ingoblog

Well paid but undervalued and overworked: The highs and lows of being a junior lawyer in a leading law firm

2008-10-25T02:57:00.002+04:00

Forstenlechner, I. and Lettice, F. (2008). Well Paid But Undervalued and Overworked: The Highs and Lows of Being a Junior Lawyer in a Leading Law Firm. Employee Relations, Volume 30, Issue 6, p. 640 - 652; ISSN: 0142-5455

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to determine what motivates junior lawyers to join a “Top 5” law firm, to understand their job and career expectations and whether or not these are being met during their employment in the firm.
Design/methodology/approach – A survey was delivered to 300 lawyers, out of which 144 valid responses were collected. For the analysis, responses were clustered to identify emerging themes. Interviews were also conducted with randomly selected junior lawyers to clarify emerging topics and deepen understanding of the issues raised.

Findings
Key motives for young lawyers to join a law firm were money and improved career options. These expectations were generally met. However, once working, these lawyers were disappointed by a lack of interaction with and appreciation from partners, high pressure to bill more, long working hours and poor work/life balance, a lack of interesting work, and a lack of international secondments.

Research limitations/implications
The research reported in this paper is based on a case study of one of the top five law firms in the world, which is considered to be a leader in many areas of law practice. It cannot be assumed to be representative of the culture, policies and practices of many other firms operating in this sector.

Practical implications
The findings have been used within the case study organisation to improve junior lawyer motivation and could also be used by comparable organisations to improve the retention of junior lawyers.

Originality/value
The main contribution of this paper is the insight gained into the job and career motivations and expectations of junior lawyers. Additional insight is gained by exploring expectations prior to joining the firm and which of these could be fulfilled and which were disappointed during employment with the firm.

Keywords: Lawyers, Motivation (psychology), Professional services

Article URL: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/01425450810910037

Workforce nationalization in the UAE: Image versus Integration

2008-09-19T02:31:00.001+04:00

Forstenlechner, I. (2008). Workforce nationalization in the UAE: Image versus Integration. Education, Business and Society: Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues. Volume 1, Issue 2, p. 82-91, ISSN: 1753-7983

Purpose

This exploratory study analyses the conditions under which Emiratisation – the process of nationalizing the workforce in the United Arab Emirates – can enable organizations to capitalize on local human capital.

Methodology

Relying on an initial literature review, this study is based on a series of interviews with UAE national as well as expatriate managers, both from the public and private sector. Questions for the semi-structured interviews were based on a review of practice and policy oriented literature in order to further the understanding of the topic.

Findings

With limited literature available on the topic the initial aim of this study was to identify HR processes relevant to Emiratisation; however it soon became evident that success could be attributed to very basic decisions taken long before HR processes became relevant. This paper concludes that there are mainly two ways of approaching Emiratisation: One is an effort geared at producing statistics for PR or avoidance of negative consequences, the other is a serious commitment to the integration of UAE nationals into the workforce. Evidence from interviews suggests the choice between these two ways determines the chances for successful Emiratisation.

Research limitations

The literature review proved difficult due to the relative absence of the topic in scholarly journals; therefore the authors had to rely on commercial publications as much as on official statistics. Another limitation is the author’s use of interviews leading to theoretical saturation earlier than expected.

Practical implications

The lack of honesty regarding the motivation to invest in Emiratisation is a significant hindrance for the overall success of such programs. The waste of time, effort and ultimately the waste of human resources resulting from Emiratisation programs meant to produce only statistics or avoid negative consequences mandates a reorientation of the approach towards Emiratisation.

Originality/Value

This study aimed to be the first into Emiratisation related HR processes but was – due to preliminary analysis of interviews - refocused towards the commitment to Emiratisation.

Classification of paper

Research paper

Keywords: Emiratisation, nationalization, HRM, change, UAE, Middle East, Emiratization

Turning knowledge into value in professional service firms

2007-11-28T19:14:00.000+04:00

Turning knowledge into value in professional service firms

Forstenlechner I., Lettice, F., Bourne, M. and Webb, C. (2007). Turning knowledge into value in professional service firms. Performance Measurement and Metrics, Volume 8, Issue 3, p. 146 - 156

Abstract:
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the findings of research into the value perception of knowledge management among lawyers and staff from among the top ten global law firms.

Design/methodology/approach – Interviews were conducted with lawyers as well as knowledge management (KM) service providers within the selected law firms. The results were then analysed by statistical means and compared to previous findings in literature. The methodology is inspired and broadly based on a research paper into the value perception of information by Broady-Preston and Williams.

Findings – The findings are that respondents showed strong support for the value of KM to law firm success through concepts such as improved efficiency, quality and other drivers for better performance.

Research limitations/implications – The survey in the paper itself was limited to the top ten global law firms and is therefore not representative of the entire professional service sector or the law firm sector.

Practical implications – The results in the paper indicate strong support from the internal customer side for the notion of KM adding value to the business of a law firm.

Originality/value – Prior to this paper there has been little research into the value perception of knowledge management within the professional service environment.

Find this article or here (Emerald) or email me.

