Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Research Blogs -> The BIALL Blog

Legal Research

: The BIALL Blog

Sharepoint and Social Software for Knowledge Management

Knowledge Management and Sharepoint do they go together like chalk and cheese? In his session at the BIALL Conference Neil Richards from Knowledge Thoughts will look at how Sharepoint could be used for Knowledge Management. The BIALL Blogger got the low down on his session.

BB - Neil, this is I believe the first time you will have spoken at a BIALL Conference, what are you most looking forward to?

NR - I'm really looking forward to hearing stories (good and bad) about people's experiences with Sharepoint. It would be good to plant the seeds of a "Victims of Sharepoint" group, where people who have Sharepoint imposed upon them share tips and tricks. Don't misunderstand me, I'm a Sharepoint consultant and its a good product, but there are many people who've come to harm through no fault of their own.

BB - I understand you use Twitter, so in 140 characters, tell us what we need to know about Sharepoint?

NR - Swiss-army knife with many tools, none best in class. Often misunderstood, it is the basis for an Intranet and requires customisation

BB - Your talk is called using Sharepoint and Social Software for Knowledge Management, don't legal organisations already have tools to manage Knowledge?

NR - Of course they do, yet firms will buy Sharepoint regardless. With this in mind, non-techies need to understand what they're getting to guard against being blinded by science. Sharepoint *can* be amazing but it's going to cost $$$.

BB - What are some of the barriers to teams collecting and managing know-how effectively?

NR - Hard barriers: lack of tools / structure. There is little benefit to building a knowledge sharing culture if you don't have anywhere to store it.

Soft barriers: KM is not a natural habit for most people. In fact people tend to have an incentive NOT to collect / manage knowledge as its not considered real work. Worse, in law firms, some partners hide and hoard knowledge. For example, I remember one partner refused to share a precedent as other partners might use it to help their own clients. Crazy.

BB - Is MOSS the killer app, that all Legal organisations should be using to organise their know-how?

NR - Not a chance, for both technical and conceptual reasons. It has a number of technical limitations/bugs/quirks that drive me crazy. Mostly though, people misunderstand just what MOSS is and how to approach it. This can often be a consequence of how it's marketed by Microsoft and consulting firms, but also by IT to their internal customers. Senior partners do not "collaborate" by uploading documents to a website, they pick up the telephone. This is a good thing. No need to pay good money to stamp out desirable behaviour.

Anybody looking for a killer-app should read Good to Great by Jim Collins. I feel that what is needed is a move towards a great knowledge sharing organisation. Technology is a facilitator / enabler in becoming one, but is only a small component.

BB - Sharepoint is often praised because it has Blogs and Wikis incorporated within it. Is this how legal organisations are primarily using Sharepoint?

NR - Collaboration tools tend to be a primary reason for installing Sharepoint, but wikis and blogs were an afterthought. Sharepoint wikis are more trouble than they are worth but the blog technology is probably good enough for the needs of most, and does have some nice features. Checkout the complaints of Doug Cornelius on his KMSpace blog with regard to Sharepoint wikis
Instead, Teamsites form the basis for typical Sharepoint collaboration. A teamsite is similar in functionality to client extranets, allowing users inside a firm to create webpages, share documents and maintain lists. For law firms who already have a DMS and an Intranet, this will seem redundant. As a consequence the Teamsite functionality is not terribly useful without customisation to integrate financial data, training material and knowhow.

BB - It sounds like you're going to talk about social software, what are some of the misconceptions you've heard around social software and how could individuals involved in Knowledge Management address these?

NR - Myth #1 I'm not really going to talk much about social software, not in a wiki & blog sense anyways. The list functionality I'll be talking about is pretty helpful, but it's just a group managing information online. There's no magic involved. If people want to ask questions about Social Software, more than happy to discuss them.

Myth #2 Quality knowledge can emerge from the Primordial Social Goo using only a wiki or a blog. A concerted & focused effort is needed to create an environment where knowledge grows from social contributions. A slow and careful approach is advisable in my view.

BB - If you could recommend one social software site for all law librarians to use, what would it be and why?

NR - delicious.com >> By storing bookmarks online you can apply metadata to anything with a url, including pages on your Intranet. It lets you search all you of your bookmarks (I have over 500) using tags. Further you can suggest pages to your colleagues/friends and use the network effect to find the top resources on any topic.

Librarians may detest the idea, but tagging is extremely useful and Delicious provides a safe environment to learn just how effective it can be. I defy a team of librarians to catalogue the Internet to the same extent and quality as delicious.com.

BB - Finally if you could attend one session at the BIALL Conference, what would it be?

NR - Yours of course James, but I'm only coming up for the Saturday sessions so I may miss it (haven't seen the agenda yet). Let's say the dinner on Friday, as I'll get a chance to meet a ton of people.

Many thanks to Neil for answering all the questions raised by the BIALL Blogger. The last answer was especially insightful! I'm really looking forward to Neil's session on the final day of the Conference.

Full post as published by The BIALL Blog on May 29, 2009 (boomark / email).