For some time now, the famous Bighand jolly of last summer – flying chosen customers off to Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat Saisons restaurant at Great Milton for a slap up lunch – has held a place in some law firm IT directors' hearts (and stomachs) as the best jolly ever. But now it looks as if Bighand has been edged into the silver position with Workshare taking the gold in the Fabby Jolly stakes (see what we've done there, bit of olympiad style imagery.)
Last Friday (15 August) Workshare chartered Leopard 3 – a transatlantic record breaking yacht – and took (and we quote – no names but it is from one of the IT ladies who lunch) a "bunch of fabulous IT types on it last Friday. Talking champagne and strawberries, fab lunch, Pimms, speed boat alongside, loads of other yachts taking photos of us (felt like a rock star). "
So is this the best jolly ever? And can anyone top it? Vendors, this means you – your IT buying audience want you to start competing for next Fabby Jolly. (The Insider is also launching a Fabby Jolly Wall of Fame to give vendor marketing departments due recognition for funding beanos above and beyond the call of duty. And no, AIM Professional's now legendary – nay mythical – tour of the fish docks in Hull in 1978, followed by a slap up fish 'n' chip supper with unlimited sliced bread, mushy peas and cups of tea, does not count.)
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Friday, August 22
Best jolly of the year... ever?
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 22 Aug 2008 09:16 BST
Thursday, August 21
And here's yet another set of dates for another roadshow
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 21 Aug 2008 11:15 BST
As recently announced in Legal Technology Insider, 'Big 3' DDS developer nFlow has launched a brand new version of their DDS software. nFlow claim that the completely rebuilt .net application that was designed in conjunction with Microsoft is a new generation DDS that epitomises the emerging DDS 2.0 standard in digital dictation systems. To showcase this they are running a series of road shows around the country. These sessions will demonstrate the benefits and features of nFlow’s new Version 5 product and include topics such as service based configuration, user and device management, and mobility.
Anybody currently looking at DDS or firms just interested in the latest developments are welcome to join nFlow at the sessions where they will be demonstrating the new product and explaining how it meets DDS 2.0. The sessions will be completed over a buffet lunch and conclude in a Q & A session. For more details visit www.nflow.com/events or to register email info@nflow.com with details of which session you would like to attend. The dates and location of each session are as follows:  Wednesday, August 20
Here's another date fo your diaries
by
Charles Christian
on Wed 20 Aug 2008 09:08 BST
This is another early autumn event that's too early for a mention in the next Insider – and which missed its mention in our events round-up last week...
Eclipse Proclaim v3 Conference 10.09.08, Ramada Plaza Gatwick (Crawley) 18.09.08, Marriott Forest of Arden (Coventry) 23.09.08, Royal Armouries (Leeds) The event will provide an in-depth look at the latest version of Proclaim, and showcase the wide range of features and toolsets available. Attendance is free, with lunch and refreshments provided. Registration for each venue will be at 10:00am, with proceedings drawing to a close at approximately 3:00pm. In short, the Conference event will provide an excellent opportunity for Eclipse clients to familiarise themselves with new Proclaim features (plus some existing ones they may be unaware of), and to meet fellow Proclaim users. Booking forms have already been distributed, but should you have any queries please call Darren Gower at 01274 704100 or email him at darren.gower@eclipselegal.co.uk Monday, August 18
Legal IT 2009 to clash with LegalTech - again
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 18 Aug 2008 13:32 BST
Informa subsidiary ICBI has announced that the 2009 outing for the Legal IT exhibition at the Islington Business Design Centre will once again overlap with the LegalTech NY show in New York. LegalTech runs from Monday 2 to Wednesday 4 February, while Legal IT runs Wednesday 4 to Thursday 5 February. Haven't these people heard about the increased globalization of the legal market – and the increasing global reach of legal IT vendors? Kate Roberts at ICBI is the latest Informa executive to draw the short straw of trying to revive the Islington event which, despite frequent promises of change, remains stuck in pretty much the same groove it's been in since Cordial Events (aka the Two Davids) originally launched the event in February 2000. Informa acquired the event in February 2006.
nFlow running first free 'how to dictate' online training webinar
by
Charles Christian
on Mon 18 Aug 2008 10:57 BST
The 4th September will see UK digital dictation 'big three' player nFlow running its first 'how to dictate' online training webinar. The event is free and totally vendor-agnostic, so you can watch and learn from it even if you are not an existing nFlow DDS user.