Cultural differences in motivating global knowledge workers

2007-11-28T19:09:00.000+04:00

Cultural differences in motivating global knowledge workers

Ingo Forstenlechner, Fiona Lettice. Equal Opportunities International. Patrington: 2007. Vol. 26, Iss. 8; p. 823

Abstract (Summary)

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss the findings of research into the different means of motivating knowledge workers to participate in and contribute to knowledge exchange and creation.

Design/methodology/approach - A survey was conducted among more than a quarter of the 2,500+ strong lawyer multinational law firm with 25+ offices in 15+ countries and analysed to provide insight into the differences on motivation and value perception across the cultural dividing lines. The results were analysed at regional level as well as organisational/generation level and analysed by statistical means and descriptive statistics. The key outcomes were analysed against literature to provide an in-depth understanding on how to foster knowledge sharing.

Findings - Respondents showed distinct reactions towards the means to motivate them to share knowledge. Career prospects, authority, provision of charge codes, recognition among peers or one-time incentives have a very diverse impact around the world.

Research limitations/implications - This survey itself was limited to one law firm. Thus, even though this firm is among the largest three firms in the world and considered a leader in knowledge management, this research is therefore not representative of the entire professional service sector or the law firm sector.

Practical implications - The results have been used within the case study organisation to improve the efficiency in motivating lawyers to share knowledge and lessons can be drawn for comparable organisations operating on a global scale.

Originality/value - Prior to this paper there has been little research into the motivation of global knowledge workers within the professional service environment.

Find this article here (ProQuest) or here (Emerald) or email me.

Measuring knowledge in the new product development process

2007-11-28T19:08:00.000+04:00

Measuring knowledge in the new product development process

Fiona Lettice, Norman Roth, Ingo Forstenlechner. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management. Bradford: 2006. Vol. 55, Iss. 3/4; pg. 217, 25 pgs

Abstract (Summary)

The purpose of this study is to present a measurement framework to capture the importance of the use of knowledge within the new product development (NPD) process. A literature review enabled 200 product development measures to be compiled. These were categorized into six dimensions: stakeholder contribution, operating context, reuse, invention, exploitation, and NPD performance. Four companies applied selected measures and assessed the cube for its ability to improve measurement and management of their NPD process. This process refined the approach. A Web-based questionnaire (with 130 responses) assessed how a wider population perceived their performance and capability to measure performance in each of the six dimensions. Respondents consider themselves capable of delivering good products and services, but are less confident in their ability to manage and measure knowledge reuse, invention and exploitation activities.

Find this document here (ProQuest) or here (Emerald) or email me.

Goodbye for now...

2006-10-07T02:16:00.001+04:00

There is a couple of good reasons for not blogging for a while and for leaving this blog as it is for now:

1. I made a time and effort consuming move to the Middle East and since the end of August I have been working at one of the premier institutions of tertiary education in my new host country and I simply love it - the people, the country, the students, the job, the environment, the lifestyle, simply everything about it.

2. I am working on a couple of publications now, basically building on research I did for my thesis, which takes quite some time. I haven't taken publications serious enough so far, which is a shame. BTW, thank you all so much for your interest in my thesis, I have to date responded to more than 300 emails requesting my thesis, this gave me an audience way beyond my expectations and made - in retrospect - writing it more worthwhile. I had an interesting journey doing my PhD and your feedback and comments on the finished piece were highly appreciated. I owe thanks for this primarily to Joy, Jack and Bruce for promoting my thesis on your blogs. Thank you!

3. Besides my new job and working on the publications, I am supervising MSc theses on knowledge management from my uni back home and I have taken up an offer to consult on the knowledge management strategy of a tourism firm, which roughly takes another three days off my time each month. I simply don't have the time to write a blog on top of this. BTW, I simply love technology, doing all this at once would not be possible without the - finally - good enough quality of videoconferencing and online collaboration over the internet. I am so impressed by this and I am so happy this finally became usable. I use webex, live messenger and sometimes skype and I started to seriously depend on these and enjoy them a lot.

I am leaving this blog as it is as it still gets quite some hits mainly through Google, I'd like to think of this as personal knowledge management, and maybe my ramblings here are useful for some people.

Anyways, I hope you like what you find here and I would like to express my gratitude for your attention, for dropping by and for your feedback over the last few years.

All the best,
Ingo

Has anyone finally found the holy grail for expertise location?

2006-06-16T00:56:00.000+04:00

The answer is no - so far - but in an article (on page 5 in this pdf) found via Prism Legal, consultants Tania Daniels and Mark Horne remind us that the potential of expertise location is yet to be tapped into. More precisely they tell us what it could do for most professional service firms, where the only input and output is knowledge:

On one hand expertise location could speed up the learning process or assist with training in general. In the article it is referred to as"associate education", however I would suggest it could also benefit all levels of practicioners below and above associates. With new joiners this could allow organisations to charge higher rates sooner than without expertise location (or KM tools in general). And for those more senior it could mean knowing more about the value of the relationship capital of those reporting into them, plus also benefiting from the system themselves.

Second, cross-selling & new opportunities, probably the most obvious benefit for professional service firms, such as the answer to "Who had lunch with X from Z and did they talk about anything leading to new business?":

External expertise systems seek to capitalize on the complex layers of relationships and subject matter expertise within firms and between firm personnel and external organizations.

