Tuesday, December 20, 2005

CBA Practice Link Article on Blogging

CBA Practice Link has just posted an article by Janet Ellen Raasch on Canadian Lawyer blogs, titled New Media Marketing, Part I – Blogs: How Lawyers Can Become Thought Leaders in a Niche Market.

The VLLB gets a side-bar mention for the Canadian Law Blogs list, along with the quote: "The Vancouver Law Librarian Blog has graciously published a long-overdue listing of Canadian legal blogs" (Nice!). Congrats to the many Lawyers quoted in the article - another great example of blog technology increasing profile.

The article also tells us to check back soon for Part II on RSS technology (Hint: I did an interview for this with Janet Raasch, so I've got my fingers crossed!). And you can keep your eyes peeled by (what else?) subscribing to the CBA Practice Link RSS Feed!

Finally, one funny detail I noticed ... check out the pixelated image at the top of the story. Look familiar? I'm just glad they didn't pixelate it too much! ;-)

posted by Steve Matthews at 12/20/2005 1 comments

Monday, December 19, 2005

Welcome Wendy Reynolds!

Another Canadian law librarian blogger is on the scene! Wendy Reynolds, a long time member of the CALL community, and fellow UWO alumni, will be blogging at: KM Librarian.

Working at the OSC, and recently seconded into a new KM position, Wendy's blog is intended to "track her evolution from Librarian to Information Manager - the challenges and lessons, to throw out some ideas, vent, and perhaps help someone else find creative and interesting ways to repackage their MLS into something new and exciting".

Sound familiar? :-) The RSS feed for Wendy's blog is here. (Subscribed!)

posted by Steve Matthews at 12/19/2005 2 comments

Friday, December 16, 2005

2005 KM Post of the Year

And my winner is...

Dave Pollard's post titled Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) -- an Update.

Why? First of all, I'd love to be able to write like Dave Pollard - he's insightful, analytical and even-handed, all qualities I look for in a daily read. And given the number of blogrolls he shows up on, I'm not the only one.

The post itself defines a 'real life' problem he was up against, where he was asked "to investigate a leveling-off of use of the firm's award-winning centralized knowledge resources", and how he chose to go head-to-head conducting interviews with his users.

The interviews he describes are very real, with an eye-roll, smile, ya-I've-been-there, kind of feel to them. Perhaps because he's no longer employed there, he's able to offer a bit more of that blunt honesty that makes Dave Dave.

He then moves off to an analysis phase that drives home point after point. How KM theory is moving from an aggregation stage to being much more proactive and bottom-up. Any KM post that talks about PKM, bottom-up, or Guerilla KM (ok, that's my term) is going to be a big hit in my books. As a reader, he's now got me glued to the post.

The last phase, and where he clinches the KM post of the year honours (IMO), is when he offers practical solutions. Dave knows he hasn't just described a unique situation, and is now ready to let his readers know the tools available to set things in the right direction.

I know I haven't re-hashed any of the details [that part's easy - go read it]. Really, what I wanted to blog about was the fantastic structure to this post... define a detailed problem, establish a connection with the reader, analyze, and describe some practical solutions. Dave Pollard probably doesn't give this much thought, he likely just writes that way...

KM is sometimes a tough topic to write about, flipping back and forth between practice and theory. Both are important ingredients in daily practice, and both are critical elements to a great KM blog post.

Do you know of a better 2005 Knowledge Management blog post? Make a case for it, and let me know.

posted by Steve Matthews at 12/16/2005 0 comments

Friday, December 09, 2005

Canadian Law Blogs List

NOTICE: The Canadian Law Blogs list has a new home at lawblogs.ca! The list below will no longer be updated. Please update your bookmarks!

Thanks,
Steve

[Last Update: 09/07/07]

The Canadian law blogging community has needed a list like this for some time. If you are (or know of) a Canadian blogging lawyer, law librarian, marketer, IT professional or paralegal, please send me a note, and I will add you to the list.

(Please Note: Firm names have been added for information purposes only, and this does not indicate official status or endorsement.)

Canadian Law Blogs:

Legal Research Blogs:

Legal Marketing Blogs:

Academic Law Blogs:

Practice Management:


See Also: Canadian Law Student Blogs List

Labels:

posted by Steve Matthews at 12/09/2005 3 comments

Friday, December 02, 2005

BC Government RSS Feeds!

Hot off the press! ... RSS feeds for the BC Government!

To start, they've launched a list of topical feeds. You can take a full Government wide news feed, which could be filtered for keywords using tools like FeedDigest or FeedShake; or you can select from a number of pre-selected themes or Ministries.

No legislation feeds yet, but we're sure QP LegalEze is working on it. :-)

Also a hidden gem item: Get a feed for Government news surrounding the 2010 Olympic Games!

Hat tip to my friend Teresa Gleave at Faskens, who sent me a note while I was off yesterday. Thanks Teresa! :-)

posted by Steve Matthews at 12/02/2005 1 comments