The Running Librarian

All wrapped up!

2012-01-31T14:45:00.001Z

Two posts in one today, the first a summary of my final run on Janathon I'd like to say the thought of finishing Janathon after 31 sometimes cold, sometimes wet and sometimes windy morning/afternoons/evenings pushed me to perform faster then ever before but that would be a lie.

I did run quite quickly but that was probably due to it being close to or below freezing when I went for my run! I've been really pleased with my efforts in January and they appear to have paid off, not just with my very impressive (at least to me) time in the Canterbury 10 mile but also in my new semi-svelte figure!

Bring on January 2013! could we make it shorter next year though?

Run summary

Distance - 5.59 miles
Time - 44:22
Runners encountered - not that many, what a surprise
Runners overtaken - 13*
Dog walkers dodged - 0

*A record and no they weren't just standing in a big group

Run summary 30 January

Distance - 3.91 miles
Time - 29:12

So that's it for Janathon 2012. I will still be blogging about the races I run in so if any Janathoners want to continue to reading my blog I'd be very happy to keep you "entertained"

[Photo credit - Simple present wrapping close up]

Canterbury 10 mile

2012-01-29T15:16:00.003Z

So this was something of a double-header a 10 mile race and my 29th run of Janathon. I'd set my expectations for this race at around 1 hour and 20 minutes, having previously run the race in 2010 where I set a time of 1:22:17. Given that I'd run every day for the last month I was hoping I'd be a little bit fitter, despite being two years older. As it turns out I ran pretty much the perfect race, apart from slowing down when going up the hills. I really need to join a running club even it's just to do some hill training. So these were my splits, sadly they're reliant on my memory so there are some gaps.

Mile 1 - Didn't see the mile marker, but the first time I looked at my watch it said 10:41
Mile 2 - 15:53
Mile 3 : 22:23
Mile 4 : 30:33
Mile 5 : 38:23
Mile 6 : 46:03
Mile 7 : 51:13
Mile 8 : 1:01:14
Mile 9 : 1:08:19
Mile 10: 1:15:51

So some pretty quick miles towards then end, but then from about 8 miles onwards it's all downhill - which is a relief given that between miles 4 and 7 it's pretty much uphill all the way! I even had a sprint finish in my legs, thanks to another runner who said go for it. He was apparently running with a groin strain - now that's commitment! That time meant I finished 303rd out of 889 runners. You can look at the full results on the IEK Chip timing website There are supposed to be 5 mile split times listed but I cant see these at the moment.

I should also say I ran yesterday 1.35 miles in 10:51 but failed to blog about it. I don't know whether this makes me a Janathon failure or not! Tomorrow I expect I will be aching somewhat but will happily run in the knowledge that there are only two days of Janathon left and after surprising myself with this time!

Just in time!

2012-01-27T22:58:00.000Z

A very very short post before I forget to post anything at all. I really have very little to say but promise to post something more significant over the weekend.

Run summary

Distance - 4.01 miles
Time - 32:02*

*A whole 3:45 quicker thenmy effort at the same distance yesterday. I guess this proves that I don't like running in the rain!

Just going through the motions...Janathon Run#25

2012-01-25T16:31:00.000Z

A short post as I'm feeling a bit world weary! Running today literally felt like I was just going through the motions, drink some water, put kit on, warm up, start watch, start running. Given that I've run every day for the last 25 days I'm not surprised but I'm hoping it's not just me.

As it stands there are only 6 days left until the end of Janathon (boy has this month flown by) and I have to say I'm actually going to miss it. Although I do have to get up early tomorrow and Friday to do a run, which I'm definitely not going to miss!

I'm also pleasantly surprised that;

I haven't been ill in January
I haven't picked up any injuries, unless you count a pain in my right bum cheek, which I told myself I wasn't going to mention...dammit

Run summary

Distance - 3.91 miles
Time - 29:46

Runners encountered - loads
Dog walkers dodged - 0
Cobblestones crept across - thousands

A very fine rain...Janathon Run#24

2012-01-24T15:36:00.003Z


Part of my 5.5 mile run route*

A short update today as I'm busy at work and am out this evening so not able to blog later. Today wasn't a day for the faint-hearted, cold, miserable and wet was a good summary of the weather and worse the rain was that horrible type that seems to soak you even though it wasn't raining that heavily :-(

Despite that I manged to drag myself outside into the "fresh" air. Unsurprisingly that weren't that many runners out and those that were out had plenty of rueful smiles!

*According to the many notices I see along this part of my run Thames Water plan to turn this part of the river front into some sort of super sewer. What is it with me and sewers?

Run summary

Distance - 5.59 miles
Time - 46:42

Runners encountered - Not many
Runners overtaken - 3
Runners who overtook me - 1
Dog walkers dodged - 2
Puddles stepped in - lots
Number of times drenched - 1

Jokeathon

Why did the weather forecaster move to another country?

Because the weather didn’t agree with him.

[Photo credit - Canary Wharf from Flickr]

Artichoke hill...Janathon Run#23

2012-01-23T15:50:00.001Z

It really does look like this

Here's a famous fact you may or may not know. Artichoke Hill is one of the places long running Police show the Bill was filmed it's also part of the 3.91 run I undertook this afternoon. Or rather it would be If was to run up Artichoke Hill.

Unfortunately

Artichoke Hill isn't that much of a hill
I run across/past it rather then up it

But never let it be said that I don't grasp an opportunity to promote an unknown part of London. Even if it was unknown to me until I looked it up! If you have the time you really must have a look at some of the results for Artichoke Hill on Flickr

Run summary

Distance - 3.91 miles
Time - 29:05
Runners encountered - a few
Dog walkers dodged - 0
Famous, but sadly now defunct sets run past - 1
Less salubrious establishments run past - 1

Jokeathon

I thought I'd struggle to find a clean joke about Artichokes*, how wrong was I...

Knock Knock

Who’s there?

Artichokes

Artichokes, who?

Artichokes when he eats too fast!

*Not the greatest joke in the world admittedly

[Photo credit - Artichoke Hill from Flickr]

An almighty stink...Janathon Run#22

2012-01-22T18:11:00.000Z

So today was another day of firsts, the first running on this particular route and the first time I'd run 40* miles in a week. If you saw me tweet about my run and looked at my running route, you might have noticed that I also ran past a sewage plant. I can confirm that yes it did stink and the wind wasn't even vaguely blowing in my direction.

Aside from the sewage plant, which I promise not to mention again, the run took me through some of the Ebbsfleet valley and up close and personal to Ebbsfleet international station, home of HS1. I'd love to tell you more about the plan for the Ebbsfleet valley, which I believe includes building a few homes but sadly the Land Securities website doesn't work and I'm not even using IE! We'll just have to wait and see I guess!

Run summary

Distance - 9.36 miles
Time - 1:17:53

Runners encountered - 3
Dog walkers dodged - 8
Sewage plants passed - 1
Sprints past sewage plants - 1

Jokeathon

I tried I really did but I couldn't find anything appropriate so no joke today I'm afraid.

*Okay okay it was 39.9 miles this week!

Running mojo...Janathon Run#21

2012-01-21T17:53:00.001Z

So today was the first day I really didn't feel like running. After my dreadmill exploits yesterday my right calf was and still is feeling a a bit tight. I think I might need to invest in a foam roller as used by Karleen Smith on her blog or a sport massage. It was also horrible out which wasn't what the BBC weather site had predicted at all. Anyway to cut a long story short my willpower won over despite my legs protests and I proceeded outside for what would turn out to be a quick 4 mile run in reasonable conditions. Not a huge amount to say about the run itself apart from there were no runners and no dog walkers, which is a first.

I was almost run over by a car reversing at speed, which was an interesting experience. One final thing, aside from Deep Heat what do Janathoners recommend for rubbing into sore bits?

Run summary

Distance 4.01 miles
Time - 29:35

Jokeathon

Q - How do you make an apple turnover

A - Push it down the hill

I'm not made for speed...Janathon Run#20

2012-01-20T14:51:00.000Z

...so I'm not entirely sure why I was tyring to run at 14 kilometres an hour on the dreadmill. Yes today was the return of the dreadmill, to be honest it was quite nice not to have to watch where I was putting my foot all the time! Having said that I still hate dreadmills I always seem to have to double my efforts and my word am I drenched at the end, it's literally like someone has chucked a bucket of water over me!

There isn't really much to say about today's run...hold on what's that? 100 miles...100 miles...oh yeah this run meant I passed 100 miles for the month!!! That's the first time I've ever done that (and possibly the last) unfortunately I was bombing it along at some ridiculous pace at the time so I didn't have a chance to celebrate. I shall have a beer tonight instead and go out running (again) tomorrow!

Run summary

Distance - 7.45 miles (12km)
Time - 63 minutes

Runners encountered - 8
Dog walkers dodged - none obviously
People saying "come on" - 1
People dressing inappropriately for the gym - 1

Jokeathon

Another appropriate joke given it's Janathon:

Q - What do you call a fast fungus?

A - A mush-vroom

A slow plod...Janathon Run#19

2012-01-19T16:37:00.000Z

...is what was required following my quick 4 mile run yesterday, so that's exactly what I did! There isn't a huge amount to say about this run apart from it was mild, there were a few deep puddles to navigate and one runner attempted to strangle himself by wrapping his iPod around some iron railings, cue a sudden stop and a bout of expletives, it's a good job there were no children or those of a sensitive disposition in the immediate area!

Run summary

Distance - 5.59
Time - 44:03

Runners encountered - loads
Runners overtaken - 5
Runners who overtook me - 1
Runners trying to strangle themselves - 1
Runners using inappropriate language in public - 1
Dog walkers dodged - 2
Dogs throwing themselves into giant puddles enthusiastically - 1

Jokeathon

I thought this joke was appropriate given that we're on Day 19 of Janathon.

Why did the orange stop rolling down the hill?

It ran out of juice.

I hate cobblestones...Janathon Run#18

2012-01-18T16:35:00.000Z

The cursed cobblestones!

Okay I promised myself I wouldn't rant, but cobblestones seriously they are the bane of my life! Not only are they painful to run on but they also tend to be extra slippery, which has led to one or two interesting moments when I've been running and worst of all, they're everywhere. There are cobblestones outside my office, on several bits of my lunchtime run, you name it, they're all over the place!

Anyway rant over, deep breaths, time for the run summary.

Run summary

Distance - 3.91 miles *new route run for the first time today.
Time - 29:10 *very pleased with this pace

Runners encountered - lots but not as many as yesterday
Runners overtaken - 1
Dog walkers dodged - 0

Jokeathon

Why did the jelly baby go to school?

Because he really wanted to be a smartie.

A mile too many?...Janathon Run#17

2012-01-17T16:21:00.001Z

You know what it's like you get changed, step outside and think I'll run the 4 mile route I had planned. Then when you get to 1/2 way you think actually I'll think I'll do 5 miles or maybe 6 or even 7. The point I'm trying to make is that sometimes I can get carried away when it comes to running and do more then I should be, which is precisely what I did today and now I'm suffering with what I believe is a tight hamstring.

I'm hoping a good stretch tonight will loosen it up otherwise I could be in trouble tomorrow :-(

Run summary

Distance - 5.59 miles
Time - 42:40

Runners encountered - I lost count
Dog walkers dodged - 2
Runners overtaken - 3

Jokeathon

My daughters favourite joke at the moment...

What do sea monsters eat?

Fish and ships

Does the cold slow you down?...Janathon Run#16

2012-01-16T10:14:00.003Z

I think today was definitely the coldest conditions I've ever run in. I'm not joking when I say that as I was sweating the sweat was freezing on my face* I mean I knew it was going to be cold, but this was eye watering, OMG I'm finding it hard to suck in enough air to breathe cold!

Despite the conditions I stuck it out and managed to get around my 4 mile course. Albeit in a very slow time (see above)

Run summary

Distance - 4.01 miles
Time - 32:23

Dog walkers dodged - 2
Runners encountered - 0 (what a surprise, all tucked up in bed no doubt)
Commuters collided with - 7
Strange women taking photos of me from the other side of the road - 1

*Not actually true and probably impossible

My longest run...Janathon Run#15

2012-01-15T19:13:00.001Z

A short post to let every who is following my Janathon efforts that I ran (for me) an impressive 7 miles today. This is my longest run as part of Janathon, it does form part of my usual runs but I hadn't included within Janathon because I hadn't had the time.

Anyway it was a very enjoyable run, just before sunset with the last mile done in semi-darkness.

Run summary

Distance - 7.04 miles
Time - 54:31

Runners encountered - 5*
Dog walkers dodged - 6

*I've included the little boy who rang alongside me for 10 seconds, the person who was sprinting down the road in jeans and boots and a runner who was walking!

And now for my joke, which I heard on TV this morning.

Q - Why did the partygoer wear a nappy to a party?

A - Because he was a party-pooper

Yes I didn't think it was very good either!

It's nice to see the pavements...Janathon Run#14

2012-01-14T19:50:00.001Z

A late run today after spending most of the day replacing a sink in our downstairs bathroom, oh what fun and I'm sure my regular followers and Janathoners will be fascinated by this particular updated. Anyway following that I kitted up and braved the cold cold conditions for a 5 mile run.

The run was great fun until the point I was almost taken out by a cyclist. It was my own fault really for running for about 10 seconds in a bike. The expression on his face was priceless as was the amount of swerving/braking they had to do! I should probably be reflecting on what could have been a nasty accident but in the entire time I've been running outside that's the first time a cyclist has been cycling on that particular part of my route!

Run summary

Distance - 5.12 miles
Time - 38:17

Dog walkers dodged - 7
Runners encountered - 1
Number of cyclists that almost took me out - 1

[Photo credit - A road to darkness]

A bit chilly...Janathon Run#13

2012-01-13T16:34:00.001Z

I was glad I had these

So today the weather was supposed to "turn" and by heck did it! It was absolutely freezing at 6.30am when I stepped out for my run. I thought to myself a good idea to get around quickly which I would have done if it hadn't of been for the sharp pain I developed just under my left shoulder blade. Which I hope was because I was breathing in freezing cold air rather then the onset of something horrible.

That slowed me down significantly so my run was a lot slower then what I was hoping for, but all in all still a decent time for 4 miles.

Run summary

Distance - 4.01 miles
Time - 31:30

Runners encountered - 1 (he was also well wrapped up!)
Dog walkers dodged - 2
Commuters collided with - 6

Pitch black anyone?...Janathon Run#12

2012-01-12T14:33:00.001Z

I could have used this

We all know the film Pitch Black right? Vin Diesel running around in odd looking glasses killing a bunch of innocent flying beasties, innocent that is until they try and eat you. Or as IMDB put it "A group of marooned space travelers struggle for survival on a seemingly lifeless sun-scorched world"

Well I now know how they feel, having decided to run my favourite five mile route which takes me through some unlit areas I really felt like I could have starred in that film! Fortunately there were no beasties hiding behind bushes or waiting to fly down from the sky and snatch me away.