The idea of expertise location is not new but also not yet reality. (the article also refers to the "skills database familiar to HR professionals" and as previously mentioned here, the technology has been around a while, e.g. as the Fraunhofer Xpertfinder more than five years ago).

The article suggests basic but useful formulas to identify experts such as hours billed by a particular practicioner against a matter categorised in a firm's taxonomy. Another approach suggested is self-ranking (which usually goes pretty bad because of lack of participation) but in this case in combination with time capturing: "some applications combine the adjustment of quantitative hours billed ranking with qualitative commentary and self-ranking options to account for experience gained elsewhere and provide additional context beyond the sole measure of hours billed." Most of the technology solutions discussed - without their names being mentioned by the authors - include automatic capturing of data or are based on analysis of client/matter data.

Provided matter data has a tag of some useful kind, a simple one off analysis of billing data against matter data could give you a taste of what an automated system could do in a wider context and in a presentable and usable form. The article also mentions e-mail mining:

One firm sought to make better use of all the e-mail messages requesting help with a particular topic. They established a central e-mail address to which users send both questions and answers. The e-mail chain is collected into a full-text search database that has a simple Web search interface on it. The searches allow firm members to identify who within the firm has asked or answered similar questions before and gets them to internal experts quickly. The firm has had such success with this solution that users now check the database first before sending out e-mail requests, and it has become a popular tool to market internal expertise by answering questions posed. This example illustrates how a simple technological solution can solve part of the expertise location problem by capturing relevant e-mail.

This doesn't yet replace the know-how queries via email, but it certainly enhances their reuse possibilities and creates a knowledgebase without anyone ever needing to leave Outlook for filling it. Plus if you are lucky it raises awareness for KM, helping achieve what might be one of your cultural metrics, the overalcommitmentnt to KM of your practicioners.

I don't know why I have never come across ILTA , the platform publishing these articles. The bottom line however was an annual fee, but the (free) publication itself is an interesting platform to hear more than the short pitch from consultants and vendors. And I quite liked the Editor's note:

From an attorney correctly profiling a document in a DMS, to a secretary tracking a pleading, to the marketing department maintaining contact information, everyone is contributing to the firm's most valuable asset, knowledge.

I am not sure about that. I think the attorney (or consultant) should maintain the contact information himself because the fee earner has seen the benefit in doing so - or ideally it is automatically captured.

Also read the next article on page 8 in the same pdf: "Is KM Evolving into Practice Support Consulting?" by David Hambourger:

Many KM initiatives (especially in larger firms) began as firmwide initiatives with the promise of building global systems. While this approach might have some economic and standardization advantages, it avoids the fact that law firms are extremely tribal in nature. These tribes can be centered around practice groups, offices, industries or even particular matters.

Some links to KM jobs...

2006-06-01T12:09:00.000+04:00

I have received quite a few queries on the subject of KM jobs and where they are. So, if you are currently looking for a KM job, they are e.g. here:

Intelligent resources
Sue Hill
Glen Recruitment
TFPL (includes a neat tax calculator for UK PAYE)

Plus try KM related keywords on job search engines like Monster or The Guardian.

The issue is again the one about whether organisations that do KM also call it KM. In the case of these recruiters, which are mostly operating in the UK, this is the case. In continental Europe KM jobs come in a larger variety of flavours and branding, so one has to read between the lines of job descriptions here...

It is about the concepts, not the name

2006-05-24T16:01:00.000+04:00

I attended a faculty meeting at one of the places I teach at and was most surprised to learn that the entire MSc Knowledge Management course will be renamed to something along the lines of organisational development and learning organisation. Let me quote the head of department responsible for the course:

"Ever since I started in KM, it looked like the breakthrough of KM might just be 3 or 4 years away. Now this is a couple of years ago and it still looks like the breakthrough of KM is still 3 or 4 years away... We constantly have a lot of explaining to do for potential students as well as to industry partners as to what KM actually means and once we have explained this to them, we are fine, but this is a too big initial hurdle ... The contents of the course wont change substantially but the name will."

I think she has a good point there. The only industries I personally know of that not only "do KM", but also call it KM, are the legal and the pharmaceutical sector. This does not change the fact that a lot of organisations do stuff that most people would actually consider KM (provided they have heard the term). I had a look at the job titles of people I know who "do KM" and here is a selection of some titles/descriptions I found: Online Services Manager, Business Development Consultant, Information Manager, Research Manager, Special Counsel, Client Focus Manager, Strategy Analyst plus a high number of consultants, PSLs, librarians and academics who do research and/or consultancy in the field. Yet very few are actually called "Knowledge Manager", "Head of KM" or similar.

The trouble is, I kind of like the term KM and I still think that the term information management is too vulnerable to be hijacked by too technically oriented people. I have been ranting about this for a while now and I have not come to a useful conclusion, while the problem for those studying KM or looking to start a KM career remains the same: the jobs and the tasks are there, but it continues to be difficult to find them because they are called so many different names.

