news today of Liberal infighting, market meltdowns, and U.S. electioneering was a CRTC notice announcing the beginning of hearings on broadcasting and New Media. This hearing follows up on its earlier consultations this year setting the terms of reference for the hearings, and more generally on the CRTC’s New Media Project Initiative, begun in 2007.

No one, surely, could accuse the CRTC of acting precipitously on this issue: even with respect to yesterday’s announcement, a CRTC spokesman (quoted in today’s Globe and Mail) emphasized that the proceeding is about “understand[ing] the . . . [more]

Attorney Sergei Lemberg, the head of Lemberg & Associates, LLC and who specializes in “lemon law“, has a practical guest blog post over at the Virtual Law Practice blog worth reading. He talks about how he uses newer Web technologies to get work done, collaborate with clients, and advertise his practice.

Some highlights:

I have clients from all over the country and rarely see them in person. I use VOIP for my office phone system for onsite and off-site staff, which gives the impression of everyone being under the same roof. I also take advantage of the Web-based

The Library of Congress website THOMAS, which provides information about U.S. legislation, has established a system of persistent URLs for legislative documents. This means that hyperlinks using this format will always (i.e. for the foreseeable future) take a reader to the desired document, regardless of any server changes that might have occurred since the link was created.

The persistent link is created by following a syntax that assembles a document’s URI. (A “uniform resource identifier” is a unique string of characters that is used to identify a particular resource on the internet; a URL — “uniform resource . . . [more]

Today is Blog Action Day 2008, an international call to action for bloggers to raise awareness on issues of poverty:

“Poverty is not only a pressing issue, it is a complex one. It’s easy to think that there isn’t much an individual can do. Fortunately this isn’t the case at all. With activities ranging from advocacy and professional contribution to charity and financing, there is in fact many ways that we can act.”

The idea is that bloggers sign up to blog about poverty reduction today.

This year’s Blog Action Day has dozens of organizational sponsors and supporters, including . . . [more]

Over the years inside some organizations, libraries and IT departments have had difficulty working with one another. Episode 33 of the TechTherapy podcast from the Chronicle of Higher Education looks at the differences and similarities between Libraries and IT departments and, without pointing any finger of blame, discusses why this rift exists. The discussion focuses on academic departments, but a lot of this applies to other types of organizations. (Length of this episode is 13 min, 37 sec.)

Hosts Scott Carlson and Warren Arbogast come up with these differences: . . . [more]

Osgoode Hall Law School will officially announce today the launch of a new program in intellectual property law and technology, IP Osgoode, aimed at promoting interdisciplinary research and commentary in the field. The website features a student-run blog, IPilogue, and what will clearly be a growing body of resources for those interested in IP.

Professor Pina D’Agostino is the Director of the new program; she is joined by Osgoode Professors Carys Craig, Ikechi Mgbeoji, and IP Osgoode, Assistant Director, Rex Shoyama. An impressive Advisory Board has been assembled, which includes the Honourable Mr. Justice Marshall Rothstein, the Honourable . . . [more]

Litigation counsel and their clients have long been put on notice that electronically stored information may become the subject of requests for production. The scope of the duty to preserve, and the breadth of the type of electronically-stored information subject to the preservation obligation are not always readily apparent. In fact, when coupled with the reality that huge volumes of material maybe involved, e-discovery has the potential to increase litigation costs to staggering levels.

Electronically stored information has and will continue to change the way people do business and store business related information. For lawyers, it has changed how they . . . [more]

Lawyers often talk about how entrepreneurs should make their companies “investor ready”. This uses the term “investor” in the widest sense, meaning everything from a bank loan, to a VC investment, to the sale of the business to Google that allows the owner to retire early in luxury. By “ready” we mean being able to easily survive investor diligence without risk of losing the deal or diminishing the value – by having taken all the right steps and having the right documentation for such things as an up to date corporate minute book, trade-marks for brands, documenting IP ownership, proper . . . [more]