I did however see a fox. I'm not a lover of foxes, after we lost 2 rabbits and 2 guinea pigs to their wily ways. But I have to admit to be entranced by this as it ran down the road I was running on like it owned the place!

Run summary

Distance - 5.12 miles
Time - 41:44

Runners encountered - 0
Dog walkers dodged - 2
Commuters collided with - 7
Comments about my shorts - 1
Foxes seen - 1
Number of times scared by movement in bushes - several

Chilly but calm...Janathon Run#11

2012-01-11T09:47:00.005Z

Not much to say about today's run. I woke up I resisted the duvet gravity effect and I dragged myself downstairs into my running gear and out on to the chilly but relatively calm streets. Thursday and Friday look like they will be even colder so I may need more time to "prepare" myself for that challenge!

Run summary

Distance - 4.01 miles
Time - 31.25

Dog walkers dodged - 0
Runners encountered - 0
Commuters collided with - 6

Now if you've been reading my blog, you will have noticed it's called the "Running Librarian" because unsurprisingly I am a Librarian. So I thought I'd start posting Jokes about Libraries/Librarians, starting with this cracker :-(

Q - Why did the librarian slip in the library?

A - Because they were in the non-friction section.

10 for 10

2012-01-10T15:59:00.002Z

Today is sponsored by the number 10, because we've reached what I consider a milestone - DOUBLE FIGURES! Today was/is the 10th day of January and saw me run for the 10th time in January! Very pleased with my efforts to-date and relatively injury free. Unfortunately there isn't a lot more to say then that I do however have what I consider to be a better joke then yesterday.

Q - What cheese do you use to hide a horse?

A - Marscapone

*boom boom*

Run summary

Distance - 5.59 miles
Time - 45 minutes*

*Approximately

Dog walkers dodged - 4
Runners encountered - loads
Runners who overtook me - 3
Runners I overtook - 5
Time spent standing at traffic lights 2 minutes and 30 seconds

[Photo credit - Number 10 from Flickr]

Running in the city...Janathon Run#9

2012-01-09T15:41:00.002Z

May not be the same number of runners as today

So today was the first time I'd run my work lunchtime route. Unfortunately I forgot two important things; firstly I forgot my sports watch so my time was around what I've logged but wont be exactly. The second perhaps more important thing is my hair styling product. I'm now hiding in my office as a result.

Anyway on to the run, this is a 5 mile route I run a lot, which takes me close to the Tower Bridge and then through Wapping/Wapping Basin towards Canary Wharf before I double back at Canary Wharf. Now for some reason, much like treadmills, I run a bit slower in London. I think it has something to do with being at work and thinking about work and working :-) There are other things I don't like about running in London, which you may or may not agree with...

Things I like about running in London

Running next to the river
The sights
Other runners encouraging you or very occasionally being able to overtake other runners

Things I dislike about running in London

Running next to the river, especially when a breeze gets up
The sights, especially when there are bus loads of tourists ambling around looking at them
Other runners, there is only so much space on a pavement
The traffic
Traffic lights
Cobblestones

Aside from those six reasons I really enjoy running in London!

Run summary

Distance - 5.59 miles
Time - 44 minutes*

*Approximately, tomorrow it will be more accurate

Dog walkers dodged - 2
Runners encountered - I lost count

& finally to join in with everyone else who appears to be doing Janathon and Jokeathon...

Why was the banana* in hospital?
Because it wasn't peeling well

*This joke can be applied to any fruit that can be peeled.

[Photo credit - Flickr - London Marathon 2009]

Just me and myself...Janathon Run#8

2012-01-08T21:18:00.000Z

One of the things I like about running outside is that it gives you a chance to reflect and think about stuff. A lot of my most "creative" moments have been when I've been on the road putting one foot in front of the other. This is one of the reasons I now dislike treadmills, at a gym there are too many distractions; people running next to you, people on other machines, music, TV, conversations happening around you. When you run outside on your own, you have yourself to keep yourself company. I never run with an iPod or MP3 player and have no plans to, especially now that a lot of races ban them and that's one of the reasons I enjoy running outside so much.

But enough of my ramblings we're exactly a week into Janathon and I'm feeling okay, although Biofreeze will be my friend soon enough I'm sure!

Run summary

Distance - 5.12 miles
Time - 38:44

Dog walkers dodged - 7
Runners encountered - 2*

*One of them was definitely a runner, but was walking :-( Tomorrow I plan to run a 10k route in the City which I've designed based on another one I've seen. Have any London based Janathoners run a route similar to this?

More genteel conditions...Janathon Run#7

2012-01-07T18:05:00.001Z

So today was the end of the first week of Janathon and for a change conditions were quite nice, no strong winds, no lashing rains, no freezing fog. All in all quite pleasant conditions and my time for run#7 reflected this.

There were also a lot more people out and about, at least compared to 6.30 in the morning! So 7 days down only another 24 to go!

Run summary

Distance - 5.12 miles
Time - 38:55

Dog walkers dodged - 5
Runners encountered - 2
Terriers yapping at me from behind a garden gate - 2

Janathon week one summary

Total miles - 32
Total calories - unsure
Total time - unsure but it felt like a lot

Total soakings - 1
Injuries - 0
Aches and pains - plenty!

I'm looking forward to week 2 although I don't expect to run as many miles.

The dreaded treadmill...Janathon Run#6

2012-01-05T13:59:00.002Z

This is what treadmills should be used for

Well today was the first time I'd stepped on a treadmill for about 6 months and I was suitably dreading it. For some reasons I always run a lot slower on treadmills then I do outside. It might be because you have that constant slowly moving reminder of how far you've run and how fast you're going. Either way I'm not a fan and probably wont be going back on one for another 6 months!

Although if the weather gets a lot colder then I might be taking advantage of a free weekly pass to my local gym courtesy of one of my work colleagues. So this was Run number 6, which means by my reckoning we're almost a week in to Janathon and for me it's going pretty well. Over the weekend I'll probably do one short run and one long one, it depends a lot on the weather of course and what else we're doing over the weekend.

Run summary

Distance - 6.21 miles/10k
Time - 53:12

Runners encountered - lots, although mostly either side of me
Dog walkers dodged - 0
Commuters collided with - 0

So finally a win for the runners!

[Photo credit - Treadmill from Flickr]

Mixing it up...Janathon Run#5

2012-01-05T13:40:00.002Z

One of those things I knew I'd have to do if I stood any chance of completing Janathon was to mix up my runs. Which is why I decided to only run 3.57 miles today. I'm actually pleased that I only decided to run this distance as the weather conditions were horrible!

Not only was it raining but in my opinion it was windier then it was on Tuesday when we first experienced these inclement weather conditions! So as result of being buffeted, bashed and basically running into a headwind I posted a very disappointing time for what is a very short route.

Run summary

Distance - 3.57 miles
Time - 29:13

Runners encountered - 2*
Dog walkers dodged - 1
Commuters collided with - 5

*I think they were runners, they were dressed for running, but were walking at the time. Tomorrow I will have to see how things goes as I followed my run by throwing myself down the stairs. I'm hoping I haven't done any lasting damage but it's too early to tell at the moment.

[Photo credit - Mixer from flickr]

Finding your focus

2012-01-04T10:19:00.001Z

It's a new year so if you're like me that means you're either going to set some New Years resolutions and probably break them or set some challenges/goals for the year that you want to undertake.

So what can you do to ensure that you complete the challenges or goals that you set yourself in 2012? I recommend having a read of an excellent post on the Above and Beyond KM blog called Find your focus, in the post V Mary Abraham suggests four ways in which you can complete goals you have set for 2012. These are as follows:

Find your focus - decide early on what project or projects you're going to be undertaking and stick to those. If you take too much on you wont get anything done
Plan to be flexible - I'll readily admit to having a curve-ball thrown at me. Unfortunately things don't always go to plan so you should plan for things to happen that disrupt your work and be flexible in your approach
Celebrate progress - this is about recognising achievement and not just moving on to the next task or project without celebrating what you've achieved
Be kinder - we all know that work can sometimes be a bit rough and you have to take the rough with the smooth. Being kind to your colleagues will set the tone for how they work with you during the rest of the year, so doing something nice be kinder

Some great advice here from V Mary Abraham and I'll certainly be referring back to this blog post when I'm thinking about setting my priorities for 2012.

Swings and roundabouts...Janathon Run#4

2012-01-04T09:44:00.001Z

Another day, another run...you might see a bit of a trend developing here...;-) having successfully dragged myself out of bed yesterday morning I did exactly the same this morning and was greeted by similar weather conditions aka windy but also today cold.

I'd already decided I was going to run the same route as yesterday and was pleased to get round in about the same time given that I've never run 3 days in a row let alone 4 days in a row...it will be interesting to see what my times are like on day 24!

Statistics for the run are as follows:

Distance - 4.01 miles
Time - 30:50

Runners encountered - 0
Dog walkers dodged - 0
Commuters collided with - 8

So a storming victory for the commuters today. I almost missed the yapping of dogs being walked...almost. Having said it was a bit colder today I had a discussion on Twitter with one of my close friends about what conditions we prefer to run in.

I'd rather run in cold conditions then windy conditions as running into a headwind or side-wind is likely to affect you're running more then the cold. Having said that I'd prefer to run in rain then the cold. Once you're wet you're wet, yet you can always get a bit colder and it always seems to take forever to warm up again. At the opposite end of the scale the hottest temperature I've ever run in was a sunny 21 degrees. When you run in this type of heat, which isn't really that hot I find myself drained of energy really quickly, which is probably why there aren't many races during July and August!

What are your perfect running conditions?

Windy with a spot of rain...Janathon Run#3

2012-01-03T09:32:00.001Z

Well today I knew was going to be a challenge but I didn't expect the weather to play its part with 80mph gusts and a little bit of rain. Undeterred I ventured outside only to be almost blown off my feet, after that false start I set off on what would turn out to be 4 miles of battling the wind. Having said that it was great to get out before work and put in some miles on Day three of Janathon.

Statistics for the run are as follows:

Distance - 4.01 miles
Time - 30:19

Runners encountered - 0
Dog walkers dodged - 1
Commuters collided with - 8
People shouting "Run Forrest run" - 0

So a win for the commuters on their mostly walks/staggers to work.

Bright, but chilly...Janathon Run#2

2012-01-02T15:50:00.000Z

I had no excuses apart from having to put away the Christmas decorations to not getting outside and completing run two of the Janathon challenge. So it was that wrapped up warmly and stepped outside and proceeded to cover 4.01 miles in a brisk 28:42. I've also as you may have noticed managed to finally save and download the Janathon participant icon.

Statistics from this run are as follows:

Distance - 4.01 miles
Time - 28:42

Runners encountered - 1
Dog owners dodged - 3
People shouting "Run Forrest run" - 0

So another win for the dog owners, but much closer this time. Tomorrow I'll include a list of commuters frowning at me as I've decided to run before work...should be interesting to see whether this actually happens.

My greatest challenge yet...Janathon Run#1

2012-01-01T18:59:00.000Z

To start January 2012 off with a bang (relatively) I've signed up to Janathon. Janathon is a challenge that takes place in January (unsurprisingly) that ask individuals to undertake some form of exercise on every day during January. A lot of people run but the exercise can take any form as long as you log it on Runfree and blog about it, which is what I'm doing now.

So Run#1 of my Janathon challenge was a 5.12 mile run, taking in the lovely sights and smells of the A2 just outside of Gravesend. A reasonable time considering it was New Years eve the night before, but nowhere near my PB for this particular course. To "liven" things up a little I've decided to incorporate the following into my Janathon blog posts ala Bridget Jones' diary.

Runners spotted - 3
Dog walkers dodged - 7
People telling me to lift my knees up - 0

So a win for the dog walkers but these are early days in Janathon!

Social networks in the workplace

2011-12-22T09:30:00.000Z

We all appreciate what the benefits are of using social networks externally and to some degree internally. But what are some of the dangers of using social networks within a workplace. In Social Networks in the workplace - some data protection issues the author looks at one of the biggest concerns around the use of social networks within a workplace Data Protection

Internal concerns about Data Protection usually boil down to an individuals concern that the content they post on a social networking site, for example a message board of instant messaging site, may be subject to scrutiny by colleagues or managers who weren't the intended recipient. Individuals may also be concerned that their use of external social networking sites and the adverts that are shown on these sites may also reflect badly on them. For example if you're looking at Facebook or watching a video on YouTube and an inappropriate advert is displayed, does this reflect badly on you and will this be seen by line managers?

So how should concerns around misuse of personal data within the workplace be handled. The author outlines two approaches. The first was to enforce the Data Protection act within the workplace. This might work if the social networking site is based in the UK but in most cases is going to be difficult to enforce. The second option is to educate users. This strikes me as a much more effective way to protect individuals and organisations from any data protection issues.

The final part of this article looks at how data protection issues affect an information managers work, especially where they might be involved in preparing policies around individuals use of social networking sites. Again the key is to ensure individuals are educated about the use of social networking sites, either through training or by providing guidelines and documentation around the use of social networking sites.

[Photo credit - Data Protection from Mista Bob]

It's not very chrismassy...

2011-12-21T16:11:00.001Z

What are your intranet bad habits?

...but I had to link to this post on the Content Formula website which asks what are the five worst things you can do with your intranet.

There are probably a lot more then five really bad things that you can do to your intranet having said that this article covers some of the things you HAVE to do right to ensure your intranet is well used.

What are these things I hear you say, well here we go:

Don't grow an eyesore - Make your intranet aesthetically pleasing, keep font use to a minimum and apply the same styles throughout the intranet so that users have a seamless experience and don't think "Am I still on the intranet"
Under or over watering - This is about ensuring your content is well maintained and that the content that is published to the intranet is meaningful and relevant
Having an out of control intranet - It's all very well having an intranet that looks great, but not if it contains 50k pages of which 7 are actually useful. Establishing a well ordered hierarchy and encouraging editors to review content regularly will ensure your intranet doesn't get out of control
Too many cooks in the kitchen - Where intranets are based on a de-centralised publishing model it can be hard to maintain the same look and feel and content quality across the site. If this is the case then you should put in place a good governance model, which makes it clear who
Having an intranet that remains static - Content that has been on the homepage for months isn't going to be appealing to users. Across the intranet content should be updated regularly to ensure users regularly check the site for updates and for new content

So those are the five worst things according to Content Formula, do you have anymore?

Managing an intranet - what would you do?

2011-12-10T10:00:00.000Z

I've been in my current post for just over two years and have been thinking about what I've achieved in that time. That time has certainly flown by, but I'm able to point at some tangible improvements I've made to both the intranet and to our enterprise search tool.

When I joined my current firm I'd never managed an intranet before, although I'd been heavily involved in looking after my previous firms intranet it had never officially been my job. So starting here and actually managing an intranet has meant quite a steep learning curve. So now we come to the real core of this blog post. What should you do if you're both new to an organisation and new to managing intranets? Here are my suggestions, these are by no means perfect and I'm certain more experienced managers will have other suggestions.