And for those of you who haven't heard about this yet: Microsoft is entering the KM arena. There are interesting comments on the subject by Tom Baldwin and Jack Vinson as well as a presentation on microsoft.com on how this will work. As far as I understand, this basically means a shared taxonomy across all MS applications and servers that can be full text searched and used to locate experts and connect people. There is not much to add to Tom Baldwin's final sentence in his posting: "I'm sure this tool will need a lot of work to truly help mine experience and expertise within a law firm, but it's good to see Microsoft enter the KM arena."
So, can we consider Microsoft boarding the KM train a breakthrough or not?

The not so formal KM job track

2006-05-15T11:29:00.000+04:00

Jack Vinson shares his thoughts on whether there is a job track "for people studying knowledge management". His short answer is simple: "No." In his longer answer, Jack lists several options for KM professionals and goes on to say that

I heard a lot of discussion of boundary-spanning instruction and research. Similarly, I suspect that "real KM" jobs fit between the lines of formal hierarchies (...) makes them harder to find and describe in traditional corporate environments.

As I know from first hand experience, there are not too many jobs coming up when you enter "knowledge management" on any job search engine, but as Jack says, they are harder to find and to describe. Nevertheless I do know these jobs are there and I have done one for five years that was even formally called KM. My current job does not have the KM tag on it, but nevertheless means KM. Some are called by different names, some are embedded in departments you would at first sight not associate with KM, and some simply need to be shaped in order to become KM jobs.

Every organisation I know of has problems that KM offers the solution for. As Denham Gray says on his blog:

In common with others, we have key insights locked in e-mail threads, useful ppt presentations and Word docs hidden on multiple hard drives, process dos and don'ts that are not updated, useful heuristics that walk with staff turnover, business intelligence that is gathered but not sifted, collated or dispersed, vendor and customer feedback that gets lost or never relayed.

There are a lot of intersections with HR, strategy, IT and many more and some tools are simply too good not to aim for a quick and dirty solution that shows the benefits of KM and makes management ask for more. I believe blogs and social software can be such a quick and dirty solution to a lot of the problems large organisations face. And this is where KM comes in, as the base to provide meaningful solutions to common problems that - for some reason - have been around for a while but not yet tackled.

So, Jack is right, there is no formal career track. But there is a multitude of tracks you can pursue with KM and this makes the topic potentially more interesting. Maybe you dont even want to know what your exact job description or job title will be in five years time.

Yet another Google toy: Google Trends

2006-05-14T01:26:00.000+04:00

Google Trends (found via Simon Jefferey) allows the user to recognise basic trends, such as this comparison of search volume and news reference on the words "blog" and "wiki":

On top of that you also get filtering options by country, region, language and time.

Some of the results seem strange, but then Google does warn below the graphs that the results are based upon "just a portion of our searches, and several approximations are used when computing your results". Or another nice way to put it is on their help pages: "We hope you find this service interesting and entertaining, but you probably don't want to write your PhD dissertation based on this information." Also do read Shel Holtz on the lack of blog related data in Google Trends.

Looking at the last few Google products, such as Maps, Scholar, Video, Web Alerts, Analytics, Mail, Personalised home page, etc. I am well hooked on what they have to offer. Continuing at this rate I give myself another year before there is nothing left I dont do with Google on the internet and even in my native language "to google something" is a normal phrase by now.

As an information professional, should I be worried about privacy or happy about the nice new tools?

The value of a man

2006-05-12T14:40:00.000+04:00

I just finished reading a thesis I tutored on the subject of "Human Resource Accounting". The thesis itself is great, however my favourite human capital quote was missing:

The value or worth of a man is, as of all other things, his price; that is to say, so much as would be given for the use of his power, and therefore is not absolute, but a thing dependent on the need and judgement of another. An able conductor of soldiers is of great price in time of war present or imminent, but in peace not so. A learned and uncorrupt judge is much worth in time of peace, but not so much in war. And as in other things, so in men, not the seller, but the buyer determines the price. For let a man, as most men do, rate themselves at the highest value they can, yet their true value is no more than it is esteemed by others.

This quote is taken from Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, the full text can be found online on the website of Oregon State University.

A dozen years after the debut of KM...

2006-05-10T13:07:00.000+04:00

Many companies that jumped early onto the KM bandwagon have all but abandoned it, while many organizations that waited are now repeating the same mistakes of the pioneers.

This quote from Dave Pollard's blog is part of the introduction to a very interesting article on the current state and the future of KM. He basically argues that organisations have - for a variety of reasons - not yet harvested the full potential of KM and spent a lot of effort on automating existing information processes with little or no benefit, while the efficiency gains and the "democratization" of meaningful, context-rich information has not yet happened:

Democratizing corporate information entails the devolution of decision-making and other power to front-line workers, and executives are understandably nervous about this.

So, on one hand organisations need the efficiency gains that KM is able to provide, but at the same time this would make junior people more self sufficient and therefore capable and possibly eager for taking decisions earlier on in their careers. As Pollard writes, worries about such a situation are understandable and therefore need to be addressed along the lines of change management and strategy.

I had a question from a student last week asking if social software as such can be considered a way to "do KM" and my answer was in line with what Dave Pollard suggests. He reminds us that the number one tool to getting and sharing information is conversations and sees social networking applications as promising new tools for capturing social settings and conversations:

Adopting features and functionality of some of the more successful second-generation social networking tools like MySpace, FaceBook, Flickr, Del.icio.us, and Dodgeball, and cloning them onto applications that make it easier to identify, create, maintain and draw on valuable business relationships.

