This roundup covers the Opentext acquisition of Hummingbird, a review of SharePoint 2007, KM predictions, a good Web 2.0 overview, another report on BI at Bryan Cave, and info on what Pepper Hamilton is offshoring.
Document Management
Legal Technology Insider (Nov 2006, UK) interviewed Mark Portu, a VP at Open Text, new owners of Hummingbird. Portu told the Insider that Open Text will “acquire vertical domain expertise in markets it intended to dominate [and put] its weight behind a major push into the legal market”. The article also reports on personnel departures from Hummingbird.
Knowledge Management
Tom Baldwin, KM Director at Sheppard Baldwin, speaks highly of search in his blog post Microsoft Sharepoint 2007 in SharePoint 2007 Update – Enterprise Search Rocks!!. Among other observations: “While not as feature rich out of the box as something like Recommind or Autonomy, it can likely do 70%-80% of what those systems can offer at a fraction of the cost.”
Sally Gonzalez, a director with Navigant Consulting and KM consultant, examines new frontiers in KM in Knowledge Management and Technology: Finding a Balance (Law Technology News, 12/13/06). She suggests that at progressive firms, KM will get more involved in business development, electronic data discovery, and Web publishing.
Web 2.0
Web 2.0 has been in the news and blogosphere a lot. Hype? I still don’t know. But The Web 2.0 Revolution: keynote speech in Ross Dawson’s Trends in the Living Networks, provides a great synopsis, based on a speech he gave. He cites six key characteristics of Web 2.0: participation, social media, emergence, visibility, shifting, and conversation. A good read.
Business Intelligence
I’ve written several posts discussing John Alber’s BI work at Bryan Cave. Adam Smith, Esq. has an excellent blog post with additional details and screen shots of the highly customized Bryan Cave BI system. See Managing Your Practice Like a Real Business (11/6/06).
Outsourcing
U.S. losing legal work to overseas firms in DelawareOnline News Journal (12/12/06) reports that Pepper Hamilton “sends a wide range of work to foreign firms, including preparation of trial exhibits, legal research and document management.”