Get to know your intranet. This doesn't mean understanding the technology. When I joined I didn't have training on the CMS for two weeks so couldn't get hold of the technology before then. This means understanding how your intranet works from a user perspective. What content is available where and how it's used. At its most basic this will involve spending some time navigating the intranet but it could also involve surveying intranet users, shadowing users or arranging focus groups.
Understand the technology. As soon as you've had training (if required) you should start to look more closely at the technology that it is being used to manage your intranet. This doesn't just mean understanding how the CMS works but where and how it's integrated with other applications. So that might be an enterprise search tool, your DMS or your HR system. Understanding how each of the systems "talks" to each other will help you understand how the intranet works in more detail. Having said that some of the stuff on the intranet seems to happen by magic, so although you can try and understand how AD works, it's probably best to leave that to your IT Team.
Get to know your editors. If you've got a de-centralised publishing model then I recommend getting in touch with the intranet editors to introduce yourself and to see if they have any issues that need resolving. You might find that by doing so you identify individuals who require additional training or actually don't need to be an editor anymore. Another worthwhile exercise if there isn't already a document which lists responsibilities is to create one. There always seems to be a few intranet pages that fall between the cracks, so identifying these quickly will help when someone needs them updated urgently.
Get to know the organisation you're working for. This goes hand in hand with point one really. By looking at your intranet pages you can get a good idea about the culture and values of the firm and perhaps more importantly the firms strategy. For example is the firm looking to collaborate more, if so how could the intranet help. Does the firm what to integrate overseas offices more closely, if so how could the intranet help? It's also good at this point to try and identify what teams and individuals use the intranet regularly to see if you can identify an intranet champion/champions. Having an intranet champion will help you promote the value of the intranet to all users.
Identify some quick wins. It's great to have a long term plan for the intranet, but when you first start a new role and especially where your managing what might be a new technology, it's great to be able to implement a very visible improvement. For example are there a group of pages that could do with updating. Is there something within the people search that could be changed to improve the search. Implementing these quick wins will help raise your profile within the organisation and show that you're passionate about making the intranet as valuable as possible. Of course they're only quick wins and there may well be more significant issues that you need to look at as part of the long term intranet strategy.

Those are my five tips for anyone who has just started managing an intranet. Please feel free to comment on any of these of suggest others.

A short introduction to enterprise search

2011-12-09T10:23:00.001Z

Are you considering implementing an Enterprise search tool? Then you might want to take a look at a presentation on the Pandia search engine news site. The presentation, which I've embedded below, looks at some of the challenges presented by enterprise search and provides some advice for anyone considering buying an an enterprise search product.

The Landscape of Enterprise Search

View more presentations from Susanne Koch

Social Media in the City

2011-11-30T12:11:00.001Z

Two weeks ago I was lucky enough to "wangle" a place at the Perfect Information event "Social Media in the City". I'd only seen this advertised the day before it was due to take place but given that it was taking place just around the corner from me I was hoping the organisers would let me attend at short notice and indeed they did.

The sad news was that I was only able to stay for the first presentation, but that was fine with me because that was the one I most interested in hearing. This was a presentation from the very impressive Jonathan Armstrong who talked with great skill and humour about some of the risks associated with using Social Media tools.

One of the first thing Jonathan said was that everyday we calculate the risks we take, for example if we're about to give a presentation we normally check where we're walking to ensure we're not going to trip over wires or furniture. When we drive, most people will check their mirrors regularly, especially when undertaking manoeuvres to ensure we're not about to have an accident. But when it comes to Social Media tools we ALL tend to jump in without thinking and not worrying about the consequences of doing so, because we don't believe there will be any consequences when using these tools.

The rest of Jonathan's presentation was then devoted to explaining how Data Protection and other legislation affects how we use Social Media tools. One really interesting example was the case of Robbie Hastie who used to work at the Royal Bank of Scotland. Robbie was an assistant manager at the Bank of Scotland, who was prosecuted under data-protection legislation for disclosing salary details of football players on a BBC online football forum. He pleaded guilty at a court in Edinburgh to the offence of knowingly or recklessly disclosing this information without consent, although having the presence of the Information Commissioner in the forum probably didn't help. This case highlights that although the fine was small (£400) he lost his job as a result.

Some other examples Jonathan gave were around how the power of the internet can quickly and easily ruin a company's reputation. For example Coca Cola who have a page on their website which highlights some of the myths about Coca Cola and provides the answers to these myths.

It was also interesting to hear about several examples of where Social media is being used as a litigation tool. For example http://westwoodscammed.me is a litigation case involving a school in the US. The case has its own website, Facebook page and Twitter feed which is uses to contact students and former employees who might want to take part in the litigation.

Overall this was a fascinating and informative presentation, which was helped immensely by Jonathan adding anecdotes and humour into the presentation. If you want to read more about Jonathan's work then a good starting point would be his article "Technical difficulties" which was published in Managing Partner magazine last year.

Social Business Platforms breakfast briefing

2011-11-18T15:10:00.001Z

A good looking breakfast :-(

Earlier this week I attended a breakfast briefing organised by Headshift and hosted by Arrow ECS in their offices at the Royal Exchange. The briefing was aimed at law firms and was a chance to look at the opportunities provided by SharePoint 2010 when combined with IBM Social connections.

First to speak was Lee Bryant from Headshift who talked in some detail about the journeys Intranets have taken and how some Intranets had become obsolete. One of Lee's first slides outlined what had happened to Intranets and demonstrated some of the problems with Intranets, which include;

Only one-way communication
A central administration team
No ownership
Complex, slow and tedious interfaces
Difficult navigation
Outdated information
Content dead-zones

Now shortly after showing attendees this slide Lee seemed to say that traditional Intranets we're dead. Dead is quite a strong word. I think most people especially Intranet managers would prefer the term "evolving" to describe what is currently happening to Intranets rather then dying. Lee went on to describe the role that SharePoint 2010 is playing in many law firms, I think most people would agree that SharePoint appears to become ubiquitous in law firms.

However SharePoint isn't a silver bullet and Lee described some of the issues with using SharePoint, specifically that:

SharePoint is very document centric
Surfacing content and surfacing behaviour is difficutl
The collaboration features are hard to use
There is no concept of flow within SharePoint

So the question then is, how do you work around these issues? This is where IBM Social Connections comes in. IBM Social Connections. IBM Social Connections is a social software application that enables users to blog, create wikis, follow other users, create networks and view activity streams. It does look quite good, although very similar to some other products. Sadly although we had a demonstration of IBM Social Connections and the potential of it, we didn't get to see IBM Social Connections used within SharePoint, that would have been interesting to see.

Overall a really interesting session and useful to see hear what other Law Firms think about SharePoint 2010 and its potential. I was also disappointed with the breakfast. I always go in expecting bacon butties and end up with a Pain Au Chocolat...oh well!

Revitalising outsourcing

2011-11-17T11:48:00.001Z

The latest issue of Information Today Europe comes with a very interesting piece called "Revitalising outsourcing" The article, which is written by Iain Dunbar from the LAC Group an information management consultancy and services specialist, which has recently established a UK office, looks at some of the reasons behind companies outsourcing Library & Information Services. From the article:

"Organisations considering outsourcing are usually approaching it as part of a long-term strategy or as a result of a sudden crisis.

Need for cost savings
Outside expertise required
Massive cultural/organisational change required eg move from traditional to a digital library service
Financial or other crisis
Seeking more services for less money
Improve storage efficiencies
Make better use of/monetise archives
Address environmental concerns
Implement new technology eg SharePoint
Physical to digital migration"

The article then goes on to outline some of the benefits associated with outsourcing either elements of Library Services or an entire service. The benefits of outsourcing should by now be fairly obvious to most people; cost savings, having a wider group of individuals to call upon to undertake work and other efficiencies. However there are two benefits outlined in this article that I struggle to get my ahead around, they are:

Improved buying power on aspects from subscriptions to IT
Relevant information to fee earners in a more timely and cost efficient manner

Lets take the latter "benefit" first. The issue I have here is understanding how reducing the number of staff in an organisation will speed up the delivery of information to fee-earners? Yes this can happen with less staff but surely only if the company invests in a new way of delivering information, which will initially come at more cost. The first benefit I'm having to assume means that less people in an organisation means that the company who is doing the outsourcing can pay less for subscriptions to online databases/IT systems etc, these costs will have to be absorbed by the company that is undertaking he outsourcing.

Having said that I struggle with these two benefits I can see to some degree how the first one would make an impact. I'm still not sure about the latter benefit though!

21 Useful Cloud Computing Resources for Librarians

2011-11-11T10:00:00.000Z

I recently spoke at the BIALL seminar "Emerging Technologies" on how I thought Cloud Computing, as well as other tools, was going to become a technology that Law Librarians should pay more attention to, so it's great to see that the iLibrarian has put together a list of "21 Useful Cloud Computing Resources". The list provides a useful introduction to what Cloud Computing is and some Cloud Computing applications.

Perhaps of most interest to Law Librarians will be the resources which deal with Cloud Privacy/Security. With Law Firms tending to be risk averse we need to ensure that we're aware of some of the concerns around using Cloud Computing if we're going to be suggesting Cloud Computing as a means to manage data and potentially host applications.

I believe Law Librarians are in a good position to take advantage of the developments in Cloud Computing, because if you think about the work we undertake we've actually been using Cloud Computing for some time. Or at least since dedicated LexisNexis and Westlaw terminals were replaced by web versions of the databases. Where do you think the dedicated servers supporting LexisNexis and Westlaw exist? That's right (probably) in the cloud!

Deal 5 miler

2011-11-10T10:59:00.000Z

Last Sunday I took part in the Deal 5 miler, this wasn't a race I'd run before but my understanding was that the race was held on a pan flat course and was a potential PB course. Now I hadn't run a 5 mile race since 2009 when I completed a "challenging" course is 36:56, I run 5 miles when training all the time, but 5 mile races are few and far between. So my expectations were quite low, although I hoped to run a sub 40 minute race.

Unfortunately on the day of the race the weather was a bit inclement, a strong wind behind us on the way out and a headwind on the way back, it was also raining, so all in all great weather to be running in. Despite this fact I posted a time of 37:29 which I was delighted with. I just need to keep up my training and perhaps and this will sound crazy run some more races before the end of the year! If we have snow like last year I might reconsider this decision!

Emerging technologies seminar

2011-10-24T11:12:00.001+01:00

Last week I had the great pleasure of talking to a select group of BIALL members about some of the "emerging" technologies I believe will have the biggest impact on Law Libraries. You can view the full presentation below, although you may not get much from it as most of the slides are pictures only.

For an impartial report of the seminar look no further then the View from the Hill blog which has a good summary of the seminar. The observant among you will see that there are several videos embedded within the PowerPoint presentation. For once technology didn't let me down and these actually played, but they wont if you're looking at the embedded presentation below.

So because I'm nice I've included links to all 3 videos below. They are in the order I played them.

Social Media Revolution 2011 a video that will convince you, if you're not convinced already about the power of Social Media. There are some fascinating statistics in this video so if you haven't watched it I'd encourage you to do so. If you look the music then you might be interested in knowing that this song "Baba Yetu" was the first video game piece to ever win a Grammy award, for "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)". Performed by the Grammy-winning Soweto Gospel Choir with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, you can listen to it on YouTube as well.
The second video is called "What is Google+ and do I need it" this video scares me slightly as it seems to indicate that Google is going to take over the world, which probably isn't that far from the truth. Aside from that the video is actually a very useful introduction to circles in Google+ and some of the other features that make this a direct competitor to Facebook and other social networks.
The last video I showed was one of several commercials that Microsoft showed recently which highlight how "difficult" tasks could be transformed by going "To the cloud". I love the fact that each of these videos includes a line saying "Internet connection required" well yeah duh!

Anyway enjoy the videos, the first two are really quite interesting and if you have any questions about the seminar or any of the technologies I mention I'd be happy to answer those.

Emerging technologies seminar

View more presentations from James Mullan

Intranetters - October 2011

2011-10-12T10:00:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I attended the latest in the quarterly meetings of the Intranetters group. Intranetters are an informal group of Intranet managers that meet to discuss issues affecting their work and as was the case on Tuesday to walk-through members Intranets.

At the latest meeting we were lucky enough to hear from Nigel Williams at Romec who walked through their very impressive Intranet. There were a lot of features on this Intranet that I can see us using or at least borrowing the idea and trying to replicate, which I think is the same thing as using!

I also, despite some technical difficulties, did a walk-through of our Intranet. This seemed to go down well and there were certainly plenty of questions, which I always think is a good thing. Last but not least we heard from the great James Robertson of Step Two Designs who was in London to attend this meeting and to present the Intranet innovation awards to some very worthy UK winners. If you haven't seen the list of winners already you can review the list of on the Step Two Website.

My congratulations to UK Parliament, ARUP and Framestore who were all present at the meeting to collect their award from James. Later this week a number of the attendees, including myself, will be attending the Interact Intranet conference. I'm looking forward to hearing from some of these speakers again about how we can and should be developing our Intranets.

Outsourcing, offshoring and right sourcing for the future

2011-10-11T10:00:00.000+01:00

This is the title of an interesting blog post on the Practice innovations site which provides an introduction to the concept of outsourcing and offshoring for anyone who hasn't come across the terms before. If you work in a Law Library in the UK and aren't aware of these terms, where have you been!?! From the introduction to the blog post.

So what does this mean for Law Libraries and Law Librarians? Well as it happens and as outlined in the post "Law libraries have been outsourcing supporting functions for decades. By outsourcing looseleaf filing, cataloguing, indexing, document retrieval, technical services, legislative history compilations, subscription management, and interlibrary loan, an information professional is free to perform highly skilled core business needs" and this market is growing as Law Firms merge and firms feel the pressure of a market that is becoming even more competitive more and more firms are looking at outsourcing as a way to streamline some of their internal processes, free Library professionals up to do more value added work and of course save money.

You only have to look to the recent CMS/Integreon partnership to understand how important the outsourcing market is, both in the UK and overseas. The author of the article makes a good point about how and why services are outsourced though. "One would think these decisions are not simply quick cost-cutting measures, head count ratio, or a reaction to competitive behavior. One would hope it also isn't a problem or a "mess" that a firm or administrator wants to be rid of. Having a grasp on the function and process helps direct improvement and the value proposition for the firm, clients, and employees. The best cases for outsourcing are those that have a strategic broad view of the firm's core business, vision, mission, and culture"

The author then looks at some examples of how outsourcing elements of Library teams can work well in practice, citing Allen & Overy as a good example of where the management team has worked closely with the outsourced team and those team members who were retained to provide a "blended" service. "Sarah (Fahy) has engaged a blended partnership with Integreon to produce business development reports. Relying on scalable models to support business development needs allows Allen & Overy's research team to create bespoke standards of research, business intelligence analysis, and deeper core legal research while working with an outsourced team. The ability to draw upon outsourced professionals who support non-billable, non-confidential projects while freeing dedicated professional staff to work on client research is an example of operating with a broad-spectrum strategic view of the business."