Internal blogs that allow a new starter to understand the environment, understand who knows what and who can help with specific questions. Intranets usually don't do that job.

Other interesting suggestions by Dave Pollard are simple one-click applications for connecting person-to-person, "auto-harvesting" of documents instead of relying on user submissions as well as stories to help the knowledge flow.

His outlook for the future of KM in large organisations is not very promising in terms of acceptance:

They will wait for pioneers to show them that the risks and costs of such programs are far outweighed by the benefits of better productivity, more engaged employees, greater innovation, and delighted customers. Until then, most large organizations' key information flows will continue to be focused on instructions, performance and compliance data, order-taking, promulgation of marketing material and other so-called customer relationship management data. For them, the promise of KM is still, alas, probably many years away.

I totally agree on this and I believe this is not necessarily bad. I think resistance to change and overcoming obstacles is a natural part of a job in KM and certainly among the things that make such a job more challenging, interesting, demanding and - once you have managed to get it done - more rewarding.

Click here for the full posting on Dave Pollard's blog.

Internal blogs: How not to start

2006-05-06T00:50:00.000+04:00

I had a funny meeting with a software sales guy the other day. As he was sitting in the conference room, not at all worried about being the most casually dressed person in the room and the only one with a chewing gum, he explained his idea of a blog before I even had the chance to explain the reasons for wanting one.

10 minutes into the meeting, I finally realised what he was trying to sell: Some kind of content management system that required HTML knowledge and was also in most other aspects a thing of the past.

Another 10 minutes later I was most happy he was not trying to sell me MS Frontpage with single user licenses and HTML training courses for everyone from the receptionist to the CEO.

It seems that just like in the beginning of KM, when every basic DMS (like my favourite "KM tool" iManage) pretended to be a "holistic and visionary KM suite" inclusive of some of the most dubious ROI calculations, software companies are rebranding their most successless CMS products as blogging software. DONT BELIEVE THE HYPE. If you are looking for blog software, try finding someone who knows what social software is. My favourite leftover from the days of dot.com with his unbuttoned polo shirt pretended to have not understood me accustically when I asked about tagging. The only thing that kept me from getting angry with the guy was that I felt very sorry for him.

Internal blogging: What next?

2006-04-26T00:35:00.000+04:00

...an intranet is basically a dumping ground for a lot of information, where you collect a lot of stuff, that is basically inaccessible for people because it is hard to find...

Does that sound familiar? This sentence is from a presentation by FXPal (found via Google Video). The occasion was the March 22 Google Tech Talk, the bottom line of which Anders Byland describes in his posting "Google Techtalks for the chronically curious":

(Google) seems proud of its "campus-like" atmosphere, and I can see how providing onsite events like these can help them recruit some intellectually curious chronic academics and other mega-geeks of various kinds.

So it is basically a marketplace for innovative ideas, walking intellectual capital for Google to pick from. If you are interested in capturing know-how from presentations and meetings (seemingly without a lot of effort), see the video.

Unlike the people from FXPal my current desires are far more modest: What else can be achieved with an internal blog? Can it solve the problem of the intranet as a dumping ground? Or is it just another dumping ground for useless information? I think it can help with some very basic issues:

1. An internal blog brings people with common interests together. A good outcome that has potential risks to it: what happens if those people dont get along well?

2. It can help you find out whether you are doing the same work like the guy across the corridor. This might result in increasing innovation, better quality of work, higher reuse and less duplication in effort, time and money. Alternatively it can lead to increased competition, which is not necessarily bad but potentially ends up being personal.

3. I like the idea of presentations on the intranet, or in this case blogs. How about people linking their presentations to their posting? I am not talking about those "I attended a conference and found this powerpoint presentation" type of presentations. I am thinking of all relevant presentations one gives or comsumes. The FXPal solution from the video is of course way more sophisticated than attaching a presentation to your posting, it is OCR, smart cards, recognising and cutting unnescessary parts and of course full text search. But that is a different planet still thinking about the last ten intranets I have seen.

4. Social tagging for entries should be a standard in a time, where del.icio.us or flickr are not exactly startups anymore. When applied properly, social tagging can have plenty of benefits. But it needs time and critical mass. BTW, see some intersting social software products from British company Headshift here.

5. Internal blogs can end the email flood and endless discussions via email distribution lists or people in cc: who are there mostly for inexplicable reasons. Or how about the idea, that blogs stop email in transactions entirely?

6. Internal blogs can make the training phase of a person and retention of knowledge much easier and more accessible. It can help new people adapting to house style, seeing how work is done and what quality is expected. A blog from a finished transaction is basically what a post transaction review should be but never will be.

7. Internal blogs offer a lot of comfort zones for those having doubts about the concept. Different roles with diverse viewing or editing rights, "trial groups" consisting of your trustees only, constant evaluation and someone making sure there are no inappropriate postings can ensure gradual change in the direction you wish for.

So far, the concept of internal blogging, provided it satisfies basic usability needs and reaches critical mass, might be a solution for a multitude of problems that can become personally annoying and costly for the entire organisation...