Explaining the initiative, nFlow director Rob Lancashire said "nFlow believe that the ability to dictate is paramount to working efficiently. The recent Legal Technology Insider survey highlighted that 72% of respondents thought dictation training should become a standard part of induction at all firms therefore the need to train new staff how to dictate remains as key as ever to the efficient production of text within law firms." Because of this, nFlow's in house training team have developed a completely free online course aimed at new trainee solicitors as well as anyone who is interested in reviewing their dictation skills. The live session will teach fee earners how to dictate effectively, providing them with the skills to produce documentation quickly and accurately whilst working productively with their support team. This will be followed by a live Q&A session in which questions can be put to the nFlow trainers who have developed the course in conjunction with lawyers who have many years of experience. nFlow are keen to stress that this course is completely FREE and has educational content only. It has no sales content and is open to anyone from any firm whether they are an nFlow customer or not. Date 04/09/08 Time 11:30-12:30 Duration 30 mins dictation training + 30 mins Q&A session Attendees New starters and those new to Digital Dictation To register your interest please email: info@nflow.com Friday, August 15
Make a diary note now
by
Charles Christian
on Fri 15 Aug 2008 14:21 BST
We've got a raft of new events coming up over the next few weeks – between the end of the summer holidays season and the next issue of the UK edition of the Insider – so here they are and make a diary note now...
• Guy's Hospital, London, 6 September The British Academy of Forensic Sciences is holding a one day conference on detection, prevention and presentation. Speakers include Ross Patel of Afentis Forensics on the use of telephone evidence in murder trials. The event qualifies for 6 CPD points and places are from £65. For details email Sandra Dawson at sandra@admin4u.org.uk or visit www.bafs.org.uk • Avanquest Roundtable, London, 10 September Avanquest's next session is focusing on Unified Communications within the Legal sector. This will be in conjunction with market research and the results from this and the feedback from the roundtable will become part of a Legal UC Whitepaper available in October 2008. The discussion will be moderated by Peter Owen, from Lights On Consulting. The event will take place at the Gaucho Grill, Broadgate. • BigHand User Conference, London, 18 September This year the theme at the BigHand User Conference is Enhancing Profitability at Professional Services Firms in the Current Economic Climate with a key note from Tony Williams, Jomati Consultants, and ex-Managing Partner of Clifford Chance. 200 delegates are expected, with Gold sponsors including BlackBerry, Philips, Olympus, and Grundig plus exhibitors Voicepath, Total, Interwoven, Global Secretarial, DicateNow and Integreon. The event takes place at the Cumberland Hotel, Great Cumberland Street, London W1H 7DLA. ll attendees have a chance to win the new 3G enabled Blackberry Bold smartphone, just email jo.beckwith@bighand.com to register. • Timeslice Legal Software Seminar, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 24 September Timeslice is holding a three seminars (starts 10:30, 13:00 & 15:30) for Slovenian lawyers at the Grand Union Hotel, looking at the Jadek & Pensa in Ljubljana are using our Timeslice Lawman software for their accounting, time recording, billing, document and case management needs. For details email Pat Aikin of Timeslice at pat.aikin@timeslice.co.uk • Microsoft Legal User Group, London, 24 September Following feedback from the legal community, PureTech Marketing will be running the first user group dedicated to Microsoft issues, development and partner organisations. Hosted at Wragge & Co, London, this half day session on the 24th September 2008 will commence at 2pm, finishing at 5pm. The agenda is designed specifically for law firm users and will include speakers from Microsoft, key Microsoft legal partners and peers from the legal community. This session is open to all law firm users of Microsoft technology. For more information and to register for the group, please contact Sally Bellwood at sallyb@puretechmarketing.com Thursday, August 14
Midgely Corner: Mobile madness
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 14 Aug 2008 14:09 BST
This is a true story from Insiderland – or at least the county in which the Insider is located (and yes that is Norfolk, a place that gave rise to the phrase Normal for Norfolk)...
In an attempt to speed up the collection of revenues from (and improve the security of) their pay & display ticket machines in car parks located in Thetford Forest in the Norfolk countryside, the Forestry Commission has been experimenting with mobile phone-based systems – such as the sort you now find in parts of London. Unfortunately they overlooked the fact that Thetford Forest is a notorious black-spot for mobile phone signals. Back to the drawing board.
The not-so glorious 12th August VMWare bug - latest
by
Charles Christian
on Thu 14 Aug 2008 08:18 BST
VMware’s CEO Paul Maritz has blamed a chunk of leftover pre-release code for a bug that prevented virtual servers from powering up when the clock hit 12 August. Despite the company carrying out quality assurance of its product, VMware failed to spot that it had released the leftover bit of time-bombed code within the ESX 3.5 and ESXi 3.5 Update 2 final versions of its hypervisors that were released about two weeks ago.