Then the question that everyone automatically thinks of when anyone mentions outsourcing or offshoring. "Aside from centralizing noncore functions, what about outsourcing? Are we hung up on the concept of outsourcing that has been maligned in the press and viewed as causing job loss and producing lower quality work? Is it really a threat to law librarians or is it an opportunity to elevate our position and influence knowledge strategies by representing the firm's commitment to knowledge excellence, translating into a competitive advantage?" From the conversations I've had with people I'd say yes. Certainly there are some opportunities for Law Librarians, but there will also be some pain and having read this blog post in full it looks like for some there may be more pain to come as the market for outsourcing grows and continues to develop.

If you build it, they will come, but will they come back?

2011-10-10T16:29:00.001+01:00

This isn't you'll be pleased to know a blog post about the Kevin Costner film "Field of Dreams" but a reference to an excellent post on the 3 Geeks and a Law Blog called "If you build it, they will come. But will they return?" What you might wonder are they referring to with this statement. Well as it happens they're talking about Intranets and the answer is a resounding NO.

So what's wrong with Intranets within Law Firms at the moment? The blog post outlines the current state of affairs; "The problem with the conventional view of Intranets is that it is an enterprise approach to what should be a consumer experience. In order to succeed, the Intranet needs to be an adaptive, ever learning, ever growing aggregate of my view in the firm as well as my web based social interactions. It needs to allow me to organize information in a way that makes sense to me and it needs to have robust search that makes information easy to find. As we all know, users are more likely to use a Google style search to find information than they are to look through various sub-sites trying to figure out how to reserve a conference room. But, robust search on its own does not solve the problem"

I absolutely agree that an Intranet should be visually engaging, intuitive and needs to contain fresh content. The problem is as the author outlines is that most content currently published to Law Firms intranet is that it doesn't compel people to keep coming back for more. Yes, it's crucial that someone knows about the latest development with the SRA or news about our latest panel appointment, but does this encourage them to return to the Intranet day after day, unless they don't get out much probably not.

So what can Intranet managers do about this? The author has a suggestion;

"We need to do build Intranets that reflect the interests of the reader. A site needs to be able to look and feel different for each user to address each user's unique perspective. An effective Intranet needs to blur the lines of personal and professional, because most of today's workers do not have clear cut delineations between work and play. For those few who still want the delineation, a well designed site will accommodate their wishes too. Intranets need to embrace social media, both external and internal. They need to foster a sense of community and quickly adapt to changing times"

This is an interesting idea and there has certainly been some moves toward providing more social Intranets. However the problem with Law Firms in particular is that they tend to be quite conservative when it comes to providing content and the methods by which content is delivered to users. So moving to an Intranet or an application that not only reflects the needs of the users but blurs the lines between personal and professional will for many be a step too far. "The biggest challenge we face in making this move is changing management's perception that all this social media stuff is not only a waste of time, but also a time waster"

We also need to move beyond Intranets being useful to essential, which is the subject of the presentation I've embedded below.

What makes an essential intranet?

View more presentations from James Robertson

SharePoint might be worth the "hassle"

2011-10-10T11:09:00.000+01:00

I know I know it has been a while...a combination of being ill and not being in the country has meant the blog has been sorely neglected, but I'm back now and filled with a new determination to blog more regularly.

And what better way to start then with a post on how SharePoint 2010 might be worth the hassle from the excellent Intranet blog, in the post the author reports on the latest Forrester report on SharePoint 2010 (SharePoint Adoption, 2011). I haven't read this report (the report costs $499 unfortunately) but the author has provided a good summary of some of the pros and cons associated with using SharePoint 2010.

Here are the highlights from the blogpost:

Pros:

57% of SharePoint organizations have deployed or in the process of upgrading to SP 2010
Early successful deployments encourage rapid uptake and use
79% of respondents reported that SharePoint meets IT’s expectations
Benefits outweigh the problems
Strong collaboration capabilities
54% say that it is meeting technical expectation
SharePoint 2010 fills critical functional gaps left by the 2007 version

Cons:

No one is using SharePoint mobile as it won’t work for Blackberry, iPhone & Androids
Lengthy deployment (including 2,000 of deployment documentation and hidden features)
Problematic and expensive to customize
Often fails to satisfy as a standalone product; needs augmentation (57% of customers have bought third-party tools to augment/improve SharePoint, particularly BPM, workflow, reporting, and administration)
Not enough expertise / skills to implement and customize
Cost (expensive)
Usage (not getting the use as hoped)
Technical issues (performance, technical complexity)
Lack of governance
Functional operation (54% say SP 2010 fails to live up to functional expectations)

SharePoint 2010 certainly appears to be a better product then SharePoint 2007 but it still seems to need a lot of resource thrown at it in order to make it work effectively. What do you think, are you using SharePoint successfully?

5 myths about working with information

2011-09-09T10:00:00.000+01:00

I've never seen a green unicorn before.

The Digital Landfill blog has published a very interesting post entitled 5 myths about working information in the 21st Century. In the post the author looks at...well 5 myths associated with working with information. These are:

We'll all work less hours in the 21st century - like this is ever going to happen seriously. Apparently there were predictions in the late 80's that we would be working less but despite technology advances we seem to be working even more. Or perhaps because of technology advances we're working even more!
We're creating more data than ever before - The author makes an interesting point here which is that we're not actually creating more data, but we're retaining it for longer and we're using it in different ways. At least I hope that is the point they're making.
An infinite crowd is infinitely wise - Now then this is a very interesting point that the author makes. We all know how "crowd sourcing" has and can be used by organisations to solve problems or generate ideas. What the author is saying is that actually most great ideas will still come from an individual or as the author puts it "the lone inventor (or small team) who look at a problem in a completely different way"
Email was a 20th century tool - The author is bang on here, email is going to roll and roll and roll and unfortunately we're all going to have to deal with the consequences (information overload etc). But the author does have some suggestion as to how with emails. "First, allow staff to declare themselves “email bankrupts." The act of doing so will result in a message to all who have sent an email outstanding in their inbox, that nothing prior to the given date will be read or actioned. The bankrupt then has a clean inbox and a fresh start. Declaring bankruptcy should have some consequences, but they must not be too serious (name and shame would normally suffice). In addition, like a financial bankrupt, they should be given some assistance to help them avoid the situation in the future" Sounds like a great idea but I'm not sure how practical it would be in reality. The second suggestion from the author is to send emails in batches. In principle this means using your email client to delay sending emails until a certain point in time.
All documents and unstructured content are equivalent - I got a bit lost here, so I recommend just reading about this on the blog post!

Is free legal information really free?

2011-09-08T10:15:00.001+01:00

Susan Munro Director of Publications at CLEBC has written an interesting piece on the SLAW blog called "Free legal information, really?" in the blog post Susan looks at how information that has been published to the web that is supposedly free might in reality not be.

From Susan's blog post "The truth of the matter is that free is not really free. There’s plenty of legal information on the Internet. But it’s not really free. Someone is paying to put it there. And there’s a lot of expense associated with publishing specialized information on the Internet; technology has a significant cost associated"

Susan makes some really good points about some of the very valuable "free" resources, which we're actually paying for. In the UK for example we have BAILLI which although a fantastic resource has recently had to appeal for funds to ensure the good work it does continue. It's absolutely crucial that this resource continues and I'm sure ALL Law Librarians and a lot of practitioners would agree with me.

Susan then goes on to look at the differences between making primary and secondary legal material available for free online. "When we’re thinking about free information online, it’s important to distinguish between primary and secondary material. Free secondary legal information is also available online in the many legal blogs now published. These blogs are usually a marketing vehicle showcasing the legal expertise of the author. They are easy to set up using an interface such as WordPress. Some blogs are marvelous; others less so. The best that can be said is that the quality is inconsistent; there is certainly no guarantee of accuracy."

Finally Susan asks whether free legal information is or will ever be a real threat to online subscription products. "Is free material a serious threat to our online subscription products? In a column last year, I wrote about the use of wikis and other collaborative resources for legal publication. My conclusion that lawyers would continue to pay for authoritative and accurate secondary legal information hasn’t changed. But ensuring the accuracy of that information has a cost. And I continue to believe that having subscribers bear the cost of developing and publishing secondary information is still the best model for us"

This is a really interesting blog post which is well worth reading for the thoughts of an individual that provides both primary and secondary legal information.

Social media policy

2011-09-08T09:50:00.000+01:00

I absolutely love this video from Youtube which explains an organisations Social Media policy with just the right mix of fun and seriousness. This was put together by the Department of Justice in Victoria, Australia - enjoy!

The future of Intranets and what it means for KM

2011-09-02T02:00:00.002+01:00

This is the title of an excellent PowerPoint presentation from James Robertson in which he looks at how Intranets need to move beyond "useful" to become "essential" how Intranets should be supporting the generation and collation of both explicit and tacit knowledge and how they should become "smart" that is they deliver content/knowledge when people need it, not expecting people to have to search through massive content repositories.

There is a bonus video clip on the Column Two website in which James discusses some of the more contentious points he makes in his presentation.

The future of intranets (and what it means for KM)

View more presentations from James Robertson

81 Intranet Governance Questions to Ask Yourself

2011-09-02T02:00:00.001+01:00

The ultimate house of governance

This is an interesting post from the Thoughtfarmer blog which challenges to ask yourself 81 questions about the governance of your Intranet. If anyone can answer yes to ALL 81 of these questions I'd really like to meet them!

E-books and the Future of Legal Publishing

2011-09-01T15:43:00.000+01:00

There has been a lot of discussion on the BIALL and LIS-LAW mailing lists recently about e-books and implications for their purchases within Law Firms. So it was interesting to see that this subject was discussed at the recent AALL Conference in a panel discussion called E-books and the Future of Legal Publishing

In this panel session, which was hosted by June Hsiao Liebert and had representatives from LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and YBP Library Services, the panelists were asked the following questions:

What is the future of ebooks?
What kind of licensing models are you implementing; how are you implementing digital rights management?
What difficulties are there in converting a book to an ebook?
If you had a crystal ball, how long do you think your companies will continue to produce print?
What types of content do you plan to put into ebooks first?
What platform will your ebooks use?

There were also some additional questions from the audience which are included within this excellent summary from Connie Crosby. Having seen several discussions on LIS-LAW about e-books it was interesting to see a more detailed discussion at the AALL Conference.

Intranet teams need to be technology savvy

2011-09-01T15:28:00.001+01:00

It might seem obvious but if you're managing an Intranet, you're going to need to have some experience with technology. However increasingly Intranets are being managed outside of the IT Team. This is a good development, however it does mean that there can be gaps in the Knowledge of the team managing the Intranet.

So how can someone gain technical knowledge in area they might not be familiar with? Well James Robertson has some suggestion in his post Intranets teams need technology savvy the following are some of James's suggestions:

Reading blogs and websites that cover general technology trends from a business perspective.
Gaining hands-on training with key tools, to an administrator (not developer) level.
Attending conferences and events that explore intranet and technology topics.
Tracking what other organisations have done from a technical perspective.
Building a productive relationship with IT, to allow constructive two-way dialogue and knowledge sharing.
Hiring team members with a greater level of technical knowledge or comfort.
Sticking at it! Not being afraid to ask questions, or to keep asking for more information until things make sense.

When I joined my latest firm I had very little experience of managing an Intranet aside from publishing content. So it was somewhat of an upward learning curve trying to understand how the different systems worked together and to be honest I'm still learning. Having an understanding of what is happening more generally is very useful as you can begin to work on ideas for your own Intranet. Attending Conferences and events is also very useful, especially as you'll likely to meet other individuals in a similar position to yourself. I'd also suggest signing up to Twitter if you haven't already (why not!) and searching for Intranet managers or Intranet professionals, there are plenty on there and they're normally happy for people to contact them with questions. There are also a lot of groups on LinkedIn which are specifically for Intranet managers, which are well worth signing up to. One of the most important points James makes is about building a productive relationship with IT. This is essential if you want to get anything done on your Intranet. A bad working relationship can mean that you struggle to have updates and changes approved or resource made available.

Have you recently taken over the management of an Intranet, if so how did you get up to speed?

Is it time to try social technologies?

2011-07-28T10:00:00.002+01:00

I know for some people the term "social networking" can be quite scary but is it perhaps time for everyone to start using social networking sites more? Looking for some encouragement, why not have a look at the video below (it's from a few months ago but it's still useful) from Kevin Jones. In the video he outlines the two main reasons why individuals don't use social technologies.

Fear of the unknown

Fear of change

As Kevin says the only way to figure some social technologies out is to give them a good sustained go, don't just quit after a few days.

Magical Law Library staff

2011-07-27T10:00:00.002+01:00

We all know Law Librarians are magical but now it has been confirmed with the publication of "The Magical Law Library staff" post on the Linex Systems blog.

From the introduction to the Blog post "Lawyers, like many other library users in other sectors have very short memories, and little interest in anything beyond their immediate work. So it never occurs to them how those important books they need just happen to be available when they need them, in the current edition...It's all done by the magic of the Library staff"

The post goes on to describe some of the work undertaken by Library staff including:

Trialling, assessing and selecting electronic resources

Reading publisher information

Monitoring news sources

Undertaking research

Fee-earning

Calling in favours...from other Librarians in other sectors

Hunting down elusive books (always my favourite game on a Friday afternoon)

Budget planning, balancing and negotiating

Training

Acting as an unofficial IT helpdesk

& many many more magical activities

We sure are busy as Law Librarians, but are we valued? We're certainly valuable and this is where the blog post makes and important point "we help fee-earning staff to be better informed about developments in their work area, save them time trying to find reliable sources, stock the physical and electronic library...make sure they're trained and fee-earn when we get the chance to do so"

We really are quite valuable aren't we and dare I say it...magical! Now if someone could just magic me up some more time that would be great.

[Photo credit - Fruit Pie the Magician I liked this image so much when I saw it on FlickR I just knew I had to add it to this blog post]

I love the smell of vicks in the morning

2011-07-26T20:48:00.006+01:00

Whilst most people were probably enjoying a nice lie-in on a Sunday morning I was up bright and early to take part in the Dartford 1/2 Marathon. This was the second time I'd run this race, having last ran it in 2008 when I set a new PB for 13.1 miles of 1:43:23 unfortunately that was 3 years ago and I've lost it would seem a lot of pace since then.

On Sunday I managed a respectable time of 1:51:38 which for this course is pretty good but could and should have been better then an average speed of 8 minutes and 31 seconds for each mile. However this is described as a challenging course so I'm hoping my next 1/2 Marathon the Kent Coastal Half Marathon will produce a quicker time!

I must say this was a very well organised race with marshals everywhere encouraging runners, especially up the hill from hell between mile 10 and 11. What I've missed since my last race is the smell of vicks vapour rub first thing in the morning, there's nothing like standing next to someone at some ungodly hour and feeling your eyes burn because they've applied copious amounts of vapour rub - perhaps just me?!

Google plus or minus?