A whole new world of CSR metrics...

2006-04-13T19:33:00.000+04:00

There is but one "social responsibility" for corporate executives, Friedman believes: they must make as much money as possible for their shareholders. This is a moral imperative... There is, however, one instance when corporate social responsibility can be tolerated, according to Friedman - when it is insincere... Hypocrisy is virtuous when it serves the bottom line. Moral virtue is immoral when it does not.

This is a quote from the book "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Power" by Joel Bakan, from an interview with Milton Friedman. This quote brings the trouble with corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the point: Where CSR is honest, it is immoral against shareholders and when CSR is only for the sake of marketing or looking good it is immoral anyways. Nevertheless I am sure a lot of CSR efforts have a positive impact on the social or environmental surroundings of companies, but as with many things the question is how to measure it. Natural Logic advertises a tool aiming to provide ROI for CSR, giving some basic directions where it could go in terms of indirect benefits:

Indirect benefits include improving financial performance (leaner cost structure, gains in market share and penetration, improved customer loyalty & employee morale, increasing shareholder value, gaining brand momentum as CSR leader); improving tools and capabilities (innovation in product & business development, better feedback for better operating efficiency, improved strategic thinking &amp;amp;amp;amp; managerial confidence); while improving environmental performance (reduced footprint, regulatory “insulation”)

Granted, I ll easily buy the employee morale point and the brand momentum as well as the footprint by extension, but it will be difficult to measure the real ROI. I dont believe a lot of organisations can put a value tag on e.g. 1% rise in employee morale, provided they measure it in the first place (see the Rucci at Sears classic for more on that).

As for employee morale: Everytime I was allowed to do pro bono over the last years, I was a happier employee afterwards, even though I still remember the sad eyes of the poor kids we took the museum when they unpacked their lunches while for us our law firm catering consisting of everything they had never seen before arrived. Also not to forget the week we flew to Poland to build houses, which was fun, but came with a travel expense price tag that would have allowed them to build an entire village themselves with proper workers knowing their job. Sure, taking part in your firm's CSR efforts is fun, but the general approach made me sad every time.

Also read Jai's posting on the Starbucks example, which is a good example for gaining brand momentum through CSR. Even though I never go to Starbucks (after all I live in Vienna where we still have proper "Kaffeehäuser") they managed to get the message through to me as a non customer that they are all about fair trade coffee, distracting from the fact that they dont pay proper wages and create more waste a day than all the other coffeehouses in Vienna together.

As for the moral value of CSR, I think one sentence says it all: "Actions are But By Intentions", I wish organisations would be rewarded for the real intentions behind actions and not for "doing" CSR out of needing something positive on their annual reports...

"Nobody will help you get nervous"

2006-03-30T15:35:00.000+04:00

I returned to Vienna a few days ago after a more than a month away in Oman and some days in Al Ain and I wish I could have just stayed there. Shopping for groceries this morning in Vienna was more stress and more unpleasant interactions than one entire month in the Arabian Gulf had in it for me.

A sentence I heard that describes the environment very well is "Nobody will help you get nervous here". And, yes, nobody will. If you want to get nervous in Oman, you will need to take the car to Dubai.

Anyhow, on Monday I will be starting my new, non law firm job. My bicycle route to work is the longest and most beautiful one I have ever had, through a long alley in Vienna's biggest park, then along the Danube.

Are law firms not yet ready for performance management?

2006-02-05T19:26:00.000+04:00

Are law firms still in their infancy when it comes to measuring their performance in general? Is it not only KM that lacks action based on insight gained from measures?

I received several emails in response to my previous posting on lack of KM metrics in law firms and the common ground of all emails is that law firms do not only lack the measures for KM but a sense for performance management of any kind, really.

At least in continental Europe a possible explanation for this could be that law firms of the size they have today did not exist in the last century. A large law firm in Germany for example used to be an association of 20 lawyers and of course at this scale it is easy to manage it via a "gut feeling" and common sense but at the scales of today, this is no more feasible.

And it is not only internal performance measures, really: With LLP conversions around the corner for many large law firms it will be interesting to see what data will come out of that. The same is true for the growing importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) but it remains to be seen whether this will only be some beautified numbers on gender and ethnics or whether this will also extend to more sensible stuff such as e.g. the client list. Anyone serious about CSR should also compare client lists with lists environmental organisations or politically minded NGOs provide on companies that ruin our planet or have ethically dubious business.

Anyone up for comparing your client list to the lists published by Friends of the Earth or amnesty international?

Two interesting publicly available exercises I have come across are the CMS people report and Freshfields CSR website.

Leaving law firm land

2006-02-02T20:26:00.000+04:00

Today I have left law firm land to pursue a career in an entirely different industry from April onwards and I would like to share some thoughts on law firm land with you, basically an exit interview with myself :-)

1. To my knowledge there seems to be no industry where people can learn more in terms of KM and where KM is of such an obvious benefit. After all, law is a business with highly repetitive “knowledge work” dependant on specialist lawyers identifying patterns and applying prefabricated solutions. Another really good thing about law firms is learning how to deal with that special type of people partners are, both in good and bad terms. They are a challenging lot, but it was a good learning experience.