The code time bomb prevented virtual machines from powering on or leaving suspend mode and unable to migrate using the firm's VMotion software. Maritz said VMware has released an express patch for customers unlucky enough to have already installed or upgraded to ESX or ESXi 3.5u2. This is a temporary work-around that requires sys admins to turn the clock back to kick-start virtual machines and imagine that 12 August was just a bad dream. However this may be inadequate since it’s a regulatory requirement in many businesses to timestamp server transactions. Maritz added "We are doing everything in our power to make sure this doesn’t happen again. VMware prides itself on the quality and reliability of our products, and this incident has prompted a thorough self-examination of how we create and deliver products to our customers. We have kicked off a comprehensive, in-depth review of our QA and release processes, and will quickly make the needed changes. "I want to apologise for the disruption and difficulty this issue may have caused to our customers and our partners. Your confidence in VMware is extremely important to us, and we are committed to restoring that confidence fully and quickly." Tuesday, August 12
Eat your own virtual dogfood
by
Charles Christian
on Tue 12 Aug 2008 16:29 BST
Our thanks to The Orange Rag reader who sent in this story... Separately, further to my email of 21 July regarding the bug affecting a BES Server, Exchange Server 2007 and Out of Office messages, I can confirm that the Service Pack 6 for BES 4.1 does fix this issue. "Please be aware there is a major bug with VI
3,5 update 2 that doesn't allow customers to VMotion, resume or power on virtual
machines once the date reaches the 12 August. The bug appears as if it is
licensing issue. "VMware support has a work around for this and is working
on a permanent solution. Saturday, August 9
Socha-Gelbmann to kill their rankings
by
Charles Christian
on Sat 09 Aug 2008 18:16 BST
Our thanks Isaac Cooper of PivotalDiscovery.com for drawing our attention to this statement that was published earlier today on the LitSupport-Announce group on Yahoo! – litsupport-announce@yahoogroups.com – from George Socha and Tom Gelbmann...
The Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey: Time for a Change The time has come for us, the creators of the Socha-Gelbmann Electronic Discovery Survey provider rankings, to kill our rankings. We intend to replace those rankings with an improved way to assess providers and their capabilities. Why are we killing the rankings? We believe that our survey rankings have reached the point where they no longer serve their original purpose. When they are announced, we are told, they can affect the share prices of publically held companies. They can have an impact on the ability of providers to obtain financing. They can be a key factor, sometimes the most important factor, in determining which provider is selected to take on a project or deliver a software program. No set of generalized rankings should have this type of influence. Not ours. Not anyone's. A Bit of History... When we issued our first set of rankings six years ago, we felt they helped guide consumers entering an inchoate market. We offered the rankings as indicators of which providers appeared to be rising to the top. In the first year, as some may recall, we published a single set of rankings - a list of the top five electronic discovery providers. Over time, we expanded the scope of the rankings. With the third survey, we extended the overall rankings from the top five to the top 20, divided into groupings of 1-5, 6-10 and 11-20. The following year, we expanded the rankings even more. We drew distinctions between services and software providers. We offered service provider rankings based on assessments of their experience, their capacity, and the views of law firms and the corporations from whom we gathered data. We added software provider rankings based on law firm and corporate responses as well. We also added rankings for services and software providers by the Electronic Discovery Research Model stage. This year we added a set of software provider rankings that looked at the usage of those providers' software. We always have sought to portray the service and software providers as objectively and as fairly as possible. This year, for example, we examined more than 350 separate categories of information. For each category, we gathered together all that data we had on that topic. We quantified the data, converting it from text to numbers where necessary. We developed something akin to a distribution curve and from that prepared a rating scale. We recognize that perfection is never achievable, which is why we have always presented the rankings with a cautionary warning. Last year, we cautioned that consumers "should not choose a provider based solely on these lists, or solely on the basis of any other top-X list." This year, we stressed that "anyone who makes buying decisions primarily on these rankings is a fool." Time for a Change... As noted above, we are told that the rankings have become so influential that now they affect share prices and the ability to get funding. We are hearing, as well, that consumers are using them as a substitute for the work they should be doing themselves - analyzing consumer needs and assessing what and whose services and software might meet those needs. As we stated above, this is wrong. So much for the effectiveness of warnings. Where Do We Go From Here? For the next round of our survey, we intend to discontinue the rankings in their current form. We hope to replace them with a system that will more effectively allow potential consumers of electronic discovery services and software match up what they perceive to be their needs with what the providers have to offer. As we have done with previous surveys, we will work on improving our survey to deliver the most value to our subscribers. We will retool how we present providers and their capabilities. We will continue to publish a high level view of key industry trends, market size and provider and their capabilities. We welcome your suggestions - let us know what would be more useful than the rankings. You can send your thoughts to us at survey.suggestions@sochaconsulting.com Thanks, George and Tom |
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