2011-07-26T11:40:00.000+01:00

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last month you cant help but have noticed that Google have rolled out yet another social networking platform. Google plus (+) yes that really is the name of the product follows in the wake of Google Buzz and Google Wave. So is Google + any good? well it certainly has something to offer. I haven't quite discovered what yet although one person on Google + has said "It's all about the circles and the public posts, Google + is the best bits of Twitter crossed with Facebook"

I do think being able to seperate your friends, family, colleagues and other people you know into different "circles" is fantastic and certainly something that Facebook should look at doing. The site also looks a lot like Facebook which is going to appeal to a lot of people who already use Facebook.

However I'm not sure Google + offers enough in terms of functionality to make it my first port of call each day. Only time will tell I guess. In the meantime why not have a read of one of the many blog posts that have been written about Google +.

Google plus for Lawyers: First impressions

Google plus should you and your Library be there?

So what is Google plus all about then - from Phil Bradley blog

Google plus an overview - again from Phil Bradley

Google plus and the social media moonshot

Google plus and Greta Garbo

Google plus - what's in it for me - this is an excellent introduction

How to get started with Google plus - a great guide to the site

What I would say is that you should definitely sign up for Google plus, add some people to circles and see what you make of the site. Before I joined I review the presentation below, this provides a very good introduction to circles, which are at the heart of Google plus.

http://www.slideshare.net/ross/visual-guide-to-circles-in-google-by-ross

View more presentations from Ross Mayfield

[Photo credit - Google +2 from FlickR]

How new technologies can help KM

2011-07-26T09:54:00.003+01:00

This is the title of an excellent presentation from James Robertson (embedded below) which looks at how new technologies can help with the creation and sharing of knowledge in organisations. James makes some interesting points in his notes accompanying the presentation which I think are important if you're considering a project which involves a "new technology"

For me the most important points are:

Don't pilot new technologies without a clear objective and strategy

Start by identifying the business needs, not the tools

How new technologies can help KM

View more presentations from James Robertson

Tips for new Intranet Managers

2011-07-08T10:11:00.005+01:00

I've been in my current role for almost 2 years so I thought it was about time I sat down and write some "tips" for new Intranet Managers.

For those who know me you'll know that I wasn't always an Intranet Manager, my background is as a Library Professional and I'd worked in a number of organisations as an Information Professional before I realised my skills lay firmly at the technology door. That doesn't mean I'm not still an Information Professional of course.

So it's in that context that I present you with my top 5 tips for new Intranet managers.

Get to know your organisation - If you've worked in the same sector for a while you'll have a good understanding of how the company works, but nothing beats actually finding out how the organisation works, both in terms of it's organisation and structure but also its culture especially in relation to how the Intranet sits alongside other tools. For example what tools are already available and how are individuals using them.

Get to know your users - As well as understanding how the organisation works, you need to undertand how your users use the Intranet. What are some of the things they use regularly, what don't they like, what would they like to see improved. These are all important if you want your Intranet to be successful. User feedback can be gathered in a number of ways and that will be the subject of a seperate post.

Consult, consult, consult - In connection with the point above you need to speak to your users regularly about what you're developing on the Intranet and how it will impact their work. Intranet managers shouldn't be working in isolation and an Intranet definitely shouldn't be what they like. Intranet Managers should be providing an Intranet that is balanced in its approach and incorporates features and functionality that users have identified as being useful. Unfortunatelty an Intranet Manager is never going to please all the people all the time!

Plan carefully - Planning and project management skills are key requisites for Intranet Managers but sometimes it can be hard to remember exactly how many people you need to talk to before developing functionality on the Intranet. For example if you're looking at your people search you many need to talk to your IT Team (technical issues) your Marketing team (branding) your HR Team (Policy) and your Risk team for well Risk. Plan carefully any proposed development and you'll be fine.

Act like a duck - If you're a sensitive soul an Intranet Manager role may not be the best career choice. Intranets can be much maligned and discussed in quite negative ways so you should prepare yourself for comments that nobody reads the Intranet or "that exists on the Intranet" Act like a duck and you'll be fine!

[Photo credit -Blackboard ABC]

Knowledge Management and Intranets

2011-07-05T11:48:00.004+01:00

Do you manage an Intranet? does it incorporate Knowledge Sharing tools like Blogs, wikis and forums? were they added on to the Intranet? If you can answer yes to any of these questions, then you'll definitely be interested in a new post from the Green Chameleon blog. In it the author looks at how Corporate Intranets used and how can they help us contribute Knowledge. To begin with the author looks at the broad uses for Intranets, these include the following:

"corporate topics: spread messages from the CEO office, human resources, etc / access to corporate tools like HR tools, CRM, time & expenses, etc
teams (functional or project teams): discussions and collaboration on documents, notes / sharing of individual information / web conferencing
communities (groups of people gather around a specific topic): discussions and collaboration on documents, notes / sharing of individual information / stay in contact with experts in the same field
individual usage: personal information management: documents, bookmarks, notes / manage personal relationships and contacts
global usage: search and find experience & expertise in discussions, documents, people profiles / access to business tools for a specific function
external topics: integrate external news sources (RSS) / integrate external partners (e.g. suppliers) into communities"

The author then looks at some of the Knowledge Sharing tools which should be incorporated within an Intranet, these include wikis, blogs, bookmarks, profile pages and news feeds. What the author is really discussing here is the concept of a social intranet or as the author describes it himself "an intranet that is centred around the people and their connections; compared to classic intranets which focus on (central) information capturing and broadcasting. A people-focused approach might allow to make information capturing on demand; this means content is contributed either when somebody needs to know it or when somebody wants to express it"

Do Social Intranets exists? yes and there are a number of articles which discuss successful approaches to developing a Social Intranet:

How are you making your Intranet more social?

[Photo - From Knowledge Management to Knowledge Participation]

The horrors of devolved publishing

2011-07-01T10:00:00.000+01:00

Luke Oatham has written an interesting post on his blog The Intranet Diary in the blog post called "The horrors of devolved publishing" Luke looks at some of the issues associated with "devolved publishing" specifically:

Consistent quality

Consistent structure (navigation)

Findability

Luke recalls how he was asked to implement devolved publishing to a particular team and when he did the quality of the pages they were creating, the structure and findability of the pages all suffered. Now Luke makes some interesting points about how devolved publishing can be a bad thing, but in my experience of being involved in the management of two Intranets devolved publishing rather then centralised publishing has always worked better.

Centralised published certainly has it place for example with pages that don't naturally fit with a particular team or for pages that you wouldn't necessarily want just anybody editing. The problem I have with Centralised publishing is that it causes bottlenecks. If someone wants a piece of content to be published to the Intranet immediately a centralised publishing process might not be able to accomodate this. In my opinion a much better solution is to have a mix of centralised and devolved publishing.

Going ever further beyond connections

2011-06-30T11:30:00.000+01:00

This post is a response to some of the questions I was asked during my session which I wasn't a 100% certain about. By the way if you haven't looked at the slidedeck from my session at the BIALL Conference then I recommend you do so now!

So the first question I was asked which I struggled slightly with was how you would go about creating two profiles on Linkedin and whether this is something you should do. For example if you undertook a role completely unrelated to your professional life. Personally I would never do this. In fact including more information on your Linkedin profile can only be a good thing unless of course your role is something you don't want your immediate colleagues knowing about! Including more information about what you do outside of your job also gives your profile credibility and migth encourage people to engage with you, if for example they discovered that you were the Chair of the local gardening club. If you have accidentally created two Linkedin accounts there are several helpful guides which explain how you can delete a Linkedin account.

How do I merge 2 Linkedin accounts

Multiple accounts the side effects

The second question I was asked was around fake accounts and specifically whether there were any safegauards in place protecting you from people creating a fake account. The short answer is no. To create a Linkedin profile all you need is an email address which you then have to confirm. This email address doesn't have to be your current work address, although Linkedin suggests having multiple email accounts registered against your account. Unfortunately this wont stop someone creating a profile on Linkedin that is fake. There are several quite interesting articles on the subject of fake Linkedin accounts, which are well worth having a look at.

Are there fake Linkedin accounts?

Fake Linkedin accounts - Youtube video

The final question I was asked was about receiving connection requests from group members, whether this was possible and whether it consituted spam. The short answer is that Linkedin groups are being used by spammers to send emails to group members, but you can control what emails you receive from the groups you belong to by updating your email and notification settings. As far as I'm aware I've never received a connection request from an individual who is a member of a mutual group which has gone to ALL group members, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened to other people.

Those were the 3 questions I struggled with slightly, there were a lot of other question and of course I'd be happy to answer any questions about how you can use Linkedin and some of the functionality availabel within Linkedin.

To blog or not to blog...

2011-06-21T20:32:00.003+01:00

Recently I took a look at this blogs subscribers. I'm going to be honest and tell you it's not a massive number.

I immediately posted on Twitter about how depressing it was seeing how few people were actually subscribing to my blog. Well the resulting tweets were inspiring. A lot of people it would seem pick up blog posts of interest from Twitter rather then from an RSS feed or from an email subscription. I've certainly seen that today with all the fantastic blog posts about the New Professionals Conference as well as those individuals who are undertaking the CPD23 course.

Those indviduals I salute and look forward to reading your blog posts. I will also be continuing with my blogging, having been encouraged by the responses I received on Twitter.

[I blog therefore I am from Flickr]

BIALL President-elect...who me!

2011-06-20T11:58:00.005+01:00

In case you haven't seen the news I've been elected BIALL President-Elect for 2011-2012 which ultimately means I'll be BIALL President for 2012-2013.

Why on earth would someone want to do this!

I've worked in Law Firms since May 2001 first at CMS Cameron McKenna LLP and now at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP. I've been a BIALL member since 2002 and have attended 8 Conferences with my first being in Edinburgh. During my time as a BIALL member I've been on the Legal Information Group (LIG) both as an ordinary member and as the Chair for 3 years and managed the development of the BIALL Code of Good Practice for publishers and introduced the concept of a yearly meeting between LIG and legal publishers. I also spent some time on the web committee first as an ordinary member as part of the project team which redesigned the BIALL website and more recently as Interim Chair whilst BIALL searched for an found and excellent Chair in Marianne Barber.

Most recently I've been a BIALL Council Member which has been an interesting role as you get to see what happens on Council and the work of all the committees, not just the one you might be chairing. Anyway to cut a long story short I've been wanting to step up into a more senior role within BIALL for a while so put myself forward for the President-Elect position and was duly elected. The response from people to my "election" has been amazing and to them I can only say thanks and hope that I can live up to the expectations that come with the role. One of the best comments came from someone I've known for a while who said "I just wanted to say that I am sure you will do very well. Every president brings something new to the role and I am sure that you will too" here's hoping!!

I don't officially take up my positition of President-Elect until the 24th of June, which is 1 week after the AGM but if you're a BIALL member and you'd like to talk to me about anything then you can contact me via this blog posting or via my Twitter account - I'd love to hear from you!

BIALL Conference highlights

2011-06-20T11:01:00.006+01:00

The BIALL Conference is over for another year and I have to say this years was one of the best I've ever attended. There were a number of great sessions and two fantastic events where delegates could network with colleagues old and new.

For me the most memorable session was Nick Davies session on how to deliver engaing training. The mere fact that Nick stood on stage for an hour with no slides makes him a legend and that was before he even started talking. What he delivered was a whistle stop tour of techniques we can employ when deliver training to make people pay attention. Of the techniques he suggested the ones that really struck me were around using PowerPoint. Nick suggested that we should avoid using PowerPoint as a drunk might use a lampost and to stop vomitting up our knowledge on to PowerPoint slides. People attending training are there to hear you speak not look at PowerPoint slides. Nick also suggested that using stories can help you connect with your audience and that humour and spontaneity although difficult to do can be useful tools in a presenters arsenal. Nick also suggested watching 2 videos of Sir Ken Robinson speaking. Ken is a "creativity expert" who talks about how we're educating people out of being creative. I've embedded one of the videos I watched below and have to say he is a very funny and inspiring speaker and loved some of his stories, especially the story about wristwatches!

Another interesting session was that delivered by Fiona Fogden. Fiona talked about how Baker Tilly were using Linex Legal and Thomson Reuters newsoom to manage their current awareness content including content from Twitter and other social media sites. This was a fascinating look at how these two tools were being used to streamline the delivery of current awareness to fee-earners.

I also attended a session by Barry Vickery of 7Side on finding International Company Information, which was both insightful and funny because as Chair I'd given Barry strict instructions not to "sell" the 7Side product. A session by Jackie Fishleigh on "SharePoint and the Naked Law Librarian" didn't include any naked Law Librarians, which I think is probably a good thing. However it did seem to prove that SharePoint is being used by more and more law firms and that Law Librarians are well placed to be involved in the managment of SharePoint projects, either from a technical perspective or content management perspective.

However the session everyone was really looking forward to was the one delivered by Michael Maher and Kate Stanfield entitled "The Integreon model one year on". This was a follow up to the session Michael delivered at the BIALL Conference in Brighton. I found the session useful although having worked at CMS Cameron McKenna and still having friends there I was "semi-aware" of what had taken place in terms of the outsourcing of Business Services including Knowledge & Information Services to Integreon. Unfortunately much like last year there wasn't a huge amount of time left for questions, although the Chair of the session did let the session run over slightly. Reading Nicola Franklin's post about the BIALL Conference is does sound like there were other questions people would have liked to have asked, which I'm sure Kate and Michael would have been happy to have answered.

The formal business of the Conference was conducted very well by both David Wills (BIALL President) and the rest of the Conference Committee and they are to be applauded for providing delegates with a number of though provoking sessions and entertaining networking events. Roll on Belfast 2012.

Going beyond connections: BIALL Conference session

2011-06-17T17:00:00.001+01:00

This is the slideshow of the presentation I delivered at the BIALL Conference in Newcastle. In the session I looked at how Linkedin is an extremely well used Social Networking site but the majority of users don't go beyond the obvious functionality - that is connecting with individuals.

No doubt I'll be writing a much fuller report for LIM in due course. In the meantime you can review my slidedeck and perhaps think about how you could be using Linkedin beyond just connecting with individuals.

Going beyond connections using linkedin to share experience and knowledge

View more presentations from James Mullan.

Internal social tools that support the business

2011-06-16T10:00:00.001+01:00

This is the title of an excellent presentation from James Robertson where he looks at some of the social tools that can be used internally both to support the work of a business and to facilitate communication between diverse groups of indviduals.

James starts the presentation by looking at the different types of Internal social media that businesses can use, these range from Activity streams to Yammer as James says in his blog post that accompanies this presentation "There are many different types of “social tools”, under the one umbrella, all working in different ways" James then provides some example of how social tools are being used effectively by organisations, these organisations include British Airways, American Electric Power and Sabre.

For me one of the most important point James makes is about understanding how your organisation works. If you don't understand how your organisation works then you'll never going to be able to provide a solution (social media tool) that is going to work effectively. To really understand the organisation you work for you need to get out there and talk to the people who are using the existing tools and hear what issues they have to deal with on a daily basis.