2. After almost five years in legal KM I still don’t subscribe to the distinction between knowledge management and information management (yes, I mean the pyramid drawings on data, information and knowledge). I think KM is managing information of high value, nothing else. But of course we can’t call it information management as otherwise the playground would be lost to IT consultants and any relationship to business eradicated by IT technicians. (Read TD Wilson on the IM/KM distinction). I believe what we practice as KM is necessary and beneficial but nevertheless I am in favour of calling a duck a duck if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck and looks like a duck. Maybe many of the unfulfilled promises by software vendors and the misunderstandings in the beginning of KM could have been avoided if we had actually called it information management with a clear border to IT. The key is culture, not technology, to repeat another truism.

3. Across many firms KM people and other professionals have one big issue: They are employed to do a specialist professional job but the final decisions are almost always made by partners with often little knowledge in things like KM, IT or accounting. Lawyers need to warm up to the idea that people are professionals for a reason and that sometimes also decisions need to be delegated, not only work itself. The whole notion of “support staff” needs to be revisited as opposed to earlier days support staff is not solely secretarial work anymore.

4. KM needs metrics. I should disclose at this stage that all my professional life I have argued this case, and both my MSc and my PhD thesis revolve around this topic. I still find it hard to believe how little most firms know about the effect of KM. Maybe this is a question of how big law firms have become, but if I was running a company large enough to require some type of information management, I would also like to understand cause and effect of the money spent. This is entirely underdeveloped across law firm land. Yes, KM is a natural overhead cost of doing legal business, but how the money is spent and what the outcome is certainly needs more monitoring.

5. Please don’t give me anymore of the “freeing up lawyers’ time” benefit about KM. Lawyers in big firms will always have to work 100+ hours a week and it looks like there are always volunteers to do the job, however bad their chances for partnership really are. What I do believe is that KM can pave the way for lawyers doing higher quality work, less menial jobs but their "freed up" will for sure not turn into quality time for their lives...

In my new role I will still be "doing KM" to some extent, but I have the potentially naïve hope that the culture is more welcoming towards KM outside of law firm land.

And for those among you who had my mobile number, that is now off and my personal email will be the only means to contact me until I get a new phone at my new job in April. Kind of like a back in time experiment for myself, being without mobile, on which I shall report back how it went.

That’s it for today, I shall now go and celebrate having quit my first real job. I am very grateful for the opportunities I have had and the things I have learned, but just as I think it was the best decision to enter law firm land five years ago I now think it is the best time for me to leave it again.

Adding relationship capital to CRM...

2006-01-13T02:46:00.000+04:00

Relationship capital is the term that Tom Baldwin actually uses in his latest posting:

"If you're firm is serious about leveraging its relationship capital, these tools shouldn't be overlooked."

The tools he is blogging about are Contact Networks and Branch-IT, both designed to get data in automatically and beyond what people usually needed to be forced to enter into a CRM. Tom sees two advantages in what he considers a "supplement" for or a "nice compliment" to CRM:

First, because they mine your firm's e-mail server and create individual contact records from e-mail your lawyers send and receive (filtering out spam and other junk mail) there's absolutely ZERO data entry required by lawyers or their secretaries...

These systems ... offer various access levels to contact information, which can provide lawyers a much greater level of control over the use of their contacts than in a traditional CRM system.

The second part kind of helped me overcome my initial doubts over the legal situation created by these systems. But then I am not a lawyer, so my doubts on legal issues are not exactly relevant. How would these systems be received ? I guess people are entitled to know about that. Would they agree ?

I wonder though what peer or career pressure would add to that. Anyways, as previously mentioned, Xpertfinder by Fraunhofer promised automation of expert discovery via emails and documents a couple of years ago. Maybe they were just around too early when intellectual capital was still a very shallow term for a lot of people and even less people had come to terms with relationship capital. Welcome to 2006, where this has changed.

What struck me on the website of Branch-IT was one sentence on the start page:

Recruiting: Find strong job candidates with the help of your employees. Cut out the recruiting middleman. Find objective references.

That sounds kind of familiar. Ask your buddies to work for the same firm you work for. Always a perfect match provided they (the firm and the buddies) think highly of you. But automate that? Would I like to take questions over friends of mine if they happen to apply for a job somehwere in a large organisation? Provide references, yes. Talk informally with my boss, yes. Take potentially personal questions about them, no. Talk to some HR manager from another office, yes, provided I know, trust and like the HR manager, otherwise, no.

I am unsure if people would accept this kind of knowledge being captured and used, but then again, Tom Baldwin seems to have a good perception for up- and coming software.

And in some cases automatically captured data may even do less damage than manually entered, subjective and potentially damaging data.

Neil Postman or why our shortened attention span is a tragedy

2006-01-09T14:02:00.000+04:00

Huxley, not Orwell is the key message I took away from reading Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business by Neil Postman and it has been a while since a book fascinated me this much. This book was published when I was 8 years old and I havent studied media studies, so I should be forgiven for blogging about it now. I dont think however that it has lost any relevance in the last 20 years. From the foreword:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.

