In a recent post, I raised the (common) issue of the desire to allow users to tag, rate or bookmark internal or external sites or documents with the challenge being that most current document management systems (DMS) do not easily allow this to happen.

While looking for something else, I came across an August 12, 2007, post from LawyerKM discussing ConnectBeam, an enterprise social bookmarking and tagging system that works behind the firewall. Searching on a keyword brings up a list of all items tagged with that word. There is also a bit of an expertise locator that . . . [more]

Some thoughts this morning on memory…

A Boston Globe article last week commented on the problems arising from the virtually limitless “memory” of our digital age, allowing all of our indiscretions and mis-steps to survive forever in cyberspace – and to be easily indexed and retrieved. As librarians and researchers, of course, this is great. But as “normal people” (I use this merely for lack of a better term :-) there are advantages to amnesia.

The article discusses the concept of “data ecology” where companies collecting and holding certain types of data would be required to delete it after . . . [more]

The annual combined meeting of the Toronto and New York Knowledge Management Lawyers group met this past Friday in New York (the group also included others, including some from Boston and one colleague from the United Kingdom). I learned a lot. In no particular order:

1) Never, ever fly into LaGuardia Airport again. A group of us from Toronto suffered a 12-hour trip to New York due to cancelled flights (apparently due to weather conditions at LaGuardia). On arrival, there was the longest lineup for taxis I have ever seen (likely 300 people or so in line).

2) I intentionally . . . [more]

Ross Perot is putting his copy of the Magna Carta up for sale. Although it’s not one of the originals from 1215, this 1297 copy is still expected to bring $30 million when auctioned off in December.

Only two of the 17 copies are held outside England — one by Perot and the other, also a 1297 copy, by the people of Australia. This is a great opportunity for Canada to acknowledge this seminal event in its legal heritage by buying the Perot copy. It would take flair and a decent slice of some otherwise grey budget: is the government . . . [more]

We learn from Technaute that Praized, a Quebec web2.0 startup, just got an 1M$ investment from the canadian branch of Garage Technology Venture, the venture capital company behind Pandora. Knowing that Pandora is now unaccessible to canadians, lets hope the same will not happen to Praized… It should not be the case due to the type of application they are developping. Here is a quote from their website:

Praized Media is a startup company working on a web-based application that will enable you to find and discover local places and merchants with help from people you can

A few links to the 2007 survey released this morning.

It covers:

Collaboration tools
Web conference software
Wikis and extranets
Instant messaging
Wireless devices
VoIP
Vista
Automating Processes
Tech Support

Don’t overlook the detailed data either at
CIO’s Pleased as Punch

Communications Chart

Software Chart

Financial Stats Chart

. . . [more]

Catching up on my reading of The Hindu, a piece on Legal Knowledge Outsourcing should be read by everyone.

Even if you discount the ambitions massively, the challenge is still quite amazing.

A few quotes:

The majority of legal services in the West can and should be sent offshore, says Mr Russell Smith, President and Chairman, SDD Global Solutions Pvt Ltd, a Mysore-based legal services KPO (knowledge process off-shoring). “And we are talking about services that now fetch a price tag of $250 billion per year and growing”

. ((Mr Smith, a Columbia Law School graduate and former partner . . . [more]