Other Interests: pursuing your passion

Communication

In That's Not What I Meant by Dave Pollard he discusses how an audience may receive a presenter's message in ways the presenter may not expect. He also touches on the (lack of) usefulness of Powerpoint as a communication tool.

I have read many analyses on the art of communicating and practiced different styles of presenting but I can truthfully say that you get little help from feedback sheets...people either like you and what you are saying or they don't. It comes down to their "world view" and how the issue affects them. It helps to try and cover all views while presenting a specific message.

Brief Banks

LawLibTech discusses work product retrieval and supports the tech solution rather than the people solution.

Australia's e-readiness

According to this report from The Economist via beSpacific Australia has dropped in e-readiness from 9th in 2003 to 12th in 2004 (behind Denmark in 1st and US in 6th).

Co-operation

The latest newsletter from ACCORD has a good range of articles from across the co-operative sector ranging from charities to financial co-operatives and voluntary community organisations.

There are articles on community development, employee share ownership and GP co-operatives

There is a link to the Guardian article on the loss of another mutual insurer. From the Australian point of view the demutualisation of insurers has been demonstrated to be a failure.

The Future of Legal Technology

Law Practice Today (April) features a transcript of a presentation at the ABA Techshow by Lou Andreozzi, President of LexisNexis North America, and Mike Wilens, President of West.

For me the second half which features comments by Wilens is the most interesting as it analyses how lawyers work anbd what technology needs to do to help lawyers help (and attract) clients.

Some of his observations include:

"Everybody wants to analyze workflow. Now, lawyers in this respect are no different than other knowledge workers in our society. And you come back with these really nice workflows. You know, they work on Matter A for the three steps of Matter A. Then they work on Matter B for the three steps of Matter B. Well, you actually go out and watch them work, okay? It has nothing to do with any linear process. It’s extraordinarily non-linear."

Free Trade and Mickey Mouse

Via Kim Weatherill comes this link to Matthew Rimmer's submission to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties on the Australia- USA Fair Trade Agreement. Essentially he argues that the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act 1998 is a poor model for Australia.

New Legal Tech Articles

Dennis Kennedy has 2 articles worth reading at Law Practice Today: one on Legal Technology Blogs and the other on
2004 Legal Technology Trends.

As usual there are also other goodies this month.

Smile

Anything that makes you smile has to have an element of goodness.

From Seth's Blog comes this link to Banana Guard.

More on Gmail

Presidian Privacy Law News reports on European developments and the Australian laws relevant to Google's proposals.

Blogs and marketing

ethicalEsq today has a great summary of a discussion about the commercial worth of blogs, why people write them and whether commercial blog providers' "ghost-written" content adds value.

I have to agree with Craig Williams comments. Blogging is worthwhile: you get to write, you get to learn, you self-publish without editorial interference and delays, you demonstrate to clients and potential clients your enthusiasm and expertise.