Postman shows how our culture has lost the ability to pursue an informed discourse and has turned to satisfy it's "infinite appetite for distractions", e.g. through TV news that allow 45 seconds per item and dont ask for or allow further analysis, a constant stream of irrelevant information to satisfy that appetite with the game Trivial Pursuit as the ultimate field of application for all this irrelevant information stored in our heads. Another interesting suggestion by Postman is that the average US citizen would not have recognised any of the first 15 presidents on the street, but would have known what they stood for from their speeches or published work. Try imagining this today :-)

The same "drowning in a sea of irrelevance" is true for today's business environment. I recently read somewhere (but I forgot where unfortunately) that we should make things as simple as possible, but not simpler and I am worried my own work in performance management does not adhere to this principle and that sometimes I tend to oversimplify things.

I do dread the next powerpoint presentation I will be forced to sit in on and I despise the predominant culture in any work environment I have come across to package everything in catch phrases and to expect short attention spans from the audience.

"Face time with management" is just not worth it when all you want to get across is two bullet points. We treat intelligent people like they are kids and people talk about the need to educate others to understand the principles of knowledge management. This is just so wrong.

However I try, I will fail to describe the essence of this great book and the impact on me in a short posting, just read it if you havent done so as yet, or follow one of these two links:

Remembering Neil Postman

Neil Postman Online

The usual pitch

2006-01-09T12:08:00.000+04:00

What happens if a lawyer leaves a Magic Circle firm because he cant cope with long hours and all the travelling anymore and starts with a boutique firm shortly after? A friend of mine started with a local firm last Monday for exactly these reasons and guess what - he didnt sleep home Tuesday night and left for Eastern Europe on Wednesday. No, he is not back as yet and his wife is not pleased. I guess he himself is not too pleased either as the new firm had promised him that he would have a life again...

He has fallen for a good version of the usual law firm pitch, my favourite version of which can be found on Anonymous Lawyer:

We have a culture of collaboration. We have a commitment to cooperation. We have an open-door policy. You advance at your own pace. We give you as much responsibility as you can handle. There is no face time. You set your own hours. We treat you like the professional you are. We work hard, but we play hard. It’s all about the people. We have great people. The people here are like nowhere else. You’ll do good work everywhere, but it’s the people that make the difference. You will love the people here.

We place a premium on collegiality. We strive to maintain an informal working atmosphere. We are committed to diversity. We treat each other with dignity and respect. We know what really matters in life. Our benefit package is state of the industry. We provide cars home if you’re working late. We provide meals. We provide coffee. We provide a brand-new laptop. Our information technology services are top-notch. Our word processing center is open twenty-four hours a day. Our client services department is there to meet your every need. Our support staff is magnificent.

...The people make all the difference. You’ve never seen such a collection of people. I’m constantly amazed by the people here. The people here are unbelievable. We strive to find the best and the brightest people we can. Our people are truly special. It sounds like a cliché, but I promise, you will love the people here, you really will.

It looks like "Anonymous Lawyer: The Novel" by Jeremy Blachman could be available soon. Also, Jeremy's personal blog just moved from blogger to typepad. I would move mine the day I get proper tagging like on flickr.com...

KM and the country...

2005-12-31T04:12:00.000+04:00

Two summers ago I was up on the mountain in this picture drinking water directly from the rock it originates from. In winter it looks like it does on this picture I took last week and getting up there would be a question of serious equipment or willpower.

I decided to come back to the countryside as it is a good way to avoid the busy New Year celebrations in Vienna, where around a million people are expected to roam the streets, drinking and behaving badly.

Here, everything is peaceful, no artificial sounds or lights. Only my neck hurts, from looking at the stars for too long :-)

Have you ever tried explaining to a farmer what knowledge management is? I tried this with the neighbours here because they insisted several times on wanting to know what I do and they now think I am a madman locked up in an office during daytime with no tangible positive contribution to society. Nice.

The neighbour's last job related question was: "So, once you have captured all that knowledge, can you then replace trained lawyers with high-school drop-outs?" I guess he got the point that KM also means deskilling. Call centres have shown us the way how to deskill people and thinking about it, I am actually quite impressed that the process is already that far advanced with lawyers.

And, one final note on the countryside: I dont know where I heard this first, but I just love this one: "You can take a boy out of the country but you can never take the country out of a boy."

Thank you for your interest in my thesis

2005-12-29T22:13:00.000+04:00

Before Joy London blogged about my thesis I was able to respond all emailed requests for my thesis individually, now I work with a list. Thanks Joy :-)

If you havent received my response with the document attached as yet, it is either because your mailbox rejected it as a too large attachment (sorry I had to reinstall my computer and cant find my Acrobat CD) or because I messed it up (please email me again). I will buy some empty CDs when I am back in Vienna and send you my thesis if I saw it rejected this time and if you have included your address.

Anyways, thank you, I was overwhelmed by this and I enjoy that... I put a lot of effort into my thesis and it makes the whole idea worthwile when people actually ask for it. I am glad I was too stupid to make it a smaller file and upload it as otherwise I would not have had this experience. Thank you!

Austria is just so beautiful in winter...

2005-12-28T04:02:00.000+04:00

Call it Christmas, a Pagan tradition or simply tradition, it remains a great reason for seeing a lot of familiy members and spend quality time with them in places far away from busy cities...