I've embedded the presentation below - enjoy!

Internal social media that supports the business

View more presentations from James Robertson

BIALL Conference preview

2011-06-14T10:33:00.003+01:00

This post should actually be called "What I'm looking forward to at the BIALL Conference" but that wasn't snappy enough for me to use! This post highlights some of the things I'm looking forward to doing at Conference as for me the Conference is not just about attending plenary and parallel sessions.

Catching up with old friends. Its been a while since I've seen a few people I know IRL but who I talk to regularly on Twitter so it will be great to catchup with them and find out what they're up to, possibly over a glass or two of wine. There are of course a number of people not attending this Conference who I'd loved to catchup with - maybe next year!

Seeing Newcastle. I've never been to Newcastle before although I was offered a place at Northumbria University to study Information & Library Management, but I decided not to accept it, so it will be great to see what the city has to offer. The Sage Centre certainly looks impressive and will no doubt provide a stunning backdrop to the first night entertainment.

Wearing my black tie suit. It doesn't come out of the suit carrier very often so I have to make the most of any opportunity to wear it!

Speaking at the last parallel session on Friday. I really enjoy presenting at Conferences and especially the BIALL Conference. I'm talking about Linkedin which is my second favourite social networking site and I hope I'll encourage anyone who turns up to this session to think about how they could be using Linkedin beyond just accepting connection requests. I'm also chairing a session which is a real honour and knowing the speaker quite well I know the session will go down well.

I'm also really looking forward to a numebr of other sessions include Jackie Fishleigh's on SharePoint, Fiona Fogden talking about Information Overload and of course everyone's favourite subject The Integreon outsourcing model.

Is there anything I'm not looking forward to? yep - the 3 hour train journey from Kings Cross to Newcastle :-(

Running roundup

2011-06-14T10:13:00.004+01:00

Its been a while since I've posted anything on here about running so I'd thought I'd provide a roundup of the races I've run this year.

My first race of the season was the Whistable 10k. I've run this race a couple of times in the last few years and have always posted a very respectable time. This is mostly down to the fact that the course is as flat as a pancake. However this year the weather conditions were to say the least a bit challenging with a strong head wind for the first 5k and then a tail wind for the last 5k. Despite that and the challenge of running around Bank Holiday day trippers I posted a very respectable time of 46:09 and finished 156th out of 613 runners.

The second race I ran this year was the Larkfield 10k I'd only previously run this race once and remember it being a very nice flat course around the Leybourne Lakes unfortunately unbeknown to me they changed the course last year into a two lap course. Now anyone who knows me will know that I hate laps. There is something about laps that makes me lose my focus and strikes the fear of god into me. I think it harks back to when I ran my first 1/2 Marathon and we had to run the same hill at Brandshatch a total of 4 times :-( So it was no surprise that I finished in a time of 48:23 and came 139th out of 339 runners.

The most recent race I've run was the Bluewater 10k, this is my local race and I've supported it since it has been held, plus they always give you a really great training top and goody bag at the end! Unfortunately about 10 days prior to running this race I managed to injure my knee. I have no idea how only that I was running really well up until the point I injured myself so was not very happy. Despite my slight injury I still managed to post a semi-respectable time of 47:48 (see what I mean about laps) on what is quite a challenging course. This saw me finish 362nd out of 1903 runners.

So quite a mixed bag of results. I'm still training, when I don't have an injury or a cold and recording all my runs and races on Runkeeper. Fingers crossed my next race will be the Weald of Kent 10 which takes place on the 26th of June. I understand this is a very flat course so I'm hoping for a decent time - as long as I put the training in!

Defragmentation of the information professions meeting

2011-06-01T11:13:00.006+01:00

Yesterday I attended the latest meeting in a series of meetings looking at the "defragmentation" of the information professions. This was the first open meeting discussing this subject but the third meeting organised by Mark Field, Conrad Taylor and Nicola Franklin. The previous meetings, which are well reported by Nicola on her blog and on the SLA Europe blog, were "closed" meetings in that attendance was by invitation only and was limited to representatives from organisations that represent information professionals.

This meeting was publicised as an opportunity to discuss this issue in more detail, as such it was an "oversubscribed" event which included repsentatives from BCS, BIALL,IDA, ISKO UK, IRMS, KIDMM, LIKE, NetIKX, SLA Europe, UKeIG and of course CILIP. What I should say before I get into what was discussed at the meeting is that if you're not aware of what the discussion is about you should read Mark Field's orginal post about the defragmentation issue. I've had to do this several times!

Shortly before the event began all attendees were emailed with a list of six questions, which we were asked to think about (I've produced these below). Once everyone had arrived and sat at our pre-defined tables (no rebelling which I thought was very interesting) the meeting officially kicked off. Conrad Taylor opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and outlining some of the issues he thought the information professions have, issues like our image, the promotion of what we do and the publicity we produce. Mark Field then talked about how we got here, including the background by his original post and what had happened since. Nicola Franklin then provided a summary of the previous meetings. Conrad then invited "activists" from some of the organisations/associations present to tell the attendees a little about their organisation and why they were here.

The tables were then asked to discuss the questions they'd been provided in advance of the meeting:

What are "the information professions"
How do our various organisations relate to or cater for people who work professionally with information
How is technology change affecting information work and thereby the information professions?
What is the value of the information professions to society?
How would we like the information professions to be supported and represented; are our organisations set up well to do this?
What are the ways in which organisations might collaborate around these issues?

My table didn't manage to discuss all the questions unfortunately but we were all agreed that we didn't feel CILIP was adequately representing us and that it needed a bigger/better voice. We also discussed to some degree the impact of technology and how despite some concerns around how technology is being used, changes in technology are actually good for the profession as not only are they making our live easier but there also improving the experiences our users have. We also discussed how associations and organisations should be using collaborative technologies to improve how they work with their members. There was also some discussion around the benefits associated with being a CILIP member and that for one individual CILIP membership wasn't worth the cost especially as they had no plans to undertake chartership.

Action points from the meeting

After each of the tables had fed back what they had discussed and it had been admirably summarised by Mark and Conrad the attendees were then asked to look at what actions or what documents we could produce as a result of the meeting. I thought it was quite interesting at this point that several groups asked what was the question we we're trying to answer? Mark explained that one of the biggest things we were trying to do was find some way to show our value to those people who might not be aware of the Information Professions, or who have a very short-sighted/blinkered view of what we do. Mark also suggested the groups concentrated on identifying ways in which we could focus our efforts and enage more with our users. A short dicussion by the groups followed which looked at what could be produced from the meeting/going forward.

My table got quite excited about the idea of competencies and how these could be used as did several other tables. The suggestion that associations/organisations should be working more closely together was also discussed. This is something that seems really obvious to me and you would think would happen already but doesn't appear to. The idea of a joint conference which involved not only librarians, but developers, taxonomists, information architects was also suggested both in the meeting and on Twitter.

I'm certain that all the suggested actions from the meeting will be published to the Information Professions wiki in due course. If you want to steal a march you can review four tweets from Nicola Franklin which include the action points:

Create a respository of stories
Create core competency statements
Get groups to work more closely together
Joint statements to the media (this ties in with action 3 in my mind)

Overall a really interesting meeting and good to catchup with some individuals I hadn't seen in a while. What Mark, Conrad and Nicola are doing is very admirable but I still struggle with the idea behind it so some degree but perhaps more importantly what the group hopes to achieve and what impact it will have. I guess only time will tell.

Resources

Linkedin discussion - "Defragmentation of the information professions" the day itself
The Information Professions wiki

What makes an essential Intranet?

2011-05-19T10:00:00.000+01:00

An interesting PowerPoint presentation here from James Robertson of Step two Designs, who asks the question - "What makes an essential intranet?"

In the presentation which is from the recent Intranets 2011 conference James outlines what makes an essential intranet and perhaps more importantly how you measure the effectiveness of an Intranet.

This presentation is well worth reviewing if only for some of the screenshots of Intranets towards the end of the presentation.

What makes an essential intranet?

View more presentations from James Robertson

Are you playing an Intranet tug of war?

2011-05-18T18:00:00.000+01:00

Katrina Marques on her blog has written an interesting piece on some of the biggest challenges facing Intranet Managers.

In her post she explains how traditionally Intranets have been used to "push" news and corporate communications but over time Intranets have developed to the extent that many now offer two-way communication, including in some organisations micro-blogging tools like Yammer.

Katrina has two questions for her blog readers:

How necessary is it to still have information such as “About Us” on an intranet, when a large portion of that information would be available via the company’s external facing website
How much should individual teams like Marketing, Internal Communications, HR or IT influence the intranet in terms of content and architecture?

Both of these questions could be blog posts in their own right! In terms of "about us" information I believe it's important to retain this especially where organisations don't publish the details of support staff to their external website. This is fairly common in organisations I've worked in. Certainly there is a case for improving how this information as Katrina suggests in her blog post by adding in social features like status updates, connections, followers and groups the individuals might belong to.

The second question is much more challenging as Katrina indicates in her blog post "While intranets are maturing and need to become multi-faceted, many still sit within one of the above mentioned business units, resulting in siloed approaches to driving and developing the intranet. The likely outcome would be a lopsided solution to function, design and content" I asbolutely agree with this last statement, with any Intranet it's important to provide both features and content that are going to appeal to and work for the whole organisation, not just a small part of the organisation. I love the idea of an Intranet steering group/committee who drive the development of the Intranet equally but as Katrina says "Where do we fit in an organisational structure? Will we remain under the strong and often biased influence of our parent business unit (often IT, Marketing/Coms or HR) or will we break free and flourish – influencing and innovating the way we work?"

Integration and collaboration a hard nut to crack!

2011-05-16T10:00:00.000+01:00

Martin Farley at the Collaboration Rogue blog has written an interesting piece on the challenges facing anyone contemplating integrating a new collaborative platform with an existing system.

From the introduction to the blog post "One of the most difficult stumbling blocks to any new approach to working is how to integrate your new system with old/legacy systems. By “systems” I mean both technology and working practices/culture and will deal with both"

As Martin explains traditionally new platforms have been engineered so that they're built into or "grafted" on to legacy platforms. This isn't necessarily the best approach as Martin indicates. "The reluctance to let go of old systems will probably be your main obstacle to progress, so you should be prepared to ignore calls to make it fit “the way we do things here"

So what approach should Knowledge Managers and IT be taking when it comes to integrating collaborative platforms with legacy platforms? Martin outlines two potential approaches to how collaborative platforms can be integrated within existing platforms without having to spend siginficant amounts of time or money on developing a solution:

Collaborative tools..."don’t always require formal integration into current technologies. Using RSS, folksonomic tags, iframes, smartphone apps and a range of other connectivity tools, you are often able to integrate the information on different systems without them having to be formally connected"

"Because they are primarily user-led, they can lead integration and change, forcing legacy systems to catch up with them (rather than trying to augment/improve legacy systems)"

In his conclusion Martin writes something which I believe is very important when thinking about how you can use collaborative tools "Ultimately, where collaboration is concerned, succesful integration will be about co-ordinating with legacy systems, not connecting to them" this is so important to remember, especially where you might have a well established and well used Intranet, you need to work with it to enhance the way individuals are working rather then provide another platform which might just end up neglected.

Law firms and outsourcing

2011-05-14T07:30:00.000+01:00

Looking for an introduction to the different types of outsourcing undertaken by Law Firms? Look no further then this post on the Vantage Partners blog.

The post looks in some detail at back office outsourcing, middle office outsourcing and front office outsourcing.

Intranetters meeting - London Underground

2011-05-11T16:41:00.008+01:00

Earlier this week I attended my first ever Intranetters group meeting. The Intranetters group describes itself as "a community of intranet/comms/media people from organisations around the UK and Europe, all involved in the area of intranets" The group has regular meetings to review Intranets and to discuss challenges that are affecting individuals who manage Intranets. I'd been a part of this group ever since I joined my current firm but for some unknown reason I'd never received any of the updates from the group so never attended a meeting.

The meeting was held at the headquarters of London Underground (LU), where if you didn't know their meeting rooms are named after the tube lines, and included presentations delivered by Liz Moody of LU, Brian Dobson of Transport for London (TFL) and a presentation from Romec which unfortunately I missed. First up was Liz Moody from London Underground. Liz put the improvements to the London Underground into context by outlining some of the reasons why LU have an Intranet. These ranged from employee engagement to the place for access to business processes.

Liz went on to outline some of the issues with the old intranet, there were quite a few of these including duplicate content, too many pages, poor governance and the site not being DDA compliant. Liz then outlined London Undergrounds vision which included the following:

User centred information & design

Managed content

A maximised comms opportunity

More integration with other Intranet sites

Best practice in relation to FOI & other related legislation

Best practice in terms of Knowledge Management

I have to admit the new site looked great and it was interesting to hear from Liz about some of the challenges the Intranet team at London Undergroun face in making content available to London Underground staff. If you think about how many staff are on gates, on platforms etc for them accessing the Intranet can be an issue so making the Intranet as easy to use as possible is a key priority for the Intranet team.

Next up was Brian Dobson from TFL who talked in some detail about an Intranet Benchmarking Foundation (IBF) review that had been undertaken by TFL and London Underground. The review looked at the TFL and London Underground Intranets although they'd only chosen to look a the usability of the Intranet. Brian firstly explained how usability was broken down into the following areas:

Content

Design

Findability

Coherence

Engagement

Accessibility

Effectiveness

Efficiency

The IBF review meant a team from IBF being on site looking at the Intranet, asking questions of the stakeholders and then preparing a report for the organisation. Unfortunately Brian wasn't able to share too much information with the group but suffice to say London Underground and TFL did quite well in the review and it certainly looked like something well worth doing if you can afford the £18k IBF joining fee!

I've actually looked at becoming a member of IBF as they do seem to be a very well organised organisation. In addition to benchmarking of intranets they also run the very popular IBF 24, which I've signed up to and am very much looking forward to.

Managing the flow on information using social tools

2011-05-07T08:27:00.005+01:00

How do you manage the information that is sent to you, do you rely on email or hardcopy only? It can be hard keeping up with the amount of information we receive so it will come as no surprise that increasingly individuals are using Social Tools to manage the information they receive.

If you're not 100& certiain about the benefits of using Social tools to manage information then I recommend you read a recent Fumsi article called "Managing the flow of information with social tools" in the article the author looks at how information can be managed by individuals and by organisations. From the article:

"The beauty of RSS is that you choose what to subscribe to no-one can send you something you don't want and if you subscribe to a feed that turns out you don't like, just unsubscribe from it and it's gone forever. Your are in control unlike with email"

"Even if you miss something important in your flow of information first time around, it will picked up by other people and discussed - retweeted or blogged about, so it will bubble to the surface eventually. This is the power of the network effect - it filters, magnifies and distributes the most important information very efficiently"

Now imagine if the same principles of managing information were used within an organisation.

"Imagine being able to ask a question inside your organisation by posting a short message that anyone in your network can see and answer instantaneously; to be able to update people immediately on a project you've been working on; to be able to collaborate seamlessly with colleagues from all over the world" From a practical level what this actually means is looking at tools like wikis, blogs, microblogging and RSS.

