Laura Quin at Idealware recently compared various collaboration tools, including options that support informal conversations, online presentations, information sharing and long-term projects. She also created the above chart to help you to navigate your options and discusses how to choose the right software for your project. Read the full article here. -M
The New York LawHelp Consortium has been chosen as a semifinalist for The Collaboration Prize, a new $250,000 award that recognizes and encourages collaboration among nonprofit organizations. Made up of 11 legal aid, bar and pro bono organizations, the New York LawHelp Consortium was nominated for the prize by the Hon. Juanita Bing Newton, Deputy Chief Administrative Judge for Justice Initiatives for the New York State Unified Court System. It is among 30 semifinalists chosen from 644 nominations. The press release is available here. Congrats LawHelp/NY! -M
The authors of The Lawyer's Guide to Collaboration, Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell, have recently launched a companion blog and wiki that are well worth checking out if you're interested in learning how to better utilize technology to support collaboration as a lawyer or legal advocate. I happen to own the book, but I would recommend that you check out the blog and the wiki before you run out and buy it, as many of the tools covered in the book are also featured there. -M
From Brian Lawlor, Regional Counsel at LSNC:
Legal Services of Northern California has launched the Findability Project, a TIG-funded initiative to demonstrate how a Google Search Appliance, integrated with a SharePoint Server, can be used as a core technology for implementing enterprise-level search, and as the basic building block of an organization-wide knowledge-content system.
To keep up-to-date with the project be sure to subscribe to the RSS feed here. For more background, go here. We'll be following this project closely, and look forward to hearing from others who are implementing internal knowledge management and content sharing platforms at their organizations. (For example, using a wiki to share documents with a funder prior to a site visit.) -M
My friend, John, pointed out this interesting image of how a wiki can simplify collaboration. It really hit home for me. Perhaps it can help you in your battle to get your colleagues to start using wikis. - K
Clay Shirky discusses his new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, at Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. The big bullet point: group action just got easier. Here is the link to the video. -M
I spent about 20 minutes playing with the recently launched Google Sites (fka JotSpot) this morning. Like most Google Apps, the interface is intuitive and there's lots of flexibility. It was easy to integrate into our organization's domain (we use Google's non-profit/education edition for email) and allows you to add calendars, presentations, attachments, etc. to a dashboard as well as create file directories and custom pages. You can also share it for viewing or editing with a defined group, your organization, or publicly. Overall, I like it better than many other online collaboration tools that I've used, both for the ease of integration with other Google Apps and its simple access and interface controls. -M
I can't say enough good things about Drop.io, a free web-based service that enables you to create simple private exchange points called "drops." By uploading files (images, documents, etc.) and providing a name (drop.io/name) and expiration date, you can securely share files in seconds. It's particularly good for sending large files to colleagues (no more huge attachments choking your inbox), and works great for on the fly collaborations. There is also a new fax in/out and conference call service, which are provided with each drop. -M
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