This is the power of Enterprise 2.0 or as it's increasinly being called "Social Business" if you and your organisation aren't looking at Social Business then you really should be

What's hot in KM

2011-04-28T13:25:00.000+01:00

"What’s hot in legal knowledge management? What would KM managers not do again? And what legal KM topics are of most interest now? KM professionals at about 50 large US, UK, and Canadian law firms answered these questions in a recent survey in advance of a private meeting" this is the introduction to an interesting blog post on the Strategic Legal Technology blog

The post divides the results of these questions into 3 headings:

What's hot or tough?
What would you not do again?
What would you most like to hear from your peers?

This blog post is well worth reviewing to see where some of your projects might appear!

Where to start with a SharePoint intranet

2011-04-26T14:42:00.001+01:00

James Robertson has written an excellent post on the Column Two called "Where to start with a SharePoint intranet" in it he outlines the considerations for Intranet teams if they're asked to look at using SharePoint as an Intranet platform.

Firstly James talks about how Intranet managers should "Understand the platform" - this appears to be essential when dealing with SharePoint. Put simply SharePoint has huge strengths and equally a number of weaknesses. The goal as James puts it "...is to maximise the benefits from the strengths and to avoid the weaknesses like the plague" What this means in reality is understanding what SharePoint can do and cant do and as a result being able to have an honest and open discussion with your IT department about how you think SharePoint should be used

Then James discusses how important it is for Intranet teams to have a crystal clear vision and direction for their implementation of SharePoint. This is because as James describes it "The flexibility of SharePoint means that deployments can easily lose their way. In far too many cases, we’ve seen organisations 2-3 years on from deploying SharePoint end up with a spaghetti mess of “stuff”, with no clear successes. This is not a technology or product failure, it’s a failure of planning"

SharePoint might be seen as many Intranet managers as a threat but as James says "Intranet teams should be excited by the opportunities presented by SharePoint and there is no question that Intranets will be transformed as a result of this new technology"

Darent Valley 10k

2011-04-22T08:25:00.002+01:00

A couple of weeks ago I ran the Darent Valley 10k, this was the first race of my running season, having entered a few races earlier in the year they'd either been cancelled or moved to later in the year :-(

This was the first time I'd run 10k competitively since the Wilmington 10k in October 2010 so I waan't expecting a very quick time especially as the course is quite undulating! I love this race though as it takes in the postcard perfect villages of Eynsford, Farningham, Lullingstone and a brief chance to look at Lullingstone Castle

Regular readers of my blog may recall that this is the race I managed to injure myself fairly badly in the final 100 metres, there was no repeat of that fortunately. There was also no repeat of my sub 47 minute time from 2008 I did manage to run a sub 50 10k though finishing the race in a time of 49:52 placing me 166th out of 427 runners which I was quite pleased with. I'm hoping for a much better time in my next race which is the Whistable 10k, followed closely by the Larkfield 10k

I'm hoping to post sub 48 minute times for both these races as they're both quite flat and fast. In the meantime I'm running regularly in the sun!

Why building an Intranet is like making a cake!

2011-04-08T10:26:00.004+01:00

It's my youngest daughters birthday on Saturday, she'll be the ripe old age of 1(!), whilst thinking about her birthday and birthday cake I stumbled across a post on the Intranet connections blog called "Intranet design: a recipe for success

In it Tara Clark of Intranet Connections explains how when you build an Intranet you'll often do it using a tried and tested recipe. From her blog post "You want to make the final product enjoyable, and to do so, you need to ensure that all of the ingredients are well balanced"

"Intranet design is similar to cooking in that it allows for revisions along the way. An intranet site starts with design applications that provide functionality to the site. You need to build up these applications with text, borders, pictures, in order to make the site operational and appealing to the user’s eyes. Along the way, you can add or remove icons, text boxes and documents to enhance the page. It’s a never ending process of exciting changes that increasingly make the intranet more accessible for the users."

I love the idea of referring to a recipe book when you're building an Intranet and it's so true. For example you might want to provide a piece of functionality but it doesn't exist at the moment, so you'll have to tweak the recipe slightly to take account of this. Also peoples "tastes" will develop over time so something that you original include within the Intrant may become less flavoursome and you'll need to look at your recipe book for an alternative. A great post, which got me thinking about what I can cook up next!

The changing face of corporate information services

2011-03-31T12:00:00.004+01:00

Last night I attended the SLA Europe organised event "The changing face of corporate information services – new service models and partnerships" this was billed as an opportunity to hear about how Information Services are being delivered to customers in the new world of outsourcing and was unsurprisingly very well attended with a number of familiar faces and Tweeters in the audience including KDPlee, BarbaraGordon, Tinamreynolds, LibClare, Nataliafay and MichaelRobson

I'm certain there were other people tweeting from the event, including Greg Simidian CEO of Perfect Information and another Librarian who I met very briefly after the event so apologies to them for not including their Twitter accounts here. Unfortunately one of the first things the Chair said was that "chatham house rules" applied to this event. This would be fair enough if the panelists were imparting confidential information but Allen & Overy's and CMS Cameron McKenna's work with Integreon has been well publicised. But stick to the rules we must...:(

Once the introductions were over the Chair asked each of the panelists to share their thoughts about outsourcing, where they thought it was going and why it was changing the face of corporate information services. It was interesting to hear these initial thoughts which really just introduced where the organisations were and what they thought outsourcing meant, surprisingly one panelist thought using Lexis Nexis was outsourcing, I'm not so sure about that. Certainly using a product like PLC might be considered outsourcing as they have lawyers available to answer questions but Lexis Nexis?

Of course we all know that outsourcing isn't a new concept, firms have been outsourcing legal work to other firms for as long as I can remember, documents are sent externally to be transcribed and Libraries have been using subscription agents for as long as I've been a professional librarian. However outsourcing ALL back office support functions or creating offshore service centres is new and should be a concern for every information professional. So why the new world of outsourcing, well traditionally outsourcing was a way of controlling costs but wouldn't have created much value. Nowadays outsourcing is seen as a way of controlling costs, providing better value and as a way to solve business problems. This drive for better value comes of course from law firms clients, they expect more for less, which means in turn the fee-earners expect more from less from their support

One of the most disappointing aspects of the evening was that nobody was suggesting an alternative to outsourcing or arguing against using outsourcing companies. Perhaps that was the point of the seminar, that there aren't any alternatives and that we must accept that corporate information services have changed beyond recognition and will no doubt continue to do so. Don't get me wrong I'm not totally set against outsourcing I just don't believe anybody has asked the difficult questions of people who have outsourced and Integreon.

Could we be more collaborative?

2011-03-31T10:00:00.003+01:00

Two interesting articles here on how companies are missing out on or doubt the benefits of collaboration tools. The first from Read Write Web called "Companies doubt benefits of collaboration tools" reports on a survey undertaken by Forrester which looked at the benefits associated with using Social Media:

"...most companies are seeing very few, if any, benefits from online collaboration software, at least according to a new report by Forrester. Of the survey's respondents, 64% said they saw anywhere from zero to four benefits after implementing collaboration software"

Fortunately it's not all bad news "The biggest advantage such software does offer is in reducing travel costs, which 62% of businesses reported as a payoff. Improved communication and project management were also cited"

The second article from ZD Net called "Are businesses missing the benefits of collaboration technology?" also looked at the research undertaken by Forrester. In it the author asks whether reducing travel costs, teaches us the right lessons about the value of Social Media. The author argues that it's too easy to reach for the "low hanging fruit" or quick gains rather then invest time in a collaboration tool. This second article is definitely worth reading!

SharePoint training not required

2011-03-30T10:00:00.001+01:00

In SharePoint, Training not required Lorette S.J. Weldon looks at how Librarians can use SharePoint without necessarily having to undertake SharePoint training or understand complex coding language.

From her article on the LLRX.com website:

"The secret (to SharePoint)...is understanding the site templates that Microsoft has given librarians through SharePoint "out-of-the-box". These templates are based on social networking abilities and not program coding. It is through a "plug and play" effort that librarians can find the features in SharePoint that they would need to help them manage their library collections" This is great news, especially when Lorette outlines some well used Social Media sites and their online alternatives:

iGoogle > SharePoint option Portals

Google Groups > Discussion board

Slideshare > Document Library

FlickR > Picture Library

Wikipedia > Wiki Page Library

Google DOCS > Documents for Review

Delicious > Links

Google Calendar > Calendar

LinkedIn Polls > Surveys

Huddle Workspaces > Sites and Workspaces

Lorette then reports on some of the search results from a survey she underook which looked at how Librarians were using SharePoint. The conclusion is also very interesting if you're considering using SharePoint within your organisation:

"SharePoint can be customized through social networking skills without the help of "add-on" applications. In order to gain this "power" to customize their sites, librarians need to develop a working relationship with their organization's IT department. The IT staff can grant them access to their own section on the organization's SharePoint-based intranet. Once the librarian has access to their "own" SharePoint-based site, they will be able to use "out-of-the-box" features to "plug and play" what components they would want to help with their library management. This approach takes minimal training and would create a happier environment for librarians"

SharePoint as an Intranet or as Collaboration platform?

2011-03-28T10:00:00.000+01:00

Apologies to anyone who doesn't watch Harry Hill, but to coin a phrase from his TV show. I like SharePoint as an Intranet and I like SharePoint as a collaboration platform, but which is better? There's only one way to decide....FIGHT...no not really...

...but hang on though what are some of the differences between SharePoint as an Intranet and SharePoint as a collaboration platform, well this is the subject of James Lappin's post on his blog "Thinking records" James points out some key differences between using SharePoint as an Intranet and SharePoint as a collaboration platform. Some highlights from his post:

Managing a collaboration/document management environment is a different ball game from managing an intranet environment
The scale is different. In an intranet environment you can expect a sub-section of the organisation to contribute a small amount of content on a monthly basis. In a collaboration/document management environment you may reach the point where most of the organisation are contributing on a daily basis.
The risks are different. In the collaboration/document management environment there will be material with sensitivites (personal/commercial/political). Such material is not typically contributed to intranets.

James makes a lot more points in his post, which will be of interest to people who currently manage SharePoint environments but as an Intranet Manager and someone who also manages a collaborative platform the above points were of most interest. I certainly agree with the second point and talking more generally this is one of the biggest difference between these two types of environments.

CLSIG AGM and Professionalism Seminar

2011-03-25T20:34:00.002Z

Earlier this week I attended the CLSIG AGM and Professional Seminar the latter run by Susie Kay. The venue was the always impressive City Business Library, which I've now been to a total of 2 times in 6 months despite working in the City for 11 years. After the official business of the evening was completed Susie started her presentation.

One of the first things she asked us to do was to think about some of the things that were important to us for example how important is it that you're on time, or that you dress "professionally" (like the chap on the right - does this say "professional to you?). This was an interesting and engaging way to start the presentation and certainly made me think about some of the things that are important to me.

Susie then looked in more detail at some of the attributes that make someone "professional" Susie described these as the ABC's of professionalism. This acronym translates as (A)ttitude, (B)ehaviours (C)hoosing excellence. You can find out more about each of these aspects of professionalisms on Susie's Blog "The Professionalism Blog" under the following titles:

Professionalism essentials 1 - Choosing excellence

Professionalism essentials 2 - Attitude

To finish off the evening Susie demonstrated how important it was for us to look after ourselves by doing the pinch test. In this test you grab a little piece of your skin and see how long it takes to return back to your hand. If it takes a long time then you're officially dehydrated.

This seminar was part of the CLSIG professional development club series of seminars, which I've always found very informative and well worth attending if you have a chance.

Is there a better way to do (legal) research?

2011-03-18T12:00:00.000Z

Mary Abraham at the Above and Beyond KM blog has suggested that there might be a better way for fee-earners to undertake research on Lexis and Westlaw. From her blog post;

"With the benefit of hindsight, it seems obvious that the current approach to legal research is fundamentally flawed. Lexis and and Westlaw have created these enormous databases of case law that cannot be completely mastered unless you have world class research skills. In fact, what they’ve created is a frustrating game of “find the needle in the haystack.” The problem is that the people who need the cases aren’t always the best equipped at finding the cases, and the people who are expert at finding cases aren’t the best equipped to analyze and use them"

There is no denying that fee-earners generally aren't the best at undertaking Legal Research although in my experience some trainees have excelled at finding and using content from Lexis and Westlaw. It's also true to say that Law Librarians or Researcher aren't necessarily best equipped to analyse the information we find from Lexis and Westlaw. Law Librarians certainly aren't paid to do this and in fact to do so borders on the downright dangerous.

So what is Mary suggesting Lexis and Westlaw should do, well it's quite an interesting proposal.;

"...instead of forcing lawyers to come up with appropriate search queries, Lexis and Westlaw should ask lawyers questions to elicit information about the case at hand. In other words, the role of the lawyer searching for precedent would be to analyze their own case and strategy and provide that information to Lexis and Westlaw: what are the pertinent facts of the case, what jurisdiction, what procedural approaches is the lawyer considering. Then, Lexis and Westlaw would deliver to you links to groups of cases that match your facts within your jurisdiction..."

What's great about this proposal is that fee-earners would no longer need to know complicated boolean search techniques or how to construct the perfect search. What's not so great is the role of the previously mentioned Law Librarian? Isn't if part of their role to elict information about the case in hand as part of a reference request and to guide and assist the fee-earner with finding the most pertinent results?

The 3 Geeks and a Law blog also have some thoughts on Mary's post, which are well worth reading.

A gentle introduction to Twitter

2011-03-15T20:08:00.004Z

I love this video which has been published to the Dissident blog this is quite literally a gentle introduction to Twitter for those people who are new to Twitter. I've embedded the video below for your viewing pleasure.

For more detail on some of the things you can do in Twitter look no further then "Twitter Clinic: #FF, DM and RT explained" this is a great post explaining some of the features of Twitter. The post is one of several in a series called the "Twitter clinic" on the Connectegrity blog.

Nancy White & Suzy - An Intro to Twitter from CommunityMatters on Vimeo.

Avoiding social media depression

2011-03-09T10:00:00.003Z

Someone I'm following on Twitter recently retweeted this blog post and I felt compelled to have a look at why you could become depressed using Social Media.

The blog post is actually very interesting and quite compelling. In it the author outlines the concept or idea behind Social Media depression:

While the premise of Social Networking is to connect with others to build relationships, if we're not careful we can become much more isolated than before we started communicating online

We engage in comparison. When we see our connections online posting all the wonderful things going on their world, we cannot help but wonder why things are going so well for them - especially if we're in a down or flat time

As the author explains the combination of these two factors "have the potential to create an emotional downward spiral which is the gateway to depression"

So how do you avoid social media depression...the author suggests two ways:

Don't believe it - Someone might be telling you they're having a fantastic time but they're probably not telling you about bad stuff that is happening to them. This is really about taking everything in the context in which it is written.
Mix it up - Yes use Social Media but don't rely on it as a communication form face time is still the best way to network and to keep up to date with your contacts.

Developing your Intranet in a week

2011-03-08T10:30:00.000Z

Develop your Intranet in a week, are you crazy? Well apparently it can be done according to the blog post "7 Daily tips for developing your Intranet in a week" on the Intranet Connections blog.

There are some great tips here for developing your Intranet in a week although you couldn't feasibly do all of these during a single working week!

Monday – Go social
Tuesday – Make your intranet easy to access > Part 1
Wednesday – Make your intranet easy to access > Part 2
Thursday – Bring the intranet to your employees
Friday – Make people the heart of your intranet
Saturday – Make your intranet business critical
Sunday – Create personalized digital destinations

This is a summary of a blog post on the imjon.com blog.

How to Use LinkedIn With Twitter

2011-03-07T15:00:00.000Z

Are you using both Twitter and LinkedIn? have you thought about how you could use Twitter to assist with your networking on LinkedIn? No, well the Social Media examiner has published a blog post called "How to use LinkedIn with Twitter for better networking" which looks at how you can integrate your Twitter posts with LinkedIn and the benefits of doing this.

They list the major benefits of doing this:

Follow your LinkedIn connections on Twitter
Post status updates simultaneously to both Twitter and LinkedIn
Monitor and interact with your Twitter streams from within LinkedIn
Create a LinkedIn-specific Twitter list

The blog post goes on to explaine how you can:

Add your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile
Install the LinkedIn Tweets application
Identify and follow all your connections who have Twitter accounts
Create a Twitter list of all your connections

This is a really interesting and practical article. However a word of warning only add your Twitter account to your LinkedIn account if you're comfortable displaying all your Tweets here. If you're not then you'll be better off just adding the #in hashtag to your Tweets. This will publish your tweet to your LinkedIn profile.

[Photo > Twitter from Flickr]

LinkedIn magic...

2011-03-04T10:30:00.002Z

Recently I've been having a lot of conversations with individuals about the value (or not) of LinkedIn. It's really quite surprising how much people don't know about LinkedIn. Most people assume that LinkedIn is simply a place where you can post your work experience (CV) connect with a few people and that's it.

In reality LinkedIn has a lot more to offer and you don't need to be a wizard to start using these features. If you're a BIALL member you can read my thoughts about LinkedIn in the next newsletter. I'll link to the article on here once it's live on the BIALL website. In the meantime if you don't use LinkedIn or use it but aren't sure about some of the extra features you could be using I recommend having a look at the LinkedIn Learning site

Jack Vinson has also written an article on his blog Knowledge Jolt with Jack called "Things I've learned about LinkedIn recently" this has some really good tips on how to make the most of LinkedIn and some useful tips on updating your profile.

[Photo credit - LinkedIn Merlin Wizard]

Defining good support

2011-03-03T10:30:00.000Z

What is good support and how do you define it? This is the question asked by Ron Friedmann in his blog post "Defining good support for Lawyers"

In his post Ron looks at the different ways support can be defined, this is especially important if law firms are considering outsourcing support departments and the issue of quality arises.

From his blog post "...defining good support requires metrics, service level agreements (SLA), and a governance structure. Without these, managers cannot assess if they provide good service, where improvement opportunities lie, or the viability of alternative support approaches. When I asked for a show of hands of who had instituted metrics or SLAs, few hands went up. This is pretty typical in law firm audiences"

So if you're a law firm Librarian what sort of things should you be measuring? Ron makes an interesting suggestion "Once you know what to measure, you have to define the right service level to offer. For libraries that might mean, for example, categorizing research requests by complexity and, for each complexity level, specifying a turn-around time"

This is certainly something that IT Helpdesk teams have had in place for a long time, so when you contact your IT Helpdesk they will probably assign it a complexity level or more likely a priority level so Priority 1 might be that your PC isn't working and Priority 4 might be that you cant access a particular site. One of the question I would ask is how easy it is to take this model and apply it to the type of enquiries law libraries undertake. Especially if you're then setting time limits or turn-around times on particular types of enquiries. I'd like to think it would work but then in my experience all enquiries are urgent!

As it happens I'm a huge fan of metrics and SLA's although they have to be rigorously enforced in order to work. Used right metrics can provide an insight into a service which might not be possible otherwise. However metrics can also be analysed incorrectly, misconstrued and generally misused so it's vital to identify what you're going to be measuring and how you're going to do it early in the process. If you're really interested in Metrics (blatant self promotion warning) you could read an article I wrote in 2009 called "Stat's the way to do it"

BIALL Cheese & Wine

2011-03-02T10:16:00.004Z

Last Friday I attended the BIALL Cheese & Wine event. This was held in the jaw dropping Old Hall at Lincoln's Inn. Depsite the cold evening the wine and conversation flowed freely and it was great to catch-up with some old and new friends

I also had a very interesting conversation about Social Media and Yammer with one Law Librarian which has made me think about the potential to use Yammer within my organisation.

Many congratulations to Catherine McArdle for organising another successful evening!

[Photo from FlickR - OMG Cheese]

Outsourcing, Outrage or Opportunity?

2011-02-25T14:59:00.007Z

Yesterday I noticed a lot of US law librarians were tweeting about an ARK organised event

called "Best Practices & Management Strategies for Law Firm Libraries and Information Centers" You can see all the tweets from this event if you search Twitter search for #ARKLIB

Of real interest to me was the Keynote debate which focused on outsourcing, its implications the opportunities associated with outsourcing and of course the challenges. The Keynote speakers were Ron Friedmann who blogs at Prisim Legal and Jean O'Grady who runs the Dewey B http://www.blogger.com/upload-image.g?blogID=6563356373853416484Strategic blog. Before the event Jean had asked all participants to consider which services or functions they provided they thought were "core" which of course raises the interesting question what are Law Libraries "core" services?

Well you probably wont be surprised to see that shelving books and loose-leaf filing come right up the bottom of the list of core services and management of research services, training and other research comes right at the top. The question is, is this what we're good at or should be focussing on to avoid being outsourced? I've reproduced the results of Jean's poll here, you can also view the survey results on her blog post Outsourcing, Outrage or Opportunity? What is Core?

[Photo - Flickr]

Have you got the skills to pay the bills?

2011-02-25T10:00:00.001Z

Nicola Franklin of Fabric Recruitment has written an interesting post as part of the Future Ready 365 programme the SLA are running all this year. In her post Nicola asks "What skills will be vital in the future" and challenges all Information workers to be ready to answer the following questions:

What’s an information professional for?
Why should I ask a librarian instead of just searching Google?
I can find what I need myself, why should I use the information centre?
Why shouldn’t we just put the sources on everyone’s desktop?
Surely it’s cheaper to outsource the research service?

Nicola then suggests doing the following "Once you have thought of good, succinct, answers to questions like these, seek out opportunities to use them – to other stakeholders, not to fellow librarians! That sounds daunting, but in practice it means developing a new skill set, one around writing (blog posts, articles, comments on others’ posts), speaking (at internal meetings, at seminars, at conferences) and marketing your information services"

For some I know this will be quite difficult even I occassionally struggle with my writing and ofte don't feel I'm contributing as much as I should be but in order to survive as a profession we need to be able to answers these questions and to defend ourselves against the many challenges we face.

P.S If you recognise the title of the blog post but cant place it "Skills to pay the bills" is a song from the Beastie boys.

[Photo from here]

Tips for Intranet Employee Profiles

2011-02-23T10:00:00.000Z

What's one of the most important things to get right on your Intranet? Some people might argue it's the lunch menu but for me ensuring that the people search and individuals profiles including photos are accurate is vital to ensure the success of the Intranet.

So it was great to read "14 Tips for Intranet Employee profiles" in it the author offers some tips on how to manage the profile creation and updating process and perhaps more interestingly some tips on how to encourage users to use or update their own profiles.

I love the following suggestions and may even try them where I work:

Run a “Where’s Wally / Waldo?” competition where one employee has a replacement photo. Employees must search to find the right one.
A data treasure hunt. Working with a group of employees, add clues across a series of profiles that creates a chain to an answer.

Bigger does not always mean better...

2011-02-21T16:15:00.000Z

Toby Ward has written a very interesting piece on the Prescient blog called "Bigger Intranets are not always better" from the introduction to the blog post.

"Most intranets are awful; they're chronically underfunded, mired in politics, lack any meaningful governance, and use poorly implemented technology"

A sweeping statement you might be thinking, but I've seen a few Intranets in my time and 90% of them are as described above. So what makes a big Intranet bad? well Toby outlines his top three reasons that big Intranets go bad, they are:

Organisational complexity - who owns the Intranet, who is going to pay for it etc
Technology complexity - the bigger an Intranet it the more requirements you're likely to have and the more complicated your CMS or WCMS will have to be!
Politics - lets not go there!
Funding - why invest in something that isn't being used and nobody wants to use?

At this point most Intranet managers look for the nearest window but it isn't all doom and gloom because Toby then briefly looks at how smaller Intranets can make bigger ones sit up take notice and get on with it!

[Photo from FlickR - apparently "Big Boy" is a restaurant chain in the US]

What technology skills should Library staff have?

2011-02-16T10:00:00.000Z

From the blog of the iLibrarian; "The LibrarianinBlack, Sarah Houghton-Jan writes for the ALA’s Learning Round Table about Technology Skills Library Staff Should Have. She suggests basic technology competencies that librarians should possess"

Sarah divides these skills into the following categories:

Terminology
Hardware
Software
Security and Privacy
Public Computing
Ergonomics
Library web presence
Troubleshooting
Personal Skills

Looking at the list I fall down in a couple of categories, how do you do?

Top tips for dealing with an uncertain world

2011-02-14T10:45:00.000Z

How do you cope with uncertainty in the workplace, keep working and ignore everything that's happening around you? or something else...

This article on the Information Today website looks at how Information Professionals can deal with change in their workplace. From the introduction "Change is indeed good. But when it happens to you, rather than being instigated by, you and you have no say whatsoever, it can feel pretty grim"

Indeed it can be grim so what choices do Information Professionals have when it actually comes to dealing with change.

Well the author actually offers some very practical advice on how we can deal with change, they are:

Develop a thick skin - a very thick skin!
Improve your vocabulary - for all those application letters you'll be writing...possibly!
Attend events - This should apply whatever the situation
Offer to deliver a workshop yourself - This is good advice, get out there and sell yourself
Read and respond to the blogs of others - Again good advice, especially if there are a lot of people in the same boat
Think about your own skills gaps - Look for free training and attend as much as possible
Think about your online presence - Yes that means googling yourself

This is an interesting article, with some very practical advice.

Sharing information isn't risk free!

2011-02-11T10:00:00.002Z

It's easy and potentially costly to fall foul of copyright in the Interet age. We're increasingly presented with more sophisticated ways of sharing information and collaborating with each other yet individuals regularly share and display information that is copyright protected.

So it was great to be reminded of how risky it can be to share information in the LLRX.com article "The Risky Business of Information Sharing"

In the article the author looks at the following:

What is copyright and why is it important
What's protected by Copyright
How employees use Information
Who should take responsibility for compliance
Creating a compliance policy
Managing compliance

This is a really useful (albeit U.S focused) article on complying with copyright law.

In case you're wondering the image on the right, like most of the images I use on my blog is available royalty free from sxu.hu

Top 10 reasons for updating your Intranet...

2011-02-09T10:00:00.002Z

I love this post from the Socialtext blog which asks "Are you ready to make your Intranet social" and then goes on to list the Top 10 reasons why you need to urgently update your Intranet.

I've reproduced these below *note some American terms are used, but you'll get the gist..

The most common question about (the Intranet) is “What Intranet?”
Today employees just look for the cafeteria lunch menu
The CEO was given upgrade suggestions from their 5th grader
The employee directory still lists job titles from 6 years ago
You want to level the playing field between the introverts and extroverts
Your organization has more silos than on all of the farms in the state of Vermont
There are more servers under employees’ desks running wikis and blogs than in the server room
When you click on the link to open it, you hear “No, I’m sorry, Dave. I cannot do that …”
The CFO thought microblogging was cheaper than blogging
You’re not popular on Facebook but maybe you could be a corporate collaboration hero

Sound familiar? if it does stop worrying and start planning! The blog post also lists some of the main reasons why you might want to think about updating your Intranet.

The Running Librarian

All wrapped up!

Canterbury 10 mile

Just in time!

Sponsored by the letters P, R and S

Just going through the motions...Janathon Run#25

A very fine rain...Janathon Run#24

Artichoke hill...Janathon Run#23

An almighty stink...Janathon Run#22

Running mojo...Janathon Run#21

I'm not made for speed...Janathon Run#20

A slow plod...Janathon Run#19

I hate cobblestones...Janathon Run#18

A mile too many?...Janathon Run#17

Does the cold slow you down?...Janathon Run#16

My longest run...Janathon Run#15

It's nice to see the pavements...Janathon Run#14

A bit chilly...Janathon Run#13

Pitch black anyone?...Janathon Run#12

Chilly but calm...Janathon Run#11

10 for 10

Running in the city...Janathon Run#9

Just me and myself...Janathon Run#8

More genteel conditions...Janathon Run#7

The dreaded treadmill...Janathon Run#6

Mixing it up...Janathon Run#5

Finding your focus

Swings and roundabouts...Janathon Run#4

Windy with a spot of rain...Janathon Run#3

Bright, but chilly...Janathon Run#2

My greatest challenge yet...Janathon Run#1

Social networks in the workplace

It's not very chrismassy...

Top five reasons to use LinkedIn groups

Managing an intranet - what would you do?

A short introduction to enterprise search

Social Media in the City

Social Business Platforms breakfast briefing

Revitalising outsourcing

21 Useful Cloud Computing Resources for Librarians

Deal 5 miler

Emerging technologies seminar

Intranetters - October 2011

Outsourcing, offshoring and right sourcing for the future

If you build it, they will come, but will they come back?

SharePoint might be worth the "hassle"

5 myths about working with information

Is free legal information really free?

Social media policy

The future of Intranets and what it means for KM

81 Intranet Governance Questions to Ask Yourself

E-books and the Future of Legal Publishing

Intranet teams need to be technology savvy

Is it time to try social technologies?

Magical Law Library staff

I love the smell of vicks in the morning

Google plus or minus?

How new technologies can help KM

Tips for new Intranet Managers

Knowledge Management and Intranets

The horrors of devolved publishing

Going ever further beyond connections

To blog or not to blog...

BIALL President-elect...who me!

BIALL Conference highlights

Going beyond connections: BIALL Conference session

Internal social tools that support the business

BIALL Conference preview

Running roundup

Defragmentation of the information professions meeting

What makes an essential Intranet?

Are you playing an Intranet tug of war?

Integration and collaboration a hard nut to crack!

Law firms and outsourcing

Intranetters meeting - London Underground

Managing the flow on information using social tools

What's hot in KM

Where to start with a SharePoint intranet

Darent Valley 10k

Why building an Intranet is like making a cake!